Prabhaker

I was responding to your question ,"Can Physical Pain Expand Consciousness?" This is path of a mystic , for a modern man , for an intellectual , or a beginner , Osho's teaching is contradictory. Truth is always paradoxical, opposite paths can lead you to the same goal. Choose what suits you the best. FINDING YOUR OWN POSTURE Patanjali’s Yoga has been very misunderstood, misinterpreted. Patanjali is not a gymnast, but Yoga looks like it is a gymnastics of the body. Patanjali is not against the body. He is not a teacher to teach you contortions of the body. He teaches you the grace of the body, because he knows only in a graceful body a graceful mind exists; and only in a graceful mind does a graceful self becomes possible; and only in a graceful self, the divine. Step by step, deeper and higher grace has to be attained. Grace of the body is what he calls asan, posture. He’s not a masochist. He is not teaching you to torture your body. He is not a bit against the body. How can he be? He knows the body is going to be the very foundation-stone. He knows if you miss the body, if you don’t train the body, then higher training will not be possible. The body is just like a musical instrument. It has to be rightly tuned; only then will the higher music arise out of it. If the very instrument is somehow not in right shape and order, then how can you imagine, hope, that the great harmony will arise out of it? Only discordance will arise. Body is a veena, a musical instrument. The posture should be steady and should be very, very blissful, comfortable. So never try to distort your body, and never try to achieve postures which are uncomfortable. For the Westerners, sitting on the ground, sitting in padmasan, lotus posture, is difficult; their bodies have not been trained for it. There is no need to bother about it. Patanjali will not force that posture on you. In the East people are sitting from their very birth, small children sitting on the ground. In the West, in all cold countries, chairs are needed; the ground is too cold. But there is no need to be worried about it. If you look at Patanjali’s definition, what a posture is, you will understand: it should be steady and comfortable. If you can be steady and comfortable in a chair, it is perfectly okay – no need to try a lotus posture and force your body unnecessarily. In fact, if a Western person tries to attain to lotus posture it takes six months to force the body; and it is a torture. There is no need. Patanjali is not in any way helping you, in any way persuading you, to torture the body. You can sit in a tortured posture, but then it will not be a posture according to Patanjali. A posture should be such that you can forget your body. What is comfort? When you forget your body, you are comfortable. When you are reminded continuously of the body, you are uncomfortable. So whether you sit in a chair or you sit on the ground, that’s not the point. Be comfortable, because if you are not comfortable in the body you cannot long for other blessings which belong to deeper layers: the first layer missed, all other layers closed. If you really want to be happy, blissful, then start from the very beginning to be blissful. Comfort of the body is a basic need for anybody who is trying to reach inner ecstasies. Whenever a posture is comfortable it is bound to be steady. You fidget if the posture is uncomfortable. You go on changing sides if the posture is uncomfortable. If the posture is really comfortable, what is the need to fidget and feel restless and go on changing again and again? And remember, the posture that is comfortable to you may not be comfortable to your neighbor; so please, never teach your posture to anybody. Every body is unique. Something that is comfortable to you may be uncomfortable to somebody else. Everybody has to be unique because every body is carrying a unique soul. Your thumbprints are unique. You cannot find anybody else all over the world whose thumbprints are just like yours. And not only today: you cannot find anybody in the whole past history whose thumbprints will be like yours, and those who know, they say even in the future there will never be a person whose thumbprint will be like yours. A thumbprint is nothing, insignificant, but that too is unique. That shows that every body carries a unique being. If your thumbprint is so different from others’, your body, the whole body, has to be different. So never listen to anybody’s advice. You have to find your own posture. There is no need to go to any teacher to learn it; your own feeling of comfort should be the teacher. And if you try – within a few days try all the postures that you know, all the ways that you can sit – one day you will fall upon, stumble upon, the right posture. And the moment you feel the right posture, everything will become silent and calm within you. And nobody else can teach you, because nobody can know how your body harmony, in what posture, will exactly be steady, comfortable. Try to find your own posture. Try to find your own Yoga, and never follow a rule, because rules are averages. All rules exist for averages. They are good to understand a certain thing, but never follow them. Otherwise you will feel uncomfortable. Four feet eight inches is the average height! Now you are five feet, four inches longer – cut it. Uncomfortable...walk in such a way so you look like the average: you will become an ugly phenomenon, an ashtha walker. You will be like a camel, crooked everywhere. One who tries to follow the average will miss. How you feel should be the determining factor. That’s why Patanjali gives this definition, so that you can find out your own feeling. There cannot be any better definition of posture: “Posture should be steady and comfortable.” In fact I would like to say it the other way, and the Sanskrit definition can be translated in the other way: Posture is that which is steady and comfortable. We would like to make a rule out of it, [but] it is a simple definition, an indicator, a pointer. It is not a rule. And remember it always: that people like Patanjali never give rules; they are not so foolish. They simply give pointers, hints. You have to decode the hint into your own being. You have to feel it, work it out; then you will come to the rule, but that rule will be only for you, for nobody else. If people can stick to it, the world will be a very beautiful world – nobody trying to force anybody to do something, nobody trying to discipline anybody else. Because, your discipline may have proved good for you, it may be poisonous for somebody else. Your medicine is not necessarily a medicine for all. Don’t go on giving it to others. But foolish people always live by rules. Don’t be stupid. Take these definitions, sayings, sutras, in a very vague way. Let them become part of your understanding, but don’t try exactly to follow them. Let them go deep in you, they become your intelligence; and then you seek your path. All great teaching is indirect. How to attain to this posture? How to attain this steadiness? First look at the comfort. If your body is exactly in deep comfort, in deep rest, feeling good, a certain well-being surrounds you: that should be the criterion with which to judge. That should become the touchstone. And this is possible while you are standing; this is possible while you are lying down; this is possible while you are sitting on the ground or sitting on a chair. It is possible anywhere, because it is an inner feeling of comfort. And whenever it is attained you will not like to continue moving again and again, because the more you move, the more you will miss it. It happens in a certain state. If you move, you move away; you disturb it. That’s the natural desire in everybody, and yoga is the most natural thing: natural desire is to be comfortable, and whenever you are in discomfort you will like to change it. That is natural. Always listen to the natural, instinctive mechanism within you. It is almost always correct. “Posture is mastered by relaxation of effort and meditation on the unlimited.” Beautiful words, great indicators and pointers. The first thing, if you want to attain to the posture, what Patanjali calls a posture: comfortable, steady, the body in such deep stillness that nothing moves, the body so comfortable that the desire to move it disappears, you start enjoying the feeling of comfort, it becomes steady. With the change of your mood, the body changes; with the change of the body, your mood changes. Have you ever watched? You go to a theater, a movie: have you watched how many times you change your posture? Have you tried to correlate it? If there is something very sensational going on on the screen, you cannot sit leaning against the chair. You sit up; your spine becomes straight. If something boring is going on and you are not excited, you relax. Now your spine is no longer straight. If something very uncomfortable is going on, you go on changing your posture. If something is really beautiful there, even your eye-blinking stops; even that much movement will be a disturbance...no movement, you become completely steady, restful, as if the body has disappeared. When the body is really in comfort, restful, the flame of the body is not wavering – it has become steady, there is no movement – suddenly, as if time has stopped, no winds blowing, everything still and calm and the body has no urge to move – settled, deeply balanced, tranquil, quiet, collected: in that state, dualities and the disturbances caused by dualities disappear. Have you observed that whenever your mind is disturbed your body fidgets more, you cannot sit silently?...or, when ever your body is fidgeting your mind cannot be silent? They are together. Patanjali knows well that body and mind are not two things; you are not divided in two, body and mind. Body and mind are one thing. You are psychosomatic: you are bodymind. The body is just the beginning of your mind and the mind is nothing but the end of the body. Both are two aspects of one phenomenon; they are not two. So whatsoever happens in the body affects the mind and whatsoever happens in the mind affects the body. They run parallel. That’s why so much emphasis on the body, because if your body is not in deep rest your mind cannot be. And it is easier to start with the body because that is the outermost layer. Osho, The Essence of Yoga, Talk #7

