Suffering

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But now psychologists suggest that whenever a child is ill, take care of him, but don’t pay much attention to him. He should be taken care of medically, but not psychologically. Don’t create any association in his mind that illness pays, otherwise his whole life he will be ill whenever he feels something is wrong. Then the wife cannot say anything, then nobody can blame him because he is ill. And everybody has to pity him and give affection.

Ninety percent of suffering exists because you have associated something which looks good to you with suffering. Drop this association. Nobody else can do it for you. Drop that association completely, cut that association completely. Suffering is simply wasting your energy. Don’t get involved in it, don’t think that it pays. There is only one way in which suffering can pay, and that is with awareness. Become aware.

Remember how to drop that association: one, never talk about your suffering. Suffer it, but don’t talk about it. Why do you talk about it? Why do people go on talking and boring others about their suffering? Who is interested? But just not to offend you, if you start talking about illnesses and anguish, others have to tolerate it; but they start escaping, they start wanting somehow to get rid of you. Nobody wants to hear, because everybody has too much suffering of his own. Who bothers about your suffering? Don’t talk about it, because talking creates associations.

Don’t complain, because then you are asking for affection, pity, compassion, love. Don’t ask, don’t sell your suffering: bring back your investment. Suffer privately, don’t make it public; then it becomes a tapascharya, it becomes one of the best austeries. But look at your saints: if they do tapascharya, austerities, they make it very public. And I am saying make your suffering private, then it becomes tapas, austerity. They make it public, they announce that they are going on a long fast, everybody must know.

Suffer privately; suffer so privately that nobody ever becomes aware that you are suffering. And then meditate on it: don’t throw it out, accumulate it within and then close your eyes and meditate on it. Then the bridge will be broken.

Amrut Kala

Click on CC to see the subtitles - English translation

Blessings to the World

Blessings to the World!

Namaste

I bow to the largeness of the universe
and the smallness of self.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Beloved Master, How can one drop an Obsession? Or is it not to be dropped at all, but enjoyed?

Be meditatively with it. And the more you are meditatively with it, the more it will be healed.

Osho - Satya, an obsession simply means a wound in your being, which keeps attracting you again and again, which goes on declaring itself, which wants your attention. You cannot drop it. How can you drop your wound? An obsession is a psychic wound, you cannot drop it. Understand it. Watch it. Pay attention to it. Be meditatively with it. And the more you are meditatively with it, the more it will be healed.

Meditation is a healing force. The words 'meditation' and 'medicine' are derived from the same root; they both mean healing forces. Meditation is medicine -- medicine for the soul.

So if you have any obsession, don't call names. The moment you call it an obsession you have already started condemning it. And if you condemn something you cannot watch it -- you are prejudiced against it. How can you watch the enemy? No need to condemn; whatsoever is the case is the case. Just by condemning it you can't change it; by condemning it you can only repress it. You can avoid seeing it, but the wound will continue; it will become cancerous, it will go on growing inside.

Rather than condemning it, rather than calling it names, giving it labels, watch it -- without any conclusion. See what it is. See as deeply as possible, with great friendliness towards it, with intimacy. It is YOUR obsession, YOUR wound! It says something about you, it is part of your biography. It has arisen in you, just as flowers arise in trees. It is essential because it says something about your past. Go deep into it, with care, with love, and you will be surprised: the more care you show about it, the less it hurts, the less it dominates, the less it forces itself upon you.

Yes, in a certain way, enjoy it! But by enjoying I don't mean become identified with it. If you become identified with it you go insane. If you condemn it, if you repress it, you go insane again. Avoid both the extremes. Keep yourself exactly in the middle, neither condemning nor identifying. Just be a pure witness.

And slowly slowly, it will be healed. Slowly slowly, it will lose all its poison. Slowly slowly, you will see it changing into a positive energy rather than a negative force. It will become helpful. Each obsession is a knot in your being. Once it is opened, great energy is released.

And everybody is carrying obsessions; our whole society is obsessive. A few obsessions are accepted by the people; then you don't call them obsessions. If they are not accepted, then they become obsessions. In one society one thing is thought to be obsessive, in another society it is not obsessive. It may be even respected, may be thought saintly, holy.

For a Jaina monk, to take a bath is an obsession. People who are taking baths every day once or twice are obsessive; they are too much concerned about their body, body-oriented. The Jaina monk condemns them. The Jaina monk does not take a bath. Jaina monks used to come to see me. It was really a difficult time for me -- they stink! But they think they are doing great austerity.

[...]

Remember one thing: that obsessions differ from society to society, from country to country, from religion to religion. What is really obsession? Anything that becomes a dominating force upon you, that dominates you, that becomes master of your being. Anything that reduces you into a slave, that's my definition of an obsession.

Watch it, meditate. Be silently with it, because that is how you will become master again. Silence makes you a master of everything. Don't fight, and don't become identified. If you become identified you are mad. If you fight you are mad from the other extreme.

The director of a well-known mental hospital decided to resign his post after many years of service. This decision brought the local press out for an interview.

"Tell us, Doctor, what are your plans? Will you resume private practice?"

"Well, I have given it some thought," replied the doctor. "I may go back into private practice, but on the other hand I may become a tea-kettle."

Now, living with mad people for so long, with so many tea-kettles, he has also become impressed with the idea.

If you want to become ANYTHING in your life, that is obsession. It is not a question only of becoming a tea-kettle: if you want to become the president of a country or the prime minister, it is the same -- other names for becoming tea-kettles! There are people who are obsessed with the idea that they will not take any rest unless they become the president. And then they are at a loss when they become the president; they don't know what to do now because all that they know is how to become the president. Their whole life they have devoted to a single purpose: how to become the president. Now they have become the president and they are certainly at a loss; they don't know what to do.

There are people who want to become rich; they become rich. If you persist you can fulfill any kind of stupidity. Man has immense powers. Yes, you can become a tea-kettle if you persist; nobody can prevent you. But then? Then you are suddenly empty. Then suddenly you find yourself without any goal, lost.

All obsessive people, when their obsessions are fulfilled, will feel lost. If you become identified with an obsession, sooner or later you will feel lost. If it is fulfilled you will be the loser; if it is not fulfilled, certainly you are the loser.

The other way is to repress it, to throw it into the basement of your being, somewhere deep in the unconsciousness, so you don't come across it. But it goes on growing there, and it goes on affecting you and your behavior; it goes on pulling your strings from the back. And the enemy is more powerful when it is hidden. You don't see it, but still you have to follow its dictates -- it becomes a dictator.

Both extremes, Satya, have to be avoided. That's what Buddha also would have suggested: Be exactly in the middle, watchful, choicelessly watchful. Neither choose to be identified nor choose to be repressive. Just see. It is a fact of your psychic life, whatsoever it is. Don't say good, bad, XYZ -- whatsoever it is, watch it. And see the tremendous power of watchfulness: how it transforms wounds into flowers, how it releases entangled energy knots into great forces, positive forces, nourishing forces.

