Your whole life will change immediately and you will see miracles happening around you... ~ OSHO ~

The Law of Magic 

I will tell you one of the deepest laws of life. You may not have thought about it at all. You have heard — the whole of science depends on it — that cause and effect is the base. You create the cause and the effect follows. Life is a causal link. You put the seed in the soil and it will sprout. If the cause is there, then the tree will follow. The fire is there: you put your hand in it and it will burn. The cause is there and the effect will follow. You take poison and you will die. You arrange for the cause and then the effect follows.

This is one of the most basic scientific laws, that cause and effect is the innermost link of all processes of life. Religion knows about a second law which is still deeper than this. But the second law which is deeper than this will look absurd if you don’t know it and don’t experiment with it. Religion says: Produce the effect and the cause follows. This is absolutely absurd in scientific terms. Science says: If the cause is there, the effect follows. Religion says the converse is also true: you create the effect, and see: the cause follows.

There is a situation in which you feel happy. A friend has come, a beloved has called. A situation is the cause — you feel happy. Happiness is the effect. The coming of the beloved is the cause. Religion says: Be happy and the beloved comes. Create the effect and the cause follows.

This is my own experience, that the second law is more basic than the first. I have been doing it and it has been happening. Just be happy: the beloved comes. Just be happy: friends are there. Just be happy: everything follows.

Jesus says the same thing in different words: Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, then all else will follow. But the Kingdom of God is the end, the effect. Seek ye first the end — the end means the effect, the result — and the cause will follow. This is as it should be.

It is not only that you place a seed in the soil and the tree follows; let there be a tree and there are millions of seeds. If the cause is followed by the effect, the effect is again followed by the cause. This is the chain! Then it becomes a circle — start from anywhere, create the cause or create the effect.

I tell you, it is easier to create the effect because the effect depends totally upon you; the cause may not be so dependent on you. If I say I can only be happy when a certain friend is there, then it depends on a certain friend, whether he is there or not. If I say I cannot be happy until I attain this much wealth, then it depends on the whole world and the economic situations and everything. It may not happen, and then I cannot be happy.

The cause is beyond me. The effect is within me. The cause is in the surroundings, in the situations — the cause is without. The effect is me! If I can create the effect, the cause will follow.

Choose happiness — that means you are choosing the effect — and then see what happens. Choose ecstasy and see what happens. Choose to be blissful and see what happens. Your whole life will change immediately and you will see miracles happening around you...because now you have created the effect and causes will have to follow.

This will look magical; you can even call it “The Law of Magic.” The first is the law of science and the second is the law of magic. Religion is magic, and you can be the magician. That’s what I teach you: to be the magician, to know the secret of magic.

Try it! You have been trying the other your whole life — not only this but many other lives also. Now listen to me! Try this magic formula, this mantra I give to you. Create the effect and see what happens; causes immediately surround you, they follow. Don’t wait for the causes; you have waited long enough. Choose happiness and you will be happy.

What is the problem? Why can’t you choose? Why can’t you work on this law? Because your mind, the whole mind, which has been trained by scientific thinking, says that if you are not happy and you try to be happy, that happiness will be artificial. If you are not happy and you try to be happy that will be just acting, that will not be real. This is what scientific thinking says, that that will not be real, you will be just acting.

But you don’t know: life energy has its own ways of working. If you can act totally it will become the real. The only thing is, the actor must not be there. Move totally in it, then there is no difference. If you are acting half-heartedly then it will remain artificial.

If I say to you dance and sing and be blissful, and you try half-heartedly, just to see what happens, but you remain behind...and you go on thinking: This is just artificial. I am trying but this is not coming, this is not spontaneous — then it will remain acting, a waste of time.

If you try, then try wholeheartedly. Don’t remain behind, move into it, become the acting — dissolve the actor into acting and then see what happens. It will become real and then you will feel it is spontaneous. You have not done it; you will know then that it has happened. But unless you are total this cannot happen. Create the effect, be in it completely, see and observe the results.

I can make you kings without kingdoms; you only have to act like kings, and act so totally that before you even a real king will appear as if he is just acting. And when the whole energy has moved into it, it becomes reality! Energy makes anything real. If you wait for kingdoms they never come.

Even for a Napoleon, for an Alexander, who had big kingdoms, they never came. They remained miserable because they didn’t come to realize the second, more basic and primal law of life. Alexander was trying to create a bigger kingdom, to become a bigger king. His whole life was wasted in creating the kingdom, and then there was no time left for him to be king. He died before the kingdom was complete.

This has happened to many. The kingdom can never be complete. The world is infinite; your kingdom is bound to remain partial. With a partial kingdom how can you be a total king? Your kingdom is bound to be limited and with a limited kingdom how can you be the emperor? It is impossible. But you can be the emperor. Just create the effect.

Swami Ram, one of the mystics of this century, went to America. He used to call himself Badshah Ram, Emperor Ram. And he was a beggar! Somebody said to him: You are just a beggar, but you go on calling yourself the emperor. So Ram said: Don’t look at my things, look at me. And he was right, because if you look at things then everybody is a beggar...even an emperor. He may be a bigger beggar, that’s all. When Ram said: Look at me! in that moment, Ram was the emperor. If you looked, the emperor was there.

