I am unable to find an option to change the title of the blog.........
I want to change the current title of the blog viz 'Garima everything's different....' to

'i dont know much'

Kindly have it this way from now.....

Garima

Here are some beautiful lines on a word which depicts the tale of huge sacrifices to be done for its attainment and that is -

EXCELLENCE

.

.

We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

-Aristotle

.

.

Excellence can be obtained if you:

....care more than others think is wise;

....risk more than others think is safe;

....dream more than others think is practical;

....expect more than others think is possible.

-Author unknown

.

.

(The above stated lines are still there in my hostel room at indore.....written in pencil ...straight in front of my bed...)

Courage

Its a beautiful word. Yes it is. Here are a few lines over it:-
Courage means fearlessness. Society will try in every way to force you according to its ideas. It is better to suffer than to compromise, because through suffering your soul will be born. Trhrough compromise you may save your skin but your soul will be lost.
Courage means to be an individual; not to be a sheep but to be a lion. Courage means the capacity to assert:"I am myself, and my life is my life, and I am going to live it in my way. I am not here to live acccording to others, and I wont allow anybody to dictate to me how I should live, what I should do. I will live according to my light whatsoever the cost, even If I go astray." It is better to go to hell by your own decision rather than to go to heaven by somebody else's order, because then heaven will be a slavery.
Courage means the courage to be free. Courage means freedom. If you reduce it to the essential core it is dying to the past. If yu die to the religion you are born in, you die to the society you are born in, you die to the whole past, you die to history and time. You are born anew- a new human being who belongs to no race, to no country, to no religion, but who belongs to existence - a religious person but not a Christian, not a Hindu, not a Mohammedan.

A meditator needs a totally different kind of courage. The courage to drop the past. To drop the past you will have to become a child everyday, and your ego wants to be a n adult not a child. Your ego wants to pile up the past and wants to sit on it so that it looks higher than others. Without the past you will always remain a child with no knowledge, but full of wonder, of awe. Therefore, the only courage is to drop the known and to move in unknown. And it has not to be done only once, it has to be done every moment. It is not a question that once done it is done forever. You have to do it every moment, every day, till the very last moment of your life when you are dying on your bed. Then too you have to continue the process of dying to the past so that you can live each moment with pristine clarity, with no dust on your mirror. When you can reflect the present as it is , you know what god is. God is another name for that which is.

Courage means courage to drop knowledge, courage to be innocent again, courage to function from a state of not-knowing. I dont know any other courage.

(Excerpted from Walking in the Zen, Sitting in the Zen, Osho)

The experience of joy that unknown brings, the great ecstasy that starts happening with the unknown, makes you strong enough, gives you a certain integrity, makes your intelligence sharp. For the first time you start feeling that life is not just boredom but adventure. Slowly, slowly fears disappear.

Basically courage is risking the known for the unknown, the familiar for the unfamiliar, the comfortable for the uncomfortable arduous pilgrimage to some unknown destination. One never knows whether one will be able to make it or not. It is gambling, but only gamblers know what life is.

(Excerpted from Come, Come, Yet Again Come, Osho)

Question: Y M I SO UNCERTAIN OVER SO MANY ISSUES? The same thing appears to be right and wrong at the same time and i m unable to go on one side?

Osho: Primitive people were not uncertain at all...coz only who knows limited can be certain..only idiots can be certain...they dont know there is much beyond their knowledge.....they are unaware about even the existence of any truths beyond what they know....They had mind but less knowledge which led to certainity.......and on the contrary....the modern child goes on gathering more and more knowledge......and consequently, the modern man knows so much..so much that his mind is overcrowded and confused....it is the nature of mind to be confused and uncertain........With the mind, uncertainty; with the idiotic mind, certainty. With no mind both certainty and uncertainty disappear.
Buddha is a clarity, a space, open space. He is not certain -- there is nothing to be certain. He is not uncertain, because there is nothing to be uncertain. Only one who is seeking certainty can be uncertain. Mind is always uncertain and always seeking certainty; always confused and always seeking clarity. A Buddha is one who has dropped the mind; and with the mind all confusion, all certainty, all uncertainty, everything is dropped.
Look at it in this way: your consciousness is just like the sky and your mind is just like the clouds. The sky remains untouched by the clouds. They come and go; no scar is left behind. The sky remains virgin: no record, no footprints, nothing of the clouds, no memory. They come and they go; the sky remains undisturbed. This is the case within you also: the consciousness remains undisturbed. Thoughts come and go, minds evolve and disappear.
And don’t think that you have one mind; you have many minds, it is a crowd. Your minds go on changing. You are a communist, so you have a certain type of mind. You can leave it and you can become anti-communist. Then you have a different mind; not only different, quite the opposite. You can go on changing your minds just like your dress. And you go on changing -- you may not be aware of it -- these clouds come and go.
Clarity can be achieved if you become aware of the sky; if your focus changes. You are focused on the clouds if you are unfocused on the sky. Unfocus on the clouds and focus on the sky.

[excerpted from The Book of Secrets, Osho]

A new born baby is a souvenir of god............It’s the only one who is fearless in this world (…)
There’s nothing pure than it..........It knows no religion......no hatred.......no habits.......no limitations (…)
If left alone and given powers like a grown up, it will jus create a path out of its own original hunch/intuition/inspiration........ coz it has no bias..........it knows no fear and no discrimination.
Let us all be like that.......confident n straight, ever-accepting(uncomplaining) and.........above all .........FREE.
Below is a piece of writing over this - I am a new born -

I AM A NEW BORN

1. Yeah m a new born
Yeah m a new born
with a fresh breath
free from all bias
free from all hatred
Who jus loves the people who come its way
And giving smiles to people to daze
to the people who are doubtful
For who gives smile without an aim
I am here, jus to shower love n caress
All u need is to laugh n giggle, with me and with all
……and the whole life spends like this…
Let everybody be happy till eternity
I want the being to sing song in u and in all
the way it is singing in me
Let all hatred b washed
I want all doubts to turn into faith…
For I love them
I love them all

2. I don’t know anything
I don’t know what’s right or wrong
I don’t know what’s good or bad
I don’t know any religion
I don’t know any restraint
I am a kid
I just know that I am

3. For God is, nature
Nature is, simple
Simplicity is beauty
So this world! Everything’s beautiful
Everything’s love.
For it’s easiest to be,
I am love, I am love
Let u feel the openness
Feel the space for you
Everybody in my vicinity should feel easy and cozy with me
Easy to b themselves
Cozy to b themselves

4. I don’t know anything bad or downbeat
Yeah I don’t know
Yeah I don’t know
For what’s bad to me today may b good to me tomorrow
What’s good may be bad
What’s wrong may b right tomorrow
What’s right may b wrong
Let u know m a newborn
Let u know that m opinion less
For u and For all

5. Let the world feel my love
Let the child in me, the loving child in me,
Forever n ever
Let nothing could affect it
But it could affect everything
Let the world feel the space inside me
The space to engulf the whole of it
The space which has no eligibility conditions
To accept everyone as one is
Yes, it doesn’t affect
It doesn’t affect
For I don’t look forward to.
Yeah I don’t.
Yeah I don’t expect.
U r u and I am I
For God’s in full bloom
Inside u and inside me.

6. BE WHAT U R – I wanna say to u
And enjoy the space for u here
Jus be what u r – I wanna say to u
All u need is faith
Faith that …
….that m really with u
M really with u all
Today, ever and forever.
Without any opinions, without any conditions
Without any analyses and without any affect of all ur faults
I m with u
I m with u
Without any change and consistent forever.

7. U may find me fearless,
At times candid to any extent
For a new born is fearless, dauntless
But it doesn’t mean
That my caress for u has gone
It’s the same
Unending bond
Believe! I can’t ever hate u
Yes! I can’t ever anybody
For people never are hate worthy
It may b jus that
our attitude at the moment
are opposite
And this may change tomorrow
And u r free
To be urself, so m I.
So the space is for u and me
Enjoy it
lets be real reflections to our souls
Let our souls b free
Freedom means love, love means freedom
Jus be urself
And believe! U r treasured for what u r

8. U will always get
I am here to shower
I am here to support
I am here to make u laugh
I am here to make u giggle
Hope u enjoy my ease n amity.

~~thnk u~~

Happy Thanksgiving

Give thanks for life's harshest lessons for bringing you to the present moment. Thank people whom you feel wronged you in any way. Appreciate all that you've overcome which enriched you, educated you, and strengthened you. Rejoice in your new well-being, and the Universe will support you in amazing ways. And most of all,

Thank God for your incredible capacity to love.

This post just presents a reality which is very beautiful and which is so told and preached by many of our saints like Osho........this is the very essence of life, our existence and their very teachings...........below is a writing taken from http://www.puresilence.org/ which reveals a fantastic and stunning reality........just go thru it.....its lovely.......really lovely.................

