Saturday, October 3, 2009

OSHO

Celebration

I am in tremendous love with life, hence I teach celebration. Everything has to be celebrated, everything has to be lived, loved. To me nothing is mundane and nothing is sacred. To me all is sacred, from the lowest rung of the ladder to the highest rung. It is the same ladder: from the body to the soul, from the physical to the spiritual, from sex to SAMADHI — everything is divine!
My sannyasins celebrate everything. Celebration is the foundation of my sannyas — not renunciation but rejoicing; rejoicing in all the beauties, all the joys, all that life offers, because this whole life is a gift of God.
- Come, Come, Yet Again Come, Chapter #2

Enjoy this celebration as much as possible, because whatever remaining falsities, personalities, parts here and there may have remained, they will be thrown away by your dance. Enjoy… this existence is for your enjoyment. It is our existence, it is our home.
Nobody is a sinner except those who don’t celebrate.
To me, celebration is the only virtue.
- The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here, Chapter #12

I want to remind you that whether I am here or not the celebration has to continue. If I am not here, then it has to be more intense and it has to spread around the world.
Celebration is my religion.
Love is my message.
Silence is my truth.
- Nansen: The Point of Departure, Chapter #10

Your celebration will bring you closer to existence, because existence is in constant celebration. Your joy, your blissfulness, your silence, will bring the silences of the stars and the sky; your peace with existence will open the doors of all the mysteries it contains. There is no other way to become enlightened.
- The Rebel, Chapter #5

Celebration is without any cause. Celebration is simply because we are. We are made out of the stuff called celebration. That’s our natural state: to celebrate — as natural as it is for the trees to bloom, for birds to sing, for rivers to flow to the ocean. Celebration is a natural state.
- The Secret of Secrets, Vol 1, Chapter #8

Celebration is the highest growth of consciousness, expression, manifestation, flowering of the Golden Flower.
I teach you celebration. Celebration is my key.
- The Secret of Secrets, Vol 2, Chapter #15

Thursday, October 1, 2009

OSHO

Body
The Baul cherishes the body because the body is a vehicle, and through the body one can know that which is embodied, that which is not body itself. The body is the earthen lamp and God is the flame. The lamp is worshipped because of the flame. Once the flame is gone, who worships the body, who celebrates the body? Then it is nothing; then dust unto dust, it returns back to the earth.
The body is throbbing with God, pulsating with God. If you can see that pulsation, then even dust becomes divine. If you cannot see that pulsation, then it is simply dust. Then there is no meaning in it.
- The Beloved, Vol 1, Chapter #8

The five aggregates are the five elements the body is made of: earth, air, fire, water, and the sky. These five are the aggregates -- SKANDHAS -- elements of which your body is made. Just behind these five elements is hidden your treasure, THE HALL OF ZEN. Just inside the temple made by these five elements, is the fire of your awareness.
This body is a temple, and your consciousness is the god of the temple.
- Bodhidharma: The Greatest Zen Master, Chapter #9

Your body is your temple, it is sacred. Your body is not your enemy. It is not irreligious to love your body, to take care of your body -- it is religious. It is irreligious to torture your body and to destroy it. The religious person will love his body because it is the temple where God lives.
You and your body are not really two, but the manifestation of one. Your soul is your invisible body, and your body is your visible soul. I teach this unity, and with this unity, man becomes whole. I teach you joy, not sadness. I teach you playfulness, not seriousness. I teach you love and laughter, because to me there is nothing more sacred than love and laughter, and there is nothing more prayerful than playfulness.
- The Book of Wisdom, Chapter #26