Source: from Osho Book “The Dhammapada Volume 8”

Twenty-four hours: try it -- total acceptance, whatsoever happens

You Carry Your Wound

--by Osho (Nov 30, 2010)

You carry your wound. With the ego, your whole being is a wound. And you carry it around. Nobody is interested in hurting you, nobody is positively waiting to hurt you; everybody is engaged in safeguarding his own wound. Who has got the energy? But still it happens, because you are so ready to be wounded, so ready, just waiting on the brink for anything.

You cannot touch a man of Tao. Why? - because there is no one to be touched. There is no wound. He is healthy, healed, whole. This word whole is beautiful. The word heal comes from the whole, and the word holy also comes from the whole. He is whole, healed, holy.

Be aware of your wound. Don't help it to grow, let it be healed; and it will be healed only when you move to the roots. The less the head, the more the wound will heal; with no head there is no wound. Live a headless life. Move as a total being, and accept things.

Just for twenty-four hours, try it - total acceptance, whatsoever happens. Someone insults you, accept it; don't react, and see what happens. Suddenly you will feel an energy flowing in you that you have not felt before.

-- Osho

You are too full of yourself

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MNViPAhZPE

When Someone Deeply Listens to You

When Someone Deeply Listens to You

When someone deeply listens to you
it is like holding out a dented cup
you’ve had since childhood
and watching it fill up with
cold, fresh water.
When it balances on top of the brim,
 you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.

When someone deeply listens to you,
the room where you stay
starts a new life
and the place where you wrote
your first poem
 begins to glow in your mind’s eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered!

When someone deeply listens to you,
your bare feet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.

                                                   - John Fox
 Principal of the American Embassy School, Delhi

Love alone cannot live without understanding

[A sannyasin asks about relationships, her marriage, and whether becoming enlightened is more important.]

Osho – Love is crazy, so you cannot make it sane. Love is insane — and that is the whole beauty of it! It is not rational, it is not even reasonable. And this happens to everybody: sometimes you feel like being in it and sometimes you don’t feel like being in it. Sometimes you want to go away from the love object and sometimes you want to dissolve into the love object. Both are right — you are not to choose between these two. They are both together, two aspects of the same phenomenon. You have to understand; it is not a question of choice, just a question of understanding. It is like day and night together. You cannot always be in love — that is difficult. Impossible! Sometimes one needs rest from love too. So both these things will come up and down. Sometimes you are deeply in love and you don’t bother about freedom. Sometimes you need your space and you think about freedom, and you don’t bother about love. But both are true; one has to come to an understanding. So if you are living with [him], create understanding, talk to each other, and understand that sometimes he needs his space. And this is a problem: it may not happen at the same time to both of you. Sometimes you want to be with him and he wants to be alone — nothing can be done about it. Then you have to understand and leave him alone. Sometimes you want to be alone but he wants to come to you — then tell him that you are helpless! So just create more and more understanding. That’s what lovers miss: love they have enough, but understanding none, not at all. That’s why on the rocks of misunderstanding their love dies. Love cannot live alone without understanding. Alone, love is very foolish; with understanding, love can live a long life, a great life — of many joys shared, of many beautiful moments shared, of great poetic experiences. But that happens only through understanding. Love can give you a small honeymoon, but that’s all. Only understanding can give you deep intimacy. And each honeymoon is followed by depression, anger, frustration. Unless you grow in understanding, no honeymoon is going to be of any help; it is just like a drug. So try to create more understanding with [him] too. And even some day if you separate, the understanding will be with you, will be with him, and that will be a gift of your love to each other. Lovers can separate, but the understanding that has been gained through the other, in the company of the other, will always be with you. That will remain as a gift — there can be no other gift. If you love a person, the only valuable gift that you can give to him is some quantity of understanding.http://www.oshoteachings.com/osho-love-cannot-live-alone-without-understanding/http://www.oshoteachings.com/osho-love-cannot-live-alone-without-understanding/

Trust existence

Trust existence~

On Excitement, True Love and Joy in Relationship

[A sannyasin, returning to the West, says that the joy and fun has gone out of his relationship with his girlfriend, though the love is still there.]

Osho – There is some misunderstanding in your mind. The joy is not gone, joy has never been there – it was something else. It is excitement that has gone but you were thinking that excitement was joy. Joy will come now; when the excitement subsides only their does joy come. Joy is a very silent phenomenon. It is not excitement at all, it is not feverish at all.

It is tranquil, calm and cool. But in the West that misunderstanding has become very prevalent. People think that excitement is joy It is a kind of intoxication one feels occupied, tremendously occupied. In that occupation one forgets one’s worries, problems, anxieties. So it is like alcohol: you forget your problems, you forget yourself; at least for the moment you are far, far away from yourself. That is the meaning of excitement: you are no more inside; you are outside yourself, you have escaped from yourself.

But because of this being outside yourself, sooner or later you become tired. You miss the nourishment that comes from your innermost core when you are close to it. So no excitement can be permanent; it can only be a moment’s phenomenon, a momentary thing. All honeymoons end, they have to end, otherwise you will be killed. If you remain excited you will go berserk. It has to subside, you have to be nourished there again.

It is just as one cannot remain awake for many nights. For one night, two nights, three nights, it is okay, but if you remain awake for too many nights you will start feeling tired, utterly tired, exhausted. And you will start feeling dull and dead too; you will need rest. After each excitement there is a need for rest. In rest you recapitulate, you recover; then you can move into excitement again.

But excitement is not joy, it is just an escape from misery. Try to understand it very clearly: excitement is just an escape from misery. It gives only a pseudo experience of joy. Because you are no more miserable you think you are joyous – not to be miserable is equivalent to being joyous. Joy is a positive phenomenon. Not to be miserable is just a forgetfulness. The misery is waiting back home for you: whenever you come back it will be there.

When excitement disappears, one starts thinking ’Now what is the point of this love?’ In the West love dies with excitement, and that is a calamity. In fact love had never been born. It was just love of excitement, it was not real love. It was just an effort to move away from oneself It was a search for sensation. You rightly use the word ’fun’; it was fun but it was not intimacy. When excitement disappears and you just start feeling loving, love can grow; now the feverish days are over. This is the true beginning.

To me, the true love begins when the honeymoon is over. But by that time the western mind thinks that all is over, finished: ’Search for another woman, search for another man. Now what is the point in continuing? – there is no more fun!’

If you go on loving now, love will take on a depth, it will become intimacy. A great grace will arise in it. It will have a subtlety now, it will not be superficial. It will not be fun, it will be meditation, it will be prayer. It will help you to know yourself. The other will become a mirror, and through her you will be able to know yourself. Now is the time, the right time for love to grow because all the energy that was being channelled into excitement will not be wasted: it will be poured into the very roots of love and the tree will be able to have great foliage.

