Saturday 21 May 2011

Osho


              Osho was an Indian mystic and spiritual teacher. He was, in his own words, “a mystic who is trying to convey the mysteries that have become available to me.” 
             The following quotes are from him. 

Even if nobody passes by the side of the rose, the fragrance will still be spreading around, moving .... somewhere, somebody may get it. And even if nobody gets it, it doesn't matter; it is simply natural for the flower to explode into fragrance. 

Accept yourself. Respect yourself. Allow your nature to take its own course. Don't force, don't repress. 

Doubt -- because doubt is not a sin, it is the sign of your intelligence. Doubt and go on enquiring until you find. Whosoever enquires, finds. It is absolutely certain; it has never been otherwise. Nobody has come empty-handed from an authentic enquiry. 

I am all in favour of the sceptical mind. Do not believe anything unless you have experienced it. Do not believe anything - go on questioning, however long it takes. 

You will have to create the path by walking yourself; the path is not ready-made, lying there and waiting for you. It is just like the sky: the birds fly, but they don't leave any footprints. You cannot follow them; there are no footprints left behind. 

Buddha is not to be worshipped, one has to become a Buddha. Except for that, there is no worship, no prayer. You don't need any priest, you don't need any scriptures, you don't need to be in any religious organization, you have to be just yourself - silently, peacefully settling within your home. 

I am not going to give you a destination. I can only give you a direction - awake, throbbing with life, unknown, always surprising, unpredictable. I'm not going to give you a map. I can give you only a great passion to discover. Yes, a map is not needed; great passion, great desire to discover is needed. Then you go on your own. Move into the vast, into the infinite, and by and by, learn to trust it. Leave yourself in the hands of life. 

I am saying something about the ineffable. I am saying something about the ultimate mystery. You can understand it, yet you can never understand it totally. It is elusive, it escapes. It is within reach, but it is not within grasp. You are always coming closer and closer to it, but you never arrive. And the day you arrive, then you are no more there; the distinction between the seeker and the sought disappears. Then you are it. 

I don't want anybody to stand between the individual and existence. No prayer, no priest -- you alone are enough to face the sunrise. You don't need somebody to interpret for you what a beautiful sunrise it is. 

All that you need is just to be silent and listen to existence. There is no need of any religion, there is no need of any God, there is no need of any priesthood, there is no need of any organization. All those things can be removed. Now all that is left to you is a state of meditation which simply means a state of utter silence. Even the word meditation makes it look heavier. It is better to just call it a simple, innocent silence. 

You should be conscious and alert, and respond to every situation with absolute consciousness. Then whatever you do is right. It is not a question of actions being right or wrong, it is a question of consciousness - whether you are doing it consciously or unconsciously like a robot. 

I am simply an individual, the way existence created me. I have kept myself absolutely uninfluenced by any idiotic ideology - religious, political, social, financial. And the miracle is that because I am not burdened with all these glasses on my eyes, and curtains before me, I can see clearly. 

Once you start feeling responsible for your own life you start growing, because then there is no point in wasting time in postponing, in waiting. Nobody is coming to help you. All waiting is futile, all waiting is sheer wastage. 

To me spirituality has a totally different connotation. It needs an honest individuality. It does not allow any kind of dependence. It creates a freedom for itself, whatever the cost. It is never in the crowd but alone, because the crowd has never found any truth. The truth has been found only in people's aloneness. 

I believe in this meaningless, beautiful chaos of existence, and I am ready to go with it wherever it leads. I don't have a goal, because existence has no goal. It simply is, flowering, blossoming, dancing - but don't ask why. Just an overflow of energy, for no reason at all. I am with existence. 

1 comment:

Belinda said...

What an incredibly wise man. Thanks for the introduction.
Regards, Belinda