Many times I have heard his thoughts and have remained silent. Once he asked me my opinion about him. I said only the truth. I said, in accumulating thoughts about God, he had lost God. Certainly, he appeared to be shocked.

Truth Is Not Contained in the Scriptures

Later he came again to question me further in this connection. Coming to me he said, “It is only by study and contemplation that truth can be attained. There is no other way. Knowledge, of course, is everything.”

How Many People Have This False Notion?

I ask only one question to all such people; I asked the same to him: What is study, and what thereby happens within you? Does a dimension of new vision take birth in you? Does consciousness rise to new heights and levels? Does any revolution take place in your  being? Do you become different from what you are now? Or do you remain the same with only a few more thoughts and bits of information becoming part of your memory?

Through study, only the memory is trained, and on the surface of the mind more dust of thought settles. Nothing more happens, nor can happen, through it. No change happens at the center through it: the consciousness remains the same, the dimensions of experience remain the same.

Related » Osho Tells a Story of Enlightenment

Can There Be Knowledge of the Unknowable?

To know something about truth and to know truth are two totally different things. ‘To know about truth’ pertains to intellect; ‘to know truth’ pertains to consciousness.

In order to know truth, a total awakening of consciousness — the absence of the unconscious — is essential. By training memory and so-called knowledge, this cannot happen.

What has not been known from oneself is not knowledge. The intellectual information about truth, the unknown truth, is only an appearance of knowledge. It is false and is an obstacle on the path of right-knowledge.

There is no path through the known for knowing what is in fact unknowable. It is totally new; it is such that it has never been known before. Hence, memory is not capable of delivering it, or even of recognizing it. Memory can deliver or recognize only that which has been known before. It is only a repetition of the known.

Also read » Osho Explains Why We Choose Misery Instead of Bliss

Want to Know the Truth? Empty Your Mind

But for the arrival of the new, the entirely new, the unknown and unfamiliar, the memory has to stand outside. The memory and all known thoughts will have to stand aside so that the new may be born, so that ‘what is’ may be known exactly as it is. All of man’s conceptions and prejudices have to stand aside for its arrival.

Only the mind devoid of thoughts, memories and conceptions is conscious, awakened. Only with an empty mind does the transformation at the center take place, and the door to truth opens up. Before this, everything is a mere wandering and a waste of life.

Excerpted from Seeds of Wisdom: 120 Letters by Osho | Courtesy: Osho International Foundation

The post Looking for the Truth? Empty Your Mind, says Osho appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Whenever such a thing happens, there are four persons in the relationship, not two. Two false persons go on meeting, and the two real persons remain worlds apart.

Risk is there. If you become true, nobody knows whether this relationship will be capable of understanding truth, authenticity; whether this relationship will be strong enough to stand in the storm. There is a risk – and because of it, people remain very very guarded. They say things which should be said; they do things which should be done. Love becomes more or less like a duty. But then the reality remains hungry, and the essence is not fed. So the essence becomes more and more sad. The lies of the personality are a very heavy burden on the essence, on the soul.

Risk Everything for Truth

The risk is real, and there is no guarantee for it – but I will tell you that the risk is worth taking. At the most, the relationship can break – at the most. But it is better to be separate and to be real rather than being unreal and together – because then it is never going to be satisfying. Benediction will never come out of it. You will remain hungry and thirsty, and you will go on dragging, just waiting for some miracle to happen.

For the miracle to happen you will have to do something, and that is – start being true, at the risk that maybe the relationship is not strong enough and may not be able to bear it. The truth may be unbearable – but then that relationship is not worthwhile. So that test has to be passed.

Risk everything for truth, otherwise you will remain discontented. You will do many things, but nothing will really happen to you. You will move much, but you will never arrive anywhere, mm? The whole effect will be almost absurd.

It is as if you are hungry and you simply fantasize about food; beautiful, delicious. But fantasy is fantasy – it is not real. You cannot eat unreal food. For moments you can delude yourself – you can live in a dreamlike world – but a dream is not going to give you anything. It will take many things from you – and it will not give you anything in return.

The time that you are using with a false personality is simply wasted; it will never come back to you again. Those same moments could have been real, authentic. Even a single moment of authenticity is better than a whole life of inauthentic living. So don’t be afraid. The mind will say to you to go on safeguarding the other and yourself, to keep safe. That’s how millions of people are living.

Lies Are Sweet, But Unreal

Freud, in his last days, wrote in a letter to a friend that as far as he had observed — And he really observed deeply — nobody has observed so deeply, so penetratingly, so persistently and so scientifically. Freud says in the letter that as far as he has observed through his life, one conclusion seems absolutely certain – that people cannot live without lies.

Truth is dangerous. Lies are very sweet, but unreal. Delicious… you go on saying sweet nothings to your lover, and he goes on whispering in your ear sweet – but – nothings. And meanwhile life goes on slipping out of your hands, and everybody is coming closer and closer to death.

Before death comes, remember one thing – that love has to be lived before death happens. Otherwise you live in vain, and the whole of your life will be futile – a desert. Before death comes, make it a certainty that love has happened. But that is possible only with the truth.

Also read » Celebrate the Differences in Your Marriage, says Osho

Never Sacrifice Truth for Anything

So be true. Risk everything for truth, and never risk truth for anything else. Let this be the fundamental law – even if I have to sacrifice myself, my life, I am going to sacrifice it for truth but truth I will never sacrifice for anything – and tremendous happiness will be yours; undreamed of benedictions will shower on you.

Once you are true, everything else becomes possible. If you are false – just a facade, a painted thing, a face, a mask – nothing is possible. Because with the false, only false happens; with the truth, truth.