If you can go on growing in this intimacy, which is no more excitement, then joy will arise: first excitement, then love, then joy. Joy is the ultimate product, the fulfilment. Excitement is just a beginning, a triggering; it is not the end. And those who finish at excitement will never know what love is, will never know the mystery of love, will never come to know the joy of love. They will know sensations, excitement, passionate fever, but they will never know the grace that is love. They will never know how beautiful it is to be with a person with no excitement but with silence, with no words, with no effort to do anything.

Just being together, sharing one space, one being, sharing each other, not thinking of what to do, what to say, where to go, how to enjoy; all those things are gone. The storm is over and there is silence. And it is not that you will not make love but it will not be a making really; it will be love happening. It will happen out of grace, out of silence, out of rhythm; it will arise from your depths, it will not be bodily really.

There is a sex which is spiritual, which has nothing to do with the body. Although the body partakes in it, participates in it, it is not the source of it. Then sex takes on the colour of Tantra, only then.

So my suggestion is: watch yourself. Now that you are coming closer to the temple don’t escape. Go into it. Forget excitement, it is just childish. And something beautiful is ahead. If you can wait for it, if you have patience and can trust in it, it will come. And to know love is to know God….

Falling out of Love - Rising in Love

Falling Out Of Love Posted on September 29, 2012 by Osho Times Rising in love means a learning, a changing, a maturity. Rising in love ultimately helps you to become grown-up. To fall in love is so easy. Why is it so difficult to fall out of love? So many discussions, tears, fights, fears…. I don’t want to hurt the person I’ve been with, because it’s not that there is no feeling. I’m so confused. Can you say something? Falling is always easy. You can fall in any ditch. Getting out is difficult. But you will have to get out. Once the love disappears the ditch becomes hell. Then there is quarreling, argument, nagging, and every kind of nastiness from both sides. Nobody wants to hurt; but because he is hurting, she is hurting, unknowingly they go on dumping their hurt feelings on the other. In the first place, when you start falling in love, when you are still not in the ditch, that is the time to ask me, because I have a totally different kind of love affair which is called rising in love. Then there is no problem. Rising in love is beautiful, and getting out of it is very easy, because that will be falling down. Falling down is easy, keep it for the next step; for the first step, always use rising. The easier step you have done, now you have to do the difficult one. And it will happen — all these tears and conflicts, but nothing can bring the love back. A simple thing has to be understood: love — the love that you are talking about — is not in your hands. You have fallen into it. It was not in your power not to fall, so when it comes, it takes you with it. But it is like a breeze, it comes and goes. And it is good that it comes and goes, because if it stays it becomes stale. A little understanding is needed on both sides, that the love is no longer there. There is no need to hate each other, because nobody has destroyed it — nobody has created it. It had come like a breeze, you enjoyed those moments; be thankful to each other and help each other to come out of the ditch. In a ditch, that is the only way. The man, to be really manly, should give his shoulders for the woman to rise up and get out of the ditch. And the man can find his own gymnastics, how to do it. But nobody asks me before falling. This is strange! For thirty-five years I have been waiting for somebody to ask me how to fall in love. Nobody asks that, because if you had asked that I would have suggested, “Never fall in love. Try to rise.” And rising in love is a totally different matter. Rising in love means a learning, a changing, a maturity. Rising in love ultimately helps you to become grown-up. And two grown-up persons don’t quarrel; they try to understand, they try to solve any problem. Anybody who rises in love never falls from it, because rising is your effort, and the love that is grown through your effort is within your hands. But falling in love is not your effort. Falling in love — that love is going to be disrupted somewhere, and the sooner it is understood that it is gone, the better; otherwise you become too entangled in a thousand and one things. Those are the things which make it difficult to separate. When you fall in love, no questions arise. You are clean, the other person is clean. But when you want to separate, the days, the nights, the years that you have lived together, loved together, experienced something which is one of the most beautiful gifts of nature — you go on becoming entangled. You go on giving promises to each other… and it is not that you are lying or deceiving; in those beautiful moments those promises seem to be absolutely coming from your heart. But when those moments are gone — and they will be gone, because it has been a fall, and nobody can remain in a fallen state for eternity. Someday he has to rise again. And the moment you start separating, all those entanglements, your promises, the other’s promises, create the complexity. Rising in love is something spiritual. Falling in love is something biological. Biology is blind, that’s why love is called blind. But the love I am talking about is the only insight that is easily available to everyone. Just a little effort…. Love should come out of your silence, awareness, meditativeness. It is soft, it is unbinding — because how can love create fetters for the one who is loved? It is giving freedom to each other, more and more. As the love grows deeper, freedom becomes bigger. As the love grows deeper, you start accepting the person as he is. You stop trying to change the person. It is one of the miseries of the world that lovers are continuously trying to change the other person. They don’t know that if the person really changes, their love will disappear, because they had not fallen in love with this changed person in the first place. They had fallen in love with a person who was not touched by their ideas — “Change this and that.” Rising in love, you become aware that the other has his own territorial imperative, and you are not to encroach upon it. If love becomes freedom, then there is no need to separate. The idea of separation arises because you go on seeing that you are becoming more and more a slave, and nobody likes slavery. But you always ask me when you are in the ditch and cannot get out. One thing is certain: I am not coming into the ditch to take you out! You two have to manage it. If I come in the ditch to help you out, you both will be out and I will be in the ditch! And I don’t know anybody whom I can ask, “How to get out of here?” I have never asked a single question of anybody about my life. It is my life, and I have to live it, I have to solve its problems. I have never taken any advice, I have never accepted anybody’s advice which was not asked for in the first place. I have told those people, “You have to understand that advice is the only thing everybody gives free of charge and nobody takes.” Why bother? Advice given by a person whom you have not asked cannot be very wise. The wise man never imposes his idea on anyone. If somebody asks him, he simply gives his insight. It is not a commandment, that they have to do it; there is no “should” in it. I can say only one thing: you have given each other beautiful moments — be grateful, be thankful. The parting should not be ugly when the meeting was so beautiful. You owe it to existence that the parting should be made beautiful. Forget all your promises — they were right when they were given, but the time has changed, you have changed. You both are standing at a crossroads, ready to move in different directions; perhaps you may never meet again. Make it as graceful as possible. And once you understand that it has to happen, gracefully or ungracefully, then it is better to make it graceful. At least, your lover will live in your memory, you will live in the memory of the lover. In a certain way, those moments together will always enrich you. But part gracefully. And it is not difficult when you have understood love — which is a very difficult phenomenon. You fell without a second thought; you can understand that very easily love has disappeared. Accept the truth of it, and don’t blame each other, because nobody is responsible. Help each other gracefully; in deep friendship, part. Lovers when they separate become enemies. That is a strange kind of gratitude. They should become really friends. And if love can become friendship, there is no guilt, no grudge, no feeling that you have been cheated, exploited. Nobody has exploited anybody; it was just the biological energy which made you blind. I teach a different kind of love. It does not end in friendship but begins in friendship. It begins in silence, in awareness. It is a love which is your own creation, which is not blind. Such a love can last forever, can go on growing deeper and deeper. Such a love is immensely sensitive. In this kind of relationship one starts feeling the need of the other person even before the other person has spoken. I have known a few couples, very few couples — my acquaintance with couples is big, but I have come across only two, three couples who had not fallen in love, who have risen in love. And the most miraculous thing about them was that they started feeling each other without words. If the man was feeling thirsty, the woman would bring water. Nothing has been said just a synchronicity. If the loved one is feeling thirsty, she must start feeling thirsty herself. A transfer is happening continuously, words are not needed. Energies can relate directly without language. Such a love needs nothing from the other. It is grateful that the other receives something when he offers, or she offers. It never feels in any kind of bondage, because there is none. In such love, sex may happen sometimes, may not happen for months, and finally will disappear completely. In this context, sex is no longer sexual, but only a way of being together, going as deeply as possible into each other, an effort to reach the depths of the other. It has nothing to do with biological reproduction. And once they start understanding that whatsoever they do…. In sex only their bodies can meet, then sex slowly disappears. Then a different kind of meeting starts happening which is just a meeting of energies. Holding hands, sitting together looking at the stars, it is more than any sexual orgasm can give — two energies melting. Sexual orgasm is physical, is bound to be the lowest kind. Orgasm which is not physical has tremendous beauty, and leads finally to self-realization. And if love cannot give you enlightenment, don’t call it love. Love is such a beautiful word. When you say, “Falling in love,” you are using the word in an ugly way. Say “falling in sex”; be true. In love one always rises, never falls. But first you have to come out of the ditch. Help each other. Biology is not going to help. Just be human to each other, and understand the point that the love that was blinding you is no longer there. Your eyes are open. Don’t try to deceive the other that you still love, you still feel, but what to do? This kind of hypocrisy is not good. Simply say, “The feeling is no longer there. I am sad and sorry about it, I would have loved the feeling to be there, but it is not there. And I know it is not there in you either.” Once it is understood that the feeling is gone, now at least, just as human beings, help each other to get out of the ditch. If you help, there is no problem. But instead of helping, each wants to get it finished but doesn’t allow the other to get out of the ditch. They go on pulling each other down. Understand. The reason is fear; the old love is gone, the new has not yet arrived. It cannot arrive in your ditch, you will have to come out first. So the fear is of the unknown. The past was so beautiful you would like to repeat it, so you try to force it, the other tries to force it. But these things are not within your power to force. A forced love is not love. If you have to kiss somebody at the point of a sword — “Kiss!” — what kind of a kiss will that be? Looking at the sword, you may kiss, but it will not be a kiss at all. Any love enforced for any reasons, is not love. And you both know what love is, because you had been in those moments; so you can compare easily that it is not the same thing. Help each other to come out — and it is very easy if you help each other — and part in grace. Next time try not to fall, but try to rise. Don’t let biology dominate you. Your consciousness should be the master. Osho