Create the effect, become the emperor, be a magician... and from this very moment, because there is no need to wait. One has to wait if the kingdom has to come first. If the cause has to be created first, then one has to wait and wait and wait and postpone. There is no need to wait to create the effect. You can be the emperor this very moment.

When I say, Be! Just be the emperor and see: the kingdom follows.... I have known it through my experience. I am not talking to you about a theory or a doctrine. Be happy, and in that peak of happiness you will see the whole world is happy with you.

There is an old saying: Laugh and the world laughs with you; cry, and you cry alone. Even the trees, the rocks, the sand, the clouds...if you can create the effect and be ecstatic, they will all dance with you; then the whole existence becomes a dance, a celebration.

But it depends on you, if you can create the effect. And I say to you, you can create it. It is the easiest thing possible. It looks very difficult because you have not tried it yet. Give it a try!

OSHO. My Way: The Way of the White Clouds.

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WHAT IS LOVE?... ~ OSHO ~

It is unfortunate that we have to ask this question. In the natural course of things everybody would know what love-is. But I understand that nobody knows -- or only very rarely -- what love is. Love has become one of the rarest experiences. Yes, it is talked about, filmed, stories are written about it, songs are composed about it, films are made, on the TV you will see it, on the radio, in the magazines -- a great industry continuously goes on supplying you with the idea of what love is. Many people are continuously involved in it, helping people understand what love is. Poets, authors, novelists -- they all go on.

But still love remains the unknown phenomenon. And it should be one of the most known. It is almost as if somebody comes and asks, 'What is food?' Would you not be surprised if somebody comes and asks, 'That is food?' If somebody has been starved from the very beginning and he has never tasted what food is, the question will be relevant. So is this question.You ask: WHAT IS LOVE? Love is the food of the soul. But you have been starved. Your soul has not received love at all so you don't know the taste. Your question is relevant, but it is unfortunate. The body has received food so the body continues; but the soul has not received food so the soul is dead, or is not born yet, or is always on its death-bed.

When a child is born he is fully born; he is fully equipped with the capacity to love and to be loved. Each child is born full of love and knows perfectly what it is. There is no need to tell the child what love is. But the problem arises because the mother and the father don't know what love is. No child receives the parents that he deserves -- no child EVER receives the parents that he deserves. Those parents simply don't exist on the earth. And by the time this child becomes a parent he will have lost the capacity to love.

It is almost like.... In Mexico there is a small valley where children are born and within three months they all become blind. It is a small, primitive society. A fly exists there which is poisonous to the eyes, so the whole community is blind. Every child is born with eyes -- perfectly functioning eyes -- but within three months there is an attack of the fly and the poison enters the system and the eyes go blind. Now, somewhere later in his life the child will ask, 'What are eyes? What do you mean when you use the word "eye"? What is vision? What is seeing? What do you mean?' And the question will be relevant. The child was born with eyes but they were lost somewhere on the way of so-called growth.

That's what has happened to love. Every child is born with as much love as one can contain, with more love than one can contain, with overflowing love. A child is born as love; a child is made of the stuff called love. But the parents cannot give love. They have their own hangovers -- their parents never loved them. The parents can only pretend. They can talk about love. They can say 'We love you very much' but whatsoever they do is very unloving. The way they behave, the way they treat the child is very insulting; there is no respect. No parent respects the child. Who ever thinks of respecting a child? A child is not thought to be a person at all. A child is thought to be like a problem. If he keeps quiet, he is good; if he is not a screamer, a primal therapist -- good; if he simply keeps out of the way of the parents -- perfectly good. That's what a child should he.

But there is no respect and there is no love. The parents have not known what love is. The mother has not loved the husband, the husband has not loved the wife. Love does not exist there. Domination, possessiveness, jealousy, and all kinds of poisons are there which destroy love. Just as a certain poison can destroy your vision, so the poison of possessiveness and jealousy destroys love.

Love is a very fragile flower. It has to be protected, it has to be strengthened, it has to be watered; only then does it become strong. And the child's love is very fragile -- naturally -- because the child is fragile, his body is fragile. Do you think a child left on his own will be able to survive? Just think how helpless man is. If a child is left on his own, it is next to impossible that he will survive. He will die. And that is what is happening to love.

Love is left alone. The parents can't love, they don't know what love is, they have never flowed in love. Remember your own parents. And remember, I am not saying that they are responsible. They are victims just as you are victims -- their own parents were the same. And so on... you can go back to Adam and Eve and God the Father.

It seems that even God the Father was not very respectful towards Adam and Eve, was not respectful enough. That's why from the very beginning he started commanding them 'Do this' and 'Don't do that' and he started doing all the rubbish that all parents do. 'Don't eat the fruit of this tree.' And when Adam had eaten the fruit, the Father, God, was so angry in reaction that he threw Adam and Eve out of heaven.

That expulsion is always there, and each parent threatens to expel the child, to throw him out. 'If you don't listen, if you don't behave, you will be thrown out.' And naturally a child is afraid. Thrown out? Into the wilderness of this life? He starts compromising. The child by and by becomes a twister. He starts manipulating.

He does not want to smile, but if the mother is coming and he wants milk, he smiles. Now this is politics -- the beginning, the ABE of politics. Deep down he starts hating because he is not respected; deep down he starts feeling frustrated because he is not loved as he is. He is expected to do certain things and only then will he be loved. Love has some conditions; he is not worthy as he is. First he has to become worthy, then the parents' love will be possible.