Move Into it

I understand your problem. That is the problem of all lovers – that deep down they are afraid. They go on wondering whether this relationship will be strong enough to bear truth. But how can you know beforehand? There is no a priori knowledge. One has to move into it to know it.

How are you to know, sitting inside your house, whether you will be able to withstand the storm and the wind outside? You have never been in the storm. Go and see. Trial and error is the only way – go and see. Maybe you will be defeated, but even in that defeat you will have become stronger than you are right now.

If one experience defeats you – and another, and another – by and by the very going through the storm will make you stronger and stronger and stronger. A day comes when one simply starts delighting in the storm, one simply starts dancing in the storm. Then the storm is not the enemy. That too is an opportunity – a wild opportunity – to be.

Also read » To Be Whole, Learn to Be Detached, says Osho

Beauty and Love Is Found Outside the Comfort Zone

Remember, being never happens comfortably – otherwise it would have happened to all. Remember, being cannot happen conveniently – otherwise everybody would have being without any problem. Being happens only when you take risk, when you move in danger. And love is the greatest danger there is. It demands you totally.

So don’t be afraid – go into it. If the relationship survives truth, it will be beautiful. If it dies, then too it is good because one false relationship has ended, and now you will be more capable of moving into another relationship… truer, more solid, more concerning the essence.

But remember always, falsity never pays. It appears to, but it never pays. Only truth does… and in the beginning, truth never looks like it is going to pay. It seems it will shatter everything. If you look at it from the outside, truth looks very very dangerous, terrible. But this is an outside view. If you go in, truth is the only beautiful thing. And once you start cherishing it, tasting it, you will demand more and more because it will bring contentment.

The post Osho on Relationships: Risk Everything for Truth appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

It is less like a flower and more like fragrance. You can feel it but you cannot catch hold of it. You can be overwhelmed by it but you cannot possess it.

My God is not something objective, there.
My God is your very subjectivity, here.
My God can never be indicated by the word “that.”
He can only be indicated by the word “this.”

The God of my vision and experience is not to be searched for in the synagogues, temples, mosques, churches, in the Himalayas, in the monasteries. He is not there because He is always here. And you go on looking for Him there.

When I say every child’s original face is the face of God, I am saying that God is synonymous with life, existence. Whatsoever is, is divine, sacred. And there is nothing other than God. God is not to be understood as quantity, but as quality. You cannot measure it. You cannot make a statue of it, you cannot draw a picture of it. In that sense it is absolutely impersonal. And if you look at the faces of children when they arrive, fresh from the very source of life, you will see a certain presence which cannot be named – unnameable, indefinable.

The Child Is Full of Life

The child is alive. You cannot define its aliveness, but it is there, you can feel it. It is so much there that howsoever blind you are you cannot miss it. It is fresh. You can smell the freshness around a child.

That fragrance slowly, slowly disappears. And if, unfortunately, the child becomes successful—a celebrity, a president, a prime minister, a pope—then the same child, now an adult, stinks.

He had come with a tremendous fragrance, immeasurable, indefinable, unnameable. You look into the eyes of a child—you cannot find anything deeper. The eyes of a child are abysmal, there is no bottom to them. Unfortunately, the way society will destroy him, soon his eyes will be only superficial; because of layers and layers of conditioning, that depth, that immense depth will have disappeared long before. And that was his original face.

The child has no thoughts. About what can he think? Thinking needs a past, thinking needs problems. He has no past, he has only future. He has no problems yet, he is without problems. There is no possibility of thinking for him. What can he think? The child is conscious but without thoughts.

This is the original face of the child.

Rediscover Your Original Face

Once this was your face too, and although you have forgotten it, it is still there within you, waiting someday to be rediscovered. I am saying re-discovered because you have discovered it many times in your previous lives, and again and again you go on forgetting it.

Perhaps even in this life there have been moments when you have come very close to knowing it, to feeling it, to being it. But the world is too much with us. Its pull is great – and there are a thousand and one directions in which the world is pulling you. It is pulling you in so many directions that you are falling apart. It is a miracle how people go on managing to keep themselves together. Otherwise their one hand will be going to the north, another hand to the south, their head must be going towards heaven; all their parts will be flying all over the place.

It is certainly a miracle how you go on keeping yourself together. Perhaps the pressure from all sides is too much so that your hands and legs and heads cannot fly. You are pressed from everywhere.

Paperweights Keep You From Flying

Whenever I see… and I don’t know why people go on sending me beautiful paperweights—I don’t have any papers. What am I going to do with paperweights? Perhaps they think there are hundreds of books in my name so there must be so much paperwork around me, all over my room papers and papers. There is not a single paper.

Yes, paperweights go on coming, and whenever a paperweight comes I am immediately reminded of you. You would have been flying like papers in the strong wind, but there are so many paperweights to keep you pressed and give you an idea that you are one individual. You are not—you are many, and in the crowd of this “many-ness” of your existence, your original face is lost.

The Stranger in You

Even if by chance you happen to meet your original face, you will not be able to recognise it, it will be such a stranger. Perhaps you come across it once in a while, just by accident, but you don’t even say Hi! It is a stranger and perhaps deep down, a certain fear – that is always there with every stranger.

That’s why people try to become acquainted, introduced to strangers, the sooner the better. They don’t want to be left in that state of fear, that somebody is absolutely unknown to them. They don’t know what he can do, what he intends to do, what kind of person he is. Maybe he is a murderer, a thief.

Let the Child Explore the Unknown

You are asking me how we can save the original face of our children.