Never resist pain

NEVER RESIST PAIN.

WHEN PAIN GOES, LOVE ALSO GOES.


NEVER

RESIST

PAIN



WHEN PAIN DIES, LOVE ALSO DIES.

Watch the suffering: you start enjoying

Osho Celebrating Suffering meditation

Osho - "When I say enjoy it I don’t mean become a masochist; I don’t mean create suffering for yourself and enjoy it. I don’t mean: go on, fall down from a cliff, have fractures and then enjoy it. No.

I am not saying be a masochist; I am simply saying suffering is there, you need not seek for it. Enough suffering is there already, you need no go in search. Suffering is already there; life by its very nature creates suffering. Illness is there, death is there, the body is there; by their very nature suffering is created. See it, look at it with a very dispassionate eye. Look at it — what it is, what is happening. Don’t escape.

Immediately the mind says, “Escape from here, don’t look at it.” But if you escape then you cannot be blissful. Next time you fall ill and the doctor suggests to remain in bed. Close your eyes and rest on the bed and just look at the illness. Watch it, what it is. Don’t try to analyze it, don’t go into theories, just watch it, what it is. The whole body tired, feverish — watch it.
 

 

Suddenly, you will feel that you are surrounded by fever but there is a very cool point within you; the fever cannot touch it, cannot influence it. The whole body may be burning but that cool point cannot be touched.

So when you are lying on your bed, feverish, on fire, the whole body burning, just watch it. Watching, you will recede towards the source. Watching, not doing anything.... What can you do? The fever is there, you have to pass through it; it is no use unnecessarily fighting with it. You are resting, and if you fight with the fever you will become more feverish, that’s all. So watch it.

Watching fever, you become cool; watching more, you become cooler. Just watching, you reach to a peak, such a cool peak, even the Himalayas will feel jealous; even their peaks are not so cool. This is the Gourishankar, the Everest within. And when you feel that the fever has disappeared.... It has never really been there; it has only been in the body, very, very far away.

Infinite space exists between you and your body — infinite space, I say. An unbridgeable gap exists between you and your body. And all suffering exists on the periphery. Hindus say it is a dream because the distance is so vast, unbridgeable. It is just like a dream happening somewhere else — not happening to you — in some other world, on some other planet.

When you watch suffering suddenly you are not the sufferer, and you start enjoying. Through suffering you become aware of the opposite pole, the blissful inner being. So when I say enjoy, I am saying: Watch. Return to the source, get centered. Then, suddenly, there is no agony; only ecstasy exists.

Those who are on the periphery exist in agony. For them, no ecstasy. For those who have come to their center no agony exists. For them, only ecstasy.

When I say break the cup it is breaking the periphery. And when I say be totally empty it is coming back to the original source, because through emptiness we are born, and into emptiness we return. Emptiness is the word, really, which is better to use than God, because with God we start feeling there is some person. So Buddha never used “God” he always used shunyata — emptiness, nothingness. In the center you are a nonbeing, nothingness, just a vast space, eternally cool, silent, blissful. So when I say enjoy I mean watch, and you will enjoy. When I say enjoy, I mean don’t escape.

Source: "A Bird on the Wing " - Osho

Remember: Pain is a blessing

In love, pain is a blessing

Love is painful, but the pain is certainly a blessing. Love is painful because love brings growth. Love demands, transforms and is painful because love gives you a new birth.

Love brings your heart into relationship -- and when the heart is in relationship there is always pain. If you avoid the pain, you will miss all pleasures of life. With love you become human; you stand erect on earth. With love you are vertical.