So he starts becoming worthy and starts becoming false; he loses his intrinsic value. His respect for himself is lost by and by, he starts feeling that he is guilty. And many times the idea comes to the mind of the child, 'Are these my real parents? Is it possible they have adopted me? Maybe they are deceiving, because there seems to be no love.' And a thousand and one times he sees the anger in their eyes, the ugly anger on the faces of the parents, and for such small things that he cannot see the proportion of it. lust for very small things he sees the parents' rage. He cannot believe it. It is so unjust and unfair. But he has to surrender, he has to bow down, he has to accept it as a necessity. By and by his love capacity is killed.

Love grows only in love. Love needs a milieu of love -- that is the most fundamental thing to be remembered. Only in a milieu of love does love grow. It needs the same kind of pulsation around. If the mother is loving, if the father is loving, not only to the child, if they are loving to each other too, if the home has a love atmosphere where love flows, the child will start functioning as a love-being, and he will never ask the question, 'What is love?' He will know it from the very beginning, it will become his foundation.

But that doesn't happen. It is unfortunate, but it has not happened up to now. And you learn the ways of your parents their nagging, their conflict. Just go on watching yourself. If you are a woman, watch. You may be repeating, almost repeating, the ways your mother used to behave. Watch yourself when you are with your boyfriend or your husband -- what are you doing? Are you not repeating? If you are a man, watch! What are you doing? Are you not being your daddy? Are you not doing the same nonsense that he used to do? And one day you were surprised -- 'How can daddy do this?' -- and you are doing the same. People go on repeating; people are imitators; man is a monkey. You are repeating your daddy or your mummy, and that has to be dropped. Only then will you know what love is, otherwise you will remain corrupted.

I cannot define what love is because there is no definition of love. It is one of those indefinables like birth, like death, like God, like meditation. It is one of those indefinables -- I cannot define it.

I cannot say that this is love, I cannot show it to you. It is not a visible phenomenon. It cannot be dissected, it cannot be analysed; it can only be experienced. And only through experience do you know what it is. But I can show you the way to experience it.

The first step is: get rid of your parents. And by that I don't mean any disrespect towards your parents, no. I will be the last person to say that. And I don't mean get rid of your physical parents, I mean get rid of your parental voices inside, your programme inside, your tapes inside. Efface them... and you will be simply surprised that if you get rid of your parents from your inner being, you become free. For the first time you will be able to feel compassion for your parents -- otherwise not; you will remain resentful. Every person is resentful towards his parents.

How can you not be resentful when they have done so much harm to you -- although not knowingly? They wished all good for you, they wanted to do everything for your well-being. But what can they do? Just by wanting, nothing happens; just by good wishes, nothing happens. They were well-wishers, that is true. There is no doubt about it. Every parent wants the child to have all the joys of life. But what can he do? He has not known any joy himself He is a robot, and knowingly, or unknowingly, deliberately or undeliberately, he will create an atmosphere in which the child will sooner or later be turned into a robot.

If you want to become a man and not a machine get rid of your parents. And you will have to watch. It is hard work, arduous work; you cannot do it instantly. You will have to be very careful in your behaviour. Watch when your mother is there, functioning through you -- stop that, move away from it. Do something absolutely new that your mother could not even have conceived of.

For example, your boyfriend is looking at some other woman with great appreciation in his eyes. Now watch what you are doing. Are you doing the same as your mother would have done in the case of your father looking at another woman appreciatively? If you do that, you will never know what love is, you will simply be repeating a story. It will be the same act being played by different actors, that's all; the same rotten act being repeated again and again and again. Don't be an imitator, get out of it. Do something new. Do something that your mother could not have conceived of. Do something new that your father could not have conceived of.

This newness has to be brought to your being, then your love will start flowing.

So the first essential is getting rid of your parents.

The second essential is: people think that they can love only when they find a worthy man -- nonsense! You will never find one. People think they will love only when they find a perfect man or a perfect woman. Nonsense! You will never find them because perfect women and perfect men don't exist. And if they exist, they won't bother about your love. They will not be interested.

I have heard about a man who remained a bachelor his whole life because he was in search of a perfect woman. When he was seventy, somebody asked, 'You have been travelling and travelling from Kabal to Kathmandu, from Kathmandu to Goa, from Goa to Poona; you have been searching. Could you not find a perfect woman? Not even one?'

The old man became very sad. He said, 'Yes, once I came across one: once I came across a perfect woman.'

The enquirer said, 'Then what happened? Why didn't you get married?'

He became very, very sad. He said, 'What to do? She was looking for a perfect man.'

And remember, when two beings are perfect, their love need is not the same as your love need. It has a totally different quality.

You don't understand even the love that is possible for you so you will not be able to understand the love that happens to a Buddha or the love that is flowing from me towards you -- you will not be able to understand it.

First you have to understand the love that is a natural phenomenon. Even that has not happened. First you have to understand the natural, and then the transcendental.

So the second thing to remember is: never he in search of a perfect man or a perfect woman. That too has been put into your mind -- that unless you find a perfect man or a perfect woman you will not be happy. So you go on looking for the perfect, and you don't find the perfect, so you are unhappy. And you have a reason to be unhappy.