You don’t have to do anything directly. Anything done directly will be a disturbance. You have to learn the art of non-doing. That is a very difficult art.

It is not something that you have to do to protect, to save, the original face of the child. Whatever you do will distort the original face. You have to learn non-doing; you have to learn to keep away, out of the way of the child. You have to be very courageous because it is risky to leave the child to himself.

You cannot give anything to the child, you can only take. If you really want to give a gift to the child, this is the only gift possible: don’t interfere. Take the risk and let the child go into the unknown, into the uncharted. It is difficult. Great fear grips the parents – who knows what will happen to the child? Out of this fear they start moulding a certain pattern of life for the child. Out of fear they start directing him into a particular way, towards a particular goal, but they don’t know that because of their fear they are killing the child. He will never be blissful. And he will never be grateful to you; he will always carry a grudge against you.

The Original Face of the Child Is Priceless

For thousands of years we have been told, if the child is left to himself he will be a savage. That is sheer nonsense. I am sitting before you—do you think I am a savage? And I have lived without being interfered with by my parents. Yes, there was much trouble for them and there will be much trouble for you too, but it is worth it.

The original face of the child is so valuable that any trouble is worth it. It is so priceless that whatsoever you have to pay for it, it is still cheap; you are getting it without paying anything. And the joy on the day you find your child with his original face intact, with the same beauty that he had brought into the world, the same innocence, the same clarity, the same joyfulness, cheerfulness, the same aliveness …. What more can you expect?

The post Osho’s Solid Advice on Raising a Child appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

A similar thing has happened with the soul of man. There also many particles of dust have become guests, and man’s true nature is covered by them. It is as though in the crowd of guests the host is lost beyond recognition—something similar has happened.

Who Is the Host?

But for those who want to know the meaning of life and encounter truth, it is necessary to recognize in the crowd of guests the one who is not a guest, but the host. Without knowing this host, life is just somnambulism. Wakefulness begins with the recognition of the host. That recognition is self-realization. Through that recognition the acquaintance with that which is eternal, pure, buddha nature happens.

The light does not become impure because of the dust particles – nor does the soul. The light becomes dull, the soul becomes forgotten.

What kind of dust particles are there on the light of the soul? All that has come into me from the outside is that dust. What is in me other than that is my buddha nature. All that has been attained and accumulated by the sense-organs is dust.

My True Nature

What is there in me which has not been attained by the sense-organs? Form, taste, smell, touch, sound—apart from these what else is there in me? That which has not been attained by the sense-organs is truth, consciousness. It has not come from the sense-organs, rather it is behind them.

This consciousness alone is my true nature. Everything else is alien, dust. This alone is the host—all the rest are guests. This consciousness alone is to be known and uncovered. Only in this consciousness is attained that wealth which is imperishable.

The post Osho Reflects on His True Nature appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

A real education will not teach you to compete; it will teach you to cooperate. It will not teach you to fight and come first. It will teach you to be creative, to be loving, to be blissful, without comparing yourself to others. It will not teach you that you can be happy only when you are the first—that is sheer nonsense. You can’t be happy just by being first, and in trying to be first you go through such misery that by the time you become the first you are habituated to misery.

By the time you become the president or the prime minister of a country you have gone through such misery that now misery is your second nature. You don’t know now any other way to exist; you remain miserable. Tension has become ingrained; anxiety has become your way of life. You don’t know any other way; this is your very lifestyle. So even though you have become the first, you remain cautious, anxious, afraid. It does not change your inner quality at all.

A real education will not teach you to be the first. It will tell you to enjoy whatever you are doing, not for the result, but for the act itself. Just like a painter or a dancer or a musician…

There’s no virtue in competition

You can paint in two ways. You can paint to compete with other painters; you want to be the greatest painter in the world, you want to be a Picasso or a Van Gogh. Then your painting will be second-rate, because your mind is not interested in painting itself; it is interested in being the first, the greatest painter in the world. You are not going deep into the art of painting. You are not enjoying it, you are only using it as a stepping-stone.

You are on an ego trip, and the problem is that to really be a painter, you have to drop the ego completely. To really be a painter, the ego has to be put aside. Only then can existence flow through you. Only then can your hands and your fingers and your brush be used as vehicles. Only then can something of superb beauty be born.

Real beauty is never created by you but only through you. Existence flows; you become only a passage. You allow it to happen, that’s all; you don’t hinder it.

But if you are too interested in the result, the ultimate result—that you have to become famous, that you have to be the best painter in the world, that you have to defeat all other painters hitherto—then your interest is not in painting; painting is secondary. And of course, with a secondary interest in painting you can’t paint something original; it will be ordinary.

Ego cannot bring anything extraordinary into the world; the extraordinary comes only through egolessness. And so is the case with the musician and the dancer. So is the case with everybody.

Let go and be in the flow

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says: Don’t think of the result at all. It is a message of tremendous beauty and significance and truth. Don’t think of the result at all. Just do what you are doing with your totality. Get lost in it, lose the doer in the doing. Don’t “be”– let your creative energies flow unhindered. That’s why he said to Arjuna: “Don’t escape from the war… because I can see this escape is just an ego trip. The way you are talking simply shows that you are calculating, you are thinking that by escaping from the war you will become a great saint. Rather than surrendering to the whole, you are taking yourself too seriously– as if there will be no war if you are not there.”

Krishna says to Arjuna, “Just be in a state of let-go. Say to existence, ‘Use me in whatever way you want to use me. I am available, unconditionally available.’ Then whatsoever happens through you will have a great authenticity about it. It will have intensity, it will have depth. It will have the impact of the eternal on it.”