Pure Silence

[Silence, Space, Within, Inner Peace, Silêncio, Consciousness, Satori, Being, Awareness, Who am I, Emptiness, Non-Duality, Enlightenment, Spirit, Essence of Reality, Mystical Union, Buddha Mind, Silencio, Meditation, Truth, Dzogchen, Love, God, Allah, Nirvana, Void, Advaita Vedanta, I Am, One Taste, Contemplation, I am that I am, Silenzio, Eternity, Now, Samadhi, Nothingness, Tao, Divine Union, Nondual silence, Kingdom of Heaven, Transpersonal, Mysticism, Stillness, The Self, Silent Mind]

A gentle, loving, inner peace and silence is here and now in this moment. It has always been this way. It is always here. It is right here within you and all around you, a stillness, an apparent void, a seeming nothingness out of which everything arises, exists, and eventually returns.
You know this. You have felt this.

There is nothing more than this.

You are this.

This is truth.

This is not some esoteric spiritual jargon about some new age philosophy or any religion or belief. There is nothing here which is mystical. There are just these words and you and the silence within. This is real, now.

This silence is right here in you, every single moment of your life.

This pure silence contains you, your being-ness and yet the silence is your very being.

This silence allows the entire universe to be.

All existence, everything that is, all matter and energy, all thought is contained in this silence.

This pure silence is what some have called Truth, Infinity, Reality, Enlightenment, Nothingness, God, Great or Holy Spirit, The Now, True Self, I am, Consciousness and Love.

This silence is a mystery beyond mind, beyond what the human brain can fully comprehend. Like a beautiful diamond, we can only see a few facets at a time. This mystery is seemingly far beyond us-our capacity to understand, to know. And yet this is contained within our very selves, and this contains us as well.

The greatest wonder of this is that you and I, above all other life forms on this planet are able to be consciously aware of this reality, now.

Yes, you are aware of this, though perhaps you have not experienced this yet. Perhaps you have not realized this.

This awareness of ours, this consciousness of being, is the silence itself.

The silence is the very space of being.

In you, being has become aware of itself.

There is only this.

We have spent thousands of years denying what is more present to us than our very breath, our very heartbeat.

This silence permeates everything and is the allow-er of everything. The silence allows us to be and to be free.

There is only this.

You are this!

All that you need, all that you seek, all that you hope and long for is contained in this silence.

This web site may just help you to know this, to realize this and to live out of this silence.

All you need to do is stop and just be: Now!

There is only this:
Pure Silence

[.....once you experience it, you get addicted...... i can feel the hunger for it.......its lovely........its relaxing.......and above all........it heals.....yes, it heals..........
............but normally, our environment makes us unavailable to it, which is our very being........
but whenever i get reminded.....i try to become available to it.........
......thanks for your reading......]

WHAT HV I LEARNT......

Ha so this is the time to recollect everything.....

First......every creation of God is perfect and so am i.........ah thnks........

Second.......the truth behind which the whole world runs is nothing but existence.....existence of everything which is happening.....and it is nowhere but within us.......life is just a journey......and God wants us to enjoy this journey......there is no other ambition than the existence itself..........there's nothing to be ambitious about.......you r here just to enjoy......

Third, the only way to experience the truth is to be available to the silence within us.......that void is the gateway......

Fourth.....more than being truth, that void, that silence heals.........yes it heals........it saves you........it makes you a kid again......all meditations and all sorts of dhyans and kriyas just work to bring you to you........so ....... i hav to be available to me.....be thoughtless and an observer for more and more time..........

And yes, try not to form opinion, rather i shud say, strict opinions about anything and........in this case i think m fine............i m modest over many of the issues.......coz what can be right for one may be wrong for the other at the same time........and what may be right for one at any time may be wrong for him at any other moment.....and dont close yourself in a thinking or mindset.......let yourself change with time.......it means you are developing........and everytime......jus be wat your heart says to you.......

Fifth, life is just a journey........u hav to live it.........so accept whatever it brings to u...whether happiness, sorrows, good or bad experiences.....just enjoy them all...........dont miss them.......jus try to see more and more colors of life.....otherwise you will remain unaware of all those colors which it may bring to you ..... so dont say no to any new experience.......

Sixth....... respect your sacred space/your true nature......and always let it remain respected by others.......in fact your true frnds and lovers will always respect that themselves.......

Seventh.... be open/accepting to everything which is against the pre-existing mindsets.......in other words......be creative.......let the existence within you free of all the restrictions which you have put around it....it is not the one which god had sent once on this earth on your b'day.......it is now somebody else in a distorted form.........let it regain its original form yaar......let it free.....let it jump from happiness....joy and laughter.......its a kid........and kids are always happy.....always.......nobody can hinder their happiness..........ever......if they get sad over an issue.....they cry and recover and then jus forget everything.........so dont cling to the past.........live in the present..........when you'r in present ....u r best observer.......... and many times, you r best available to the silence within........

If the child within you wants to cry.....let it.........let it cry........and throw everything out.....every sorrow/grief out of you and jus be available to the silence.........it's the best......

This is one of the lovliest articles from Osho-times, just go thru it......

WHAT IS COURAGE?

The greatest courage in this world is to be exactly what your consciousness says to you to be. And the greatest cowardice in this world is to follow others, to imitate others.

Only the courageous can love. Love is the greatest courage in this world because it cannot depend on anything else, it has to depend on a hunch, it has to depend on intuition; it cannot depend on intellect.

The only religion in this world is to be yourself...to respect your existence........but for that courage is needed - courage to be alone, courage to drop the attachment to the crowd, courage to drop ambitions, projections, courage to be a non-entity. Be courageous. Let me repeat the greatest courage in this world is in being Non-ambitious, in being non-seeking.

Courage is not about doing exceptional acts. Its all about daring to live life from moment to moment, in complete innocence and wonder, without planning, everyday.

There is only one courage, and that is the courage to go on dying to the past - not to collect it, not to accumulate it, not to cling to it.

TRUST AND DOUBT

It is better to die in trust than to live in doubt. It is better to be robbed in trust than to become a millionaire in doubt. A person who robs your riches, robs nothing. But if you doubt, you lose your heart. So when I say trust, I don't mean that trust will always prove right; I'm not saying that. Many times trust will put you into many difficult situations, because the more you trust, the more vulnerable you become. And the more you trust, the more you become a victim of people who are ready to deceive. They want trusting people otherwise they will not be able to deceive anybody. But still I say be deceived. That is not as costly as being doubtful. If one has to choose and there are only two alternatives -- to be deceived or to be doubtful -- it is better to be deceived. Once this is decided then doubt cannot catch you.
Doubt is powerful because it gives you cleverness. Doubt is powerful because it says to you, 'You will be unprotected. I will protect you.' The doubt says, 'I am not against trust. Trust, but first observe. First be doubtful and then trust. When you are convinced that there is no possibility of being deceived, then trust.' Doubt never says, 'I am against trust.' No, doubt always says, 'In fact I am trying to help you to find someone to trust. I am just a servant to you. If you listen to me you will be able to find somebody whom you can trust.' But you will never find the right person because once you have become accustomed to doubt, it is a chronic thing. Even if you come face to face with God, you will continue doubting. It has nothing to do with the person outside. It is just that you have a habit. You cannot relax it immediately. If you have been protecting it and watching it and feeding it for your whole life, you cannot put it aside. Many times trust will create very insecure situations, will lead you on dangerous paths. You will become more vulnerable, will be easily cheated and deceived. But still I say that whatsoever the cost, trust is the only treasure to be protected. And now you will understand this, because your heart will immediately show you what is going wrong with your system. It is a good indication that you are able to feel trust and doubt and their impact on you.
So whenever you feel that something is contracting in the heart, immediately look inside -- doubt has arisen somewhere. Somewhere you have lost contact with your trust. Somewhere you are no more in tune with life. You have become separate. Doubt separates. Trust unites. And when you are united, the heart flows well, in a rhythm, harmonious. That's what I call being holy. To be in the heart and the heart flowering -- that's what a holy man is. To be in the head, calculating, clever, is to be unholy. So just watch it and don't lose this indication again. Good.