To flow and grow in love needs no perfection. Love has no-thing to do with the other. A loving person simply loves, just as an alive person breathes and drinks and eats and sleeps. Exactly like that a really alive person, a loving person, loves. You don't say, 'Unless there is perfect air, unpolluted, I am not going to breathe.' You go on breathing even in Los Angeles; you go on breathing in Bombay. You go on breathing everywhere where air is polluted, poisoned. You go on breathing. You cannot afford not to breathe just because the air is not as it should be. If you are hungry you eat something -- whatsoever it is.

An alive man simply loves. Love is a natural functioning.

So the second thing to remember is: don't ask for perfection, otherwise you will not find any love flowing in you. On the contrary, you will become very unloving. People who demand perfection are very unloving people, neurotic people. Even if they can find a beloved or a lover, they demand perfection -- and the love is destroyed because of that demand.

Once a man loves a woman or a woman loves a man, demands immediately enter. The woman starts demanding that the man should be perfect, just because he loves her. As if he has committed a sin! Now he has to be perfect, now he has to drop all his limitations suddenly -- just because of this woman. Now he cannot be human. Either he has to become superhuman or he has to become pseudo, false, a cheat. Naturally, to become superhuman is very difficult, so people become cheats. They start pretending and acting and playing games. In the name of love people are just playing games.

So the second thing to remember is: never demand perfection. You have no right to demand anything from anybody. If somebody loves you, be thankful, but don't demand anything -- because he has no obligation to love you. If somebody loves, it is a miracle. Be thrilled by the miracle.

But people are not thrilled. For small things they will destroy all possibilities of love. They are not interested much in love and the joy of it. They are more interested in other ego trips. Be concerned with your joy, be utterly concerned with your joy, be only concerned with your joy. Everything else is non-essential.

Love as a natural function, as you breathe. And when you love a person, don't start demanding; otherwise from the very beginning you are closing the doors. Don't expect anything. If something comes your way, feel grateful. If nothing comes, there is no need for it to come, there is no necessity for it to come. You cannot expect it.

But see people, see how they take each other for granted. If your woman prepares food for you, you never thank her. I'm not saying that you should verbalise your thankyou, but it should be in your eyes. But you don't bother, you take it for granted -- that is her work. Who told YOU? If your man goes and earns money for you, you never thank him. You don't feel any gratitude. That's what a man should do. That's your mind. How can love grow? Love needs a climate of love, love needs a climate of gratitude, thankfulness. Love needs a non-demanding atmosphere, non-expecting atmosphere. This is the second thing to remember.

And the third thing is: rather than thinking how to get love, start giving. If you give, you get; there is no other way. People are more interested in how to grab and get. Everybody is interested in getting and nobody seems to enjoy giving. People give very reluctantly; if ever they give, they give only to get, and they are almost businesslike. It is a bargain. They always go on watching that they should get more than they give -- that it is a good bargain, good business. But the other is also doing the same.

Love is not a business, so stop being businesslike. Otherwise you will miss your life and love and all that is beautiful in it -- because all that is beautiful is not at all businesslike. Business is the ugliest thing in the world -- a necessary evil. But existence knows nothing of business. Trees bloom, it is not a business; the stars shine, it is not a business and you don't have to pay for it and nobody demands anything from you. A bird comes and sits at your door and sings a song, and he will not ask you to give a certificate or something. He has sung the song and then happily he flies away, leaves no traces behind. That's how love grows. give, and don't wait to see how much you can grab.

Yes, it comes, it comes a thousandfold, but it comes naturally it comes on its own. There is no need to demand it. When you demand, it never comes. When you demand, you have killed it. So give. Start giving. In the beginning it will be hard, because your whole life you have been trained not to give but to get. In the beginning you will have to fight with your armour. Your musculature has become hard, your heart has become frozen, you have become cold. In the beginning it will be difficult, but each step will lead to a further step, and by and by the river starts flowing.

First get rid of your parents. With getting rid of your parents you get rid of society, with getting rid of your parents you get rid of civilization, education, everything -- because your parents represent all that. You become individual. For the first time you are part of the mass no more, you have an authentic individuality; you are on your own. This is what growth is. This is what a grown-up person should be. A grown-up person is one who needs no parents. A grown-up person is one who needs nobody to cling to or lean on. A grown-up person is one who is happy in his aloneness -- his aloneness is a song, a celebration. A grown-up person is one who can be with himself happily. His aloneness is not loneliness, his solitariness is solitude, it is meditative. One day you had to come out of your mother's womb. If you had remained there longer than nine months you would have been dead -- not only you, your mother would also have been dead. One day you had to come out of your mother's womb; then one day you had to come out of your family atmosphere -- another womb -- to go to school; then one day you had to come out of your school atmosphere -- another womb -- to go into the bigger world. But deep down you are still a child. You are still in the womb -- layers upon layers of womb are there. That womb has to be broken.

This is what in the East we have called the second birth. In the born. He has attained to a second birth; he is completely free of parental impression. And the beauty is that only such a person feels grateful to the parents. The paradox is that only such a person can forgive his parents. He feels compassion and love for them, he feels tremendously for them because they have also suffered in the same way. He is not angry, no, not at all. He may have tears in his eyes but he is not angry, and he will do everything to help his parents to move towards such a plenitude of aloneness, such a height of aloneness.