Jesus says: Remember, those who are first in this world will be the last in the kingdom of God, and those who are the last will be the first. He has given you the fundamental law– he has given you the inexhaustible, eternal law: Stop trying to be the first. But remember one thing, which is very much possible, because the mind is so cunning it can distort every truth. You can start trying to be the last– but then you miss the whole point. Then another competition starts: “I have to be the last”– and if somebody else says, “I am the last,” then the struggle, the conflict, begins again.

I have heard a Sufi parable:

A great emperor, Nadirshah, was praying. It was early morning; the sun had not yet risen, it was still dark. Nadirshah was about to start the conquest of a new country, and of course he was praying to God for his blessings, to be victorious. He was saying to God, “I am nobody. I am just a servant– a servant of your servants. Bless me. I am going on your behalf, this is your victory. But I am a nobody, remember. I am just a servant of your servants.”

A priest was also by his side, helping him in prayer, functioning as a mediator between him and God. And then suddenly they heard another voice in the darkness. A beggar of the town was also praying, and he was saying to God, “I am nobody, a servant of your servants.”

The king said, “Look at this beggar! He is a beggar and saying to God that he is nobody! Stop this nonsense! Who are you to say your are nobody? I am nobody, and nobody else can claim this. I am the servant of God’s servants– who are you to say that you are the servant of his servants?”

Now you see? The competition is still there, the same competition, the same stupidity. Nothing has changed. The same calculation: “I have to be the last. Nobody else can be allowed to be the last.” The mind can go on playing such games on you if you are not very understanding, if you are not very intelligent.

To be competitive is ugly, violent

Never try to be happy at the expense of another man’s happiness. That is ugly, inhuman. That is violence in the true sense. If you think you become a saint by condemning others as sinners, your saintliness is nothing but a new ego trip. If you think you are holy because you are trying to prove others unholy… That’s what your holy people are doing. They go on bragging about their holiness, saintliness. Go to your so-called saints and look into their eyes. They have such condemnation for you! They are saying that you are all bound for hell; they go on condemning everybody. Listen to their sermons; all their sermons are condemnatory.

And of course you listen silently to their condemnations because you know that you have made many mistakes in your life, errors in your life. And they have condemned everything– so it is impossible to feel that you can be good. You love food, you are a sinner. You don’t get up early in the morning, you are a sinner; you don’t go to bed early in the evening, you are a sinner. They have arranged everything in such a way that it is very difficult not to be a sinner.

Yes, they are not sinners. They go early to bed and they get up early in the morning… in fact, they have nothing else to do! They never commit any mistakes because they never do anything. They are just sitting there almost dead. But if you do something, of course, how can you be holy? Hence for centuries the holy man has been renouncing the world and escaping from the world, because to be in the world and be holy seems to be impossible.

My whole approach is that unless you are in the world, your holiness is of no value at all. Be in the world and be holy! We have to define holiness in a totally different way. Don’t live at the expense of others’ pleasures– that is holiness. Don’t destroy others’ happiness, help others to be happy– that is holiness. Create the climate in which everybody can have a little joy.

The post To be competitive is to be stupid, says Osho appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

“And religion manifests in your actions only when it has become your essence first. Our actions become our being first. Before releasing the fragrance, it is essential to become a flower. Like the cultivation of flowers, the soul also needs to be cultivated. And for the flowers to arise in the soul it is not necessary to go to the mountains. They can be cultivated wherever you are, because you can be in the mountains while remaining exactly where you are. There are mountains and forests in the inner solitude of one’s self.”

Being Alone Is Good

This is so — truth and beauty are seen only in complete solitude. And whatever is great in life is attained by those who have the courage to be alone. The deeper secrets of life open their doors only in solitude, and the soul attains to love and light. Only when all is calm and quiet will those seeds sprout which are lying deep in the soil of our being, containing all our bliss in them. The growth happens from inside towards outside and only in solitude. Remember, truth grows from inside. Artificial flowers can be imposed from outside but as far as the real flowers are concerned, they grow from within.

For this inner growth, it is not necessary to go to the outer mountains or forests, but it is necessary to be in that inner space. The path leading there is within everybody.

Take a few moments away from the hustle and bustle of your everyday racy rush, and forget the concepts of place and time around you, and your so-called personality, and the ’I’ that is born out of it. Empty your mind of all that keeps it constantly full. Whatsoever comes to your mind, know well that you are not it and throw it out. Drop it all — everything — your name, your country, your family. Let all of it disappear from your memory and remain like a blank sheet of paper.

This very path is the path to our inner aloneness and solitude. It is through this that the inner sannyas finally happens.

In Solitude, You Meet Your Real Self

When your mind drops all clinging, breaks all barriers of name and form, only then that remains in you which is your real being.

In that moment you are alone, in solitariness. What is known at that time is not of this world. It is in this knowing that the flowers of religiousness bloom and life is filled with the fragrance of the divine.

What is known in these few moments – the silence, the beauty, the truth – it gives you strength to live simultaneously on two planes. Then you are in the world, yet you are not of the world. Then there is no bondage, and life is liberated. You are in water, yet the water does not touch you.

In this very experience is the fulfillment of life, and the attainment of religiousness.

The post Osho on Why Being Alone Is Good for Your Spiritual Growth appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

There is no war going on, you are simply befooled by yourself. Nobody is there to destroy you. The whole supports you; the whole is the very earth on which you are standing, the very sky in which you breathe, you live. In fact, you are not—only the whole is. When one understands this, by and by one drops the inner hardness; there is no need for it. There is no enmity; the whole is friendly towards you. The whole cherishes you, loves you. Otherwise, why are you here? The whole brings you forth, like a tree is brought forth by the earth. The whole would like to participate in all your blessings, in all the celebrations that are possible.