[Excerpted from A Rose is a Rose is a Rose, Osho]

RIGHT OR WRONG

The first thing: there is nothing like right or wrong. It depends. It depends on the standpoint. There is not something very solid about which one can decide that this is right and that is wrong. There are no such values. The same thing can be right to one person and wrong to another, because it more or less depends on the person. The same thing can be right in one moment for a person, and in another moment it can be wrong because it depends on the situation. But we all carry a hangover, a hangover which has been implanted in us for centuries, as if there is something right and something which is wrong. You have been taught in aristotelean categories. This is right and that is wrong. This is white and that is black. This is God and that is devil. These categories are false. Life is not divided into black and white. A lot of it is more like grey. And if you see very deeply, white is one extreme of grey and black is another extreme, but the expanse is of grey. So one can see it as white and one can see it as black. It is as if a glass is there, half full, half empty. Somebody says it is half full and this is the truth and somebody says it is half empty and this is the truth... and they start fighting. All arguments are more or less like that. Reality is more grey. It has to be so because it is not divided anywhere. There are no watertight compartments anywhere. This is a foolish categorisation, but it has been implanted in our mind. We always say that this answer is right and that answer is wrong. This whole evaluation is absurd and nobody has the right to decide -- neither you nor your friends. You have to decide for yourself and they have to decide for themselves. So don't interfere in their life and don't allow them to interfere in your life. I am not saying that you will do something today and that tomorrow you won't feel that it is wrong. But I still say that yesterday it was right. You understand me? Just the moment afterwards you can feel that it was wrong, but this is not you of the moment before. One moment has passed; now your standpoint is different. Now you are looking at it in a different way. You have become more experienced. At least you have that experience that you did not have before you decided. It may look wrong. Tomorrow again it may look right. So, right and wrong go on changing continuously. Then what to do? If somebody wants to decide absolutely, he will be paralysed, he will not be able to act.
If you want that you act only when you have an absolute decision about what is right, you will be paralysed. You will not be able to act in life. One has to act and to act in a relative world. There is no absolute decision, so don't wait for it. Just watch, see, and whatsoever you feel is right, do.
[Osho said that whenever one suggested a way to others, it should be with the understanding that this is only your standpoint and may not be right for others. One should not try to impose anything on anyone. This, Osho said, was what he regarded as the religious quality. If friends did not accept one s advice, one should not feel offended but be able to allow others to have freedom in their decision. Nobody in fact follows anybody else because the final decision has to be taken by the person himself. Even if one follows one s friend's advice, if things went wrong, the blame could not be put on the friend because it was one s own decision ultimately. When friends offered advice, one should listen carefully.... ]

LISTEN, LISTEN CAREFULLY!

One of the great things to be learned is listening. Listen very silently. Just don't listen indifferently. Don't listen as if you want them to stop and you are just listening to be polite because they are your friends. It is better in that case to tell them not to say anything because you are not in the mood to listen. But if you are listening, really listen, be open, because they may be right.

And even if they are wrong, listening to them will enrich you. You will know more sides of the same thing, more viewpoints, and it is always good to learn. So listen well but always decide on your own. Once a person has this relative understanding and drops absolute nonsense, things become very clear and easy. Otherwise people are very absolutistic. They think in terms of absolutes: this is truth and whatsoever is against it, is wrong. This has crippled the whole earth -- Hindus and Mohammedans and Christians fighting because everybody claims the absolute truth. Nobody has any claim on it. It is nobody's monopoly. Truth is vast. Infinite are its facets and infinite are the ways to know it. And whatsoever we know is limited; it is just a part. Never claim for the part as if it is the whole and then you will never be in trouble. Watch every word that you speak. Our language is such, our ways of speaking are such, that knowingly, unknowingly, we make absolute statements. Never do that. Use 'perhaps' more. Hesitate more. Use 'maybe', 'perhaps' more, and allow the other every freedom to decide on his own. Try it for one month. You will have to be very alert, because it is a deep-rooted habit, but if one is alert it can be dropped. Then you will see that arguments drop and then there is no need to defend. And always remember that it is possible that tomorrow you may think something was wrong, but you have changed.

That's why I say that repentance is impossible. The person who committed it is not the person who is repenting. They are two different moments, absolutely atomic and unconnected. So there is no point in repenting. There is no point in thinking again and again about the past. What has happened has happened. Whatsoever you think now is not the point. [Osho said that it was just as when one was sitting for an examination. Once outside the room, when one was more relaxed, collected, one could review and repent for what one had done, but in the moment you were answering the paper, you were doing what was right in that moment.] So each moment has its own validity. No other moment can cancel it. You cannot cancel the past. Whatsoever you did in that moment was right in that moment. It was meant to be so. It was all that could happen and it happened; otherwise was not possible. You being you it was going to happen that way. So now there is no point in crying and weeping and repenting over it. Now you are more experienced. Next time remain alert so that the old thing is not repeated, that's all. For one month, try, and then tell me. There is nothing to be worried about.

[Excerpted from A Rose is a Rose is a Rose, Osho]

RITUAL AND RELIGION

Once you ritualise any prayer, it is dead. Once you rehearse, you have already missed. So that has to be remembered, because that temptation comes to every mind -- to make a ritual, because a ritual comes easy.
You repeat it every day and you become more and more efficient. You become a sort of an expert. Then consciousness is not needed and you can do it robot-like. That's how it is going on in temples, mosques, churches; everything is ritualised. Ritual is dead religion. Religion is alive ritual -- and when I say 'alive ritual', I mean what comes in the moment. You create it. Your worship, your prayer, your ritual, comes out of your being. It is a response. It will change every day. There is no need to make it change because then again you come in. Sometimes you will see that it is the same as it was before, but still it is not the same. There is a subtle difference, because it can never be the same. No moment is ever repeated. Says Heraclitus, 'You cannot step in the same river twice.' One of his disciples said to him, 'Master, I tried. Not only are you right, but I was puzzled very much because I could not even step once. The river was flowing continuously and by the time you reach the bottom of the river, the river that you had touched on the surface is no more there. It is different water.' The disciple said, 'Master, you are right, but I tried. You say it is difficult to step twice. I say it is impossible to even step once, because the river is flowing constantly.' Heraclitus laughed and he said, 'You are right. You got it! That's what I meant.'
So never make anything a ritual. Every morning move thrilled with the new sun, not knowing what is going to happen. You may dance, you may sit silently, you may have a little chit-chat with the sun. You may say something or you may simply listen to what the sun is saying to you. Nobody knows... nobody needs to know. One simply moves full of wonder, wondering what is going to happen... thrilled. This, Hindus call 'brahmamuhurt' -- the moment of the morning; they call it the moment of God, and for a few people that is the moment of God. They can confront reality sooner in that moment than ever. And that is your moment. Hence I give you the name 'ravidasa'. So become a servant of light, and wherever you see light, even an ordinary light, feel prayerful. You may see sometimes in India that somebody puts on the light and people will bow their heads or will say 'Jai Ram, Jai Ram'; they will remember God. That has become a ritual now, but if it is not ritualised, it has tremendous significance. Light is a symbol of God, so wherever you see light, feel worshipful. The temple is there. Look at the mysteries of light -- just a small flame, but the most mysterious thing in the world and the whole of life depends on it. The same flame is burning in you. That's why continuous oxygen is needed, because the flame cannot burn without oxygen. Hence the emphasis of Yoga to breathe deep to breathe more and more oxygen so that your life burns deeper and the flame is more clear and no smoke arises in you.
.. so that you can attain to a smokeless flame.

[Excerpted from A Rose is a Rose is a Rose, Osho]

WHY IT IS HARD TO BE SILENT
[A visitor said she had done Vipassana(an aasana which involves to be silent) and found it difficult, but very good: It taught me a lot about myself and about the whole world.]

OSHO : It is good but it is hard. It is hard -- not because the hardness is there in the meditation; it is hard because we are repressed so much. If you are so repressed and you have simply to sit and not to do anything, it becomes impossible, it becomes maddening. We remain occupied so our madness remains occupied; our insanity remains involved somewhere or other. If you are not doing anything, put on the radio or the TV or visit a friend or just read the newspaper or rearrange the furniture in the room so you remain occupied. One never becomes aware that one is not yet capable of just sitting silently. This is what insanity is. If a person is not capable of sitting silently, what more can you expect of a person? This is the simplest thing in the world -- to sit silently not doing anything. But it seems to be the hardest. The hardness is coming because you have not done any catharsis. This camp will be very helpful. Do this camp and do a few groups here which will help bring out all that is repressed in you, to cathart it, to act it out.

Once your insanity is vomited, you will suddenly become capable of sitting silently and you will not feel any trouble arising You will simply be surprised that it is such a simple thing. Why weren't you able to do it? If you are not able to do it, then just in trying to do it the whole energy is wasted. Then it is not really Vipassana. You are just trying to force something and you are remaining in conflict, continuous conflict, in trying to be. The legs are aching, the back is aching and the body feels uncomfortable and there are so many thoughts and this and that and you are trying somehow to hold yourself together. The whole time is wasted in that. You never have the glimpse of what Vipassana is. Vipassana is possible only when two basic necessities have been fulfilled. First, a deep catharsis of the mind so you don't have many thoughts. They are simply not there; you have thrown them out. These groups help to vomit, to throw, to release all that is repressed inside: anger, hatred, jealousy, whatsoever. And the second is Rolfing. It gives the body a new flow, a new energy, a freshness, a flexibility. These two things done, one for the body and one for the mind, Vipassana comes as easily as your shadow follows you. Just like that. So be here for a little time. Do the camp and then a few groups, and then I will tell you to do Vipassana. I tell people to do it at the end when they have done everything else.