Become individuals, the first thing. The second thing: don't expect perfection, and don't ask and don't demand. Love ordinary people . Nothing is wrong with ordinary people. Ordinary people are extraordinary. Each human being is so unique. Have respect for that uniqueness.

Third: give, and give without any condition -- and you will know what love is. I cannot define it. I can show you the path to grow it. I can show you how to put in a rose bush, how to water it, how to give fertilizers to it, how to protect it. Then one day, out of the blue, comes the rose flower, and your home is full of the fragrance. That's how love happens.

OSHO. Sufis : The People of the Path vol. 1 ch. 14

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Everybody is a nobody... ~ OSHO ~

Aloneness is Your Nature

The first thing to realize is that whether you want or not, you are alone. Aloneness is your very nature. You can try to forget it, you can try not to be alone by making friends, having lovers, mixing in the crowd... But whatever you do remains just on the surface. Deep inside, your aloneness is unreachable, untouchable.

A strange accident happens to every human being: as he is born the very situation of his birth begins in a family. And there is no other way, because the human child is the weakest child in the whole of existence. Other animals are born complete. A dog is going to remain a dog his whole life, he is not going to evolve, grow. Yes, he will become aged, old, but he will not become more intelligent, he will not become more aware, he will not become enlightened. In that sense all the animals remain exactly at the point of their birth; nothing essential changes in them. Their death and their birth are horizontal -- in one line.

Only man has the possibility of going vertical, upwards, not just horizontal. Most of humanity behaves like other animals: life is just growing old -- not growing up. Growing up and growing old are totally different experiences.

Man is born in a family amongst human beings. From the very first moment he is not alone; hence, he gets a certain psychology of always remaining with people. In aloneness he starts feeling scared... unknown fears. He is not exactly aware of what he is afraid of, but as he moves out of the crowd something inside him becomes uneasy. To be with others he feels cozy, at ease, comfortable.

It is because of this reason he never comes to know the beauty of aloneness; the fear prevents him. Because he was born in a group he remains part of a group, and as he grows in age he starts making new groups, new associations, new friends. Already, existing collectivities don't satisfy him: the nation, the religion, the political party... He creates his own new associations: Rotary Club, Lions Club. But all these strategies are just to avoid one thing: never to be alone.

The whole life experience is of being together with people. Aloneness seems almost like a death. In a way it is a death; it is the death of the personality that you have created in the crowd. That is a gift of others to you. The moment you move out of the crowd you also move out of your personality.

In the crowd you know exactly who you are: you know your name, you know your degrees, you know your profession; you know everything that is needed for your passport, your identity card. But the moment you move out of the crowd, what is your identity, who are you? Suddenly you become aware that you are not your name -- your name was given to you. You are not your race -- what relationship has race with your consciousness? Your heart is not Hindu or Mohammedan; your being is not confined to any political boundaries of a nation; your consciousness is not part of any organization or church. Who are you?

Suddenly your personality starts dispersing. This is the fear: the death of the personality. Now you will have to discover freshly, you will have to ask for the first time who you are. You will have to start meditating on the fact: Who am I? -- and there is a fear that you may not be at all. Perhaps you were nothing but a combination of all the opinions of the crowd, that you were nothing but your personality.

Nobody wants to be nothing.

Nobody wants to be nobody.

And in fact everybody is a nobody.

There is a very beautiful story...

Alice has reached Wonderland. She came to meet the king and the king asked, "Alice, did you meet a messenger coming towards me?"

She said, "I met nobody."

The king said, "If you met nobody, why has he not arrived yet?"

Alice was very much puzzled. She said, "You are not understanding me rightly. Nobody is nobody."

The king said, "That is obvious that nobody is nobody, but where is he? He should have reached here by this time. It simply means nobody walks slower than you."

And naturally Alice was very much annoyed and forgot that she is talking to the king. She said, "Nobody walks faster than me."

Now the whole conversation goes on with that "nobody." She understands that he is saying, "Nobody walks slower than you."

"... and I am a fast walker. I have come from the other world to Wonderland, a small world -- and he is insulting me." Naturally she retorts, "Nobody walks faster than me!"

The king said, "If that is right then why has he not arrived?"

And this way the discussion continues.

Everybody is a nobody.

So the first problem for a disciple is to understand exactly the nature of aloneness. It means nobodyness; it means dropping your personality which is a gift to you by the crowd.

As you move off out of the crowd you cannot take that gift with you in your aloneness. In your aloneness you will have to discover again afresh, and nobody can give you the guarantee whether you will find anybody inside or not.

Those who have reached to aloneness have found nobody there. I really mean no body. No name, no form, but a pure presence, a pure life, nameless, formless. This is exactly the true resurrection, and it certainly needs courage. Only very courageous people have been able to accept with joy their nobodyness, their nothingness. Their nothingness is their pure being; it is a death and a resurrection both.

Just today Hasya was showing me a small, beautiful cartoon: Jesus hanging on the cross, looking at the sky, is saying, "It would have been better if alongside God the father I had Allah the uncle. It would have been better; at least if God was not listening, Allah might have helped."