Float, don’t fight

When you flower, the whole will flower through you; when you sing, the whole will sing through you; when you dance, the whole will dance with you. You are not separate. The feeling of separateness creates fear, and fear makes you un-porous. The feeling of insecurity, as if the whole is going to destroy you, the feeling that you are a stranger here, an outsider, and that you have to fight your way inch by inch towards your destiny, makes you a hard steel rod. Of course, then many things simply disappear from your life. You live in anguish, you live in anxiety, you live in intense pain, but you live this of your own accord. Be porous. Be floating. Fight is not needed at all. Rather, a merger is needed.

These are the two attitudes open to man: the attitude of a warrior and the attitude of a lover. It is your choice. But remember… consequences will follow. If you choose the path of the warrior and you become a fighter with everything that surrounds you, you will always be in misery. This is creating a hell around you; in the very attitude of fighting the hell is created. Or you become a lover, a participant, then this whole is your home; you are not a stranger. You are at home. There is no fight. You simply flow with the river. Then, ecstasy will be yours; then each moment will become ecstatic, a flowering.

There is no hell except you and there is no heaven except you. It is your attitude, how you look at the whole. Religion is the way of the lover: science is the way of the fighter. Science is the way of the will, as if you are here to conquer, to conquer nature, to conquer nature’s secrets; as if you are here to enforce your will and domination on existence. This is not only foolish, it is futile also. Foolish because it will create a hell around you, and futile because finally you will become more and more dead, less and less alive; you will lose all possibilities of being blissful. And, in the end, you will have to come back from it, because you can go for a while on the path of the will, but only frustration and more frustration will happen through it. You will be defeated more and more. You will feel more and more impotent, and more and more enmity will be around you. You will have to come back from it—grudgingly, resistant, but you will have to come back from it. Finally, nobody can rest with a fighting attitude, because with a fighting attitude no rest is possible, you cannot relax.

Nobody to conquer

The path of religion is the path of love. From the very beginning you are not fighting anybody. The whole exists for you, and you exist for the whole, and there is an inner harmony. Nobody is here to conquer anybody else. It is not possible. Because how can one part conquer another part? And how can a part conquer the whole? These are absurd notions which only create nightmares for you, nothing else. See the whole situation… you come out of the whole and you dissolve into it, and, in between, you are every moment part of it. You breathe it, you live it, and it breathes through you, it lives through you. Your life and its life are not two things—you are just like a wave in the ocean.

Once you understand this, meditation becomes possible. Once you understand this, you relax. You throw off all the armour that you have created around you as a security. You are no longer afraid. Fear disappears and love arises. In this state of love, emptiness happens. Or, if you can allow emptiness to happen, love will flower in it. Love is a flower of emptiness, total emptiness. It can work both ways. So there are two types of religion. One which creates emptiness in you and around you so that a flowering becomes possible; you have created the situation, now the flower bubbles up automatically. Finding no resistance, the seed suddenly blooms into a flower. There is a jump in your being, an explosion. Buddhism and Zen follow this path—they create emptiness in and around you.

There is another path also, a second type of religion, which creates love in you, which creates devotion in you. Meera and Chaitanya love, and they love the total so deeply that they find their beloved everywhere; on every leaf, on every stone, is the signature of the beloved. He is everywhere. They dance because there is nothing else to do but celebrate. And everything is ready—only the celebration has to start on your part. Nothing else is lacking. A bhakta, a lover, simply celebrates, enjoys. And in that enjoyment of love and celebration, the ego disappears and emptiness follows.

Emptiness and love

Either you create emptiness—like a Buddha, Tilopa, Sekkyo, or you create love—like Meera, Chaitanya, Jesus. Create one and the other follows, because they cannot live separately, they don’t have any separate existence. Love is one face of emptiness; emptiness is nothing but love in another aspect, they come together. If you bring one, you invite one, the other follows automatically as a shadow of it. It depends on you.

If you want to follow the path of meditation, become empty. Don’t bother about love—it will come of its own accord. Or, if you find it very difficult to meditate, then love, then become a lover, and meditations and emptiness’s will follow you.

So this is my definition: if you find being empty easy, then do that. If you find it is very difficult, then don’t be unhappy and don’t feel hopeless. You will always find love easier. I have not come across a man who finds both difficult. So, there is hope for everybody. If meditation is difficult, love will be easier, it has to be. If love is difficult, meditation will be easier. So just feel yourself.

The post Emptiness and love: two sides of a coin appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Men of knowledge have certain answers, absolute certainty—that is part of their stupidity

Socrates was a wise man, not a man of knowledge. A man of knowledge would have given a certain answer. Men of knowledge have certain answers, absolute certainty—that is part of their stupidity. In fact, only stupid minds can be certain. Life is such a vast mystery, unfathomable, unknowable; if you are wise you cannot be certain. Wisdom is cautious. Wisdom hesitates. Wisdom is never certain. That’s why wisdom can never be confined to a theory.

Wisdom doesn’t know

All theories are less than life, all theories are narrow, and life cannot enter into them—life is so vast, so tremendously vast and infinite. A wise man only knows one thing: that he does not know. A man of knowledge knows a thousand and one things and knows that he knows—and therein lies his foolishness. He goes on accumulating facts unlived by himself: theories, words, philosophies—untouched by his own being. He goes on accumulating them in his memory. He becomes a vast reservoir of knowledge, he becomes an Encyclopedia Britannica—but a dead thing.

