ENTER THE NOW FROM WHEREVER YOU ARE... ~ Eckhart Tolle ~

I always thought that true enlightenment is not possible except through love in a relationship between a man and a woman. Isnt this what makes us whole again? How can ones life be fulfilled until that happens?

Is that true in your experience? Has this happened to you?

Not yet, but how could it be otherwise? I know that it will happen.

In other words, you are waiting for an event in time to save you. Is this not the core error that we have been talking about? Salvation is not elsewhere in place or time. It is here and now.

What does that statement mean, salvation is here and now? I dont understand it. I dont even know what salvation means.
Most people pursue physical pleasures or various forms of psychological gratification because they believe that those things will make them happy or free them from a feeling of fear or lack. Happiness may be perceived as a heightened sense of aliveness attained through physical pleasure, or a more secure and more complete sense of self attained through some from of psychological gratification. This is the search for salvation from a state of unsatisfactoriness or insufficiency. Invariably, any satisfaction that they obtain is short-lived, so the condition of satisfaction or fulfillment is usually projected once again onto an imaginary point away from the here and now. When I obtain this or am free of that- then I will be okay. This is the unconscious mind-set that creates the illusion of salvation in the future.
True salvation is fulfillment, peace, life in all its fullness. It is to be who you are, to feel within you the good that has no opposite, the joy of Being that depends on nothing outside itself. It is felt not as a passing experience but as an abiding presence. In theistic language, it is to know God- not as something outside you but as your own innermost essence. True salvation is to know yourself as an inseparable part of the timeless and formless One Life from which all that exists derives its being.
True salvation is a state of freedom--from fear, from suffering, from a perceived state of lack and insufficiency and therefore from all wanting, needing, grasping, and clinging. It is freedom from compulsive thinking, from negativity, and above all from past and future as a psychological need. Your mind is telling you that you cannot get there from here. Something needs to happen, or you need to become this or that before you can be free and fulfilled. It is saying, in fact,that you need time- that you need to find, sort out, do, achieve, acquire, become, or understand something before you can be free or complete. You see time as the means to salvation, whereas in truth it is the greatest obstacle to salvation. You think that you cant get there from where and who you are at this moment because you are not yet complete or good enough, but the truth is that here and now is the only point from where you can get there. You get there by realizing that you are there already. You find God the moment you realize that you dont need to seek God. So there is no only way to salvation: Any condition can be used, but no particular condition is needed. However, there is only one point of access: the Now. There can be no salvation away from this moment. You are lonely and without a partner? Enter the Now from there.
There is nothing you can ever do or attain that will get you closer to salvation than it is at this moment. This may be hard to grasp for a mind accustomed to thinking that everything worthwhile is in the future. Nor can anything that you ever did or that was done to you in the past prevent you from saying yes to what isand taking your attention deeply into the Now. You cannot do this in the future. You do it now or not at all.
Eckhart Tolle

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LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIPS... ~Eckhart Tolle~

Unless and until you access the consciousness frequency of presence, all relationships, and particularly intimate relationships, are deeply flawed and ultimately dysfunctional. They may seem perfect for a while, such as when you are in love, but invariably that apparent perfection gets disrupted as arguments, conflicts, dissatisfaction, and emotional or even physical violence occur with increasing frequency. It seems that most love relationships become love/hate relationships before long. Love can then turn into savage attack, feeling  hostility, or complete withdrawal of affection at the flick of a switch. This is considered normal. The relationship then oscillates for a while, a few months or a few years, between the polarities of love and hate, and it gives you as much pleasure as it gives you pain. It is not uncommon for couples to become addicted to those cycles. Their drama makes them feel alive. When a balance between the positive/negative polarities is lost and the negative, destructive cycles occur with increasing frequency and intensity, which tends to happen sooner or later, then it will not be long before the relationship finally collapses.

It may appear that if you could only eliminate the negative or destructive cycles, then all would be well and the relationship would flower beautifully- but alas, this is not possible. The polarities are mutually interdependent. You cannot have one without the other. The positive already contains within itself the as yet unmanifested negative. Both are in fact different aspects of the same dysfunction. I am speaking here of what is commonly called romantic relationships not of true love, which has no opposite because it arises from beyond the mind. Love as a continuous state is as yet very rare- as rare as conscious human beings. Brief and elusive glimpses of love, however, are possible whenever there is a gap in the steam of mind.
The negative side of a relationship is, of course, more easily recognizable as dysfunctional than the positive one. And it is also easier to recognize the source of negativity in your partner than to see it in yourself. It can manifest in many forms:possessiveness, jealousy, control, withdrawal and unspoken resentment, the need to be right, insensitivity and self-absorption, emotional demands and manipulation, the urge to argue, criticize, judge, blame, or attack, anger, unconscious revenge for past pain inflicted by a parent, rage and physical violence.
On the positive side, you are in love with your partner. This is at first a deeply satisfying state. You feel intensely alive. Your existence has suddenly become meaningful because someone needs you, wants you, and makes you feel special, and you do the same for him or her. When you are together, you feel whole. The feeling can become so intense that the rest of the world fades into insignificance.
However, you may also have noticed that there is a neediness and a clinging quality to that intensity. You become addicted to the other person. He or she acts on you like a drug. You are on a high when the drug is available, but even the possibility or the thought that he or she might no longer be there for you can lead to jealousy, possessiveness, attempts at manipulation through emotional blackmail, blaming and accusing- fear of loss. If the other person does leave you, this can give rise to the most intense hostility orthe most profound grief and despair. In an instant, loving tenderness can turn into a savage attack or dreadful grief. Where is the love now? Can love change into its opposite in an instant? Was it love in the first place, or just an addictive grasping and clinging?
Eckhart Tolle

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You cannot be anybody else other than who you are... ~ OSHO~

Sva means self, samvado means communion – to be in communion with oneself. That’s the whole process of meditation. People are divided against themselves; everybody is living a split life. The difference is only of degree, otherwise everyone on this earth is schizophrenic. Nobody is really healthy because health means wholeness and nobody is whole; everybody is divided.

For centuries the society has been using that strategy to destroy the integrity of the individual. It gives you ideals, it tells you how you should be. It never allows you to love yourself as you are. It creates division: you are one thing, the society says you have to be something else; you become two. Your ideal self creates a constant tension in you. Your real self also becomes a burden because you don’t want it; the society says that it is worthless: Drop it. The real is denied and the unreal is imposed. Now this is the whole misery of man: how can one ever be in bliss if the real is denied, rejected, condemned, and the unreal is appreciated, valued?
The unreal remains unreal but it hovers above your head continuously to turing you: You should be this. And you cannot be anybody else other than who you are, so it becomes a heavy burden. You constantly have to deny your reality. That creates a state of split; one is no more in communion with oneself. This conflict is the root cause of all neurosis, all psychosis, all madness.
The healthy and the whole person is one who has accepted his totality with no rejection, who has never condemned anything, who simply lives the way he is, who has no ideals, who moves moment to moment with the reality that he is as he is. He has tremendous respect for himself, love for himself. He accepts all unconditionally. If he is sad, he accepts his sadness. He doesn’t say ’I should not be sad’; he knows nothing of the language that consists of shoulds and oughts. He says ’If I am sad, I am sad; I have to live it. This is me and there is no other me. This is the only me there is.’ And the moment you accept your sadness a great communion arises between you and your sadness. You are bridged, and even sadness becomes beautiful, even sadness starts making your life rich.
When there is anger the whole person respects the anger. He does not repress it, he does not condemn it, he does not pretend that he is not angry. Whatsoever reality is there, he is totally in communication with it, and he lives with utter acceptance.
This brings miracles in life. When you accept all you become integrated. When you accept all you don’t have any conscious and unconscious division in you; your house is no more divided against itself. When you accept all, through that acceptance a transcendence happens. You are not just the sum total of all that you have accepted; you are something more than the sum total, and that something more is divine.
Once that divineness is tasted then many things disappear on their own accord. Anger simply disappears; not that you drop it, it is no more found. The split person becomes angry. Sadness disappears on its own accord; not that you have done something to change it, to help it go: you have simply accepted. In that acceptance you are no more fighting with yourself. When the fight stops there is a dance, because the energy which was engaged in the fight is there. It becomes a dance, it becomes a song, it becomes a beatitude.
This is my whole teaching, this is what sannyas is all about: total acceptance of oneself and transcendence through that total acceptance. But transcendence is not the goal; it is just a by- product. You are not to attain it, it happens on its own; whenever It happens, it happens on its own. All that you need to do is to fight with yourself no more. Befriend yourself, fall in love with yourself and that brings harmony, accord, communion.
OSHO

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What is the real answer to living in intimacy?... ~OSHO~

To know existence, you have to be existential. You are not existential, you live in thoughts. You live in the past, in the future, but never here and now. And existence is right here now. You are not here, hence the question arises. The question arises because of you not meeting with existence. You think you live, but you don't live. You think you love, but you don't love. You only think about love, you think about life, you think about existence, and that very thinking is the question, that thinking is a barrier. Drop all thoughts and see. You will not find a single question; only the answer exists.