Meditation is a lifestyle, not an activity To be asleep means to live a life in which awareness has no place. You are doing something, but your mind is somewhere else. You are walking along the street, your body is there in the street, but your mind is having a conversation with your wife, or may already have reached the office ahead of your physical arrival there. Your mind is already making arrangements in the office while you are still walking along the street. Mind in one place, body in another, is the characteristic of lack of awareness. Mind accompanying body is the characteristic of awareness. You are here, listening to me. In these moments of listening, if your hearing is all, if only your hearing remains and your mind wanders nowhere else but is here and now, if hearing is the only thing happening, as if the rest of the world has disappeared, as if nothing else remains. Here, I am the speaker, there, you are the listener and a bridge is created between us. Your mind does nothing else, it falls silent, utterly silent; it hears, only hears. When only hearing remains, you experience awareness. For the first time, you discover what meditation is. Meditation means being in the moment, not leaving this moment. Someone asked Buddha, ”How shall we meditate?” Buddha replied, ”Whatsoever you do, do it with awareness; this is meditation. Walking, walk attentively, as if walking is everything; eating, eat with awareness, as if eating is everything; rising, rise with awareness; sitting, sit with awareness; all your actions become conscious, your mind does not travel beyond this moment, it remains in the moment, settles in the moment – this is meditation.” Meditation is not a separate process. Meditation is simply the name for life lived with awareness. Meditation is not an hour-a-day affair where you sit for one hour and then it is over till tomorrow. No, if twenty-three hours are empty of meditation and only one hour is meditative, then it is certain that the twenty-three hours will defeat the single hour. Non-meditation will win, meditation will lose. If you are living twenty-three hours a day without awareness, and only one hour with awareness, then you will never attain to the state of buddhahood. How can this single hour triumph over the other twenty-three hours? There is something else that also has to be understood. How can one be aware for one hour if in the remaining twenty-three hours one is not aware? How can you be healthy for one hour if you are sick the other twenty-three hours of the day? Health and sickness are the result of an internal flow. If you are healthy for twenty-three hours of the day, you will be healthy for all twenty-four hours, because the internal flow cannot suddenly be broken for just one of those hours. The current that is flowing goes on flowing. Meditation cannot come about just because you visit a temple or mosque or gurudwara.. If you were not awake in the shop, in the marketplace, or at home, how can you all of a sudden be awake in the temple? Nothing is going to come about suddenly, when it is not part of an internal flowing. This is why Buddha has said that meditation can happen only if you are meditative for twenty-four hours a day. So understand well that meditation is not just one of life’s innumerable activities. It is not just one link in the chain of man’s endless doings. It is like the thread on which all the flowers of a garland have been strung. Meditation is a lifestyle, not an activity. If one is meditative in everything one is doing, if the thread is running through each of the flowers, only then a garland is created. The thread is not even visible, it is hidden underneath the flowers. Nor can the meditator be seen; he is present, but hidden behind all the activities being done through him. An individual is awakened the day when he begins to live meditatively. While he lives nonmeditatively, he sleeps. Someone asked Mahavira what was the definition of a sadhu. Nobody else has ever given the answer that Mahavira gave. He said, Asutta muni, sutt amuni– the one who is not asleep is a sadhu, the one who is asleep is no sadhu”. Who is not asleep? The one whose every action is meditative is not asleep. Religion, liberation, is an experience that happens in such a wakeful consciousness Source – Osho Book “Nowhere To Go But In”