The more his memory becomes filled with knowledge the less and less he lives in his being. The more and more he moves into the head, becomes a part, a fragment, the less and less he is joined to the vast being and the universe and existence. He becomes in a way non-existential. He is no more a part of this existence, alive, radiant, vibrating. He is a frozen phenomenon; he no more flows with life. He is like an iceberg, frozen and stuck somewhere—stuck in the head. Consciousness, when it becomes knowledge, becomes frozen; when consciousness becomes wisdom, it becomes a flow. A wise man lives, lives totally, but knows only one thing—that he doesn’t know.

Knowledge is transferable

To learn from a wise man is very difficult, to learn from a man of knowledge is very easy. He can give you all that he knows, he can transfer it very easily, language is enough of a vehicle. All that he has gathered he has gathered through the mind, through language; it can be communicated easily. A man of knowledge becomes a teacher. He can teach you, and he can teach beautifully, things which he has not known at all. Maybe that’s why he is not as hesitant as a man who knows. Because when a man knows, he also knows the opposite polarity of life. When a man really understands and knows, he also knows that everything is joined with its opposite, everything is meeting and melting into its opposite. Nothing can be said definitely because the moment you say anything definitely you have stopped its flow, you have made it a frozen fact. It is no more part of the river, it is an iceberg. Now you can accumulate it in the storehouse of the mind.

When a man really understands and knows, he also knows that everything is joined with its opposite, everything is meeting and melting into its opposite

A man who is wise is not a teacher—he can be a Master but not a teacher. What is the difference between the two? A teacher is ready to teach—a Master is never ready to teach. A teacher is aggressive, active—a Master is non-aggressive, inactive. A teacher will follow you and force you, so that you can carry his knowledge on your shoulders. A Master waits. You have to snatch from him, you have to partake of him. He will not follow you, he will not force you. He will not even knock at your doors—he will simply wait. You can partake of his being. You can enter his inner emptiness, the inner palace of his being, his inner kingdom, but that is up to you. You will have to do all the work. The Master is only a presence. If you are attracted, you fall into the presence. A teacher calls, a teacher tries, a teacher makes all the effort so that you can understand. A Master simply is there—open of course, not closed, absolutely open for you to come in. But he doesn’t make even a gesture, because that gesture may be aggressive, that gesture may force you to come in without your own will. And then it will be bad, then you have been put on a wrong path.

A master does not teach

A Master is silent presence. You can learn from him, but he will not teach. With a teacher you will be a student. There exists a relationship, a two-way relationship. With the Master you can be only a disciple, it is one-way—you have to learn. If you don’t learn you don’t learn, if you learn you learn. A Master is so happy with his own being he does not bother. If you learn he blesses you; if you don’t learn he also blesses you—he is a blessing, a benediction.

A man of knowledge becomes a teacher and millions of people are attracted towards him, because when you learn something your ego feels strengthened. Very few rare souls are attracted towards a Master because, in fact, with a Master you will have to unlearn, with a Master you will have to die. Your ego will be shattered completely—because only then can you enter into the temple, into the innermost shrine of the Master’s being.

A Master is a wise man but his understanding is so profound that you cannot understand it. You can only live it. A Master knows, but he knows in such depth—where opposites meet, where life and death become synonymous, where existence and nonexistence don’t mean opposites, where all rivers fall into the ocean—in that depth a Master exists.

It is difficult to understand him because understanding will be superficial and all understanding will be more or less misunderstanding. Don’t try to understand him. How can you understand him? How can you understand an infinite phenomenon? You can live it, you can dissolve into it, you can allow it to dissolve into you, that’s possible. It is like love: you cannot understand love, mysterious are its ways. You cannot understand it, you cannot pin down what it is. Thousands of definitions exist but love has not been defined yet and it will never be defined. Whenever you define, immediately you feel something is missing. And that something will always be missed, because that something is the depth. A definition cannot carry depth, it can only be on the surface.

Very few rare souls are attracted towards a Master because, in fact, with a Master you will have to unlearn

Come to your centre

A wise man lives in the depth. A man of knowledge lives on the circumference; a wise man lives at the centre. There is only one way to reach a wise man—you will have to come to your own centre. Centre to centre there is communion with a wise man. Head to head, mind to mind, there is communion with a teacher, the man of knowledge.

The wise man has by and by disappeared from the world. In the West you don’t find philosophers, you find only professors of philosophy. This is something absurd. A professor of philosophy is not a philosopher; a professor of philosophy is just a teacher—a man of knowledge but not a wise man—not like Socrates, not like Lao Tzu, not like Buddha. They are not professors. They are not professing anything, they are not teaching anything to anybody. They are just there—like the sun is there, you open your eyes and the darkness disappears; like the flower by the side of the path, you just be with it for a few seconds and the fragrance fills you to your very depth; like a river flowing, you come to it thirsty and your thirst is quenched. They are not professors, they are alive people. They are more alive than anybody else, and then they become more and more mysterious.

A professor of philosophy is not a philosopher; a professor of philosophy is just a teacher—a man of knowledge but not a wise man

Knowledge grows, changes, moves—wisdom is eternal, it is always the same. Whenever you attain it, it is always the same. It is like the sky which remains eternally the same. Seasons come and go: now it is winter, now it is summer, now it is raining, now the rains have disappeared. Trees come and die, generations come and go and the drama of life goes on moving, but the sky remains as it is, eternally the same, eternally new, ever fresh and always old. Wisdom is like the sky.