And your body is giving you the right indication; the body is very wise. The mind is a very late arrival. The body has lived millions of years, it knows what is needed. It is the mind that interferes. Mind is very immature, body is very mature. Listen to the body.
And when I say listen to the body, I don't mean remain confined to the body. If you listen to the body, the body will not have anything to say to you -- things will be settled. And when the body is at ease, relaxed, and there is no tension, and the body is not fighting for something, is not trying to attract your attention because you are not fulfilling a need, when the body is calm and quiet, you can float high, you can fly high, you can become a white cloud. But only when body needs are truly looked after. The body is not your enemy, it is your friend. The body is your earth, the body has all your roots. You have to find a bridge between you and your body. If you don't find that bridge, you will be constantly in conflict with your body -- and a person who is fighting with himself is always miserable.
The first thing is to come to a peace-pact with your body and never break it. Once you have come to a peace-pact with your body, the body will become very, very friendly. You look after the body, the body will look after you -- it becomes a vehicle of tremendous value, it becomes the very temple. One day your body itself is revealed to you as the very shrine of God.
- Dang Dang Doko Dang, Chapter #10

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

OSHO

Bliss

That is what bliss is, satchitananda. Bliss is not happiness, because happiness has a certain excitement in it — it is feverish. Sooner or later you will be tired of it; it is unnatural. Sooner or later you will have to change, you will have to become unhappy. Bliss is neither; it is neither negative nor positive — it is transcendental, it is beyond duality. One remains tranquil, calm, quiet, centered. Whatsoever happens, good or bad, one accepts both because one knows life is both.
- The Beloved, Vol 2, Chapter #4

Ecstasy is our very nature; not to be ecstatic is simply unnecessary. To be ecstatic is natural, spontaneous. It needs no effort to be ecstatic, it needs great effort to be miserable. That’s why you look so tired, because misery is really hard work; to maintain it is really difficult, because you are doing something against nature. You are going upstream — that’s what misery is.

And what is bliss? Going with the river — so much so that the distinction between you and the river is simply lost. You are the river. How can it be difficult? To go with the river no swimming is needed; you simply float with the river and the river takes you to the ocean. The river is already going to the ocean.
Life is a river. Don’t push it and you will not be miserable. The art of not pushing the river of life is sannyas.
- The Book of Wisdom, Chapter #4

Bliss is true happiness. What you call happiness is just misery in disguise. What you call happiness is nothing but entertainment, pleasure. It is momentary — it cannot be true. Truth has to have one quality, and the quality is of eternity. If something is true it is eternal; if it is untrue it is momentary.
True happiness is found only when the mind completely ceases functioning. It does not come from the outside. It wells up within your own being, it starts overflowing you. You become luminous. You become a fountain of bliss.
- The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 1, Chapter #7

Whenever some bliss happens, trust it, and go in that direction…and you will be moving towards God. Bliss is his fragrance. If you can follow bliss, you will never go astray. If you follow bliss, you will be following nature. And if you are natural, blissful, relaxed, wisdom arises.
- The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 2, Chapter #7

When the ocean falls in the dewdrop, the dewdrop disappears, its boundaries disappear. It becomes as unbounded as the ocean itself; it becomes oceanic.
Bliss is an oceanic state… when you disappear as an ego, bounded, small, and become huge, enormous, as huge and enormous as the universe itself.
- The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 4, Chapter #1

Monday, September 28, 2009

OSHO

Birth

Birth is only an opportunity — you can make it or mar it. Birth is not equivalent to life. Almost everybody thinks that birth is equivalent to life; so it is bound to become a drag — just breathing, eating every day, going to sleep, waking up in the morning, going to the same office, the same files and the same routine. For idiots it is perfectly okay, but for anybody who has some intelligence it is bound to become drag. Because he can see — what is the point? Why after all am I living? If tomorrow is again going to be just a repetition of today, as today has been a repetition of yesterday, then why go on living? What is the point of unnecessarily repeating the same circle, the same routine, the same happenings? But the fallacy is in the fact that you have accepted a wrong concept, that birth is life. Birth is only an opportunity.
Either you can learn to live a beautiful life or you can just drag yourself towards the graveyard. It is up to you. There are people for whom life is a drag, and there are people for whom even death is a dance. I want to say to you that if you make your life an art, your death will be the culmination of the art — the highest peak, a beauty in itself.
- Beyond Enlightenment, Chapter #16