That's why I insist again and again that the search is not really for the answer, the search is not really so that your questions can be answered. No, the search is only about how to drop the questions, how to see life and existence with a nonquestioning mind. That is the meaning of shraddha, trust. This is the deepest dimension of shraddha or trust—you look at existence with a nonquestioning mind.
You simply look. You have no idea how to look at it, you don't impose any form on it, you don't have any prejudice; you simply look with naked eyes, absolutely uncovered by any thoughts, any philosophies, any religions. You look at existence with eyes like a small child, and then suddenly there is only the answer.
There are no questions in existence. Questions come from you. And they will go on coming, and you can go on accumulating as many answers as you like; those answers won't help. You have to attain to the answer—and to attain to the answer, you have to drop all questioning. When there is no question in the mind, the vision is clear, you have a clarity of perception; the doors of perception are clean and open, and everything suddenly becomes transparent.
You can go to the very depth. Wherever you look, your look penetrates to the deepest core—and there suddenly you find yourself.
You find yourself everywhere. You will find yourself in a rock if you look deep, deep enough. Then the looker, the observer, becomes the observed, the seer becomes the seen, the knower becomes the known. If you look deep enough in a rock, in a tree, or in a man or in a woman, if you go on looking deeply, that look is a circle. It starts from you, then passes through the other and comes back to you. Everything is so transparent. Nothing hinders. The ray goes, becomes a circle, and falls back on you.
Hence one of the greatest secret sentences of the Upanishads: Tat Twamasi Swetaketu: "Thou art that" or "That art thou." The circle is complete. Now the devotee is one with God. Now the seeker is one with the sought. Now the inquirer himself becomes the answer.
In existence there is no question. I have lived in it long enough now, and I haven't come across a single question—not even a fragment of a question. One simply lives it. Then life has a beauty of its own. No doubt arises in the mind, no suspicion surrounds you, no question exists within your being— you are undivided, whole.
OSHO

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The idea of fate and destiny... ~OSHO~