With love are problems. But with problems is growth -- the greater the problem, the greater the opportunity. More and more pain, too.

That's why many people never love -- it is so painful. They never become vertical.

Love never shatters you completely. It simply shatters you a little, a little bit. It shatters the crust of your ego, but the centre of the ego remains intact. Then there is a deeper pain, deeper than love, and that is of prayer -- it shatters you utterly. It is death. When you have learnt how to love, and you have learnt that the pain that love brings is a blessing in disguise, it is beautiful, then you become able and you take another step -- that step is prayer.

All lovers feel a little miserable. They would like to disappear completely, but it is not possible in human relationships. Human relationship is limited. But one learns from it, that there is a possibility: if it can happen so much in a human relationship, how much more can happen in a relationship with the Divine?

Love makes you ready to take the final jump, the quantum leap. That's what I call prayer, or you can call it meditation. You have to disappear for existence to be. Love is a training ground, a school, to learn first lessons -- of the beauty, of the blessing and benediction of disappearance; to learn that pain is blessed.

So when you are in love, or when love arises, cooperate with it, don't try resisting. People come to a compromise. The basic problem that I have been looking at is that lovers by and by come to a compromise. The compromise is: You don't hurt me, I will not hurt you. That's what marriage is. Then people become settled. They become so afraid of pain that they say, "Don't hurt me and I will not hurt you." But then when pain disappears, love also disappears. They exist together.

When you are in love, love hurts. It hurts terribly.

But never resist, never create any barrier for pain. Allow it. And by and by you will see that it was a wrong interpretation. It is not really pain. It is just that something is going so deep in you that you interpret it like a pain. You don't know anything else. You are only aware of pain in your past life, in your past experience. Whenever something penetrates deep, you interpret it as pain.

Don't use the word 'pain'. When love and love's arrow goes deep into your heart, close your eyes and don't use words -- just see what it is, and you will never see it is pain. You will see it is a benediction. You will be tremendously moved by it. You will feel joyous.

:Remember ~ ~

Memory gives enlightenment to your life. When people get enlightened, they say “I remember”. They have remembered their true nature. Being forgetful of your nature is the root cause of all problems and suffering in life. But the very remembrance of your nature, which is godliness, brings freedom. Here memory is your best friend. The purpose of knowledge is to remind you of your true nature.

Understand clearly that everything in the world is impermanent. Understand that which happened in the past is neither living nor real now, and accept those events. Have dispassion and be centered. Increase your prana through meditation and pranayama.

Memory can make you either sad or enlightened. Memory of events, or of trivial experiences will lead you into bondage. On the other hand, memory of yourself will liberate you. The ever changing relativity - however good or bad it may be - will bring you bondage. The unchanging relativity reminds you of yourself. Memory of past events and worries of the world will diminish in the infinity of the self.

You should know where you are and what you are. If you are in ignorance, it is only because of your memory. If you are enlightened, that too is because of your memory. Forgetting life’s trivial things, incidents, and sadness is bliss. Forgetting the infinity is misery.

What is infinity? There is infinity in everything which is finite. In every atom, the distance between two particles is equal to the distance between two galaxies.

After listening to nearly 700 stanzas of the Bhagavad Gita, and after asking innumerable questions, Arjuna tells Krishna, “Smritir labdva karishye vachanam tava,” which means, I have remembered now. Now I have realized my true nature and will do as you say.” Arjuna doesn’t thank Krishna. This means that every thing is there in your memory. Memory gives enlightenment to your life.

Similarly when you regain the memory of “Who am I?” all your meekness will disappear. You will walk with high spirits. You will not experience a lack of anything. When you know that the whole world is there for you, a genuine bravery will arise in you.

Remain with the fact

Remain with the fact.

Osho - If others’ opinions are still important, You are not Silent

Question - The practice of Witnessing makes me quiet, still, and silent, but then the friends around me say that i have become serious. There seems to be some substance in what they say. Please explain how one can grow simultaneously in stillness and playfulness.”

Osho - If you have really become silent, you will not pay attention to what others are saying. If others’ opinions are still important, you are not silent. Really, you are waiting for them to say something or for them to approve and appreciate that you have become silent. Your silence needs their approval? You need them to certify it? Then you are not confident that you have become silent.

Others’ opinions are meaningful only because you don’t know anything. Opinion is never knowledge. You go on gathering others’ opinions because you don’t know what you are, who you are, what is happening to you. You have to ask others, ”What is happening to me?” You have to ask others? If you are really silent, quiet, still, then there are no friends and no opinion is meaningful. Then you can laugh. Let them say whatsoever they say.

But you become affected. Whatsoever they say goes deep in you; you become disturbed. Your silence is false, forced, cultivated. It is not a spontaneous flowering within you. You may have forced yourself to be silent, but you were boiling within. Then the silence is just on the surface. If someone says you are not silent, or if someone says this is not good, or if someone says this is false, then you are disturbed and the silence is gone. The silence is gone, that is why you are asking me this.
 

”THERE SEEMS TO BE SOME SUBSTANCE IN WHAT THEY SAY.” You have become serious. So what is wrong in being serious? If you are born serious, to be serious, you will be serious. You cannot force playfulness; otherwise your playfulness will be serious, and you will destroy the whole play. There are serious players. They get so serious in their games and plays that it becomes even more anxiety-creating.

I was reading the memoirs of someone who was a great industrialist, much worried with day-to-day problems. Someone suggested golf: ”Play golf. That will be anxiety-reducing.” He started playing golf, but he was the same man. He became so excited about his golf that he couldn’t sleep, he was playing the whole night. The industry was a burden, and now golf became a second burden – and a stronger one. He played golf, but with a serious mind, the same mind.

If you are serious, you are serious. Nothing can he done about it. Be serious and remain serious. Then you have already started being playful; then you are playful about your seriousness, not serious about it. You take it as a play, so you say, ”Okay, God has given me this role, so I will be a serious man and I will play my seriousness.” Then it will have disappeared deep down. Do you understand me?

You can create seriousness out of your playfulness or you can create playfulness out of your
seriousness. If you are a sad one, a serious one, tell everyone, ”I am born serious and I am going to remain so” – and don’t get serious about it. Be! Simply be, and then you can laugh about it and it will disappear. And you will not even become aware of when it has disappeared.

And don’t pay attention to what others say. This is a disease. They will drive you crazy – the others. Who are these others and why are you so much interested in them? They drive you crazy and you drive them crazy because you are the other to them. Why pay so much importance to others’ opinions? Pay attention to your own experiences and remain true to your own experiences. If you feel good in being serious, it is okay! If you feel you have become quiet and silent and still through your practice of witnessing, why be interested and why be disturbed by what others say?

But we are not confident, so we must gather others’ opinions. We must go on a signature campaign: ”You think I have become a buddha, so please sign.” When everyone signs it and you have gathered many signatures, at least the majority, you think you are a buddha. This is not the way to be an enlightened one.