@phoenix666 If you feel pain be attentive to it, don’t do anything. Attention is the great sword – it cuts everything. You simply pay attention to the pain. For example, you are sitting silently in the last part of the meditation, unmoving, and you feel many problems in the body. You feel the leg is going dead, there is some itching in the hand, you feel ants are creeping on the body and you have looked many times – there are no ants. The creeping is inside, not outside. What should you do? You feel the leg is going dead – be watchful, just pay total attention to it. You feel itching – don’t scratch, that will not help. Just pay attention. Don’t even open your eyes. Just pay attention inwardly and just wait and watch, and within seconds the itching will disappear. Whatsoever happens – even if you feel pain, severe pain in the stomach or in the head… It is possible, because in meditation the whole body changes. It changes its chemistry. New things start happening; the body is in a chaos. Sometimes the stomach will be affected because in the stomach you have suppressed many emotions, and they are all stirred. Sometimes you will feel like vomiting, nausea. Sometimes you will feel a severe pain in the head because the meditation is changing the inner structure of your brain. You are really in a chaos passing through meditation. Soon things will settle. But, for the time being, everything will be unsettled. So what are you to do? Simply see the pain in the head; watch it. Be a watcher. Just forget that you are a doer, and by and by everything subsides and subsides so beautifully and so gracefully that you cannot believe it unless you know it. And it is not only that the pain disappears from the head: if the energy which was creating pain is watched, the pain disappears and the same energy becomes pleasure. The energy is the same. Pain and pleasure are two dimensions of the same energy. If you can remain silently sitting and paying attention to distractions, all distractions disappear. And when all distractions disappear, you will suddenly become aware that the whole body has disappeared. In fact, what was happening? Why were these things happening? And when you don’t meditate they don’t happen. You are there the whole day and the hand never itches, the head has no pain and the stomach is perfect and the legs are okay. Everything is okay. What was really happening? Why do these things suddenly start in meditation? The body has remained the master for so long, and in meditation you are throwing the body out of its mastery. You are dethroning it. It clings; it tries in every way to remain the master. It will create many things to distract you so the meditation is lost; you are thrown off balance and the body is again on the throne. Up to now, the body has remained the master and you have been a slave. Through meditation, you are changing the whole thing; it is a great revolution. And, of course, no ruler wants to be thrown out of his power. The body plays politics – that’s what is happening. When she creates imaginary pain, itching, ants creeping, the body is trying to distract you. And it is natural, because the body has remained in rule for so long, for many lives it has been the emperor and you have been the slave. Now you are changing everything upside down. You are reclaiming your throne, and it is natural the body will try whatsoever it can do to disturb you. If you get disturbed, you are lost. Ordinarily, people suppress these things. They will start chanting a mantra; they will not look at the body. I am not teaching you any sort of suppression. I teach only awareness. Just watch, pay attention, and because it is false, immediately it will disappear. When all the pains and itches and ants have disappeared and the body has settled in its right place of being a slave, suddenly so much bliss arises you cannot contain it. Suddenly so much celebration arises in the being you cannot express; you are overflowing with a peace that passeth understanding, a bliss which is not of this world. Osho, Yoga: The Mystery Beyond Mind, Talk #2

Love yourself, it means meditation. It means to be yourself. And nature will bring love as a reward. If you meditate and slowly, slowly get out of the ego and out of your personality and realize your real self, love will come on its own. You don't have to do anything, it is a spontaneous flowering. Unless you love yourself you cannot love anybody else. Love others ,forgive others but don’t forgive in the sense that you are obliging. Don’t forgive as a duty, because then it creates the ego, and a very subtle ego. The holy ego is the worst possible ego in the world. So don’t be righteous. Take it with ease; to forgive, should come naturally, and then it is really a benediction. People ordinarily think that forgiveness is for those who are worthy of it, who deserve it. But if somebody deserves, is worthy of forgiveness, it is not much of a forgiveness. You are not doing anything on your part; he deserves it. You are not really being love and compassion. Your forgiveness will be authentic only when even those who don't deserve it receive it. The question is not whether anybody is worthy or not. The question is whether you have the consciousness. Be in contact with them , when you become more integrated , more compassionate, when you can forgive them naturally.