There is no fate, no destiny. You are just trying to dump your responsibility on something that does not exist.  And because it does not exist, it cannot resist you; it cannot say, "Please don't dump your responsibility on me!"
God is silent, you can dump anything on him-no resistance, because there is nobody to resist.
Fate is again the same. You fail in love, you fail in other matters. It hurts that you have failed.
You need some kind of ointment for your wounded heart. "Fate" is a beautiful ointment,and freely available. You don't have to pay for it You can say, "What can I do?  Everything is decided by fate. "Success or failure, richness or poverty,  sickness or health, life or death,  everything is in the hands of an unknown power called fate "I am doing my best,  still I go on failing. I am following all the moral principles preached to me, still I am poor. And I see all kinds of immoral people becoming richer,  getting ahead, becoming famous. It is all fate." It gives you solace.  It gives you solace that you are not reaching your goals.
It also gives you solace that if others have achieved success, there is nothing much in it it is just decided by fate. So, on the one hand, you are saved from feeling inferior; on the other hand, your jealousy enjoys the idea that the successful person is successful only because fate has determined it that way: "It has nothing to do with him; he's not superior to me. "God,  fate, destiny--they are all in the same category: throwing your responsibility onto something that does not exist.
If God existed he would not remain silent. I am continually saying he does not exist. If he existed, it is time he should have appeared and announced, "I am here! Why do you go on saying that I don't exist?" But he will never come.
There have always been people who have denied the existence of God, but he has never made any effort to prove himself. For example, Edmund Burke, one of the famous philosophers of the West, stood in a church and said to the priest, "This is my watch. If God exists--I don't want big proof,just a simple proof my watch should stop moving. You pray,your congregation can pray, you do anything that you want to do. Persuade your God to stop my watch, and that will be enough to convert me."
They prayed--it was a question of the prestige of the whole of Christianity,a single man challenging God. And he was not asking for a big miracle, just a small miracle.:"Stop my watch moving."
And God could not do that. Edmund Burke has proved that there is no God. What an argument! But it is simple, clear, relevant.
All over the world, you go on dumping anything that you want to get rid of on God, on fate, on destiny. They are just different names for nonexistential things. Certainly you cannot throw your garbage on somebody who is actually there. There is a limit to patience. You just try throwing your garbage onto the property of your neighbor. Perhaps for one day he may not say anything; perhaps for two days he may wait but how long? Sooner or later he is going to grab you by the neck and prove to you: "I exist! You cannot go on throwing your garbage in my yard." But if there is nobody in the house, you can continue to throw the garbage in the yard as long as you want. Nobody will resist, nobody will come out and say, "What is going on? Don't you have any sense of decency in you?"
God, fate, destiny--these are bogus words, mumbo jumbo, nothing more than that. Drop them completely, because dropping them will make you an individual fully responsible for your acts. And unless you take the responsibility on yourself, you will never become strong, you will never become independent, you will never taste freedom.
You can have freedom. But the cost is to accept responsibility in its totality.
I have felt such immense freedom that looking at you I feel sad. You have the same opportunity, the same potential to blossom into a free individual, but you go on remaining a slave. And the way you manage it is by never being responsible.
You think not being responsible makes you free? Not feeling responsible for your actions,for your thoughts, for your being, do you think you are freed from all the consequences? No, absolutely not.It makes you a slave;it makes you something subhuman. It takes all glory away from you. You cannot stand straight; you become a hunchback. Your intelligence cannot grow because you have not accepted the challenge.You are waiting for fate,for destiny,for God. You are thinking, "When the time comes--the right time, God willing--I will be blissful too."
There is no God who can decide your blissfulness. You are alone in existence. You come alone, you die alone. Between birth and death, of course you can deceive yourself that someone is with you-your wife, your father, your mother, your husband, your friend--but this is just make believe.
You come alone,you go alone;you are alone between birth and death.And I am not saying that you cannot love a man or a woman.In fact, when two independent, free people, who take people, who take responsibility on their own shoulders,meet,there is immense beauty in it.
Nobody is a burden to the other. Nobody is dumping anything onto the other. You have dropped the very idea of dumping anything. You can be together but your aloneness remains untouched, pure, crystal-clear,virgin. You never trespass on each other's territories. You can enjoy each other just because you are separate.
The more separate you are--the more clearly it is understood that you are alone, she is alone-the more there is a possibility of a great meeting of two alonenesses, two purities, two individuals.
Forget words like destiny, fate, kismet,God. And don't allow yourself to be cheated by
astrologers, mind readers, palmists, predictors of your future.There is no future if you don't create it! And whatsoever is going to be tomorrow is going to be your creation.And it has to be done today,now- because out of today, today's womb, tomorrow will be born.
Take the responsibility totally on yourselves--that's my message to you.That's why I am always trying to destroy the God in your mind.I have nothing against him How can I have anything against him? he does not exist! Do you think I am wasting my time fighting with something that does not exist? No,I am fighting with your conditionings--they exist.God does not exist, but an idea of God exists in you and I am fighting with that idea,telling you to drop it, be clean, and take the whole responsibility for your life.
This is my experience:the day I took complete responsibility for myself,I found the doors of freedom opening to me. They go together.
Everybody wants freedom. Nobody wants responsibility.You will never have freedom; you will remain a slave. Remember,remaining a slave is also your responsibility.You have chosen it; it has not been forced upon you.
I am reminded of Diogenes, a beautiful Greek philosopher,mystic--and a mystic of a rare quality. He was a contemporary of Aristotle,and he was as much against Aristotle as I am,so I have a certain friendship with Diogenes.
Aristotle defined man as an animal without feathers who walks on two legs. What did
Diogenes do? He caught an animal and there are many animals who walk on two legs, but they have feathers also,they can fly. Diogenes caught a peacock,he took out all the feathers and he sent the peacock to Aristotle with the message: "Please receive the gift of a human being."
Diogenes used to live naked because, he said, "Man is born naked, and he becomes weaker because he is protected by clothes."
All around the world no animal has clothes except a few dogs in England. England is a mysterious country. Dogs have clothes because a naked dog is un-Christian. You will be surprised to learn that in Victorian England even chair legs were covered with clothes,because they are legs and it is not gentlemanly to look at naked legs.
Diogenes lived naked. He was a strong man. Four people who were hijacking people and selling them as slaves in the market thought, "This is a great catch, this man can bring us a lot of money. We have sold many slaves,but none of them were so strong,so beautiful,so young.  We can get as high a price as we demand;and there is going to be a great competition in the marketplace when we put this man on the pedestal for sale. But," they thought, "four are not enough to catch him.He alone could kill us all."
Diogenes heard what they were saying about him. He was sitting by the side of the river, just enjoying the cool breeze of the evening,underneath a tree;and behind the tree those four were planning what to do.He said,"Don't be worried.Come here! You need not worry that I will kill you, I never kill anything. And you need not worry that I will fight,resist you--no.I don't fight anybody, I don't resist anything. You want to sell me as a slave?"
Embarrassed, afraid, those four people said, "That's what we were thinking. We are poor . . .
if you are willing?"
He said, "Of course I am. If I can help you in your poverty in some way, it is beautiful." So they brought out chains. He said, "Throw them in the river; you need not chain me. I will walk ahead of you. I don't believe in escaping from anything. In fact, I am getting excited about the idea of being sold, standing on a high pedestal, and hundreds of people trying to get me. I am excited
about this auction--I am coming!"
Those four people became a little more afraid: this man is not only strong and beautiful, he seems to be mad also; he could be dangerous. But now there was no way for them to escape.
He said, "If you try to escape, you will be risking your own life. Just follow me, all four of you. Put me on the pedestal in the market."
Unwillingly they followed him.They wanted to take him, but he went ahead of them!You see the point? Even in such a situation, he was taking the responsibility on himself.He was a free man even in such a situation, where people were conspiring and trying to sell him in the marketplace,which is the ugliest thing that can happen to a man-to be sold like a commodity,auctioned off.
But he told those people, "Don't be afraid, and don't try to escape. You have given me a great idea, I am grateful to you. This is my responsibility, I am going to the marketplace. You put me up for auction."
What type of man was this? they wondered.But there was no way to back out now, so they followed him.And when he was put on a high pedestal so that everybody could see,there was almost silence, pin-drop silence. People had never seen such a proportionate body, so  beautifulas if made of steel, so strong.
Before the auctioneer said anything, Diogenes declared. "Listen, people! Here is a master to be sold to any slave, because these four poor people need money. So start the auction; but remember, you are purchasing a master."
A king purchased him. Of course, he could do it--more and more money he offered at the auction. Many people were interested but finally a sum, larger than any that had ever been heard of before,was given to those four people.Diogenes said to them,"Are you happy now?
You can leave now, and I will go with this slave."
On the way to the palace as they were riding in the chariot, the king said to Diogenes, "Are you crazy or something? You think yourself a master? i am a king, and you think me a slave?"
Diogenes said, "Yes, and I am not crazy, but you are crazy. I can prove it right now." At the back of the chariot was the queen. Diogenes said, "Your queen is already interested in me, she is finished with you. It is dangerous to purchase a master."
The king was shocked. Of course, he was nothing in comparison to Diogenes. He took out his sword and asked his queen,"What he is saying, is it true? If you say the truth,your life will be saved--that is my promise.But if you say an untruth,and I find it out later on, will behead you."
Fearful, afraid, still the queen said, "It is true. Before him, you are nothing. I am enchanted, allured; the man has some magic. You are just a poor guy compared to him. This is the truth."
Of course, the king stopped the chariot and told Diogenes, "Get out of the chariot. I set you free; I don't want to take such risks in my palace."
Diogenes said, "Thank you.I am a man who cannot be made a slave,for the simple reason that every responsibility I take on myself.I have not left those four people feeling guilty-they  did not bring me there,I came of my own accord.They must be feeling obliged. And it is your chariot, if you want me to get out, that is perfectly good.I am not accustomed to chariots at all, my legs are strong enough. I am a naked man, a golden chariot does not fit with me."
Take responsibility! And then even in utter poverty, suffering, imprisoned in a jail, you will remain completely a master of yourself.
You will have the freedom that comes with responsibility. All your religions have been making you dependent on God, on fate, on destiny. Those are just different names for something nonexistential. What is true is your slavery or your freedom.
Choose. If you choose freedom, then you have to destroy all the strategies of others that make you a slave. That's 'what I am trying to do here: trying to cut all your chains, making you free from everything so that you can be yourself.
And the moment you are yourself, you start growing, you become greener. Flowers start opening up, and there is great fragrance around you.
OSHO

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On grief and loss... ~OSHO~

(Osho speaks in darshan to a mother whose child just died)

We are all here just to disappear sooner or later.  Life is very precarious,  accidental, any moment anybody can go.
 So don't be worried about what happened, there is no why. All the answers that can be given to your why will be nothing but consolations to somehow rationalise a thing which is mysterious, but which by rationalising we hope to console ourselves.  I am not interested in consoling,  because it is a dangerous game this consolation. It keeps you hidden behind buffers.
The truth is that the child was alive and is alive no more. This should make you understand the dreamlike quality of life.  Life is made of the stuff called dreams. We may be seeing a beautiful dream but it can be broken by any small thing - just a noise and the dream disappears. It may have been a sweet dream and one feels hurt and one wants to close one's eyes and continue dreaming - but now nothing can be done.
 Rather than finding explanations and consolations, always look at the naked truth. It is sad, it hurts, it is painful: see it, that it is so, but don't try to somehow whitewash it. All explanations and all philosophies are nothing,  but efforts to whitewash things which are not white, which are very dark and mysterious.
 When such moments come, they are of tremendous significance because in these moments, awakening is possible.  When your child dies, it is such a shock; you can awaken in such a shock; rather than crying and wasting the opportunity.  After a few days the shock will be shock no more: time heals everything.  After a few years you will forget all about it. By the end of your life it may look as if you had seen it in some movie or read about it in a novel. In time it would have faded and faded so far away that only an echo.............. catch hold of it right now. This is the moment when it can help you to be alert, awake. Don't miss the opportunity; all consolations are ways of missing opportunities.
 Never ask "why". Life is without any "why" and death is without any "why". The "why" cannot be answered, need not be answered.  Life is not a problem that can be solved, neither is death. Life and death are both parts of the mystery which knows no answer. The question mark is ultimate. So all that can be done in such situations is that one should awaken, because these shocks can become a breakthrough. Thinking stops, the shock is such that the mind goes in a blur. Nothing seems to be meaningful, all seems to be lost. One feels an utter stranger, outsider,  uprooted.  These are tremendously significant moments; these are the moments when you enter into a new dimension.  And death is one of the greatest doors that open into the divine. When somebody so close as a child is to a mother, dies,  it is almost the death of yourself,  as if you had died, a part of you has died.
 So just see that life is a dream, that everything will disappear sooner or later, dust into dust.  Nothing abides here. We cannot make our home here. It is a caravanserai, an overnight's stay and in the morning, we go. But there is one thing which is constantly there and permanently there - that is your watching, your witnessing. Everything else disappears, everything else comes and goes, only witnessing remains.
 So witness this whole thing. Just be a witness, don't become identified. Don't be a mother, otherwise you are identified.  Just be a witness, a silent watcher and that watching will help you tremendously, that is the only key which opens the doors of mysteries. Not that it solves anything, but it makes you capable to live the mysterious, and to live it totally.
OSHO