Having just God for his whole life he was very happy proclaiming, "I am the only begotten son of God." And he never talked about God's family, his brother, his wife, his other sons and daughters. In the whole of eternity what has he been doing? He does not have a TV to waste time, to pass time. He does not have any possibility of having a movie hall. What does this poor fellow go on doing?

It is a well-known fact that in poor countries the population goes on exploding for the simple reason that the poor man has no other free entertainment. The only free entertainment is to produce children. Although it is in the long run very costly, right now there is no ticket, no problem, no standing in the queue...

What has God been doing for the whole eternity? He has created only one son. Now on the cross he remembers that it would have been better if God really had a few brothers, sisters, uncles. "I could have asked help from somebody else if he is not listening to me." He is praying and he is being angry saying, "Why have you forgotten me? Have you given up on me?" -- but there is no answer.

He is waiting for the miracle. The whole crowd that has gathered to see the miracle by and by started dispersing. It was too hot, unnecessarily. Nothing is going to happen; if something was going to happen it would have happened.

After six hours there were only three ladies left who were still believing that a miracle may happen. One was Jesus' mother -- naturally, mothers go on believing that their child is a genius. Every mother, without exception, believes that she has given birth to a child which is a giant.

Another woman who loved Jesus was a prostitute, Mary Magdalene. That woman, although she was a prostitute, must have loved Jesus. Even the disciples, the so-called apostles, who became second to Jesus in importance in the history of Christianity, all twelve escaped just out of fear of being caught and of being recognized -- because they were always hanging around with Jesus, everywhere. You never can believe the crowd: if they were caught, they might have been crucified, if not crucified at least beaten, stoned to death. Only three women were left.

The third was another woman who loved Jesus. It was love that remained in the last moments in the form of these three women. All those disciples must have been with Jesus just in order to get into paradise. It is always good to have good contacts, and you can't find a better contact than the contact with the only begotten son of God. Just behind him they will also be able to enter through the gates of paradise. Their disciplehood was a kind of exploitation of Jesus; hence there was no courage. It was cunning and clever, but not courageous.

Only love can be courageous.

You are asking about aloneness and courage. Courage comes out of love... Do you love yourself? Do you love this existence? Do you love this beautiful life which is a gift? It has been given to you without your being even ready for it, without your deserving it, without your being worthy of it.

If you love this existence which has given life to you, which goes on providing every moment life and nourishment to you, you will find courage. And this courage will help you to stand alone like a cedar of Lebanon, high -- reaching to the stars but alone.

In aloneness you will disappear as an ego and personality and you will find yourself as life itself, deathless and eternal. Unless you are capable of being alone your search for truth will remain a failure.

Your aloneness is your truth.

Your aloneness is your divineness.

The function of the master is to help you to stand alone. Meditation is just a strategy to take away your personality, your thoughts, your mind, your identity with the body, and leave you absolutely alone inside, just a living fire. And once you have found your living fire, you will know all the joys and all the ecstasies that human consciousness is capable of.

The old woman watched her grandson eat his soup with the wrong spoon, grasp his knife by the wrong end, eat the main course with his hands, and pour tea into the saucer and blow on it.

"Has not watching your mother and father at the dinner table taught you anything?" she asked.

"Yes," said the boy, chewing with his mouth open, "never to get married."

He has learned a great lesson: Remain alone.

It is really very difficult to be with others, but we are accustomed from our very birth to be with others. It may be miserable, it may be a suffering, it may be a torture but we are accustomed; at least it is well known.

One is afraid to step into the darkness beyond the territory, but unless you go beyond the territory of the collective mask, you cannot find yourself.

Groucho Marx has made a beautiful statement for you to remember: "I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set I go into the other room and read a book."

The teacher of a class of ten-year-olds is too shy to conduct the sex-education class and so she asks her class to make this a homework project.

Little Hymie asks his father who mumbles something about a stork. His grandmother said he came from a cabbage patch and his great-grandmother blushes and whispers that children come from the great ocean of existence.

The next day, little Hymie is called by the teacher to report on his project. Little Hymie says to the teacher, "I'm afraid there is something wrong in our family. Apparently nobody has made love for three generations!"

In fact, very few people have loved at all; they have pretended, have been hypocrites deceiving not only others but have deceived themselves too.

You can love authentically only when you are.

Right now you are only a part of a crowd, a cog in the wheel. How can you love? -- because you are not. First be; first know yourself.

In your aloneness you will discover what it is to be. And out of that awareness of your being love flows, and much more.

Aloneness should be your only search.

And it does not mean that you have to go to the mountains, you can be alone in the marketplace. It is simply a question of being aware, alert, watchful, remembering that you are only your watchfulness. Then you are alone wherever you are. You may be in the crowd, you may be in the mountains; it makes no difference, you are just the same watchfulness. In the crowd you watch the crowd; in the mountains you watch the mountains. With open eyes you watch existence; with closed eyes you watch yourself.

You are only one thing: the watcher.

And this watcher is the greatest realization. This is your buddha nature; this is your nature of enlightenment, of your awakening. This should be your only discipline. Only this makes you a disciple: this discipline of knowing your aloneness. Otherwise, what makes you a disciple? You have been deceived on every point in life. You have been told that to believe in a master makes you a disciple. That is absolutely wrong; otherwise, everybody in the world is a disciple.