[Excerpted from A Rose is a Rose is a Rose, Osho]

Punyatam - Beginning shall b done from this very moment, start thinking in terms of being a child -- as if you don't know the world and don't know the ways of the world, as if you have no experience.
Prem means love and dhanya means blessed -- blessed by love. These are the next steps. Love is the only blessing there is, and those who love are the only ones who are blessed. All others simply live a life of curse. Nobody is cursing them; they themselves are responsible. If one wants to live a life of tremendous bliss and blessing, one should be more loving -- not loving to a particular person, just loving.

[An elderly sannyasin says:... I was never really a child when I was one, but these last few days, I often feel like a little child... and I want to tease everybody. I want to do crazy things.]
[chuckling] That's really a miracle, really a miracle! To feel like a child again is a great conversion. Allow it... don't feel shy about it. Tease people! It will be difficult because of your age, your mind and your experience, but don't be bothered. Put your age and mind aside. If you can, you will suddenly feel a new energy arising in your body. Your age will be reduced by at least twenty years. You can become younger immediately and you can live longer. So allow it; it is beautiful. That's what Jesus means when he says, 'Those who are like children, only they will be able to enter my kingdom of God.' One has to become a child again and then life is complete. In childhood we start and in childhood we end. If one dies without becoming a child, his whole life circle is incomplete. He will have to be born again. That is the whole eastern idea of rebirth. If you can be reborn -- reborn in this life -- there is no need to be born again. If you can really become a child in this body, there is no need to be born into the world again. You can live in the heart of God. There is no need then to come back. You have learned the lesson and completed the circle. My whole effort here is this: to help you to be a child again. It is difficult, it is very difficult, because your whole experience, your whole pattern, your whole character resists and says, 'What are you doing? It looks foolish!' But be foolish and let it assert itself.
You will feel so unburdened, so new, and as fresh as a dew drop. That freshness is something of the spirit, because your body is old but your consciousness can be new and young. So it is somewhat of a miracle. If you allow it, it will grow and you will be able to see things again as a small child with no ideas, no verbalisations, with no mind. Then the world is so luminous. Life is like a rainbow -- so many colours, so many sounds. It is a great orchestra -- but only a child can feel it because we have so many ideas. Those ideas act as blinkers. Even when we see the moon, our ideas about the moon are standing between us and the moon. The moon is never really available to you -- so many layers, so many screens. If you allow this child to grow again, it will be a death and a resurrection. The old will disappear by and by and will be replaced by a totally new consciousness and then you will be able to see that a rose is a rose is a rose. You will be able to penetrate into the facticity of things with no words, no verbalisations, no philosophy, no metaphysics, no religion. A child knows none. He simply looks direct. His being is immediate. He is full of presence, available, open. Allow it. This is something very significant, but you can lose it. If you don't help it, it can be lost easily because your whole personality will be against it. You will have to consciously work a way for it, to allow it.
Your whole past will be there like a rock and this new phenomenon will just be like dripping water, a small stream, which can become a river if you help; otherwise the rock is too big. But ultimately, if one goes on helping, the softer, the more water-like, the stronger one is, the more the rocklike things disappear. In the long run the rock is always defeated by the water. The old man is always defeated by the child. Death is always defeated by life. One should remember that, and one should always help the softer, the younger and fresher things.
You are no more a child. And if you decide by this mind, then the teasing will also be useless because now the control remains with the old. Forget all about it ! At the most they can reject you. That is their problem. It has nothing to do with you. Really be a child and let us see what happens. At the most, people can reject you or can think that you have gone crazy. That's what they will think, so let them! It is worth it. Being crazy is worth it. You have remained sane long enough. Now try the other way. For seven days simply forget all consideration. Simply do whatsoever you feel like doing. Just behave like a child -- and a child never asks. So don't ask for seven days. A child never thinks -- just a feeling and he goes and does things. Make friends with children... small children around the ashram. Make friends with them and follow them. Whatsoever they do, you do [laughter]. They will enjoy it and will not reject you at all. Children are very very receptive and they always understand. They will immediately understand that you look old but you are not. Just mix with children and forget about big people.

[Excerpted from A Rose is a Rose is a Rose, Osho]

LAUGHTER

Laughter is the most easy thing in the world if you allow, but it has become hard. People laugh very rarely, and even when they laugh it is not true. People laugh as if they are obliging somebody, as if they are fulfilling a certain duty. Laughter is fun. You are not obliging anybody! Just as with love... you are not obliging anybody. Love is fun. Laughter is fun. Life is fun. But somehow the idea has gone very deeply into the mind that you are fulfilling duties. You see a person and you smile. You smile for him. One should smile only for oneself. If others share, good. If nobody shares, good. But one should smile of one's own accord. One should not laugh to make somebody else happy, because if you are not happy, you cannot make anybody happy. Even if you are happy, it is very difficult to make somebody else happy because it depends on that somebody else as to whether he will accept it or not. One should simply laugh of one's own accord, and one should not wait for reasons to laugh. That too is absurd. Why wait for reasons? Life as it is should be enough of a reason to laugh.

It is so absurd, it is so ridiculous. It is so beautiful... it is so wonderful. It is all sorts of things together. It is a great cosmic joke. If you start looking into things you will not be able to stop laughing. Everything is simply perfect for laughter -- nothing is lacking -- but we won't allow. We are very miserly... miserly about laughter, love, life. Once you know that miserliness can be dropped, you move into a different dimension. Laughter is the real religion. Everything else is just metaphysics. Laughter is true religion because it will bring you closer and closer to life. In great laughter the ego disappears suddenly you are open to the whole, to the whole of existence. All doors, all windows open. So make it a point to laugh more. Always keep laughter alive so that for any tiny reason, or for no reason, you are always ready to burst into laughter. And don't wait for excuses to laugh. If they are available, good. If they are not available there is no need for them. One can laugh without them. It looks mad if you laugh without any reason but don't be bothered about what others say. It is your life and the more you fill it with laughter, the more sacred it will become. Laugh your way to God !

[Excerpted from A Rose is a Rose is a Rose, Osho]

INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY

The thinking up to now has been this -- that the individual exists for the society so the individual has to follow just what the society says. He has to fit with the society. That is the definition of the normal human being -- to fit with the society. Even if the society is insane, you have to fit with it; then you are normal. Even if the society is neurotic and you try to be sane, you will be thought neurotic because the society is the majority. They have power so they can make anybody feel guilty. They have put a deep mechanism inside you which they call a conscience which, if you move slightly away from the norm, the accepted rules of the game, immediately says, 'Wrong! Wrong! You are doing something wrong!' Now the problem for the individual is that nature demands one thing and society demands something contrary. If the society was demanding the same as nature demands, there would have been no conflict. Man would still have remained in the garden of Eden. The problem arises because society has its own interests which are not necessarily in tune with the individual and his interests. Society has its own investments. The individual has to be sacrificed. This is a very topsy-turvy world. Just the other way round should be the right thing. The individual does not exist for the society. The society exists for the individual. Because society is just an institution. It has no soul. An individual has the soul, is the conscious centre; it has a centre. God resides in the individual, not in the society.

Society is nothing -- just a word. You cannot come across society anywhere. Wherever you go, you will come across the individual. Society is just in the dictionaries and in the legal codes of the courts. It is a term but a very big blanket term. It covers many things. And for this blanket term the real individual can be sacrificed -- and he has been up to now. Rarely have a few individuals been able to escape from this dangerous structure. These few individuals are the religious rebels -- Jesus, Buddha, Krishna. They tried to live their life according to their nature. They dropped conscience. they dropped all guilt. They became part of nature rather than part of society. Nature is vast. Society is very tiny. Society is man-made. nature is God-made. They chose God instead of a man-made institution. The difference is just like marriage and love. Marriage is a man-made institution. Love has nothing to do with man's manufactured institutions. Love is natural. Wherever you find society is in conflict with nature, choose nature -- whatsoever the cost. You will never be a loser. You will always gain. If you choose society, you will always be a loser. The game will be very short term, worth nothing, and you will lose your whole soul. So this is the basic thing -- to move into a new light, into a new consciousness, where you can unguilt yourself. And then many more things follow.