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Growth needs a very selective life. ~ OSHO ~

People live accidentally. They don't have any sense of direction, they don't have an inner discipline for growing, they don't have a certain target. They simply go on, not knowing why. Maybe just because they are restless they go on doing this and that. Restlessness needs some kind of occupation, any kind of occupation will do. But any kind of occupation is not going to help you to grow. Growth needs a very selective life.
Life is short, time is very short, but people are so stupid that they will be playing cards and chess and if you ask them "What are you doing?", they say they are killing time -- as if they have too much time with them. Time is killing you!
Each moment you are less and less and less. Each moment you have died a little more, each moment death is coming closer. Time is not something to be killed, time is something to be used. Time is a great opportunity -- it has not to be wasted. But if you look at people you will be surprised: ninety-nine point nine per cent of people are wasting their time for the simple reason that they have never given a second thought to what they are doing and why. Others may be doing it so they are just imitating. People are almost living the life of sleepwalkers.
I have heard: two drunkards were sitting in a car and the car was going as far as it could. One drunkard said to the other, 'Now from the next cross-road you have to turn left and then you have to turn right.' And the other said, 'Why do you go on telling these things to me -- you are driving!'
But nobody is conscious, nobody knows who is driving, who is not driving and why people are going in a certain direction. Why is everybody interested in money? -- because all others are interested. Why is everybody interested in fame? -- because all other fools are interested. And you have to be in tune with the fools because you are surrounded by them.
An intelligent person moves consciously moment to moment. Whatsoever he is doing he is doing for a certain reason. He has an intrinsic value system. He lives according to a certain inner discipline -- not imposed by others but by his own awareness.
In the beginning it is groping, but soon one becomes more and more clear. Soon one goes astray less and less. Soon things settle and one starts following the right path towards inner growth. And then one thing becomes clear, that as you are moving closer to your nature, as things are less and less chaotic in your life and they start becoming harmonious, you will feel more and more bliss, more and more peace. That is a clear-cut indication that you are on the right track.
If you are feeling miserable in life that means you are going astray.
Misery is an indicator, so is bliss. They are real indicators: if people are miserable that simply shows they are upside-down; if they are blissful that (few words missing) into an organic unity. They are no more a crowd. They have created a certain integration. They now have a centre, they are rooted, grounded... And then bliss starts happening, naturally, simply. It does not come from anywhere else, it simply arises out of your own inner being in an accord.
It is just like a beautiful car's engine humming. An alert driver knows exactly... if something goes wrong he immediately becomes aware because the engine is no more humming the same way; some disturbing note is there. Nobody else sitting in the car will be aware, but the driver will become aware, immediately alert: something is wrong, something has gone astray, something is not functioning well, something is not in tune.
And that's how a conscious person is: he immediately comes to know that something has gone wrong and he puts it right.
OSHO

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Love is the goal, life is the journey... ~OSHO~

Life is a pilgrimage, and unless love is attained, it remains a pilgrimage, never reaching anywhere. It goes on moving in circles, and the moment of fulfillment never comes when one can say, "I have arrived. I have become that for which I had come. The seed fulfilled in the flowers."Love is the goal, life is the journey. And a journey without a goal is bound to be neurotic, haphazard; it will not have any direction. One day you are going north, and another day you are going south; it will remain accidental, anything can lead you anywhere. You will remain driftwood unless the goal is clear. It may be a very distant star—that doesn't make any difference — but it should be clear. If it is distant, it is okay, but it should be there.
Your eyes can remain focused on it; then the journey often thousand miles is not a long journey. If you are moving in the right direction, then the longest journey is not such a problem. But if you are moving in a wrong direction, or not moving in any direction at all, or moving in all directions together, then life starts collapsing. That's what neurosis is—a collapse in energy, not knowing where to go, what to do, what to be. Not knowing where to go, not knowing what it is all about, leaves a gap inside, a wound, a dark hole, and constant fear will arise out of it. That's why people live in trembling. They may hide it, they may cover it up, they may not show it to anybody, but they live in fear.That's why people are so afraid of being intimate with somebody — the other may see the black hole inside you if you allow them too close an intimacy.
The word intimacy comes from the Latin root intimum, which means your interiority,
your innermost core. Unless you have something there, you can't be intimate with anybody.
You cannot allow intimum, intimacy, because they will see the hole, the wound, and the pus oozing out of it. They will see that you don't know who you are, that you are a madman, that you don't know where you are going. That you have not even heard your own song, that your life is a chaos, not a cosmos. Hence the fear of intimacy.
Even lovers rarely become intimate. And just to be sexually related to somebody is not intimacy—the genital orgasm is not all that is there in intimacy, it is just the periphery of it.
Intimacy can be with it or it can be without it. Intimacy is a totally different dimension. It is allow-ing the other to come into you,to see you as you see yourself to allow the other to see you from your inside, to invite somebody to that deepest core of your being. In the modern world intimacy is disappearing. Even lovers are not intimate. Friendship is only a word now; it has disappeared.And the reason? The reason is that there is nothing to share. Who wants to show one's inner poverty? One wants to pretend, "I am rich, I have arrived, I know what I am doing, I know where I am going."
One is not ready courageous enough to open up, to show one's inner chaos and be vulnerable.
The other may exploit it; that fear is there. The other may become too dominant,seeing that you are a chaos. Seeing that you need a master, that you are not a master of your own being, the other may become the master. Hence, everybody tries to protect themselves so that nobody knows their inner helplessness; otherwise they can be exploited. This world consists of much exploitation.
Love is the goal. And once the goal is clear, you start growing an inner richness. The wound disappears and becomes a lotus; the wound is transformed into a lotus.That is the miracle of love, the magic of love. Love is the greatest alchemical force in the world.Those who know how to use it can reach the highest peak called God. Those who know not how to use it remain crawling in the dark recesses of existence; they never come to the sunlit peaks of life.
OSHO

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You create an ideal, and then you want to be that ideal; then you feel condemned and inferior. ~OSHO~