@sgn One wants to be admired because one has no respect for oneself. We are brought up with guilt feelings deeply rooted in us. From the very beginning we are condemned by the parents, by the teachers, by the whole establishment. A single note is continuously repeated to every child: that 'Whatsoever you are doing is not right. You are doing what should not be done; and you are not doing what should be done.' Every child is given directly and indirectly the impression that he is not really wanted, that his parents are tired, that he is being somehow tolerated, that he is a nuisance. This creates a deep wound in every person, and a rejection of oneself arises. To cover up that wound we expect admiration, admiration is a compensation... If you respect yourself that is more than enough; if you love yourself there is no need for any admiration, there is no desire at all, because once you start expecting admiration from others you start compromising with them. You have to fulfill their expectations, only then will they admire you. You have to be according to their dictates, you cannot live a life of freedom. You become crippled and paralyzed, you become retarded, you don't grow up. You become so afraid of your own self that you are constantly on guard, because you know if you allow yourself; you are bound to do something wrong -- because all that you have ever done was labelled wrong and now there is a trembling inside. You cannot depend on yourself, you have to depend on others. This is a very psychological strategy to create slavery. Condemn the person in his own eyes and he will remain dependent on others. The priests have done this for centuries: create guilt and the person will never be rebellious, he will always be obedient because he will always be rooted in fear. He cannot gather enough courage to say no to something that is absolutely wrong in his vision. In spite of himself he will go on accepting the authoritative, the powerful. Those who wield power, those who have might, simultaneously become right for him. And as time passes this self-condemnation goes on getting deeper and deeper; it becomes your very being. You become just a wound while you could have been a lotus flower! Your whole energy becomes poisoned. Accept yourself, respect your uniqueness, and drop comparison, be yourself. Relax into your being.

@socal04 Watch what you allow into your mind. People are unaware; they go on reading everything and anything, watching any silly thing on the TV, passing on any stupid gossip and pouring rubbish into each other´s heads. Avoid such situations in which you are unnecessarily burdened with rubbish. You already have too much. You need to be unburdened! Talk and listen only to the essential and slowly slowly you will see that a cleanliness, a feeling of purity, as if you have just taken a bath, will start arising within you. That becomes the necessary soil for meditation to arise. OSHO: Live Life... Don't Just Watch It on TV

She can handle herself.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO MEDITATE WITHOUT ANY TECHNIQUE? Meditation, as such, needs no technique at all. But techniques are needed to remove the obstacles in the way of meditation. So it has to be understood very clearly: meditation itself needs no techniques, it is a simple understanding, an alertness, an awareness. Neither alertness is a technique nor is awareness a technique. But on the way to being alert, there are so many obstacles. For centuries man has been gathering those obstacles — they need to be removed. Meditation itself cannot remove them, certain techniques are needed to remove them. So the work of the techniques is just to prepare the ground, is just to prepare the way, the passage. The techniques in themselves are not meditation. If you stop at the technique, you have missed the point. J. Krishnamurti was insisting his whole life that there is no technique for meditation. And the total result was not that millions of people attained to meditation; the total result was that millions of people became convinced that no technique is needed for meditation. But they forgot all about what they were going to do with the obstructions, the hindrances. So they remained intellectually convinced that no technique is needed. I have met many followers of J. Krishnamurti, very intimate ones, and I have said to them, 'No technique is needed ¯ I agree absolutely. But has meditation happened to you or to anyone else who has been listening to J. Krishnamurti?' Although what he is saying is essentially true, he is saying only the positive side of the experience. There is a negative side also. And for that negative side all kinds of techniques are needed ¯ are absolutely needed ¯ because unless the ground is well prepared, and all the weeds and wild roots are taken away from the ground, you cannot grow roses and other beautiful flowers. Roses are in no way concerned with those roots, with the wild plants that you have removed. But the removal of those weeds was absolutely necessary for the ground to be in a right situation where roses can blossom. You are asking, 'Is it possible to meditate without any technique?' It is not only possible, it is the only possibility. No technique is needed at all ¯ as far as meditation is concerned. But what are you going to do with your mind? Your mind will create a thousand and one difficulties. Those techniques are needed to remove the mind from the way, to create a space in which the mind becomes quiet, silent, almost absent. Then meditation happens on its own accord. It is not a question of technique. You don't have to do anything. Meditation is something natural, something that is already hidden inside you and is trying to find its way to reach to the open sky, to the sun, to the air. But the mind is surrounding it from all sides; all doors are closed, all windows are closed. The techniques are needed to open the windows, to open the doors. And immediately the whole sky is available to you, with all its stars, with all its beauty, with all its sunsets, with all its sunrises. Just a small window was preventing you...just a small piece of straw can go into your eye and it will prevent you from seeing the vast sky because you cannot open your eyes. It is absolutely illogical that just a small piece of straw or sand can prevent you from seeing the great stars, the infinite sky. But in fact they can, they do. Techniques are needed to remove those straws, those pieces of sand, from your eyes. Meditation is your nature, is your very potential. It is another name of alertness. Meditation is simply awareness without any effort, an effortless alertness; it does not need any technique. But your mind is so full of thoughts, so full of dreams, so much of the past, so much of the future ¯ it is not here now, and awareness has to be here now. The techniques are needed to help you to cut your roots from the past, to cut your dreams from the future, and to keep you in this moment as if only this moment exists. Then there is no need of any technique. Life is a complicated affair. There is good news, and there is bad news. The good news is that there is no need of any technique; but the bad news is, without any technique you are not going to get it. Osho. The Rebel, Talk #24