[Excerpted from A Rose is a Rose is a Rose, Osho]

i think one should not run away from this.......world has given us infinite ways to be away from this............but i think....to be godly(near to God) is just to be like a kid..........when we are kids...there are many symptoms which indicate that we are new on this earth and have not undergone the exposure which takes us away from us or we can say, away from God...........eg.......when i was a kid, i used to feel my breath.......and a noice/voice always used to remain in my ears which used to irritate me........ i wanted to run away from that....and found a way to be away from it by not giving attention to it.....i put my attention in some other things, made myself busy more in outer things..like T.V., Videogames etc and it was very easy to be away from that...........since then i have been like that - unaware..................but u know what!! it was the voice/noice of my own circulatory system.......and ..the constant movements which i used to feel in my body were nothing but pulsatory movements.........and now........we have all been so externally driven that................i have to try hard to listen to them.........i have to make efforts........and still they are not always listen-able................i think each and every individual has got this bliss from God..........when we are kid.....we are more near to these Godly gifts ............when we are kids, we know that what is visible when our eye-lids are closed......yes something is visible........some circles of light..........like rings of light in darkness.......this is just due to momentous change from light to darkness .....and so on........there are many things to which we become unavailable when we grow old.........i want to be kid again............to be a kid is just to do everything meditatively.........we used to do that when we were kid......we even used to walk meditatively....step by step.....noticing ourselves.............free of all tensions..........free of all things ....just lived in present.......fully in present.........i just wanna b like that.......

This post just presents a reality which is very beautiful and which is so told and preached by many of our saints like Osho........this is the very essence of life, our existence and their very teachings...........below is a writing taken from http://www.puresilence.org/ which reveals a fantastic and stunning reality........just go thru it.....its lovely.......really lovely.................

Pure Silence
[Silence, Space, Within, Inner Peace, Silêncio, Consciousness, Satori, Being, Awareness, Who am I, Emptiness, Non-Duality, Enlightenment, Spirit, Essence of Reality, Mystical Union, Buddha Mind, Silencio, Meditation, Truth, Dzogchen, Love, God, Allah, Nirvana, Void, Advaita Vedanta, I Am, One Taste, Contemplation, I am that I am, Silenzio, Eternity, Now, Samadhi, Nothingness, Tao, Divine Union, Nondual silence, Kingdom of Heaven, Transpersonal, Mysticism, Stillness, The Self, Silent Mind]

The gentle, loving, inner peace and silence is here and now in this moment.

It has always been this way. It is always here.

It is right here within us and all around us, a stillness, an apparent void, a seeming nothingness out of which everything arises, exists, and eventually returns.
I know this and I have felt this.

There is nothing more than this.

I am this.

This is truth.

This is not some esoteric spiritual jargon about some new age philosophy or any religion or belief. There is nothing here which is mystical. There are just these words and me and the silence within. This is real, now.

This silence is right here within me, every single moment of my life.

This pure silence contains me, my being-ness and yet the silence is my very being.

This silence allows the entire universe to be.

All existence, everything that is, all matter and energy, all thought is contained in this silence.

This pure silence is what some have called Truth, Infinity, Reality, Enlightenment, Nothingness, God, Great or Holy Spirit, The Now, True Self, I am, Consciousness and Love.

This silence is a mystery beyond mind, beyond what the human brain can fully comprehend. Like a beautiful diamond, we can only see a few facets at a time. This mystery is seemingly far beyond us-our capacity to understand, to know. And yet this is contained within our very selves, and this contains us as well.

The greatest wonder of this is that you and I, above all other life forms on this planet are able to be consciously aware of this reality, now.

Yes, you are aware of this, though perhaps you have not experienced this yet. Perhaps you have not realized this.

This awareness of ours, this consciousness of being, is the silence itself.

The silence is the very space of being.

In you and me, being has become aware of itself.

There is only this.

We have spent thousands of years denying what is more present to us than our very breath, our very heartbeat.

This silence permeates everything and is the allow-er of everything.

The silence allows us to be and to be free.

There is only this.

I am this!
You are this!

All that we need, all that we seek, all that we hope and long for is contained in this silence.

All you need to do is stop and just be: Now!

There is only this:
Pure Silence

[.....once you experience it, you get addicted...... i can feel the hunger for it.......its lovely........its relaxing.......and above all........it heals.....yes, it heals..........

............but normally, our environment makes us unavailable to it, which is our very being........

but whenever i get reminded.....i try to become available to it.........

......thanks for your reading......]

Here i want to say that when i started this blog i really wanted it to be a display-board for my own views......but........as you all know...things are not like that... and the title - "Everything's different from my view" seems quite unfit...........and i m unable to find an option to change the title of the blog...........so if anybody knows it.......plz tell me.......and till then, let the title be.........."DONT KNOW WHERE I M HEADING".......for i really dont know.......where i m heading.......i have taken leaves from my office for the preparations of my exams but m unable to study......many confusions surround me when i do....it's been a really long time since m ignoring them........and i really want answers to them.....so i have to look here and there for the answers............it was an year or so ago when i realized a need for a 'guru' to sort my querries...but m unable to find such......Osho seems to answer many of my querries.....but some of them are still remaining...........Osho's path is of ultimate surrender........U can see in my previous post that......he used to get up every morning saying to himself that ' So.... God wants me to live a more day ......may be he has some purpose in his mind....' ....... it was so coz he was well satiated by what he had got..............m not........yes, i can leave all my desires....means i will be happy, in fact, i m happy by what i m{i like my face......i like my body....my figure....my perception}......i dont want to analyse myself.......i can b well with it........i m what i m.........let me be me......but when i find people('people' here engulfs the whole society) not satisfied with me, coz it is not the world when only your satisfaction is enough.......you have to satisfy others .....so that they may let you live.....to go further.....so that they may let you live with respect..........so i have to impose their expectations over me......i have to .....their desires are supposed to be mine......and it is not just that......i have to have some of those desires as mine.............coz i hav to make my position, earn respect in the society(even after knowing that one's position in society does not becomes constant by just one act of achievement.....it has to be continuous......means ...the position is just not to be attained but to be maintained).......so can anybody tell me that when will it be over then......?............but i can leave all my desires.....if world doesnt call me a loser....................but it will.......therefore it is not supposed to be at this moment.......Now what???........just lose yourself for sometime...and live for others for sometime[:D]........in fact for yourself........just study.....it too is a sort of meditation.....coz one has to forget oneself while studying........and meditation is also only when the meditator is not..........ho ho....so..b happy and do well to study.........hope i study now........i know i will not...........coz i want to be happy.........and happy forever.......[:D]

OSHO: You ask me: What happened when you became enlightened?

I laughed, a real uproarious laugh, seeing the whole absurdity of trying to be enlightened. The whole thing is ridiculous because we are born enlightened, and to try for something that is already the case is the most absurd thing. If you already have it, you cannot achieve it; only those things can be achieved which you don't have, which are not intrinsic parts of your being. But enlightenment is your very nature.I had struggled for it for many lives—it had been the only target for many many lives. And I had done everything that is possible to do to attain it, but I had always failed. It was bound to be so—because it cannot be an attainment. It is your nature, so how can it be your attainment? It cannot be made an ambition.Mind is ambitious—ambitious for money, for power, for prestige. And then one day, when it gets fed up with all these extrovert activities, it becomes ambitious for enlightenment, for liberation, for nirvana, for God. But the same ambition has come back; only the object he changed. First the object was outside, now the object is inside. But your attitude, your approach has not changed; you are the same person in the same rut, in the same routine."The day I became enlightened" simply means the day I realized that there is nothing to achieve, there is nowhere to go, there is nothing to be done. We are already divine and we are already perfect—as we are. No improvement is needed, no improvement at all. God never creates anybody imperfect. Even if you come across an imperfect man, you will see that his imperfection is perfect. God never creates any imperfect thing.I have heard about a Zen Master Bokuju who was telling this truth to his disciples, that all is perfect. A man stood up—very old, a hunchback—and he said, "What about me? I am a hunchback. What do you say about me?" Bokuju said, "I have never seen such a perfect hunchback in my life."When I say "the day I achieved enlightenment," I am using wrong language—because there is no other language, because our language is created by us. It consists of the words "achievement," "attainment," "goals," "improvement" "progress," "evolution." Our languages are not created by the enlightened people; and in fact they cannot create it even if they want to because enlightenment happens in silence. How can you bring that silence into words? And whatsoever you do, the words are going to destroy something of that silence.Lao Tzu says: The moment truth is asserted it becomes false. There is no way to communicate truth. But language has to be used; there is no other way. So we always have to use the language with the condition that it cannot be adequate to the experience. Hence I say "the day I achieved my enlightenment." It is neither an achievement nor mine.[At this point there is a brief power failure: no light, no sound.]Yes, it happens like that! Out of nowhere suddenly the darkness, suddenly the light, and you cannot do anything. You can just watch.I laughed that day because of all my stupid ridiculous efforts to attain it. I laughed on that day at myself, and I laughed on that day at the whole of humanity, because everybody is trying to achieve, everybody is trying to reach, everybody is trying to improve.To me it happened in a state of total relaxation—it always happens in that state. I had tried everything. And then, seeing the futility of all effort, I dropped…I dropped the whole project, I forgot all about it. For seven days I lived as ordinarily as possible.The people I used to live with were very much surprised, because this was the first time they had seen me live just an ordinary life. Otherwise my whole life was a perfect discipline.For two years I had lived with that family, and they had known that I would get up at three o'clock in the morning, then I would go for a long four- or five-mile walk or run, and then I would take a bath in the river. Everything was absolutely routine. Even if I had a fever or I was ill, there was no difference: I would simply go on the same way.They had known me to sit in meditation for hours. Up to that day I had not eaten many things. I would not drink tea, coffee, I had a strict discipline about what to eat, what not to eat. And exactly at nine o'clock I would go to bed. Even if somebody was sitting there, I would simply say "Goodbye" and I would go to my bed. The family with whom I used to live, they would inform the person that "Now you can go. He has gone to sleep." I would not even waste a single moment in saying, "Now it is time for me to go to sleep."When I relaxed for seven days, when I dropped the whole thing and when on the first day I drank tea in the morning and woke up at nine o'clock in the morning, the family was puzzled. They said, "What has happened? Have you fallen?" They used to think of me as a great yogi.One picture of those days still exists. I used to use only one single piece of cloth and that was all. In the day I would cover my body with it, in the night I would use it as a blanket to cover myself. I slept on a bamboo mat. That was my whole comfort—that blanket, that bamboo mat. I had nothing—no other possessions.They were puzzled when I woke up at nine. They said, "Something is wrong. Are you very ill, seriously ill?"I said, "No, I am not seriously ill. I have been ill for many years, now I am perfectly healthy. Now I will wake up only when sleep leaves me, and I will go to sleep only when sleep comes to me. I am no longer going to be a slave to the clock. I will eat whatsoever my body feels like eating, and I will drink whatsoever I feel like drinking."They could not believe it. They said, "Can you even drink beer?" I said, "Bring it!"That was the first day I tasted beer. They could not believe their eyes. They said, "You have completely gone down. You have become completely unspiritual. What are you doing?"I said, "Enough is enough." And in seven days I completely forgot the whole project, and I forgot it forever.And the seventh day it happened—it happened just out of nowhere. Suddenly all was light; and I was not doing anything, I was just sitting under a tree resting, enjoying. And when I laughed, the gardener heard the laughter. He used to think that I was a little bit crazy, but he had never seen me laugh in that way. He came running. He said, "What is the matter?"I said, "Don't be worried. You know I am crazy—now I have gone completely crazy! I am laughing at myself. Don't feel offended. Just go to sleep." theolo09