Man creates his own confusion just because he goes on rejecting himself,
condemning himself, not accepting himself. Then a chain of confusion,
inner chaos, and misery is created. Why don't you accept yourself as you
are? What is wrong? The whole of existence accepts you as you are, but
you don't.
You have some ideal to achieve. That ideal is always in the future—it has
to be; no ideal can be in the present. And the future is nowhere;it is not
yet born. But because of the ideal,you live in the future—which is nothing
but a dream. Because of the ideal, you cannot live here and now. Because
of the ideal, you condemn yourself.
All ideologies, all ideals, are condemnatory because they create an image
in the mind. And when you go on comparing yourself with that image,you
will always feel that something is lacking, something is missing.
Nothing is lacking, and nothing is missing. You are perfect as far as there
is any possibility of perfection.
Why do you go on carrying ideals in the mind?
Why are you not enough as you are?
Just at this moment why are you not like gods?
Who is interfering?
Who is blocking your path? This very moment why can't you enjoy and
be blissful? Where is the block?
The block comes through the ideal. How can you enjoy? You are filled with
so much anger, first the anger has to go. How can you be blissful? You
are filled with so much sexuality, first the sex has to go.How can you be
like gods celebrating this very moment?
You are filled with so much greed, passion, anger, first they have to go.
Then you will be like gods.
This is how the ideal is created, and because of the ideal you become
condemned. Compare yourself with the ideal,and you will never be perfect.
It is impossible. If you say, "if",  then bliss is impossible because that "if"is
the greatest disturbance.
If you say, "If those conditions are fulfilled, then I will be blissful,"then
these conditions are never going to be fulfilled. And secondly,even if
these conditions are fulfilled, by that time you will have lost the very
capacity to celebrate and enjoy. And moreover, when these conditions
are fulfilled—if ever, because they cannot be fulfilled—your mind will
create further ideals.
This is how you have been missing life for lives together. You create an
ideal, and then you want to be that ideal;  then you feel condemned and
inferior. Because of your dreaming mind, your reality is condemned; dreams
have been disturbing you.
I tell you just the opposite. Be like gods this very moment. Let there be
anger, let there be sex, let there be greed—you celebrate life. And by and
by you will feel more celebration, less anger; more bliss-fulness, less greed;
more joy, less sex. Then you have hit upon the right path.
It is not otherwise. When a person can celebrate life in its totality, all that is
wrong disappears. But if you try first to make arrangements for the wrong
to disappear, it never disappears.
It is just like fighting with darkness. Your house is filled with darkness and
you ask,"How can I light a candle? Before I light a candle this darkness
has to be dispelled".  This is what you have been doing. You say that first
greed must go; then there will be ecstasy. You are foolish! You are saying
that first the darkness must go, and then you can light a candle, as if
darkness can hinder you. Darkness is a nonentity. It is nothing, it has no
solidity. It is just an absence, not a presence. It is just the absence of light--
light the light, and darkness disappears.
Celebrate, become a blissful flame, and all that is wrong disappears.
Anger, greed, sex, or whatsoever else you name are not solid; they are
just the absence of a blissful, ecstatic life.
Because you cannot enjoy, you are angry. It is not that somebody
creates your anger; because you cannot enjoy, you are in much misery.
That is why you are angry. Others are only excuses. Because you cannot
celebrate, love cannot happen to you—hence sex. That is settling for
shadows. And then the mind says, "First destroy these, and then God
will descend". It is one of the most patent stupidities of humanity, the most
ancient, and it follows everybody.
It is difficult for you to think that at this very moment you are gods, but I
ask you, what is lacking? What is missing? You are alive, breathing,
conscious, what else do you need? This very moment be like gods.
Even if you feel that it is just an "as if",  don't bother. Even if you feel,
"I am just presuming that I am like a god," presume— don't bother. Start
with the "as if", and soon the reality will follow because in reality you are.
And once you start existing as a god, all misery, all confusion, all darkness
disappears. Become a light, and this becoming has no conditions to be
fulfilled.
OSHO

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Intelligent lovers... ~OSHO~

I am bringing you a new message. The message is no more to choose --remain choicelessly alert in your life, and become intelligent rather than changing circumstances. Change your psychology, become more intelligent. More intelligence is needed to be blissful! And then you can have aloneness together with relationship.
Make your woman or your man also alert to the rhythm. People should be taught that nobody can love twenty-four hours a day; rest periods are needed. And nobody can love on order. Love is a spontaneous phenomenon: whenever it happens, it happens, and whenever it doesn't happen it doesn't happen . Nothing can be done about it. If you DO anything, you will create a pseudo phenomenon, an acting.
Real lovers, intelligent lovers, will make each other alert to the phenomenon: "When I want to be alone that does not mean that I am rejecting you. In fact, it is because of your love that you have made it possible for me to be alone." And if your woman wants to be left alone for one night, for a few days, you will not feel hurt. You will not say that you have been rejected, that your love has not been received and welcomed. You will respect her decision to be alone for a few days. In fact, you will be happy! Your love was so much that she is feeling empty; now she needs rest to become full again.
This is intelligence.
Ordinarily, you think you are rejected. You go to your woman, and if she is not willing to be with you, or not very loving to you, you feel great rejection. Your ego is hurt. This ego is not a very intelligent thing. All egos are idiotic. Intelligence knows no ego; intelligence simply sees the phenomenon, tries to understand why the woman does not want to be with you. Not that she is rejecting you -- you know she has loved you so much, she loves you so much -- but this is a moment she wants to be alone. And if you love her, you will leave her alone; you will not torture her, you will not force her to make love to you.
And if the man wants to be alone, the woman will not think, "He is no more interested in me -- maybe he has become interested in some other woman." An intelligent woman will leave the man alone, so he can again gather together his being, so that again he has energy to share. And this rhythm is like day and night, summer and winter; it goes on changing.
And if two persons are really respectful -- and love is always respectful, it reveres the other; it is a very worshipful, prayerful state -- then slowly slowly you will understand each other more and more. And you will become aware of the other's rhythm and your rhythm. And soon you will find that out of love, out of respect, your rhythm is coming closer and closer: when you feel loving, she feels loving. This settles. This settles on its own.  is a synchronicity.
Have you watched ever? If you come across two real lovers, you will see many things similar in them. Real lovers become as if they are brothers and sisters. You will be surprised -- even brothers and sisters are not so alike. Their expression, their way of walking, their way of talking, their gestures -- two lovers become alike, and yet so different. This naturally starts happening. Just being together, slowly slowly, they become attuned to each other. Real lovers need not say anything to the other -- the other immediately understands, intuitively understands.
If the woman is sad, she may not say it is so, but the man understands and leaves her alone. If the man is sad, the woman understands and leaves him alone -- finds some excuse to leave him alone. Stupid people do just the opposite: they never leave each other alone -- they are constantly with each other, tiring and boring each other; never leaving any space for the other to be.
Love gives freedom and love helps the other to be himself or herself. Love is a very paradoxical phenomenon. In one way it makes you one soul in two bodies; in another way it gives you individuality, uniqueness. It helps you to drop your small selves, but it also helps you to attain to the supreme self. Then there is no problem: love and meditation are two wings, and they balance each other. And between the two you grow, between the two you reach to God.
OSHO

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Freedom from time, freedom from mind, freedom from desire... ~ OSHO ~

Freedom is the goal of life. Without freedom, life has no meaning at all. By "freedom" is not meant any political, social or economic freedom. By "freedom" is meant freedom from time, freedom from mind, freedom from desire. The moment mind is no more, you are one with the universe, you are as vast as the universe itself.
It is the mind that is the barrier between you and the reality, and because of this barrier you remain confined in a dark cell where no light ever reaches and where no joy can ever penetrate. You live in misery because you are not meant to live in such a small, confined space. Your being wants to expand to the very ultimate source of existence. Your being longs to be oceanic, and you have become a dewdrop.
How can you be happy? How can you be blissful? Man lives in misery because man lives imprisoned.