The first birth is only a physical birth; don’t be satisfied with it. It is necessary but not enough. A second birth is needed. The first birth was through your mother and father; the second birth is going to be out of the mind. You have to slip out of the mind and that will be your rebirth — you will be reborn.
- A Sudden Clash of Thunder, Chapter #1

When a person was dying, friends, relatives and acquaintances would gather together around him to give him the absolute certainty that he was going to die, and to help him to relax. Because if you can die in total relaxation, the quality of death changes and your new birth somewhere will be of a higher quality. The quality of birth is decided by death. And then, in turn, the quality of birth will decide the quality of another death. That’s how one goes higher and higher, that’s how one evolves. And whenever a person becomes absolutely certain about death a flame arises on his face — you can see it. In fact, a miracle happens: he becomes alive as he has never been before.
- Ancient Music in the Pines, Chapter #8

Sunday, September 27, 2009

OSHO

AUM
“The moment you enter into your being you will be surprised to find that there is a constant sound that appears like 'om'. Mohammedans have heard it as 'amin' -- it is om; Christians have heard it as 'amen'; it is the same sound. Hence the Christian, the Mohammedan, the Hindu, the Jaina, the Buddhist, they all end their prayers with om. The prayer is bound to end in om; the prayer makes you more and more silent... finally there is nothing but om. All Hindu scriptures end with OM, SHANTIH, SHANTIH, SHANTIH -- om, peace, peace, peace. This is the word 'om'.”
- The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 3, Chapter #9

“The sound of Om is heard only when your mind is completely silent, when you have gone beyond all language, all thinking, when there is pure silence, not even a ripple. Suddenly you hear a music. There is no instrument playing it. It seems it is simply the very heartbeat of existence. That's why it doesn't matter whether someone is a Buddhist or a Hindu or a Jaina. It does not depend on your philosophy, on your religion. It depends on the depth of your reach towards your very inner center. There, suddenly, you are overwhelmed.
It is not exactly Om, but Om comes the closest to expressing the sound. And the sound has been called the divine sound because it is not man-made. It is eternally herenow. Whoever wants to enter into the stream of eternal existence is bound to hear it. It says nothing, but it vibrates your being to such joy, to such celebration, to such dance that you have never dreamt of before.”
- Hari Om Tat Sat, Chapter #1

“In Sanskrit, aum is the symbol for the whole universe. It carries three basic sounds: a-u-m. Through these three basic sounds all the sounds have evolved. So aum is the basic sound, the synthesis of all the basic roots. That's why Hindus have been saying that aum is the secret mantra, the greatest mantra, because it implies the whole existence.
The three English words, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, are derived from aum. They mean one who has become as powerful as aum, one who has become as knowing as aum, one who has become as present as aum -- one who has become universal, one who has become the all.”
- The Mustard Seed: My Most Loved Gospel on Jesus, Chapter #21

“Now scientists, physicists particularly, have discovered that existence consists only of vibrations. They call it ‘vibrations of electricity'. It does not matter what name you give, what jargon you use, but vibration means sound. That is the meaning of AUM.

AUM is the primordial sound of which the whole universe consists; we are made of music. Hence if we move into anything totally, only the music is left and everything else disappears because music is the stuff we are made of; all else is arbitrary, artificial, invented. Only the music hidden in our souls is not invented; it is part of God. God is the musician and we are his music. He is the dancer and we are his dance. He is the poet and we are his poetry. He is the singer and we are his song. This is the meaning of AUM.”

“It is called ANAHAT NAD; ANAHAT NAD means unstruck sound. There are two kinds of sounds. When you play on a sitar it is a struck sound; duality is involved, your hands and the strings, and you have to strike, then the sound is created. It is a little bit violent -- you are being violent with the strings. You are not allowing them to rest, you are disturbing their sleep. And there is a conflict involved with your hands; there is a fight going on between the musician and his instrument.
AUM is the unstruck sound; there is no instrument. When you become absolutely silent, suddenly it is there.