I am reminded of the fateful day of twenty-first March, 1953. For many lives I had been working—working upon myself, struggling, doing whatsoever can be done—and nothing was happening.Now I understand why nothing was happening. The very effort was the barrier, the very ladder was preventing, the very urge to seek was the obstacle. Not that one can reach without seeking. Seeking is needed, but then comes a point when seeking has to be dropped. The boat is needed to cross the river but then comes a moment when you have to get out of the boat and forget all about it and leave it behind. Effort is needed, without effort nothing is possible. And also only with effort, nothing is possible.Just before twenty-first March, 1953, seven days before, I stopped working on myself. A moment comes when you see the whole futility of effort. You have done all that you can do and nothing is happening. You have done all that is humanly possible. Then what else can you do? In sheer helplessness one drops all search.And the day the search stopped, the day I was not seeking for something, the day I was not expecting something to happen, it started happening. A new energy arose—out of nowhere. It was not coming from any source. It was coming from nowhere and everywhere. It was in the trees and in the rocks and the sky and the sun and the air—it was everywhere. And I was seeking so hard, and I was thinking it is very far away. And it was so near and so close.Just because I was seeking I had become incapable of seeing the near. Seeking is always for the far, seeking is always for the distant—and it was not distant. I had become far-sighted, I had lost the near-sightedness. The eyes had become focussed on the far away, the horizon, and they had lost the quality to see that which is just close, surrounding you.The day effort ceased, I also ceased. Because you cannot exist without effort, and you cannot exist without desire, and you cannot exist without striving.The phenomenon of the ego, of the self, is not a thing, it is a process. It is not a substance sitting there inside you; you have to create it each moment. It is like pedalling bicycle. If you pedal it goes on and on, if you don't pedal it stops. It may go a little because of the past momentum, but the moment you stop pedalling, in fact the bicycle starts stopping. It has no more energy, no more power to go anywhere. It is going to fall and collapse.The ego exists because we go on pedalling desire, because we go on striving to get something, because we go on jumping ahead of ourselves. That is the very phenomenon of the ego—the jump ahead of yourself, the jump in the future, the jump in the tomorrow. The jump in the non-existential creates the ego. Because it comes out of the non-existential it is like a mirage. It consists only of desire and nothing else. It consists only of thirst and nothing else.The ego is not in the present, it is in the future. If you are in the future, then ego seems to be very substantial. If you are in the present the ego is a mirage, it starts disappearing.The day I stopped seeking…and it is not right to say that I stopped seeking, better will be to say the day seeking stopped. Let me repeat it: the better way to say it is the day the seeking stopped. Because if I stop it then I am there again [means, it itself gets stopped, hm??]. Now stopping becomes my effort, now stopping becomes my desire, and desire goes on existing in a very subtle way.You cannot stop desire; you can only understand it. In the very understanding is the stopping of it. Remember, nobody can stop desiring, and the reality happens only when desire stops.So this is the dilemma. What to do? Desire is there and Buddhas go on saying desire has to be stopped, and they go on saying in the next breath that you cannot stop desire. So what to do? You put people in a dilemma. They are in desire, certainly. You say it has to be stopped—okay. And then you say it cannot be stopped. Then what is to be done?The desire has to be understood. You can understand it, you can just see the futility of it. A direct perception is needed, an immediate penetration is needed. Look into desire, just see what it is, and you will see the falsity of it, and you will see it is non-existential. And desire drops and something drops simultaneously within you.Desire and the ego exist in cooperation, they coordinate. The ego cannot exist without desire, the desire cannot exist without the ego. Desire is projected ego, ego is introjected desire. They are together, two aspects of one phenomenon.The day desiring stopped, I felt very hopeless and helpless. No hope because no future. Nothing to hope because all hoping has proved futile, it leads nowhere. You go in rounds. It goes on dangling in front of you, it goes on creating new mirages, it goes on calling you, 'Come on, run fast, you will reach.' But howsoever fast you run you never reach.That's why Buddha calls it a mirage. It is like the horizon that you see around the earth. It appears but it is not there. If you go it goes on running from you. The faster you run, the faster it moves away. The slower you go, the slower it moves away. But one thing is certain—the distance between you and the horizon remains absolutely the same. Not even a single inch can you reduce the distance between you and the horizon.You cannot reduce the distance between you and your hope. Hope is horizon. You try to bridge yourself with the horizon, with the hope, with a projected desire. The desire is a bridge, a dream bridge—because the horizon exists not, so you cannot make a bridge towards it, you can only dream about the bridge. You cannot be joined with the non-existential.The day the desire stopped, the day I looked and realized into it, it simply was futile. I was helpless and hopeless. But that very moment something started happening. The same started happening for which for many lives I was working and it was not happening.In your hopelessness is the only hope, and in your desirelessness is your only fulfillment, and in your tremendous helplessness suddenly the whole existence starts helping you.It is waiting. When it sees that you are working on your own, it does not interfere. It waits. It can wait infinitely because there is no hurry for it. It is eternity. The moment you are not on your own, the moment you drop, the moment you disappear, the whole existence rushes towards you, enters you. And for the first time things start happening.Seven days I lived in a very hopeless and helpless state, but at the same time something was arising. When I say hopeless I don't mean what you mean by the word hopeless. I simply mean there was no hope in me. Hope was absent. I am not saying that I was hopeless and sad. I was happy in fact, I was very tranquil, calm and collected and centered. Hopeless, but in a totally new meaning. There was no hope, so how could there be hopelessness. Both had disappeared.The hopelessness was absolute and total. Hope had disappeared and with it its counterpart, hopelessness, had also disappeared. It was a totally new experience—of being without hope. It was not a negative state. I have to use words—but it was not a negative state. It was absolutely positive. It was not just absence, a presence was felt. Something was overflowing in me, overflooding me.And when I say I was helpless, I don't mean the word in the dictionary-sense. I simply say I was selfless. That's what I mean when I say helpless. I have recognized the fact that I am not, so I cannot depend on myself, so I cannot stand on my own ground—there was no ground underneath. I was in an abyss…bottomless abyss. But there was no fear because there was nothing to protect. There was no fear because there was nobody to be afraid.Those seven days were of tremendous transformation, total transformation. And the last day the presence of a totally new energy, a new light and new delight, became so intense that it was almost unbearable—as if I was exploding, as if I was going mad with blissfulness. The new generation in the West has the right word for it—I was blissed out, stoned.It was impossible to make any sense out of it, what was happening. It was a very non-sense world—difficult to figure it out, difficult to manage in categories, difficult to use words, languages, explanations. All scriptures appeared dead and all the words that have been used for this experience looked very pale, anaemic. This was so alive. It was like a tidal wave of bliss.The whole day was strange, stunning, and it was a shattering experience. The past was disappearing, as if it had never belonged to me, as if I had read about it somewhere, as if I had dreamed about it, as if it was somebody else's story I have heard and somebody told it to me. I was becoming loose from my past, I was being uprooted from my history, I was losing my autobiography. I was becoming a non-being, what Buddha calls anatta. Boundaries were disappearing, distinctions were disappearing.Mind was disappearing; it was millions of miles away. It was difficult to catch hold of it, it was rushing farther and farther away, and there was no urge to keep it close. I was simply indifferent about it all. It was okay. There was no urge to remain continuous with the past.By the evening it became so difficult to bear it—it was hurting, it was painful. It was like when a woman goes into labour when a child is to be born, and the woman suffers tremendous pain—the birth pangs.I used to go to sleep in those days near about twelve or one in the night, but that day it was impossible to remain awake. My eyes were closing, it was difficult to keep them open. Something was very imminent, something was going to happen. It was difficult to say what it was—maybe it is going to be my death—but there was no fear. I was ready for it. Those seven days had been so beautiful that I was ready to die, nothing more was needed. They had been so tremendously blissful, I was so contented, that if death was coming, it was welcome.But something was going to happen—something like death, something very drastic, something which will be either a death or a new birth, a crucifixion or a resurrection—but something of tremendous import was around just by the corner. And it was impossible to keep my eyes open. I was drugged.I went to sleep near about eight. It was not like sleep. Now I can understand what Patanjali means when he says that sleep and samadhi are similar. Only with one difference—that in samadhi you are fully awake and asleep also. Asleep and awake together, the whole body relaxed, every cell of the body totally relaxed, all functioning relaxed, and yet a light of awareness burns within you…clear, smokeless. You remain alert and yet relaxed, loose but fully awake. The body is in the deepest sleep possible and your consciousness is at its peak. The peak of consciousness and the valley of the body meet.I went to sleep. It was a very strange sleep. The body was asleep, I was awake. It was so strange—as if one was torn apart into two directions, two dimensions; as if the polarity has become completely focused, as if I was both the polarities together…the positive and negative were meeting, sleep and awareness were meeting, death and life were meeting. That is the moment when you can say 'the creator and the creation meet.'It was weird. For the first time it shocks you to the very roots, it shakes your foundations. You can never be the same after that experience; it brings a new vision to your life, a new quality.Near about twelve my eyes suddenly opened—I had not opened them. The sleep was broken by something else. I felt a great presence around me in the room. It was a very small room. I felt a throbbing life all around me, a great vibration—almost like a hurricane, a great storm of light, joy, ecstasy. I was drowning in it.It was so tremendously real that everything became unreal. The walls of the room became unreal, the house became unreal, my own body became unreal. Everything was unreal because now there was for the first time reality.That's why when Buddha and Shankara say the world is maya, a mirage, it is difficult for us to understand. Because we know only this world, we don't have any comparison. This is the only reality we know. What are these people talking about—this is maya, illusion? This is the only reality. Unless you come to know the really real, their words cannot be understood, their words remain theoretical. They look like hypotheses. Maybe this man is propounding a philosophy—'The world is unreal'.When Berkley in the West said that the world is unreal, he was walking with one of his friends, a very logical man; the friend was almost a skeptic. He took a stone from the road and hit Berkley's feet hard. Berkley screamed, blood rushed out, and the skeptic said, 'Now, the world is unreal? You say the world is unreal?—then why did you scream? This stone is unreal?