And Gautama the Buddha says that tanha -- desire -- is the root cause of all our misery, because desire creates the mind. Desire means creating future, projecting yourself in the future, bringing tomorrow in. Bring the tomorrow in and the today disappears, you cannot see it anymore; your eyes are clouded by the tomorrow. Bring the tomorrow in and you will have to carry the load of all your yesterdays, because the tomorrow can only be there if the yesterdays go on nourishing it.
Each desire is born out of the past and each desire is projected in the future. The past and the future, they constitute your whole mind. Analyze the mind, dissect it, and you will find only two things: the past and the future. You will not find even an iota of the present, not even a single atom. And the present is the only reality, the only existence, the only dance there is.
The present can be found only when mind has ceased utterly. When the past no more overpowers you and the future no more possesses you, when you are disconnected from the memories and the imaginations, in that moment where are you? who are you? In that moment you are a nobody. And nobody can hurt you when you are a nobody, you cannot be wounded -- because the ego is very ready to receive wounds. The ego is almost seeking and searching to be wounded; it exists through wounds. Its whole existence depends on misery, pain.
When you are a nobody, anguish is impossible, anxiety simply unbelievable. When you are a nobody there is great silence, stillness, no noise inside. Past gone, future disappeared, what is there to create noise? And the silence that is heard is celestial, is sacred. For the first time, in those spaces of no-mind, you become aware of the eternal celebration that goes on and on. That's what the existence is made of.
Except man, the whole existence is blissful. Only man has fallen out of it, has gone astray. Only man can do it because only man has consciousness.
Now, consciousness has two possibilities: either it can become a bright light in you, so bright that even the sun will look pale compared to it.... Buddha says it is as if a thousand suns have risen suddenly -- when you look within with no mind it is all light, eternal light. It is all joy, pure, uncontaminated, unpolluted. It is simple bliss, innocent. It is wonder. Its majesty is indescribable, its beauty inexpressible, and its benediction inexhaustible. Aes dhammo sanantano: so is the ultimate law.
If you can only put your mind aside you will become aware of the cosmic play. Then you are only energy, and the energy is always herenow, it never leaves the herenow. That is one possibility: if you become pure consciousness.
The other possibility is: you can become self-consciousness. Then you fall. Then you become a separate entity from the world. Then you become an island, defined, well defined. Then you are confined, because all definitions confine. Then you are in a prison cell, and the prison cell is dark, utterly dark. There is no light, no possibility of light. And the prison cell cripples you, paralyzes you.
Self-consciousness becomes a bondage; the self is the bondage. And just consciousness becomes freedom.
Drop the self and be conscious! That is the whole message -- the message of all the buddhas of all the ages, past, present, future. The essential core of the message is very simple: drop the self, the ego, the mind, and be.
Just this moment when this silence pervades...who are you? A nobody, a nonentity. You don't have a name, you don't have a form. You are neither man nor woman, neither Hindu nor Mohammedan. You don't belong to any country, to any nation, to any race. You are not the body and you are not the mind.
Then what are you? In this silence, what is your taste? How does it taste to be? Just a peace, just a silence...and out of that peace and silence a great joy starts surfacing, welling up, for no reason at all. It is your spontaneous nature.
OSHO

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We are weak! It is just natural...~OSHO~

[A sannyasin says:...my heart is opening up. I feel very weak and defenseless, vulnerable.
I find it hard to maintain being vulnerable and being open because I don’t know what’s happening to me.]
I think you have some attitude of rejection towards your weakness. You don’t want to be weak, you don’t want to show your weakness. You want to show strength,you want
to be a strong man.
That deep desire is creating the trouble but that desire is just an ego desire.
We are weak! It is just natural: we are born one day and we will be dying another day – how can we be very strong?
And existence in the body is very precarious. Any moment just a little more oxygen,or a little less oxygen, and you are gone! A little less sugar in the blood and you are gone... a little disfunctioning in the brain and you are gone! So how can one be strong?
Life exists in vulnerability... it exists in danger, insecurity. There is no security and there cannot be.
Security is only for dead people. They are very strong. Can you kill a dead man? –you cannot.
Can you destroy a dead man? – you cannot; he is very strong.
The higher the quality of life, the weaker...
Look at a roseflower, look at a poem, look at a song,look at this music [from the ashram’s music group which can be heard in the distance] – it vibrates for a second and it is gone!
Look at love: one moment it is there, next moment it is not. Look at meditation....
As you go higher you will find that things become more and more vulnerable. So vulnerability is nothing wrong; it is understanding how life is. To pretend to be strong is foolish because it is wrong.
Nobody is strong, nobody can be strong; it is just an ego game. Even Alexander is not strong: one day comes and all his strength is gone.
So just learn to accept it and then there will be a very very deep understanding and a deep flow of energy. You will not feel it as a problem. It is not a problem; it is something very significant happening to you – don’t make a problem out of it.
... Just don’t do anything about it. It is there – enjoy it! If it is weakness, it is weakness.
Let it be as it is.
Don’t try to improve, don’t try to do anything about it. Accept it totally and suddenly you will see it is not a problem at all. Rather than being a problem, it is something to be happy about, to celebrate.
OSHO

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We go on searching in the outside world to find some support for our ego... ~OSHO~

A foolish man comes to you and says you are very intelligent. And in fact, you can look intelligent only to a foolish man. If he is more intelligent than you, of course, you will not look intelligent to him. So a foolish man comes and certifies your intelligence, and you are very happy. You can look beautiful only to an ugly man. If he is more beautiful than you, you will look ugly -- because it is all relative. And you are certified by ugly people that you are beautiful, and you are tremendously happy.
What type of intelligence is this which has to be certified by foolish people? What type of beauty is this which has to be certified by ugly people? It is completely false. It is idiotic. But we go on searching. We go on searching in the outside world to find some support for our ego, somebody to give a little support, to become a prop. Otherwise there is always the danger that our ego will collapse. So we have to support it from this side and from that and continuous worry arises.
That's why you are more graceful when you are alone -- because you are not worried. Nobody is there to see you. You are more innocent when you are alone -- in your bathroom you are more innocent, you are more like a child. Again you stand before the mirror and make faces, and you enjoy it. But if you become aware that your small child is looking through the keyhole, immediately you are totally different. Now the ego is at stake. That's why people are so much afraid of others. Alone, there is no anxiety.
There is a famous Zen story: A Zen master was making a painting, and he had his chief disciple sit by his side to tell him when the painting was perfect. The disciple was worried and the master was also worried, because the disciple had never seen the master do anything imperfect. But that day things started going wrong. The master tried, and the more he tried, the more it was a mess.
In Japan or in China, the whole art of calligraphy is done on rice-paper, on a certain paper, a very sensitive paper, very fragile. If you hesitate a little, for centuries it can be known where the calligrapher hesitated -- because more ink spreads into the rice-paper and makes it a mess. It is very difficult to deceive on rice-paper. You have to go on flowing; you are not to hesitate. Even for a single moment. split moment, if you hesitate -- what to do? -- missed, already missed. And one who has a keen eye will immediately say, "It is not a Zen painting at all" -- because a Zen painting has to be a spontaneous painting, flowing.
The master tried and tried and the more he tried -- he started perspiring. And the disciple was sitting there and shaking his head again and again negatively: 'No, this is not perfect.' And more and more mistakes were being made by the master.
Then the ink was running out so the master said, "You go out and prepare more ink." While the disciple was outside preparing the ink, the master did his masterpiece. When he came in he said, "Master, but this is perfect! What happened?"
The master laughed; he said, "I became aware of one thing: your presence. The very idea that somebody is there to appreciate or to condemn, to say no or yes, disturbed my inner tranquility. Now I will never be disturbed. I have come to know that I was trying to make it perfect and that was the only reason for its not being perfect."
Try to make something perfect and it will remain imperfect. Do it naturally and it is always perfect. Nature is perfect; effort is imperfect. So whenever you are doing something too much, you are destroying.
That's why it happens: everybody talks so beautifully; everybody is a talker; people talk their whole life -- but just put them on a platform and tell them to talk to a crowd, and suddenly they become dumb; suddenly they forget everything, suddenly they cannot utter a single word. Or, even if they do utter, it is not graceful, it is not natural, it is not flowing. What has happened? And you have known this man talking so beautifully to his friends, to his wife, to his children. These are also people, the same people -- why are you afraid? You have become self-conscious. Now the ego is at stake: you are trying to perform something.
Listen carefully: whenever you try to perform something, you are searching food for the ego. Whenever you are natural and let things happen, they are perfect, and then there is no problem. When you are natural and let things happen, God is at the back with you. When you are afraid, trembling, trying to prove something, you have lost God. In your fear, you have forgotten Him. You are looking more at the people and you have forgotten your source.
OSHO

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Love should be like breathing. It should be just a quality in you... ~OSHO~

Question: 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?