Zen people have the right expression for it; they call it ‘the sound of one hand clapping'. If two hands are there, of course, the clapping is easy, but one hand clapping and the sound of one hand clapping seems to be absurd -- but they are truly expressing the reality. When you go inside and you are absolutely silent you hear for the first time the inner music.”
- Philosophia Ultima, Chapter #1

“AUM consists of three sounds and one anuswar. Anuswar is a very subtle sound; it represents a kind of humming. When you say, "AU", that M prolonged, that humming sound that goes on reverberating, is the anuswar. Anuswar means just a dot; that too represents something. So AUM consists of four things: three visible, A,U,M, and the fourth invisible the rhythmic, humming shadow.

These four represent the whole of Indian metaphysics. "A" represents one state of the mind, when you are awake, the waking consciousness. "U" represents when you are dreaming, the dreaming consciousness. "M" represents when you are fast asleep, dreamlessly asleep -- sushupti -- deep, profound dreamless sleep. These are the three states of the human mind, human consciousness.

And the anuswar, the dot -- that humming sound that goes on reverberating -- that represents the fourth, turiya, the transcendental state when you are neither asleep nor awake nor dreaming, when you are just a witness to all that is happening: the state of a Buddha or a Christ, the state where I am, where one can declare oneself Bhagwan.”

“And, symbolically, AUM represents your waking consciousness, your dreaming consciousness, your sleeping consciousness, and the beyond -- the turiya -- the fourth state, where one becomes Bhagwan, where one becomes Christ, Buddha, where one is one with totality. It is a tremendously important formula; it contains the whole metaphysics of the East. But it is not a mantra. Please never repeat it. Repeating won't help; it will deceive you.”
- The Secret, Chapter #4

“And the heart center is the center from where the soundless sound arises. If you relax into the heart center, you will hear OMKAR, AUM. That is a great discovery. Those who have entered the heart, they hear a continuous chanting inside their being which sounds like aum. Have you ever heard anything like a chanting which goes on by itself -- not that you DO it.

That's why I am not in favor of mantras. You can go on chanting aum, aum, aum, and you can create a mental substitute for the heart. It is not going to help. It is a deception. And you can go on chanting for years, and you can create a false sound within yourself as if your heart is speaking -- it is not. To know the heart you are not to chant aum -- you have just to be silent. One day, suddenly the mantra is there. One day, when you have fallen silent, suddenly you hear the sound is coming from nowhere. It is arising out of you from the innermost core. It is the sound of your inner silence. Just as in a silent night, there is a certain sound, the sound of the silence, exactly like that on a very, very much deeper level a sound arises in you.
It arises -- let me remind you again and again -- it is not that you bring it in; it is not that you repeat aum, aum. No, you don't say a single word. You are simply quiet. You are simply silent. And it bursts forth like a spring... suddenly it starts flowing, it is there. You hear it -- you don't say it, you hear it.”
- The Tantra Vision, Vol 1, Chapter #9

Friday, September 25, 2009

OSHO

Awareness
Awareness means that the total mind has become aware. Now the old mind is not there, but there is the quality of being conscious. Awareness has become the totality; the mind itself is now part of the awareness. We cannot say that the mind is aware; we can only meaningfully say that the mind is conscious. Awareness means transcendence of the mind, so it is not the mind that is aware. It is only through transcendence of the mind, through going beyond mind, that awareness becomes possible.
Consciousness is a quality of the mind, awareness is the transcendence; it is going beyond the mind. Mind, as such, is the medium of duality, so consciousness can never transcend duality. It is always conscious of something, and there is always someone who is conscious. So consciousness is part and parcel of the mind, and mind, as such, is the source of all duality, of all divisions, whether they are between subject and object, activity or inactivity, consciousness or unconsciousness. Every type of duality is mental. Awareness is nondual, so awareness means the state of no mind.
- Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy, Chapter #14