”AND PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW ONE CAN GROW SIMULTANEOUSLY IN STILLNESS AND
PLAYFULNESS.” One grows! There has never been any case that is otherwise. One grows
simultaneously in stillness and playfulness, but if your stillness is false then the problem arises. All those who have known silence have always been playful, non-serious. They could laugh, and they could laugh not only at others, they could laugh at themselves.

Bodhidharma entered China fourteen hundred years ago, from India. He put one of his shoes on his head; one was on one of his feet and one was on his head. The Emperor of China, Wu, had come to welcome him. He became disturbed. There were many, many rumors, of course, that this man was strange, but he was an enlightened one and the emperor wanted to welcome him to his Kingdom. He became disturbed. His courtiers, they also became disturbed. What type of man was this? And he was laughing.

It was not good to say anything before others, so when everyone had gone and Bodhidharma and the emperor retired into Bodhidharma’s room, the emperor asked, ”Please tell me, why are you making such a fool of yourself? Why are you carrying one shoe on your head?”

Bodhidharma laughed and said, ”Because I can laugh at myself, and it is good to show you my reality. I am such a man, and I don’t pay more importance to my head than I pay to my feet; both are the same to me. Higher and lower have disappeared. And, moreover, I want to tell you that I don’t pay any significance to what others say about me. This is good. The first moment that I entered, I wanted you to know what type of man I am.”

This Bodhidharma was a rare jewel; very few have existed who can be compared to him. What was he showing? He is simply showing that on this path of spirituality you are to go alone as an individual. Society becomes irrelevant.

Someone had come to do an interview with George Gurdjieff. The man who came was a big
journalist. Gurdjieff’s disciples were very much excited because now the story was going to be in a big newspaper, and their master’s photo and their master’s news was going to be published. They cared very much; they paid much attention to the journalist. They virtually forgot their master, and they hung around the journalist. Then the interview began, but really, it never began. When the journalist asked some questions to Gurdjieff, Gurdjieff said, ”Wait a minute.”

Just by his side was sitting a lady. Gurdjieff asked, ”What day is today?” The lady said, ”Sunday.” Gurdjieff said, ”How is that possible? Just the day before it was Saturday, so how can it be Sunday today? Just the other day you said it is Saturday, and now it is Sunday. How, after Saturday, can Sunday come?”

The journalist stood up. He said, ”I am going. This man seems to be mad.” All the disciples just couldn’t understand what had happened. When the journalist had left, Gurdjieff was laughing. What others say is not relevant. Be authentic to what you feel, but be authentic! If real silence happens to you, you will be able to laugh.

It is said about Do-zen, one Zen master, that when he attained enlightenment many people asked, ”What did you do after that?” He said, ”I ordered a cup of tea.” What is there to do next? Everything is finished. And Do-zen was serious about his playfulness, playful about his seriousness. Really, what remains? Don’t pay much attention to what others say and remember only one thing: don’t force and cultivate stillness. A cultivated stillness will be serious, ill, tense. But how can a real silence come to you?

Try to understand this. You are tense, you are unhappy, you are depressed, angry, greedy, violent. A thousand diseases are there. Still, you can practice silence. These diseases will be within you, and you can create a layer of silence. You can do transcendental meditation; you can use a mantra. The mantra is not going to change your violence, neither is it going to change your greed. It is not going to change anything deep. The mantra can just give a tranquilizing effect. Just on the periphery, you will feel more silent. This is just a tranquilizer, a sound tranquilizer, and tranquilizing is possible through many ways – many ways. When you repeat a mantra continuously, you become sleepy. Any continuous repetition of a sound creates boredom and sleep. You feel relaxed, but this relaxation is just on the surface. Within, you remain the same.

Go on practicing a mantra every day, and you will feel a certain stillness – but not really, because your diseases have not changed, your personality structure remains the same. It is just whitewashed. Stop the mantra, stop the practice, and all your diseases will come up again.

This is happening everywhere. Seekers move from one teacher to another. They go on moving, practicing, and when they stop their practice they find they are the same; nothing has happened. Nothing will happen in this way. These are cultivated silences. You have to go on cultivating them. Of course, if you go on cultivating them, they remain with you just like a habit, but if you break the habit they disappear. A real silence comes not by just using some superficial technique, but by being aware of all that you are – not only being aware, but remaining with the fact of what you are.

Remain with the fact. This is very difficult because the mind wants change. How to change
violence, how to change depression, how to change unhappiness? The mind seeks change to
create somehow a better image in the future. Because of this, one goes on seeking this and that method.

Remain with the fact, and don’t try to change it. Do this for one year. Fix a date, and say that ”From this date, for one year, I will not think in terms of change. I will remain with whatsoever I am; I will just be alert and aware.” I am not saying that you are not to do anything, but that alertness is the only effort. You have to be alert, not thinking in terms of change; remaining whatsoever you are – good, bad or whatsoever. One year, with no attitude of change, just being alert, suddenly one day you will find you are no more the same. Alertness will have changed everything.

In Zen, they call it ”zazen” – just sitting and doing nothing. Whatsoever happens, happens; you are just sitting. Zazen means just sitting, doing nothing. In Zen monasteries, monks will sit for years, the whole day. You will think they are meditating. They are not! They are just sitting silently. And by silence it is not that they are using some mantra to create any silence; they are simply sitting. If a leg goes dead, they feel it. They are alert. If the body feels tired, they are alert: the body feels tired. This is how the body has to feel. If thoughts are moving, they know it. They are not trying to stop them; they are not trying to push them away. They are not doing anything. Thoughts are just there like clouds in the sky, but they know the clouds cannot destroy the sky: they come and go. So thoughts are moving in the sky of consciousness; they come and go. They don’t force them, they don’t stop them, they don’t do anything;. They are just alert that the thoughts are moving.

Sometimes depression comes, a cloud; everything becomes shadowy. Sometimes happiness
comes, a sunshine; everything starts dancing, as if flowers have opened all over the consciousness. But they are not disturbed by either this or that, by cloudy weather or by sunshine. They just wait and see that things are moving. They are just sitting on the bank of a river, and everything goes on moving. They don’t try to change anything. If a bad thought comes, they don’t say, ”This is bad,” because the moment you say, ”This is bad,” you have a greed to change it. The moment you say, ”This is bad,” you have pushed it away; you have condemned it, and you would like to change it into something good. They simply say this is this, that is that – no condemnation, no evaluation, no justification. Simply, watching, witnessing. Sometimes they forget witnessing. Then too they are not disturbed. They know that ”Of course it is so,” that ”I forgot to witness; now I remember and I will witness again.” They don’t create any problem. They live what is. Years come and go, and they go on sitting and seeing what is.