Osho : 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.
OSHO

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Be authentic, and then you will be authentic in love also... ~OSHO~

Go beyond mind; reach to a level of no-mind. Then love flowers, but that love has no opposite to it. Beyond mind there is no opposite to anything. Beyond mind everything is one. Within mind, everything is divided into two. But if you are within mind, it is better to be authentic than to be false.
So be authentic when you feel angry toward your lover or your beloved. Be authentic while you are in anger, and then with no repression, when the moment of love will come, when the mind will move to the other extreme, you will have a spontaneous flow. So with mind, take fighting as part of it. It is the very dynamism of the mind to work in polar opposites. So be authentic in your anger, be authentic in your fight; then you will be authentic in your love also.
So for lovers, I would like to say: be authentic. And if you are really authentic, a unique phenomenon will happen. You will become weary of the whole nonsense of moving in polar opposites. But be authentic; otherwise you will never become weary.
A repressed mind never becomes really aware that he is gripped in polar opposites. He is never really angry, he is never really in love, so he has no real experience of the mind. Thus, I suggest to be authentic. Do not be false. BE REAL! And authenticity has its own beauty. Your lover, your beloved will understand when you are really angry – authentically angry. Only a fake anger or a false non-anger cannot be forgiven. Only a false face cannot be forgiven.
Be authentic, and then you will be authentic in love also. That authentic love will compensate, and through this authentic living you will become wearied. You will come to wonder what you are doing – why you are just a pendulum moving from one pole to another. You will be bored, and then only can you decide to move beyond mind and beyond polarity.
Be an authentic man or be an authentic woman. Do not allow any falsity; do not pretend. Be real and suffer reality. Suffering is good. Suffering is really a training, a discipline. Suffer it! Suffer anger and suffer love and suffer hate. Remember only one thing: never be false. If you do not feel love, then say that you do not feel love. Do not pretend; do not try to show that you are loving. If you are angry, then say that you are angry and be angry.
There will be much suffering, but suffer it. Through that suffering a new consciousness is born. You become aware of the whole nonsense of hate and love. You hate the person and you also love the same person, and you go on moving in a circle. That circle will become crystal clear for you, and it becomes crystal clear only through suffering.
Do not escape suffering. You need a REAL suffering. It is like a fire: it will burn you. All that is false will burn and all that is real will be there. This is what existentialists call authenticity. Be authentic, and then you cannot be anymore in the mind. Be non-authentic, and you will be for lives and lives in the mind.
You will get bored of the duality. But how can one get bored of the duality unless one is really in the duality, not pretending? Then you will know that the so-called love of the mind is nothing but a disease. Have you observed that a lover cannot sleep? He is not at ease – he is feverish. If you examine him, he will show many symptoms of many diseases. This love, the so-called love of mind and body, is really a disease, but one remains occupied – that is the function of it.
Otherwise you will feel unoccupied, as if you are not doing anything in this world. Your whole life will seem vacant, so love is good to fill it. Mind itself is the disease, so whatsoever belongs to the mind is going to be a disease. Only beyond mind, where you are not divided in duality, where you are one, only there does a different love flower. Jesus calls it love. Buddha calls it compassion. This is just to make a distinction. It makes no difference what you call it.
There is a possibility of a love which has no opposite to it, but that love can come only when you go beyond this love. And to go beyond, I suggest that you be authentic. To be authentic – in hate, in love, in anger. In everything, be authentic, real, not pretending, because only a reality can be transcended. You cannot transcend unreal things.
OSHO

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Anxiety is a deep problem... The problem is schizophrenia. ~OSHO~

You don't know how to do a thing totally, and this is THE BASIC MADNESS OF HUMANITY: everybody is divided.
DIVIDED, HOW CAN YOU ENJOY? Divided, how can you celebrate? One part of you goes on against you continuously -- as if one of your legs goes to the right and the other leg goes to the left. You are standing on two boats which are moving in different directions, diametrically opposite. THIS IS YOUR ANXIETY.
So many people come to me and they say, 'HOW TO GET RID OF ANXIETY?' They don't know what this word 'anxiety' implies. They think that something like transcendental meditation will do: just by chanting a mantra their anxiety will go. They are simply stupid. Things like transcendental meditation have appeal because of the stupidity of people -- because they are in search of shortcuts, something easily done... like instant coffee: you do it -- finished!
ANXIETY IS A DEEP PROBLEM. The problem is schizophrenia. You are divided, CONSTANTLY FIGHTING WITH YOURSELF. You are two, not one, and this tension creates anxiety. Now, this repeating of a mantra is not going to be of any help. It may give you a little deeper sleep, it may help you to be a little more together, but it is not going to help far enough. Your division remains, and sooner or later again you realize that now the trick is not working.
The schizophrenia has to be dropped in a deep understanding. DON'T FIGHT WITH YOURSELF. And always remember that the top-dog is wrong. Always remember that the natural is truer. WHENEVER THERE IS A CONFLICT, FOLLOW THE NATURAL. If there is a conflict between love and celibacy, follow love -- and go totally in it. I know one day celibacy arises, but that comes out of a deep experience of love. Brahmacharya arises, but this is the flowering of profound love -- love felt so deeply it becomes brahmacharya; it becomes innocence, it becomes virginity.
VIRGINITY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE BODY; it has to do with profound love. You call a woman virgin because she has not made love yet. I don't call her a virgin. I CALL A WOMAN VIRGIN WHO HAS TRANSCENDED LOVE; who has loved so deeply that the very depth has become a transcendence.
I CALL A MAN VIRGIN WHO HAS LOVED DEEPLY, and through love has become so one that now there is no need -- no need to depend on the other. He feels grateful towards the other because the other has helped him to become so independent. VIRGINITY IS NOT IN THE BEGINNING; IT IS IN THE END. Children are not virgin. They are just waiting to be violated.
I have heard:
"Three children were sitting on the steps of a home, and one child was playing with toy motorcars, another was playing with a spaceship, and the third was reading a glossy Playboy-type magazine. A man passed. He looked at the three children. He asked the first, 'What you would like to become in your life?' The first said, 'Of course, I would like to compete in car races. I want to become the greatest driver in the world.' The second said, 'I want to become an astronaut.' And he asked the third, 'What do you want to become?' He looked at the man and said, 'Grown up, sir. Grown up.'
CHILDREN ARE NOT VIRGIN. They are just waiting to become grown up. In fact they are worried why it is taking so long, why it is being delayed.
I was reading the autobiography of a poet, and when he was a child, he must have been about eleven, he came under the influence of a Christian missionary. And he became very impressed by the Christian doctrine that soon the world is going to end and Jesus will come, the second coming. But he became very much afraid. He started praying that, 'God, wait a little. Let my virginity be broken, violated. Wait a little! -- just two or three years more. Don't finish the world so soon!'
Children are not virgin. In fact, CHILDREN ARE NOT INNOCENT -- THEY JUST LOOK IT. They are getting ready to be corrupted. They are getting ready to move in the world.
REAL INNOCENCE COMES ONLY IN THE END. It is a flowering; it is not a seed. It is not the beginning; it is the end.
IF LOVE IS FULFILLED, BRAHMACHARYA ARISES. If you have lived totally in anger, compassion comes. If you have moved in life, suddenly you have a transcending experience. But the old religions, all of them have created a divided mind, a guilty mind, a crazy mind -- split. 
OSHO
Nirvana: The Last Nightmare
Ch #1: Mastered by Zen

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Are Witnessing and Sensitivity two sides of the same coin? ~OSHO~