Wisdom grows with time

Of course knowledge can be taught in the universities, colleges, schools. Wisdom can never be taught. Nowhere can it be taught. Wisdom has to be imbibed through life, there is no other way. So only an old man can be a wise man. In wisdom the young man can never defeat the old man, but in knowledge he can always defeat him. How can you defeat the old man in wisdom? Wisdom comes through experience; knowledge comes not through experience but through learning. You can cram it in, and if you are a little intelligent, more intelligent than the average, you can know more than your teacher. You can know more than your father, there is no problem about it. Just a little effort on your part is needed. But wisdom—there is no way. It comes by and by through life. If you live and if you live totally, if you live and you live with awareness, only then, drop by drop, does wisdom come into being. It is such a subtle phenomenon! There is no direct way to reach it. Only old people can be wise. That’s why whenever there is somebody who is wise and young, in the East we know that he is old, he is ancient.

There is a beautiful story about Lao Tzu that he was born old; when he was born he was 84 years of age—he had remained in his mother’s womb for 84 years. Absurd, unbelievable, but a beautiful story—says something, says something very significant. It says that from his very childhood he was like an old man, so wise he could not be a child. It says something. It is symbolic. It says that when he was a child he had as much wisdom as ordinarily a man of 84 would have. He must have been tremendously alert.

If you are very alert then a single experience can give you much. If you are not alert you will go on repeating the same experience and nothing will be gained.

The post Osho reveals the only certain way to attain real wisdom appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

And when we accumulate knowledge, what do we do? Nothing changes inside. The being remains absolutely unaffected. Just like dust, information gathers around you—just like dust gathering around a mirror: the mirror remains the same, only it loses its mirroring quality. What you know through the mind makes no difference—your consciousness remains the same. In fact it becomes worse, because accumulated knowledge is just like dust around your mirroring consciousness; the consciousness reflects less and less and less.

The more you know, the less aware you become. When you are completely filled with scholarship, borrowed knowledge, you are already dead. Then nothing comes to you as your own. Everything is borrowed and parrot-like.

Borrowed knowledge is dangerous

Mind is a parrot. I have heard—it happened in the days of Joseph Stalin—that a man, a very prominent communist, came to the Moscow police station and reported that his parrot was missing. Because this man was a very prominent communist, the chief at the police station inquired about the parrot, for it was significant and had to be searched for. In his inquiries he asked, “Does the parrot talk?”

The communist, the comrade, felt a slight fear, and then he said, “Yes, he talks. But note it down: whatsoever political opinions he has, they are completely his own.”

But how can a parrot have opinions of its own? A parrot cannot have opinions of its own—and neither can the mind, because mind is a mechanism. A parrot is more alive than a mind. Even a parrot may have some opinions of its own, but the mind cannot. Mind is a computer, a biocomputer. It accumulates. It is never original, it cannot be. Whatsoever it has is borrowed, taken from others.

Beware of hidden ignorance

You become original only when you transcend mind. When the mind is dropped, and the consciousness faces existence directly, immediately, moment to moment in contact with existence, you become original. Then, for the first time, you are authentically your own.

Otherwise all ideas are borrowed. You may quote scriptures, you may know by heart all the Vedas, the Koran, the Gita, The Bible, but that makes no difference—they are not your own. And knowledge that is not your own is dangerous, more dangerous than ignorance, because it is a hidden ignorance, and you will not be able to see that you are deceiving yourself. You are carrying false coins and thinking that you are a rich man, carrying false stones and thinking that they are Kohinoors. Sooner or later your poverty will be revealed. Then you will be shocked. This happens whenever you die, whenever death comes near. In the shock that death gives to you, suddenly you become aware that you have not gained anything—because only that is gained which is gained in being.

Knowledge must be transcended

You have accumulated fragments of knowledge from here and there, you may have become a great encyclopedia, but that is not the point; and particularly for those who are in search of truth, that is a barrier, not a help. Knowledge has to be transcended.

When there is no knowledge, knowing happens, because knowing is your quality—the quality of consciousness. It is just like a mirror: the mirror reflects whatsoever is there; consciousness reflects the truth that is always in front of you, just at the tip of your nose. But the mind is in between—and the mind goes on chattering, and the truth remains just in front of you and the mind goes on chattering. And you go with the mind. You miss. Mind is a great missing.

There are no shortcuts while seeking truth

Knowledge is borrowed, realise this. The very realisation becomes a dropping of it. You don’t have to do anything. Simply realise that whatsoever you know you have heard, you have not known it. You have read it, you have not realised it; it is not a revelation to you, it is a conditioning of the mind. It has been taught to you—you have not learned it. Truth can be learned, cannot be taught. Learning means being responsive to whatsoever is around you—that which is, to be responsive to it. This is a great learning, but not knowledge.

There is no way to find truth—except through finding it. There is no short cut to it. You cannot borrow, you cannot steal, you cannot deceive, to get to it. There is simply no way unless you are without any mind within you—because mind is a wavering, mind is a continuous trembling; mind is never unmoving, it is a movement. It is just like a breeze, continuously flowing, and the flame goes on wavering. When mind is not there the breeze stops, and the flame becomes unmoving. When your consciousness is an unmoving flame, you know the truth. You have to learn how not to follow the mind.

Stop seeking truth from another

Nobody can give you the truth, nobody, not even a Buddha, a Jesus, a Krishna—nobody can give it to you. And it is beautiful that nobody can give it to you, otherwise it would become a commodity in the market. If it can be given, then it can be sold also. If it can be given, then it can be stolen also. If it can be given then you can take it from your friend, borrow it.

It is beautiful that truth is not transferable in any way. Unless you reach it, you cannot reach. Unless you become it, you never have it. In fact, it is not something you can have. It is not a commodity, a thing, a thought. You can be it, but you cannot have it.