WHAT MEDITATION IS – AND WHAT IT IS NOT There are many different, even contradictory ideas, about what meditation is. Primary to the Osho approach is the need for the meditator to understand the nature of the mind, rather than fight with it. Most of us most of the time are run by, dominated by our thoughts or feelings. It follows that we tend to think we are those thoughts and feeling. Meditation is the state of simply being, just pure experiencing, with no interference from the body or mind. It’s a natural state but one which we have forgotten how to access. The word meditation is also used for what is, more accurately, a meditation method. Meditative methods, techniques or devices are means by which to create an inner ambience that facilitates disconnecting from the bodymind so one can simply be. While initially it is helpful to put time aside to practice a structured meditation method, there are many techniques that are practiced within the context of one’s everyday life – at work, at leisure, alone and with others. Methods are needed only until the state of meditation – of relaxed awareness, of consciousness and centering – has become not just a passing experience but as intrinsic to one as, say, breathing. Some Common Misconceptions Meditation is… 1) Only for people who are on a spiritual search. The benefits of meditation are manifold. Chief among them are the ability to relax and to be aware without effort. Useful tools for just about everyone! 2) A practice to gain “peace of mind.” Peace of mind is a contradiction in terms. By its very nature the mind is a chronic commentator. What you can discover through meditation is the knack of finding the distance between yourself and the commentary, so that the mind, with its constant circus of thoughts and emotions, no longer intrudes on your inherent state of silence. 3) A mental discipline or effort to control or “tame” the mind, to become more mindful. Meditation is neither a mental effort nor an attempt to control the mind. Effort and control involve tension, and tension is antithetical to the state of meditation. Besides, there is no need to control the mind, only to understand it and how it works. The meditator does not need to tame his mind, to become more mindful, but to grow more in consciousness. 4) Focusing, concentrating or contemplating. Focusing, like concentrating is a narrowing of awareness. You concentrate on one object to the exclusion of everything else. By contrast, meditation is all-inclusive, your consciousness is expanded. The contemplator is focused on an object – perhaps a religious object, a photograph or on an inspiring aphorism. The meditator is simply aware, but not of anything in particular. 5) A new experience. Not necessarily – sportsmen know this space, which they refer to as “the zone.” Artists know it – through singing, painting, playing music. We can know it through gardening, playing with the kids, walking on the beach or making love. Even as children we may have had experiences of it. Meditation is a natural state and one that you have almost certainly tasted, although perhaps without knowing the name of the flavor.

We have to find a way that how can we live in present moment. In this process we can get hints from a master but ultimately we have to experiment on our-self, we have to listen to our body , our being , our intuition that what keeps us in present moment. I have listened to many masters, I love Osho but if something makes me easier to live in present moment, I will do it , even if it is against teaching of Osho. On this path a person learns from mistakes, but don't do same mistake again and again.

A enlightened master has not to be followed but understood. A enlightened master has not to be imitated but listened to in tremendous silence, love, trust.

The last words of Gautama the Buddha on the earth were: Be a light unto yourself. Do not follow others, do not imitate, because imitation, following, creates stupidity. You are born with a tremendous possibility of intelligence. You are born with a light within you. Listen to the still, small voice within, and that will guide you. Nobody else can guide you, nobody else can become a model for your life, because you are unique. Nobody has there been ever who was exactly like you, and nobody is ever going to be there again who will be exactly like you.

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. The most important thing to understand about life problems is that they are created by your unclarity of vision. So it is not that first you see them clearly, then you find the solution and then you try to apply the solution. No, the process is not that long; the process is very simple and short. The moment you can see your life problem clearly, it dissolves. It is not that you have now found an answer that you will apply, and someday you will succeed in destroying the problem. The problem existed in your unclarity of vision. You were its creator. Remember again, I am talking about life problems. I am not saying that if your car is broken down you just sit silently and see clearly what the problem is: the problem is clear, now do something! It is not a question of you simply sitting under a tree and meditating and just once in a while opening your eyes and seeing whether the problem is solved or not. This is not a life problem, it is a mechanical problem. If your tire is punctured you will have to change the wheel. Sitting won't do; you just get up and change the wheel. It has nothing to do with your mind and your clarity. But the question is only about life problems. For example, you are feeling jealous, angry; you are feeling a kind of meaninglessness. You are dragging yourself somehow; you don't feel that life is juicy anymore. These are life-problems and they arise out of your unclarity of mind. Because unclarity is the source of their arising, clarity becomes their dissolution. If you are clear, if you can see clearly, the problem will disappear. You have not to do anything other than that. Just seeing, just watching its whole process: how the problem arises, how it takes possession of you, how you become completely clouded by it, blinded by it; and how you start acting madly, for which you repent later on…. You realize later on that it was sheer insanity, that 'I did it in spite of myself. I never wanted to do it, still I did it. And even when I was doing it I knew that I didn't want to do it.' But it was as if you were possessed....