They are not two sides of the same coin -- witnessing and sensitivity. But sensitivity is one of the qualities that develops in you with witnessing. Other qualities also develop. With witnessing you become almost a garden -- many flowers and many fragrances develop in you. Witnessing becomes your very base of transformation. The more you see your mind, the more you witness it, the less you will find it. It needs unconsciousness to be there. It is an animal that exists only in darkness. As you bring the light in, the mind with its thoughts starts disappearing.
And it is the thickness of thoughts that makes you insensitive. When there are no thoughts and you are simply a witness, just a mirror, then your sensitivity is infinite. Then anything that comes in front of you is reflected totally. Then you see the same rose flower with a totally different vision: then it becomes radiant, then it radiates not only color but rays. Then it becomes not only just matter but an energy phenomenon.
In the Soviet Union one scientist photographer, Kirlian, has been taking photographs of the energy that surrounds everything. He has developed such sensitive plates that when you take the photograph of a rose flower you also find in the photograph an aura of light surrounding it. It is the same with photographs of man, and every man has a different color aura. So the ancient idea of auras is now finding a scientific support. The enlightened man will have a white aura. A man like Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin will have a black aura, and between these two -- black and white auras -- will be the whole humanity. Different colors, sometimes mixed colors, and all those colors show where you are, where you are inside.
When you become a witness you become a sensitive mirror, more sensitive than Kirlian's photoplates. You will see things in a totally new light -- the same things, the same world, but in a totally different light. Ordinary things start having extraordinary beauty. Just pebbles on the shore become more valuable, more charming, than any Kohinoor -- because it all depends how you see them. If you can see their aura, their light, their color, their beauty, then they are no more just stones -- they have become flowers.
And as you become more and more sensitive you will have an understanding of people which you never had before. Just seeing the face of a man you will be seeing much more than the man himself knows about. Just holding the hand of a man you will know much more of his energy than he has ever known. Being with someone you will find that your energy is being sucked and you feel tired -- just being with him. And with somebody else you feel you are nourished, you feel healthier, you feel more well-being. Different people will give you different experiences, and different people will become attracted to you as your awareness grows. Then only the better quality people will be coming closer to you.
It is true that a man can be known by his friends, by the company he keeps. It is absolutely true, because you cannot keep company which is not in tune with your inner being.
With your witnessing there will be a few difficulties: your old friends may not remain your friends any more, not that you have done any harm to them but simply you have changed and now you no longer fit with their state, with their consciousness. So don't be worried about that. If you are married and you find that your wife is falling far away from you then it is better to tell her what you are doing: that if she wants to be with you, if she loves you the way you love her, you would like her also to be a companion on the path of meditation. Otherwise, soon you will be so far away from each other that everything will be misunderstood.
Your children will find that you are a different person -- you are no more the same old papa. It is better to help your children to learn a little bit of witnessing. And don't think that they cannot learn; they can learn better than grown up people because they are fresh, they are not loaded with any past. Just you have to be more friendly with them than fatherly. And before the rift happens it is better to make it clear to them, "It will not be my fault if the family falls apart. I have chosen a path which is going to give me something and I would like it to be shared by you all."
I don't want any family to be disturbed by anybody in the name of spirituality, and if we can be a little more loving and compassionate and make them understand -- and they will be able to see that you are less angry, you are less tired, you are less frustrated, you are more loving, more compassionate -- they will surely come with you.
The old religions have been teaching `renounce the family.' This was one of the reasons -- because there is going to be difficulty sooner or later -- but I don't think that even giving it a try, you renounce the family.
I say to you it is a good training school -- the family -- and if you cannot change your children and your wife who love you, then whom are you going to change in this world? You will find more and more strangers everywhere. Start wherever you are. And if you are finding something of tremendous value, share it with everybody. None of my sannyasins has renounced the family. And every sannyasin has found a tremendous support by the family. They have become closer, they have become friends, they have become fellow travelers.
OSHO

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Bliss is always homeless, it is a vagabond. ~OSHO~

Bliss is always homeless, it is a vagabond. Happiness has a home, unhappiness also has a home, but bliss has none. It is like a white cloud with no roots anywhere.
The moment you get roots, bliss disappears and then you start clinging to the earth. Home means security, safety, comfort, convenience. And finally, if all these things are reduced to one thing, home means death. The more you are alive, the more you are homeless.
That is the basic meaning of sannyas: it means to live life in danger, to live life in insecurity... to live life not knowing what is coming next. It means to always remain available and always able to be surprised. If you can be surprised, you are alive.
That is why a child is more alive than an old man. The old man cannot be surprised. He has lost the capacity to wonder, and because of that he has lost life also.
Wonder and wander come from the same root. A fixed mind becomes incapable of wondering, because it has become incapable of wandering. So be a wanderer, like a cloud, and each moment brings infinite surprises.That's what bliss is all about. You are never dead; you are alive each moment, and something new is always happening.If you have the capacity to receive it, something is always happening.
 Something tremendously beautiful, something unbelievably beautiful is always happening, but because the mind goes on gathering dust, collecting thoughts, knowledge, by and by it becomes numb, paralysed by knowledge. Knowledge is a paralysis. Once the mind is paralysed, nothing can surprise you -- you are already dead. People die long before they die.Aniketa means to remain homeless. It doesn't mean not to live in a home.
 It simply means never become attached to anything. Even if you live in a palace, never become attached. If a moment comes to move, you move -- without looking back. Nothing holds. You use everything, you enjoy everything, but you remain the master. Nothing makes you a slave, nothing becomes a slavery. There is no dependence, and then there is no misery.
 Misery comes the moment you become clinging, attached. The moment you put conditions on life -- when you say you will live only according to this way, no other way; that life has to fulfill your conditions -- then you are choosing misery; because life goes on unconcerned with your conditions. If you have no conditions you can enjoy life infinitely. If you have conditions, because of them you become incapable.
 Anand is bliss, Aniketa homelessness. Change to orange, so you become a really homeless wanderer.
OSHO

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We are already in God. ~ OSHO~

We are not to go anywhere. We are already in God! I say "only one step" just to console you, because without any steps you will be too puzzled. I reduce it to the minimum, only one step, so that something remains for you to do, because you understand only the language of doing. You are a doer! If I say, "Nothing has to be done, not even a single step has to be taken," you will be at a loss how to make any head or tail of it.
 The truth is, not even a single step is needed. Sitting silently doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself. But that may be too much. Your doer mind may simply ignore it or may think it is all nonsense. How can you achieve God without doing anything? Yes, a shortcut the mind can understand; that's why I say, "a single step." That is the shortest -- it cannot be reduced to less than that.
 A single step! That is just to make you understand that doing is nonessential. To attain to being, doing is absolutely nonessential. When you are agreed and convinced that only one step is needed, then I will whisper in your ear, "Not even one -- you are already there!"
 Rabiya, a great Sufi mystic, was passing.... It was the street she used to pass every day on her way to the marketplace, because in the marketplace she would go every day and shout the truth that she had attained. And for many days she had been watching a mystic, a well-known mystic, Hassan, sitting before the door of the mosque and praying to God, "God, open the door! Please open the door! Let me in!"
 Rabiya could not tolerate it that day. Hassan was crying, tears were rolling down, and he was shouting again and again, "Open the door! Let me in! Why don't you listen? Why don't you hear my prayers?"
 Every day she had laughed, whenever she had heard Hassan she had laughed, but it was too much today. Tears...and Hassan was really crying, weeping, crying his heart out. She went, she shook Hassan, and said, "Stop all this nonsense! The door is open -- in fact you are already in!"
 Hassan looked at Rabiya, and that moment became a moment of revelation. Looking into the eyes of Rabiya, he bowed down, touched her feet, and said, "You came in time; otherwise I would have called my whole life! For years I have been doing this -- where have you been before? And I know you pass this street every day. You must have seen me crying, praying."
 Rabiya said, "Yes, but truth can only be said at a certain moment, in a certain space, in a certain context. I was waiting for the right, ripe moment. Today it has arrived; hence I came close to you. Yesterday if I had told you, you would have felt irritated; you may have even become angry. You may have reacted antagonistically; you may have told me, 'You have disturbed my prayer!' -- and it is not right to disturb anybody's prayer."
 Even the king is not allowed to disturb the prayer of a beggar. Even if a criminal, a murderer, is praying in Mohammedan countries, the police have to wait till he finishes his prayer, only then can he be caught. Prayer should not be disturbed.
Rabiya said, "I had wanted to tell you this, that 'Hassan, don't be a fool, the door is open -- in fact, you are already in!' But I had to wait for the right moment.
OSHO

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