—then why did you scream? Then why are you holding your leg and why are you showing so much pain and anguish on your face. Stop this? It is all unreal.Now this type of man cannot understand what Buddha means when he says the world is a mirage. He does not mean that you can pass through the wall. He is not saying this—that you can eat stones and it will make no difference whether you eat bread or stones. He is not saying that.He is saying that there is a reality. Once you come to know it, this so-called reality simply pales out, simply becomes unreal. With a higher reality in vision the comparison arises, not otherwise.In the dream; the dream is real. You dream every night. Dream is one of the greatest activities that you go on doing. If you live sixty years, twenty years you will sleep and almost ten years you will dream. Ten years in a life—nothing else do you do so much. Ten years of continuous dreaming—just think about it. And every night…. And every morning you say it was unreal, and again in the night when you dream, dream becomes real.In a dream it is so difficult to remember that this is a dream. But in the morning it is so easy. What happens? You are the same person. In the dream there is only one reality. How to compare? How to say it is unreal? Compared to what? It is the only reality. Everything is as unreal as everything else so there is no comparison. In the morning when you open your eyes another reality is there. Now you can say it was all unreal. Compared to this reality, dream becomes unreal.There is an awakening—compared to that reality of that awakening, this whole reality becomes unreal.That night for the first time I understood the meaning of the word maya. Not that I had not known the word before, not that I was not aware of the meaning of the word. As you are aware, I was also aware of the meaning—but I had never understood it before. How can you understand without experience?That night another reality opened its door, another dimension became available. Suddenly it was there, the other reality, the separate reality, the really real, or whatsoever you want to call it—call it god, call it truth, call it dhamma, call it tao, or whatsoever you will. It was nameless. But it was there—so opaque, so transparent, and yet so solid one could have touched it. It was almost suffocating me in that room. It was too much and I was not yet capable of absorbing it.A deep urge arose in me to rush out of the room, to go under the sky—it was suffocating me. It was too much! It will kill me! If I had remained a few moments more, it would have suffocated me—it looked like that.I rushed out of the room, came out in the street. A great urge was there just to be under the sky with the stars, with the trees, with the earth…to be with nature. And immediately as I came out, the feeling of being suffocated disappeared. It was too small a place for such a big phenomenon. Even the sky is a small place for that big phenomenon. It is bigger than the sky. Even the sky is not the limit for it. But then I felt more at ease.I walked towards the nearest garden. It was a totally new walk, as if gravitation had disappeared. I was walking, or I was running, or I was simply flying; it was difficult to decide. There was no gravitation, I was feeling weightless—as if some energy was taking me. I was in the hands of some other energy.For the first time I was not alone, for the first time I was no more an individual, for the first time the drop has come and fallen into the ocean. Now the whole ocean was mine, I was the ocean. There was no limitation. A tremendous power arose as if I could do anything whatsoever. I was not there, only the power was there.I reached to the garden where I used to go every day. The garden was closed, closed for the night. It was too late, it was almost one o'clock in the night. The gardeners were fast asleep. I had to enter the garden like a thief, I had to climb the gate. But something was pulling me towards the garden. It was not within my capacity to prevent myself. I was just floating.That's what I mean when I say again and again 'float with the river, don't push the river'. I was relaxed, I was in a let-go. I was not there. it was there, call it god—god was there.I would like to call it it, because god is too human a word, and has become too dirty by too much use, has become too polluted by so many people. Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, priests and politicians—they all have corrupted the beauty of the word. So let me call it it. It was there and I was just carried away…carried by a tidal wave.The moment I entered the garden everything became luminous, it was all over the place—the benediction, the blessedness. I could see the trees for the first time—their green, their life, their very sap running. The whole garden was asleep, the trees were asleep. But I could see the whole garden alive, even the small grass leaves were so beautiful.I looked around. One tree was tremendously luminous—the maulshree tree. It attracted me, it pulled me towards itself. I had not chosen it, god himself has chosen it. I went to the tree, I sat under the tree. As I sat there things started settling. The whole universe became a benediction.It is difficult to say how long I was in that state. When I went back home it was four o'clock in the morning, so I must have been there by clock time at least three hours—but it was infinity. It had nothing to do with clock time. It was timeless.Those three hours became the whole eternity, endless eternity. There was no time, there was no passage of time; it was the virgin reality—uncorrupted, untouchable, unmeasurable.And that day something happened that has continued—not as a continuity—but it has still continued as an undercurrent. Not as a permanency—each moment it has been happening again and again. It has been a miracle each moment.That night…and since that night I have never been in the body. I am hovering around it. I became tremendously powerful and at the same time very fragile. I became very strong, but that strength is not the strength of a Mohammed Ali. That strength is not the strength of a rock, that strength is the strength of a rose flower—so fragile in his strength…so fragile, so sensitive, so delicate.The rock will be there, the flower can go any moment, but still the flower is stronger than the rock because it is more alive. Or, the strength of a dewdrop on a leaf of grass just shining; in the morning sun—so beautiful, so precious, and yet can slip any moment. So incomparable in its grace, but a small breeze can come and the dewdrop can slip and be lost forever.Buddhas have a strength which is not of this world. Their strength is totally of love…Like a rose flower or a dewdrop. Their strength is very fragile, vulnerable. Their strength is the strength of life not of death. Their power is not of that which kills; their power is of that which creates. Their power is not of violence, aggression; their power is that of compassion.But I have never been in the body again, I am just hovering around the body. And that's why I say it has been a tremendous miracle. Each moment I am surprised I am still here, I should not be. I should have left any moment, still I am here. Every morning I open my eyes and I say, 'So, again I am still here?' Because it seems almost impossible. The miracle has been a continuity.Just the other day somebody asked a question—'Osho, you are getting so fragile and delicate and so sensitive to the smells of hair oils and shampoos that it seems we will not be able to see you unless we all go bald.' By the way, nothing is wrong with being bald—bald is beautiful. Just as 'black is beautiful', so 'bald is beautiful'. But that is true and you have to be careful about it.I am fragile, delicate and sensitive. That is my strength. If you throw a rock at a flower nothing will happen to the rock, the flower will be gone. But still you cannot say that the rock is more powerful than the flower. The flower will be gone because the flower was alive. And the rock—nothing will happen to it because it is dead. The flower will be gone because the flower has no strength to destroy. The flower will simply disappear and give way to the rock. The rock has a power to destroy because the rock is dead.Remember, since that day I have never been in the body really; just a delicate thread joins me with the body. And I am continuously surprised that somehow the whole must be willing me to be here, because I am no more here with my own strength, I am no more here on my own. It must be the will of the whole to keep me here, to allow me to linger a little more on this shore. Maybe the whole wants to share something with you through me.Since that day the world is unreal. Another world has been revealed. When I say the world is unreal I don't mean that these trees are unreal. These trees are absolutely real—but the way you see these trees is unreal. These trees are not unreal in themselves—they exist in god, they exist in absolute reality—but the way you see them you never see them; you are seeing something else, a mirage.You create your own dream around you and unless you become awake you will continue to dream. The world is unreal because the world that you know is the world of your dreams. When dreams drop and you simply encounter the world that is there, then the real world.There are not two things, god and the world. God is the world if you have eyes, clear eyes, without any dreams, without any dust of the dreams, without any haze of sleep; if you have clear eyes, clarity, perceptiveness, there is only god.Then somewhere god is a green tree, and somewhere else god is a shining star, and somewhere else god is a cuckoo, and somewhere else god is a flower, and somewhere else a child and somewhere else a river—then only god is. The moment you start seeing, only god is.But right now whatsoever you see is not the truth, it is a projected lie. That is the meaning of a mirage. And once you see, even for a single split moment, if you can see, if you can allow yourself to see, you will find immense benediction present all over, everywhere—in the clouds, in the sun, on the earth.This is a beautiful world. But I am not talking about your world, I am talking about my world. Your world is very ugly, your world is your world created by a self, your world is a projected world. You are using the real world as a screen and projecting your own ideas on it.When I say the world is real, the world is tremendously beautiful, the world is luminous with infinity, the world is light and delight, it is a celebration, I mean my world—or your world if you drop your dreams.When you drop your dreams you see the same world as any Buddha has ever seen. When you dream you dream privately. Have you watched it?—that dreams are private. You cannot share them even with your beloved. You cannot invite your wife to your dream—or your husband, or your friend. You cannot say, 'Now, please come tonight in my dream. I would like to see the dream together.' It is not possible. Dream is a private thing, hence it is illusory, it has no objective reality.God is a universal thing. Once you come out of your private dreams, it is there. It has been always there. Once your eyes are clear, a sudden illumination—suddenly you are overflooded with beauty, grandeur and grace. That is the goal, that is the destiny.Let me repeat. Without effort you will never reach it, with effort nobody has ever reached it. You will need great effort, and only then there comes a moment when effort becomes futile. But it becomes futile only when you have come to the very peak of it, never before it. When you have come to the very pinnacle of your effort—all that you can do you have done—then suddenly there is no need to do anything any more. You drop the effort.But nobody can drop it in the middle, it can be dropped only at the extreme end. So go to the extreme end if you want to drop it. Hence I go on insisting: make as much effort as you can, put your whole energy and total heart in it, so that one day you can see—now effort is not going to lead me anywhere. And that day it will not be you who will drop the effort, it drops on its own accord. And when it drops on its own accord, meditation happens.Meditation is not a result of your efforts, meditation is a happening. When your efforts drop, suddenly meditation is there…the benediction of it, the blessedness of it, the glory of it. It is there like a presence…luminous, surrounding you and surrounding everything. It fills the whole earth and the whole sky.That meditation cannot be created by human effort. Human effort is too limited. That blessedness is so infinite. You cannot manipulate it. It can happen only when you are in a tremendous surrender. When you are not there only then it can happen. When you are a no-self—no desire, not going anywhere—when you are just herenow, not doing anything in particular, just being, it happens. And it comes in waves and the waves become tidal. It comes like a storm, and takes you away into a totally new reality.But first you have to do all that you can do, and then you have to learn non-doing. The doing of the non-doing is the greatest doing, and the effort of effortlessness is the greatest effort.Your meditation that you create by chanting a mantra or by sitting quiet and still and forcing yourself, is a very mediocre meditation. It is created by you, it cannot be bigger than you. It is homemade, and the maker is always bigger than the made. You have made it by sitting, forcing in a yoga posture, chanting 'rama, rama, rama' or anything—'blah, blah, blah'—anything. You have forced the mind to become still.It is a forced stillness. It is not that quiet that comes when you are not there. It is not that silence which comes when you are almost non-existential. It is not that beautitude which descends on you like a dove.It is said when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, god descended in him, or the holy ghost descended in him like a dove. Yes, that is exactly so. When you are not there peace descends in you…fluttering like a dove…reaches in your heart and abides there and abides there forever.You are your undoing, you are the barrier. Meditation is when the meditator is not. When the mind ceases with all its activities—seeing that they are futile—then the unknown penetrates you, overwhelms you.The mind must cease for god to be. Knowledge must cease for knowing to be. You must disappear, you must give way. You must become empty, then only you can be full.That night I became empty and became full. I became non-existential and became existence. That night I died and was reborn. But the one that was reborn has nothing to do with that which died, it is a discontinuous thing. On the surface it looks continuous but it is discontinuous. The one who died, died totally; nothing of him has remained.Believe me, nothing of him has remained, not even a shadow. It died totally, utterly. It is not that I am just a modified rup, transformed, modified form, transformed form of the old. No, there has been no continuity. That day of March twenty-first, the person who had lived for many many lives, for millennia, simply died. Another being, absolutely new, not connected at all with the old, started to exist.Religion just gives you a total death. Maybe that's why the whole day previous to that happening I was feeling some urgency like death, as if I am going to die—and I really died. I have known many other deaths but they were nothing compared to it, they were partial deaths.Sometimes the body died, sometimes a part of the mind died, sometimes a part of the ego died, but as far as the person was concerned, it remained. Renovated many times, decorated many times, changed a little bit here and there, but it remained, the continuity remained.That night the death was total. It was a date with death and god simultaneously. trans211