Don't deal with it. Self-confidence is not a quality for the inner journey, it is a barrier. In the outer world self-confidence is a help, is a must. Without it you cannot go anywhere in the outside world, because ego is needed, a sort of madness is needed. But when you move to the inner, all the qualities that are helpful in the outer journey become obstacles. Self is not needed, self-confidence is not needed. One should completely lose the self, only then is there a possibility of enlightenment.

Change your attitude. And always try first to find the cause within you. How can the traffic noise disturb you? How? If you are against it, it will disturb. If you have the attitude that it disturbs, it will disturb. But if you accept it, if you allow it to happen without any reaction, then you may even start enjoying it. It has its own melody, its own music. You have not heard it, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have its own music. Someday forget yourself and listen to the traffic noise. Just listen, and don't bring in your attitudes that this is disturbing, that this is not good. Don't bring in your attitudes, just listen to the melody! In the beginning it will look chaotic. That too is because of the mind. If you relax totally, sooner or later everything will fit into a harmonious whole and even the traffic noise will become music. You can enjoy it and you can dance to its tune. It depends on you. Nothing disturbs unless you think that it disturbs.

OSHO: What Does Enlightenment Feel Like

Every problem does not have a solution !

@Stoica Doru This is song from Indian movie 'Baahubali 2 The Conclusion' which has made up the top three films in North America on the box office weekend. The film has grossed around 10.1$ million in the first weekend.

Meditation minus Bliss is not true meditation‏ It is easy to meditate if you don’t want to be blissful — it is very easy to meditate. If you want just to be blissful and you don’t want to be in meditation, that too is easy. The rarest combination is meditation plus bliss. Meditation minus bliss is easy; bliss minus meditation is easy. But meditation minus bliss is not true meditation and bliss minus meditation is not true bliss either. They are true only when they are together. Many people have tried to meditate without bliss because it is simple, less complex. You have to take only one work upon yourself: that you have to still your mind. And you can force your mind to be stilled, but you will become sad, you will have a long face. That’s why your saints — so-called saints — look sad. Sadness has become a necessary quality for being a saint. They can’t laugh, they can’t dance, they can’t sing, they can’t love, they can’t rejoice. They talk about bliss but they only talk about it. You don’t see any bliss in their eyes, you don’t see any bliss in their milieu, you don’t see any bliss radiating from their inner center. They look sad, dull, dead, unintelligent, for the simple reason that they have chosen a shortcut and there is no shortcut. They have avoided the complexity of spiritual transformation. They have chosen meditation, they have forced their mind to be still. It is a negative state; their minds are only empty, not silent — forcibly made still. But it is not a natural growth of silence, it is not the flowering of silence. Their silence is like the cemetery, it is not the silence of a garden. The silence of the garden is full of music: the bees humming and the birds singing and a distant call of the cuckoo. They are all in it, essential parts of it. The garden has a very living silence, full of song and joy. The cemetery is also silent, but it is only the silence of death; because there is nobody, hence there is silence. You can meditate, force yourself to be silent, but you will miss God, you will miss nirvana. And you can also try to be blissful; that means you can pretend, you can practice, you can rehearse bliss. You can always try to be blissful, smiling, at least looking happy. Slowly slowly, it becomes so practiced… like Jimmy Carter. Now his smile is disappearing, but just remember two years before — you could have counted his teeth! You can practice it. I have heard that in the beginning days of his presidency his wife had to close his mouth in the night! I don’t know how far it is true, but it appears to be true — because if you practice the whole day, then in the night too your muscles become fixed. Even in sleep you will go on smiling. You can practice blissfulness too, but a practiced blissfulness is false. Anything practiced is false, remember it — never forget it. Things have to be spontaneous and natural, not practiced, not cultivated. Cultivated blissfulness is only a mask. You are smiling, but the smile is not in the heart. You are showing joy, but you are not joyous. Your heart is a desert; only on the face you have put plastic flowers. They may deceive others, but they can’t deceive you and they can’t deceive a master. Your smile, your joy, is formal — just good manners. This too has happened. There have been many saints, very blissful, always singing and dancing, but deep down just deserts. They both have chosen only the half, and the half-truth is far more untrue than any untruth. Truth has to be total, truth has to be whole. And the whole truth is: bliss PLUS meditation. It is difficult of course, arduous, to manage both. Why? — because they seem to be polar opposites. Meditation means silence and bliss means dance. Meditation means stillness and bliss means a song. Meditation means escaping from the world and bliss means sharing with the world. Meditation you can do in a Himalayan cave, but to be blissful you will have to come back to the world. Bliss needs to be shared; it exists only in sharing. It can’t exist when you are alone, it disappears. It is a communion. Meditation can exist in aloneness and bliss can exist in togetherness. But when both exist then you have to learn a totally new way of life. Source – Osho Book “Dhammapada, Vol 8″