Truth can never be possessed

Truth can never be possessed. There are two commodities which can be possessed: thoughts and things. Things can be possessed, thoughts can be possessed—truth is neither. Truth is being. You can become it, but you cannot possess it. You cannot have it in your safe, you cannot have it in your book, you cannot have it in your hand. When you have it, you are it. You become truth. It is not a concept, it is being itself.

Excerpted from And The Flowers Showered Courtesy: Osho International Foundation; osho.com

The post Seeking truth? Discard knowledge, says Osho appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Surrender means you stop fighting and start floating

You swim in water—you go to the river and swim. What do you do? You trust the water. A good swimmer trusts so much that he almost becomes one with the river. He is not fighting, he does not grab the water, he is not stiff and tense. If you are stiff and tense you will drown; if you are relaxed the river takes care. That’s why whenever somebody dies, the dead body floats on the water.

This is a miracle. Amazing! The alive person died and was drowned by the river, and the dead person simply floats on the surface. What has happened? The dead person knows some secret about the river which the alive person did not know. The alive person was fighting. The river was the enemy. He was afraid, he could not trust. But the dead person, not being there, how could he fight? The dead person is totally relaxed with no tension—so the body floats. The river takes care. No river can drown a dead person.

Trust means you are not fighting; surrender means you don’t think of life as the enemy but as the friend. Once you trust the river, suddenly you start enjoying. Tremendous delight arises: splashing, swimming, or just floating, or diving deep. But you are not separate from the river, you merge, you become one.

Surrender means to live the same way in life as a good swimmer swims in the river. Life is a river. Either you can fight or you can float; either you can push the river and try to go against the current or you can float with the river and go wherever the river leads you.

Surrender doesn’t need belief in God

Surrender is not towards somebody; it is simply a way of life. A God is not needed to surrender to. There are religions which believe in God and there are religions which don’t, but all religions believe in surrender. So surrender is the real God. Even the concept of God can be discarded. Buddhism does not believe in any God, Jainism does not believe in any God—but they are religions. Christianity believes in God, Islam believes in God, Sikhism believes in God—they are also religions. The Christian teaches surrender to God; God is just an excuse to surrender. It helps, because it will be difficult for you to surrender without any object. The object is just an excuse so that in the name of God you can surrender. Buddhism says simply surrender—there is no God. You relax. It is not a question of some object, it is a question of your own subjectivity. Relax, don’t fight. Accept.

The belief in God is not needed. In fact, the word ‘belief’ is ugly. It does not show trust, it does not show faith—belief is almost the very opposite of faith. The word ‘belief’ comes from a root ‘lief’, which means to desire, to wish. Now let me explain it to you. You say, “I believe that God is compassionate.” What exactly are you saying? You are saying, “I wish there was a God who is compassionate.” Whenever you say, “I believe,” you say, “I intensely desire.” But you don’t know.

Know, don’t believe

If you know, there is no question of belief. Do you believe in the trees here? Do you believe in the sun which arises every morning? Do you believe in the stars? There is no question of belief. You know that the sun is there, that the trees are there. Nobody believes in the sun—if he did, you would say he is mad. If somebody came and said, “I believe in the sun,” and tried to convert you, you would say, “You have gone mad!”

Once you know, what is the point of belief? Belief is in ignorance. If you know, you know. And it is good that if you don’t know, know that you don’t know—the belief can deceive you. The belief can create an atmosphere in your mind, where, without knowing, you start thinking that you know. Belief is not trust, and the more strongly you say that you believe totally, the more you are afraid of the doubt within you.

Trust knows no doubt. Belief is just repressing doubt; it is a desire. When you say, “I believe in God,” you say, “I cannot live without God. It will be too difficult to exist in this darkness, surrounded by death, without a concept of God.” That concept helps. One doesn’t feel alone; one doesn’t feel unprotected, insecure—hence belief.

Trust is simple. It is just like a child trusts in his mother. It is not that he believes—belief has not yet entered. You were a small child once. Did you believe in your mother or did you trust her? The doubt has not arisen, so what is the question of belief? Belief comes only when the doubt has entered; doubt comes first. Later on, to suppress the doubt, you catch hold of a belief. Trust is when doubt disappears; trust is when doubt is not there.

For instance, you breathe. You take a breath in; then you exhale, you breathe out. Are you afraid of breathing out, because who knows, it may not come back? No! You trust. You trust it will come. Of course there is no reason to trust, what is the reason? Why should it come back? You can at the most say that in the past it has been happening so—but that is not a guarantee. It may not happen in the future. If you become afraid of breathing out because it may not come back, then you will hold your breath in. That’s what belief is—clinging, holding. But if you hold your breath in, your face will go purple and you will feel suffocated. And if you go on doing that, you will die.

Surrender is a matter of heart

All beliefs suffocate. They deaden your being. If you exhale, you trust in life. The Buddhist word ‘nirvana’ simply means exhaling, breathing out—trusting. Trust is a very, very innocent phenomenon. Belief is of the head; trust is of the heart. One simply trusts life because you are out of life, you live in life, and you will go back again to the source. There is no fear. You are born, you live, you will die; there is no fear. You will be born again, you will live again, you will die again. The same life that has given you life can always give you more life, so why be afraid? Why cling to beliefs? Beliefs are philosophical; trust has nothing to do with philosophy. Trust simply shows that you know what love is. It is not a concept of God who is sitting somewhere in heaven and manipulating and managing. Trust needs no God, the infinite life, this totality, is more than enough. Once you trust, you relax. That relaxation is surrender.

Courtesy: Osho International Foundation • osho.com

The post The real meaning of surrender, according to Osho appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.