Then one day everything disappears. Just like a dream, everything disappears and you are
awakened. This awakening is not a practiced thing; this awakening is not cultivated. This awakening is your nature, your basic nature. It has erupted because you could wait patiently and watch, and you didn’t create any problems. Remember this as a very basic thing: don’t create problems. don’t create problems!

One lady was here just two or three days ago. She said, ”My mind is sexual, so what can I do?” Someone else came and said, ”I feel very inferior; an inferiority complex is there. What can I do?”
So I told that man, ”You feel inferior, so feel inferior; know that you feel like that. What to do? There is nothing to do. One feels sexual, so feel sexual. Know that you are sexual.” But the moment I say such things to someone, he feels shocked. He had come for a technique to change himself.

No one accepts himself; you are such enemies to yourself. You have never had any love for yourself; you have never been at ease with yourself. And this is surprising: you expect everyone to love you, and you yourself cannot even love yourself. You are so against yourself, you would like to shatter yourself in every way and create another. If you were allowed you would create another man. And you would not be satisfied with that either because you would still remain behind it.

Love yourself, accept yourself, and don’t create unnecessary problems. And all problems are
unnecessary; there are no necessary problems. I have not come across any. Remain with your ”facticity,” and transformation will happen. But it is not a result, you cannot force it to happen. It is a consequence, not a result. If you accept yourself and remain alert, it comes. You cannot force it, you cannot say that ”I will force it to come.” And if you force, a false thing will happen to you, and then that false thing can be disturbed by anyone -by anyone –

Source - Osho Book  "Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1"

*Intelligent Person*

Question - Can you please speak on your vision of an intelligent person?

Osho - Gyan Rasiko, EVERY CHILD is born intelligent, and every grown-up person behaves like an unintelligent person. This is one of the strangest things, because intelligence is a God-given gift and he is not a miser. He gives to everybody out of his abundance, out of his overflowing intelligence, bliss, love. Everybody comes so rich and everybody becomes so poor! What goes wrong?

The society does not want you to be intelligent. The wants you to be mediocre because it is easy for the society to enslave the mediocre person. It is easy for the manipulators, and they' are many -- the priest, the politician, the pedagogue, the pundit, they are all manipulators -- it is easy for them to manipulate you if you don't have intelligence, because you are bound to depend on them, you have to depend on them. You have to look up to them always for guidance. You will need leaders if you are unintelligent. You will need religious mediators between you and God if you are unintelligent. And you will always be afraid of powerful people because they know more. You will be continuously in fear.
 

 

The society functions in such a way: the whole educational system is created not to serve you but to serve the vested interests. From the kindergarten to the university they are serving the vested interests; they are making you more and more stupid.

It is said that when Henry Thoreau came out of the university, Emerson gave a great party to celebrate the occasion. And he told the participants, "I am giving this party not because Thoreau has attained great knowledge in the university but because he has been able to come back from the university and he is still intelligent. The university has not been able to change his intelligence. The university has failed, that's why I am giving this party! I respect this young man for the simple reason that he has escaped from the whole cunning strategy that our education is."

Intelligence simply means ability to respond, because life is a flux. You have to be aware and to see what is demanded of you, what is the challenge of the situation. The intelligent person behaves according to the situation and the stupid behaves according to the ready-made answers. Whether they come from Buddha, Christ or Krishna, it does not matter. He always carries scriptures around himself; he is afraid to depend on himself. The intelligent person depends on his own insight; he trusts his own being. He loves and respects himself. The unintelligent person respects others.

And you can see the point. Why are the vested interests interested in creating stupidity? -- because that is the way they will be getting respect. No parents really want their children to be intelligent, because if the children are intelligent they are rebellious too, they are disobedient too. Obedience has been imposed on you as a great value; it is not a great value. It is one of the basic causes of the destruction of your intelligence.
I am not saying be disobedient. I am simply saying when you feel like being obedient, be obedient; when you feel like being disobedient, be true to yourself. Your only responsibility is towards yourself and nobody else.

An intelligent person risks. He will be ready to die rather than to compromise. Of course, he will not fight, as the Desiderata says, with unnecessary things, with non-essentials, but as far as essentials are concerned he is not going to be obedient. And you have obeyed even about the essentials. What is your belief in God? You have simply obeyed. What do you know about God? You have simply obeyed; you have followed your parents, they followed their parents. And parents are happy with unintelligent children because they are obedient they have to be obedient. They know one thing, that whatsoever they do is bound to be wrong, so it is better to listen to the parents' advice.

For thousands of years every society has been telling children, "Respect your parents," because they are afraid of children -- they may not respect their parents. And I am not saying disrespect your parents. I am simply saying: the first respect has to be towards yourself. Out of that respect you can respect your parents, your teachers -- you can respect everybody. But if you don't respect yourself your respect for anybody else is going to be pseudo; deep down there will be hatred. Each child hates... deep down he knows that "The parents are my enemies." He can see how his intelligence is being cut.

Just the other day Laxmi was telling me that a few of our sannyasins had made a small drama, and Veereshwar, who is a Ph.D., was quoting me -- he was the chief actor. And Subhuti was there and he reported to Laxmi, "Of course he was quoting Osho, but when Osho says the same things they have a totally different flavor, and when Veereshwar was quoting, the words were the same, but the context was missing, and he made everything ugly." Subhuti felt almost sick; he felt like vomiting. What happened? Veereshwar was just quoting words, borrowed; of those words he has no experience.

Remember always: never be repetitive. Don't repeat anybody. Let your experience blossom. And just the other night Vivek told me that the kids, the ashram kids, small sannyasins, did the same kind of drama and it was tremendously beautiful. Little Siddhartha was acting like Shiva, a samurai, and he did perfectly well. And they were absolutely unselfconscious; they were not worried about the audience. The place was packed, and the kids were enjoying themselves immensely.

A very proper English girl comes into the ashram -- because the ashram was being enacted -- and Siddhartha is standing outside like a samurai, and he stops her and says, "This is darshan time and you cannot go in! And first you have to leave your mind where the shoes are left!" And he was not worried about the audience, what was happening. He was enjoying himself. And the whole thing was far more intelligent.

And a reporter comes into the drama, a small kid with a camera, and he wants to take photographs of the Encounter Group and Leela and Tantra. And he says, "I am from the Times of India and I am going to write a beautiful article." And the samurais throw him out, and they enjoy the whole thing! This was totally different. This has beauty.

A young mother says that after putting her two children to bed one night she changed into a floppy blouse and an old pair of slacks and proceeded to wash her hair. All during the shampoo she could hear the children growing wilder and noisier. Finishing as hurriedly as possible she wrapped a large towel around her head, stormed into their room and put them back to bed with a stern warning to stay there.
As she left she heard the two-year-old say to his sister in a trembling voice, "Who was that?"