Somebody believes in Jesus, somebody believes in Buddha, somebody believes in Krishna, somebody believes in Mahavira; everybody believes in somebody but nobody is a disciple, because to be a disciple does not mean to believe in a master. To be a disciple means to learn the discipline of being your self, of being your true self.

In that experience is hidden the very treasure of life. In that experience you become for the first time an emperor; otherwise you will remain a beggar in the crowd. There are two kinds of beggars: poor beggars and rich beggars, but they are all beggars. Even your kings and your queens are beggars.

Only those people, very few people who have stood alone in their being, in their clarity, in their light, who have found their own light, who have found their own flowering, who have found their own space they can call their home, their eternal home -- those few people are the emperors. This whole universe is their empire. They don't need to conquer it; it is already conquered.

By knowing yourself you have conquered it.

OSHO

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The Gates of Hell... ~ OSHO ~

The samurai's pride

Heaven and hell are not geographical, they are psychological, they are your psychology. Heaven and hell are not at the end of your life, they are here and now. Every moment the door opens; every moment you go on wavering between heaven and hell. It is a moment-to-moment question, it is urgent; in a single moment you can move from hell to heaven, from heaven to hell. 

Hell and heaven are within you. The doors are very close to each other: with the right hand you can open one, with the left hand you can open another. With just a change of your mind, your being is transformed --from heaven to hell and from hell to heaven. Whenever you act unconsciously, without awareness, you are in hell; whenever you are conscious, whenever you act with full awareness, you are in heaven. The Zen master Hakuin is one of the rare flowerings. A warrior came to him, a samurai, a great soldier, and he asked "Is there any hell, is there any heaven? If there is hell and heaven, where are the gates? Where do I enter from? How can I avoid hell and choose heaven?" 

He was a simple warrior. A warrior is always simple; otherwise he cannot be a warrior. A warrior knows only two things, life and death--his life is always at stake, he is always gambling; He is a simple man. He had not come to learn any doctrine. He wanted to know where the gate was so he could avoid hell and enter heaven. And Hakuin replied in a way only a warrior could understand. 

What did Hakuin do? He said, "Who are you?" 

And the warrior replied, "I am a samurai." 

It is a thing of much pride to be a samurai in Japan. It means being a perfect warrior, a man who will not hesitate a single moment to give his life. For him, life and death are just a game. He said, "I am a samurai, I am a leader of samurais. Even the emperor pays respect to me." 

Hakuin laughed and said, " You, a samurai? You look like a beggar." 

The samurai's pride was hurt, his ego hammered. He forgot what he had come for. He took out his sword and was just about to kill Hakuin. He forgot that he had come to this master to ask where is the gate of heaven, to ask where is the gate of hell. 

Hakuin laughed and said, "This is the gate of hell. With this sword, this anger, this ego, here opens the gate." This is what a warrior can understand. Immediately he understood: This is the gate. He put his sword back in its sheath. 

And Hakuin said, "Here opens the gate of heaven." 

Hell and heaven are within you, both gates are within you. When you are behaving unconsciously there is the gate of hell; when you become alert and conscious, there is the gate of heaven. 

What happened to this samurai? When he was just about to kill Hakuin, was he conscious? Was he conscious of what he was about to do? Was he conscious of what he had come for? All consciousness had disappeared. When the ego takes over, you cannot be alert. Ego is the drug, the intoxicant that makes you completely unconscious. You act but the act comes from the unconscious, not from your consciousness. And whenever any act comes from the unconscious, the door of hell is open. Whatsoever you do, if you are not aware of what you are doing the gate of hell opens. 

Immediately the samurai became alert. Suddenly, when Hakuin said, "This is the gate, you have already opened it"-- the very situation must have created alertness. A single moment more and Hakuin's head would have been severed; a single moment more and it would have been separated from the body. And Hakuin said, "This is the gate of hell." 

This is not a philosophical answer; no master answers in a philosophical way. Philosophy exists only for mediocre, unenlightened minds. The master responds but the response is not verbal, it is total. That this man may have killed him is not the point. "If you kill me and it makes you alert, it is worth it"--Hakuin played the game. 

This must have happened to the warrior--stopped, sword in hand with Hakuin just before him--the eyes of Hakuin were laughing, the face was smiling, and the gate of heaven opened. He understood: the sword went back into its sheath. While putting the sword back into the sheath he must have been totally silent, peaceful. The anger had disappeared, the energy moving in anger had become silence. 

If you suddenly awake in the middle of anger, you will feel a peace you have never felt before. Energy was moving and suddenly it stops--you will have silence, immediate silence. You will fall into your inner being and the fall will be so sudden, you will become aware. 

It is not a slow fall, it is so sudden that you cannot remain unaware. You can remain unaware only with routine things, with gradual things; you move so slowly you can't feel movement. This was sudden movement-- from activity to no-activity, from thought to no-thought, from mind to no-mind. As the sword was going back into its sheath, the warrior realized. And Hakuin said, "Here open the doors of heaven." 

Silence is the door. Inner peace is the door. Nonviolence is the door. Love and compassion are the doors.

OSHO

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No situation is without a lesson, no situation at all... ~ OSHO ~

The many teachers of Junnaid

No situation is without a lesson, no situation at all. All situations are pregnant, but you have to discover; it may not be available on the surface. You have to be watchful, you have to look at all the aspects of the situation.