Watching is meditation. What you watch is irrelevant. You can watch the trees, you can watch the river, you can watch the clouds, you can watch children playing around. Watching is meditation. What you watch is not the point; the object is not the point. The quality of observation, the quality of being aware and alert - that's what meditation is. So perfectly good! Children are beautiful - pure energy dancing around, pure energy running around. Delight in it and watch it. I don't see why you are feeling yourself in trouble. The mind goes on creating trouble. Whatsoever you do, the mind goes on creating trouble. Now the mind says: Is this meditation at all? Remember one thing: meditation means awareness. Whatsoever you do with awareness is meditation. Action is not the question, but the quality that you bring to your action. Walking can be a meditation if you walk alertly. Sitting can be a meditation if you sit alertly. Listening to the birds can be a meditation if you listen with awareness. Just listening to the inner noise of your mind can be a meditation if you remain alert and watchful. The whole point is: one should not move in sleep. Then whatsoever you do is meditation - and don't be worried about it! The mind constantly creates some anxiety. Many times people come to me. They say they are feeling very good, very high - but is this real? Now the mind is creating a new trouble: Is this real? The mind has never asked this before. When you have a headache, do you ask: Is this real? You trust in misery too much. A headache is necessarily real, but if you go high and you feel a peak of bliss, the mind starts creating a subtle anxiety: Is this real? You may be in a delusion, hallucination, imagination. You may be seeing a dream. Or if you cannot find anything else, then: Osho must have hypnotized you. You must be in hypnosis. You cannot believe that you can be blissful, that you can be happy. Because of this tendency of the mind, the mind clings to the miserable. Mind is always seeking and searching for hell, because it can exist only in misery; in bliss it disappears. Only in misery does it have throbbing life; only in misery does its business go well. Whenever you are happy it is not needed; when you are blissful, who needs mind? - you have already gone beyond it. The mind feels left behind, neglected, it starts nagging you. It says: Where are you going? Are you hypnotized? What illusions are you seeing? These are all dreams! Because of this tendency, millions of people have come to a meditative point some time or other in their life but they miss the door. The door comes but they cannot believe in it. Meditation is as natural a phenomenon as love. It happens to everybody! It is part of your being, but you cannot believe in it. Even if it happens, you somehow overlook it. Or even if you feel that something is happening, you cannot say to others that something is happening because you are afraid others will think that you have gone mad. Your own mind goes on saying that this is not possible; this is too good to be true. So you forget about it. Remember again: in your childhood, or later on when you were young, there must have been a few moments. It is impossible that those moments were not there; they have been there in everybody's life. Just try to recollect again and you will remember there have been moments when something was opening, but you closed it, afraid. Sometimes, sitting on a silent night, looking at the stars - and something was going to happen and you shrank; apprehensive, frightened, you started doing something else. It was too good to be true. You missed an opportunity. Sometimes, in deep love, just sitting by the side of your beloved, something started happening; you were moving in some unknown direction. You became scared, you pulled yourself back to earth. Sometimes, for no reason at all, just swimming in the river, or running around in the hot sun, or just relaxing on the beach and listening to the wild roar of the ocean, something started happening inside you, some inner alchemical change, as if your body was creating LSD. Something inside... and you were moving in a totally unknown dimension - as if you had wings and you could fly. You became afraid, you started clinging to the earth. Many times in each person's life, such moments come; but those moments are not aggressive, they cannot force anything against you. If you are ready you can move, drift into them, slip into them, float with them, to the farthest end of existence. If you are afraid you cling to your shore, and you miss the boat. The boat cannot wait for you. So don't be disturbed by the mind. Watching children playing around is a beautiful meditation - because watching is meditation. But remember, don't think about it. If children are dancing, running around, playing, shrieking, jumping, jogging, don't start thinking - just watch. Watch without any thought. Be aware, but don't think. Remain alert - just seeing, a pure seeing, a clarity, but don't start thinking about it; otherwise you have already moved away. Watching children, you can remember your own child back home. Then you have missed, then you are not watching these children. Some memories are floating in your mind. A film starts moving; then you are in a daydream. Simply watch! (Osho in The Search #7)

Consciousness is a quality of your mind, but it is not your total mind. Your mind can be both conscious and unconscious, but when you transcend your mind, there is no unconsciousness and no corresponding consciousness. There is awareness. Awareness means that the total mind has become aware. Now the old mind is not there, but there is the quality of being conscious. Awareness has become the totality; the mind itself is now part of the awareness. We cannot say that the mind is aware; we can only meaningfully say that the mind is conscious. Awareness means transcendence of the mind, so it is not the mind that is aware. It is only through transcendence of the mind, through going beyond mind, that awareness becomes possible. Consciousness is a quality of the mind, awareness is the transcendence; it is going beyond the mind. Mind, as such, is the medium of duality, so consciousness can never transcend duality. It is always conscious of something, and there is always someone who is conscious. So consciousness is part and parcel of the mind, and mind, as such, is the source of all duality, of all divisions, whether they are between subject and object, activity or inactivity, consciousness or unconsciousness. Every type of duality is mental. Awareness is nondual, so awareness means the state of no mind. Witnessing is a state, and consciousness is a means toward witnessing. If you begin to be conscious, you achieve witnessing. If you begin to be conscious of your acts, conscious of your day-to-day happenings, conscious of everything that surrounds you, then you begin to witness. Witnessing comes as a consequence of consciousness. You cannot practice witnessing; you can only practice consciousness. Witnessing comes as a consequence, as a shadow, as a result, as a by-product. The more you become conscious, the more you go into witnessing, the more you come to be a witness. So consciousness is a method to achieve witnessing. And the second step is that witnessing will become a method to achieve awareness. So these are the three steps: consciousness, witnessing, awareness. But where we exist is the lowest rank: that is, in unconscious activity. Unconscious activity is the state of our minds. Through consciousness you can achieve witnessing, and through witnessing you can achieve awareness, and through awareness you can achieve “no achievement.” Through awareness you can achieve all that is already achieved. After awareness there is nothing; awareness is the end. If a man can die in the state of consciousness, for him death exists no more. In other words, if a man can manage to remain conscious at the time of death, he finds he never died at all: death appears just a delusion to him. Death proving to be a delusion does not mean, however, that death remains in some form as a delusion. Rather, when a person dies fully conscious, he finds there is no death at all. Then death becomes a falsehood.