This is intelligence! But the society is not interested in intelligent people. It is not interested in sannyasins, it is interested in soldiers. It wants to create soldiers. Soldiers are the most stupid people; unless you are stupid you cannot be a good soldier. The greater you are in your stupidity the better, as far as being a soldier is concerned.

As the last soldier was about to jump from the airplane, he panicked, grabbed hold of his sergeant and said, "What happens if my second parachute doesn't open either?"
"Don't worry," said the sergeant with a smile. "Just come back and I will give you a new one!"

Intelligence can be rediscovered. The only method to rediscover it is meditation. Meditation only does one thing: it destroys all the barriers that the society has created to prevent you from being intelligent. It simply removes the blocks. Its function is negative: it removes the rocks that are preventing your waters from flowing, your springs from becoming alive. Everybody is carrying the great potential, but society has put great rocks to prevent it. It has created China Walls around you; it has imprisoned you.

If you are a Christian you are imprisoned by the Christian priests. If you are a Hindu you are imprisoned by Hindu priests. Your prisons are different; maybe their architecture is different, the rooms are made differently, with different material. And maybe a few prisons are more comfortable than others, more sophisticated than others. Of course the American prison is better than the Indian prison, far better, more comfortable: the radio is available, the TV is available to the prisoner. The Indian prison is bound to be Indian. Indians are living in such an uncomfortable way, how can they provide television and radio and comfort to the prisoners? Impossible. They are there to be punished; they cannot be allowed to enjoy.

Christianity may be a little better prison than Mohammedanism, but a prison is a prison. And in fact a better prison is far more dangerous because you may start clinging to it, you may not like to get out of it; you may start loving it as if it is your home. But these are all prisons. And sometimes people get fed up with one prison and they change their prisons. The Hindu becomes the Christian, the Christian becomes the Hindu. Now there are many foolish Christians who have become Hare Krishna people -- the same stupidity but masquerading in a new form. There are many Hindus who have become Christians, but the same superstitiousness persists; there is no difference at all. I have seen those Hindus who have become Christians -- no change. I have seen those Christians who have become Hindus -- no change. They have just changed the prison.

To come out of all prisons is intelligence -- and never to get into another again. Intelligence can be discovered through meditation because all those prisons exist in your mind; they cannot reach your being, fortunately. They cannot pollute your being, they can only pollute your mind -- they can only cover your mind. If you can get out of the mind you will get out of Christianity, Hinduism. Jainism, Buddhism, and all kinds of rubbish will be just finished. You can come to a full stop. And when you are out of the mind, watching it, being aware of it, just being a witness, you are intelligent. Your intelligence is discovered. You have undone what the society has done to you. YOU have destroyed the mischief; you have destroyed the conspiracy of the priests and the politicians. YOU have come out of it, you are a free man. In fact you are for the first time a real man, an authentic man. Now the whole sky is yours. Intelligence brings freedom, intelligence brings spontaneity.

A little colored soldier tried to break out of camp and was stopped by the guard. Our hero challenged the guard with: "I've got a mother in Heaven, a father in Hell, and a girl in Harlem, and I'm gonna see one of them tonight!"

Must have been an intelligent person -- as if the whole army training has failed! YOU see his response.

Annalisa and Roberta, two Rome hotel chambermaids, were talking when the bell rang and Annalisa had to go up to the room of an American tourist. He pushed her down on the bed, took his will, and in less than five minutes she was back downstairs.
"What did he want?" asked Roberta.
"I dunno. I think he must-a forgot-a himself!"

People go on living in such an unconscious way. They become accustomed to things, when they don't see. They become accustomed to certain rituals; their whole lives are ritualistic. They go on making empty gestures; they don't mean anything. A stupid person behaves mechanically: an intelligent person behaves consciously. It is only through meditation that it will be possible for you to get back, to claim back your intelligence. The society has repressed your greatest treasure; it has hidden your greatest energy from you. It has deprived you of your true being; it has perverted you. And it goes on saying that it is done for your sake. Man has been exploited, oppressed in every possible way.

The time is ripe now for a great rebellion to destroy all these walls, all these rocks, to destroy all this repressed structure, because whenever anything is repressed... If intelligence is repressed it becomes stupidity. If sex is repressed then it starts moving into directions of perversion: it may become homosexuality, it may take some other forms, it may become greed.

Greed means now you feel excited only, sexually excited, with money -- money is your object of love. It may become politics; then power is your object of love. Then you are simply living an unnatural life, because power cannot fulfill your love, neither can money fulfill your love. But you have completely forgotten what has happened, why you have become so much interested in money. Why do people cling to money so deeply? Use the money, but don't cling to it. Why do people become so ambitious? And why is there so much sexual perversion in the world? It is because of repression. Every repression destroys something in you.

Gino went to an optometrist and asked for a new pair of glasses.
"But you just got a new pair last week."
"I know," said Gino, "but I got them-a broken in an accident."
"How?" asked the optometrist.
"I was kissing my girl," said the Italian.
"How the hell could you break your glasses kissing a girl?"
"She crossed her legs!"

Fitzgerald went to a bar for five consecutive nights and watched Manzini sitting over in a corner booth. It was an incredible sight. Good-looking, wildly-shaped girls, alone or in groups of two or three, would wander in and soon make their way to the weird-looking Manzini.
"I don't understand it," grumbled Fitzgerald to the bartender. "I don't see how the Eye-talian does it."
"Me either," says the barkeep. "I been watching him for weeks. He certainly ain't handsome, he is a lousy dresser, and he hardly never says a word. The guy just sits there, licking his eyebrows!"

Meditation can bring you to your nature. It can help you to drop all the perversions. It can make you intelligent, it can make you loving, it can make you spontaneous, it can make you responsible. It can make you a benediction to yourself and to existence. Except meditation there is no other method which can help. This is the key, the master key.
Let me repeat: intelligence is your nature. All that is needed is to discover it, because it has been hidden from you for certain reasons by people who are powerful and who want to remain in power. Of course they will not like it.

That's why they are against me. They CANNOT like it -- I am creating trouble for them. The more people become meditators, the more people become sannyasins, the less is the possibility of oppressing them, of exploiting them. And the orange people are spreading all over the world. It is an atomic explosion! Within six years thousands of people around the world have been transformed to a new vision, to a new lifestyle. They have been given back their individuality, their authenticity, their intelligence.

Now nobody can exploit them. Hence it is certainly a rare phenomenon that I am condemned by Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, Jainas, Sikhs, Parsis, Jews, everybody -- I am condemned by the religious, the so-called religious -- AND by the politicians, by the journalists, by the so-called intelligentsia, the writers, the critics, because they are all part of a conspiracy against man. And I want to destroy that conspiracy totally. Only then can a new man be introduced on the earth. And the earth is waiting for the new man. The new man will be the salt of the earth. He will bring with him joy, dance, celebration.

Source - from Osho Book "Guida Spirituale"