Awareness has no past, awareness has no future; awareness has only this here-now.
And a man of awareness never thinks about the past again, it is finished. He did whatsoever could have been done. He never regrets, he has no grudge. He never thinks in terms of what should have been.
- Returning To The Source, Chapter #4

The magic of awareness is that the more you become alert, naturally, the more a calm surrounds you. You need not cultivate it, it follows you like a shadow, it is simply your vibe. You are surrounded by a subtle aura of peace, serenity. When you are aware inside, there is a grace radiating from your being. That grace is spontaneous, not cultivated. And when something is spontaneous it has tremendous beauty. It is not an artificial flower, it is not a plastic flower; it is something that has grown in you, that has bloomed in you. It is your own flowering. It has fragrance because it has roots in your being.
- The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 12, Chapter #7

The authentic awareness is not created by you, it is discovered by you. And the discovery needs no effort on your part because you are the problem, your efforts are the hindrances.
You have to be absent -- with all your will power, with all your efforts. You simply have to give way, and then there will be a totally different quality of awareness -- spontaneous, joyous, relaxing, rejuvenating, and you can never be tired of it. It is simply your nature.
- The Hidden Splendor, Chapter 24

Awareness is only a methodology. First, become aware of how much intelligence you are using, or are you using it at all? Belief, faith, are not intelligent. It is taking a decision against your intelligence. Awareness is a methodology to watch how much intelligence you are using. And just in that watching you will see that you are not using much. There are many ways awareness will make you alert. You can use it.
Awareness will bring you to your one hundred percent intelligence, will make you almost divine. And awareness does not stop there. Awareness helps you to use your intelligence fully.
- From Bondage To Freedom, Chapter #10

Thursday, September 24, 2009

OSHO

Astrology


Some men have thought, and even now think, that astrology is superstition, blind faith. To a great extent this seems to be true. Those things that it is difficult to find a scientific explanation for seem to us to be based only on blind faith. But astrology is very scientific. The meaning of science is the investigation of the relationship between cause and effect. Astrology says that whatever happens on this earth is not uncaused. However, we may not be aware of the causes. Astrology says that the shape which the future will take cannot be isolated from the past but must be joined to it: what you will be tomorrow will be joined to what you are today; what you were until today is joined to what you will be tomorrow.
Astrology is a very scientific way of thinking. It says that the future will emerge only out of the past: your today has emerged from your yesterday; your tomorrow will emerge from your today. Astrology also says that whatever will happen tomorrow is in some subtle way present even today.
- Hidden Mysteries, Chapter #5

I don't believe in astrology; ninety-nine point nine percent of it is nonsense, but point one percent is pure truth. A man of insight, intuition and purity can certainly look into the future, because the future is not non-existential, it is just hidden from our eyes. Maybe just a thin curtain of thoughts is all that divides the present and the future.
- Glimpses of a Golden Childhood, Chapter #3

Astrology can be divided into three parts. The first part is the core, the essence; it is the essentials, and cannot be changed. It is the part which is most difficult to understand. The second part is the middle layer, in which one can make whatever changes one wants. It is the semi-essential portion in which you can make changes if you know how, but without knowing, no changes are possible at all. The third part is the outermost layer which is nonessential, but about which we are all very curious.
The first is the essence, in which no changes can be made. When it is known, the only way is to cooperate with it. Religions have devised astrology in order to know and
decipher this essential destiny. The semi-essential part of astrology is such that if we know about it we can change our lives -- otherwise not.
If we do not know, then whatsoever was going to happen will happen. If there is knowledge, there are alternatives to choose between. There is a possibility of transformation if the right choice is made. The third, nonessential part is just the periphery, the outer surface. There is nothing essential in it; everything is circumstantial.
- Hidden Mysteries, Chapter #6