@Mondsee LIFE is an opportunity. You can use it, you can misuse it, or you can simply waste it. It depends on you. Except you, nobody is going to be responsible. Responsibility is of the individual. Once you realize this then you start becoming alert, aware. Then you start living in a totally different way. Then, in fact, for the first time you become alive. Otherwise, people live in a sort of dream – half-asleep, half-awake… just somewhere in between consciousness and unconsciousness. That life is not really a life. You exist – but you don’t live. Existence is given to you. Existence is a gift. Life has to be earned. When existence turns upon itself, it becomes life. Existence has been given by the whole; you have not done anything for it. It is simply there, a given fact. When existence becomes life… the moment you start existing in a conscious way, immediately existence becomes life. Existence lived consciously is life. Life is a great challenge, an adventure into the unknown, an adventure into oneself, and adventure into that which is. If you live an unconscious life, if you simply exist, you will always remain afraid of death. Death will always be just somewhere near the comer, hanging around you. Only life goes beyond death. Existence comes, disappears. It is given to you, taken away. It is a wave in the ocean… arises, falls back, disappears. But life is eternal. Once you have it, you have it forever. Life knows no death. Life is not afraid of death. Once you know what life is, death disappears. If you are still afraid of death, know well – you have not known life yet. Death exists only in the ignorance – in the ignorance of what life is. One goes on living. One goes on moving from one moment to another, from one action to another, completely unaware what one is doing, why one is doing, why one is drifting from this point to that point. If you become a little meditative, many times in a day you will catch hold of yourself completely drifting unconscious. The whole effort of spirituality is to make you aware of your existence. Existence plus awareness is life eternal – what Jesus calls life in abundance, what Jesus calls the kingdom of god. That kingdom of god is within you. You have already the seed within you. You just have to allow it to sprout. You have to allow it to come in the sunlit world of the sky, to become free, to move in freedom, to move higher and higher, to touch the very infinity. It is possible to soar high – but the basic thing is awareness. -Osho From Nirvana: The Last Nightmare, Chapter 9

@CuteCornDog The world is just a mirror, and you are reflected in it. Each mind is living in its own world, it creates the world. So if everything looks negative and everything looks destructive and everything looks inimical, against you, it is because you do not have the positive center in you...If you are positive, then nothing is negative for you. If you are negative, then everything will be negative for you. You are the source of all that exists around you, you are the creator of your own world. Existence cannot be forced to go according to you, it flows in its own way. If you can flow with it, you will be positive. If you fight with it, you will become negative and the whole thing, the whole cosmos around you, will turn negative. It is just like a person who is trying to float upstream, then the stream is negative. If you are trying to float upstream in a river, then the river will seem negative and you will feel that the river is fighting you - that the river is pushing you downwards. The river is trying to move you downstream, not upstream, so it will seem as if the river is fighting you. The river is completely unaware of you, blissfully unaware. And it is good; otherwise the river will go to a madhouse. The river is not fighting with you, you are fighting with the river. You are trying to float upstream.

Ordinarily people don’t fall from awakening, but the possibility remains: one can fall. From enlightenment there is no possibility of falling back, because you are no longer there to fall back. but ... The sin is not in occurrence of violence. The sin is in the act of committing violence. The occurrence of violence is impossible, but the act of violence is possible. Violence is not there, but the desire for violence, the motivation for violence, the violent state of mind is there. One who has a desire for violence, one who takes an interest in violence, one who takes credit for violence, his taking pleasure in violence, his mental belief that violence is possible - all of this is evil, sinful. When social systems change, many things suddenly become absurd and obsolete. There was a time when if a woman was not kidnapped by some man it was thought no one loved her, that she was an ugly and unwanted woman. In those days kidnapping was a way of honoring women. Of course, that time is past, and we are in different times. But even today if inside a university campus a young woman is never brushed against by a young man while passing in the corridors, she feels rejected and miserable; there is no end to her unhappiness. And watch a woman carefully who complains that she is being jostled by men around her, and you will notice how really happy she feels about this business. A woman wants that some man should really think of kidnapping her, that he should love her so much he feels compelled to steal her instead of begging for her. It is a cowardly and dead society when life’s light is dimmed; it loses zest and vitality. Like a weakling it runs away from challenges and dangers and plays safe. In a heroic age, a brave world, when life, bursting with energy, full of fire and radiance, invites challenges and stakes everything to meet them. In such society it will be an insult to womanhood if someone does not kidnap a woman he loves but instead sends supplications to her parents and maneuvers for her hand in marriage. And the woman concerned would say , ”If you don’t have the courage to steal me it is better you had not thought of me.