One of the great Sufi Masters, Junnaid, was asked when he was dying... his chief disciple came close to him and asked, "Master, you are leaving us. One question has always been in our minds but we could never gather courage enough to ask you. Who was your Master? This has been a great curiosity among your disciples because we have never heard you talk about your Master." Junnaid opened his eyes and said, "It will be very difficult for me to answer because I have learned from almost everybody. The whole existence has been my Master. I have learned from every event that has happened in my life. And I am grateful to all that has happened, because out of all that learning I have arrived."

Junnaid said, "Just to satisfy your curiosity I will give you three instances. One: I was very thirsty and I was going towards the river carrying my begging bowl, the only possession I had. When I reached the river a dog rushed, jumped into the river, started drinking.

"I watched for a moment and threw away my begging bowl--because it is useless. A dog can do without it. I also jumped into the river, drank as much water as I wanted. My whole body was cool because I had jumped into the river. I sat in the river for a few moments, thanked the dog, touched his feet with deep reverence because he had taught me a lesson.

"I had dropped everything, all possessions, but there was a certain clinging to my begging bowl. It was a beautiful bowl, very beautifully carved, and I was always aware that somebody might steal it. Even in the night I used to put it under my head as a pillow so nobody could snatch it away. That was my last clinging--the dog helped. It was so clear: if a dog can manage without a begging bowl... I am a man, why can't I manage? That dog was one of my Masters.

"Secondly," he said, "I lost my way in a forest and by the time I reached the nearest village that I could find, it was midnight. Everybody was fast asleep. I wandered all over the town to see if I could find somebody awake to give me shelter for the night, until finally I found one man. I asked him, 'It seems only two persons are awake in the town, you and I. Can you give me shelter for the night?'

"The man said, 'I can see from your gown that you are a Sufi monk....'"

The word Sufi comes from suf; suf means wool, a woolen garment. The Sufis have used the woolen garment for centuries; hence they are called Sufis because of their garment. The man said, "I can see you are a Sufi and I feel a little embarrassed to take you to my home. I am perfectly willing, but I must tell you who I am. I am a thief--would you like to be a guest of a thief?"

For a moment Junnaid hesitated. The thief said, "Look, it is better I told you. You seem hesitant. The thief is willing but the mystic seems to be hesitant to enter into the house of a thief, as if the mystic is weaker than the thief. In fact, I should be afraid of you--you may change me, you may transform my whole life! Inviting you means danger, but I am not afraid. You are welcome. Come to my home. Eat, drink, go to sleep, and stay as long as you want, because I live alone and my earning is enough. I can manage for two persons. And it will be really beautiful to chit-chat with you of great things. But you seem to be hesitant."

And Junnaid became aware that it was true. He asked to be forgiven. He touched the feet of the thief and he said, "Yes, my rootedness in my own being is yet very weak. You are really a strong man and I would like to come to your home. And I would like to stay a little longer, not only for this night. I want to be stronger myself!"

The thief said, "Come on!" He fed the Sufi, gave him something to drink, helped him to prepare for sleep and he said, "Now I will go. I have to do my own thing. I will come back early in the morning." Early in the morning the thief came back. Junnaid asked, "Have you been successful?"

The thief said, "No, not today, but I will see tomorrow."

And this happened continuously, for thirty days: every night the thief went out, and every morning he came back empty-handed. But he was never sad, never frustrated--no sign of failure on his face, always happy --and he would say, "It doesn't matter. I tried my best. I could not find anything today again, but tomorrow I will try. And, God willing, it can happen tomorrow if it has not happened today."

After one month Junnaid left, and for years he tried to realize the ultimate, and it was always a failure. But each time he decided to drop the whole project he remembered the thief, his smiling face and his saying "God willing, what has not happened today may happen tomorrow."

Junnaid said, "I remembered the thief as one of my greatest Masters. Without him I would not be what I am.

"And third," he said, "I entered into a small village. A little boy was carrying a lit candle, obviously going to the small temple of the town to put the candle there for the night."

And Junnaid asked, "Can you tell me from where the light comes? You have lighted the candle yourself so you must have seen. What is the source of light?"

The boy laughed and he said, "Wait!" And he blew out the candle in front of Junnaid. And he said, "You have seen the light go. Can you tell me where it has gone? If you can tell me where it has gone I will tell you from where it has come, because it has gone to the same place. It has returned to the source."

And Junnaid said, "I had met great philosophers but nobody had made such a beautiful statement: 'It has gone to its very source.' Everything returns to its source finally. Moreover, the child made me aware of my own ignorance. I was trying to joke with the child, but the joke was on me. He showed me that asking foolish questions--'From where has the light come?'--is not intelligent. It comes from nowhere, from nothingness--and it goes back to nowhere, to nothingness."

Junnaid said, "I touched the feet of the child. The child was puzzled. He said, 'Why you are touching my feet?' And I told him, 'You are my Master--you have shown me something. You have given me a great lesson, a great insight.'

"Since that time," Junnaid said, "I have been meditating on nothingness and slowly, slowly I have entered into nothingness. And now the final moment has come when the candle will go out, the light will go out. And I know where I am going--to the same source.

"I remember that child with gratefulness. I can still see him standing before me, blowing out the candle."

OSHO

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