HOW CAN THE COSMIC BE ACHIEVED?

By becoming aware of your fragmented mind, of your conceptions, your attitudes, your prejudices. By becoming aware of the mind that feels, hears, chooses. When you see a flower, it is not only that the flower is there. Between you and the flower, a particular mind exists, a particular attitude about the flower exists. Otherwise there would be no barrier between you and the flower. You would be one. You and the flower are two extremes of one existence, two ends of one single moment. If your mind is not there, your consciousness and the flowering of the flower are two extreme points of one process.
But if your mind is there (as it is always there), you are not just seeing the flower. Your seeing has a projection behind it, you are seeing in terms of your own conceptions, your own likes and dislikes. You say, "This is a rose." But there is no such thing as 'rose'. The rose itself doesn't know that it is a rose. We are the ones who have called it that. And the moment you say 'rose', everything that is associated with the word 'rose' stands between you and the particular flower in front of you. The word has so many associations. If your culture says that a rose is beautiful, then the flower becomes beautiful. If your culture is against roses, then it becomes ugly. If your experience with roses is associated with pain with thorns, then the rose becomes one thing. If your associations are happy, then the rose becomes something different. But all the while, the rose itself remains the same. You see it with your mind. Your mind destroys that which is real and creates something imaginary, hallucinatory. If you have no mind; if you can see the rose without your mind; if your seeing is totally innocent, completely fresh; if your seeing is not coming from the past; if you and the rose are living simultaneously in this moment -- if you are without mind: just aware, just existential -- then the rose is not known as something separate. Then you know it to be part and parcel of your consciousness.

Then the flowering of the rose is your own flowering; then the perfume of the rose is your own perfume; then your consciousness is the rose's consciousness. The rose is knowing itself through you. Identification is not an act of dualism, but of total being. Through your consciousness, the rose has come to know itself. This is the feeling! It cannot be expressed exactly, but the feeling is like this: that either you have flowered in the rose, or the rose has become conscious of itself through you.

- Excerpted from The Eternal Quest, Osho