When walking, just walk!

When you walk on the road do you simply walk or you think and imagine and plan thousand and one things? More often than not, this is the case. Isn't it?

Osho gives a wonderfully simple technique -- walk with full consciousness, it will become a meditation. "Every person moves in a different way, walks in a different way. If a Buddha walks he is tremendously grounded. He is in deep contact with the earth. He is nourished by the earth, the earth is nourished by him. There is a continuous transfer of energy. Forget that you are a man, think of yourself as a tree, and soon you will see something transpiring between you and the earth.
Try it walking on the road: remember that you are a consciousness. Walking continues -- and a new thing is added, a new richness is added, a new beauty. Something interior is added to the outward act. You become a flame of consciousness, and then the walking has a totally different joy to it."

Courtesy Osho International Foundation

Who has your remote control?

Sadhana

Have you realized, your remote is in someone else's hands. Someone pushes your button and you react, Osho points out. Your actions are continuesly controlled by others.

Can't agree?

OK, see how Osho explains it:
"Watch how many things you do unconsciously. Somebody says something and there is anger. There is not even a single moment's gap. It is as if you are just a mechanism -- somebody pushes a button and you lose your temper. Just as if you push the button and the fan starts moving and the light goes on. There is not a. single moment. The fan never thinks whether to move or not to move; it simple moves.
This is unconsciousness, this is mindlessness. Somebody insults and you are simply controlled by his insult."
So what's the way out? Meditate, and meditate.
courtesy Osho International Foundation

The thin layer of social formality

Sadhana

What we call etiquette and manners are nothing but a mask. It is not a true representation of our real nature. It may be socially convenient but it is not honest and fulfilling. This is why people don't feel loved or respected. So many people around and not a drop to drink!
What is the reason?

Osho says: "All your social formality, modesty, politeness, is just a layer, a very thin layer -- like when you pour oil on water and a thin film of the oil covers it. It is not even skin deep. Don't be deceived by it. The only way to get beyond is to go within. You can become rude -- that is happening. Just to become sincere, some people are becoming rude. That is not the way. Just to be honest, people are becoming violent. Just to be true, they are becoming angry and insane.
That is not the way.
If you want to be true, move to the centre -- because if you remain on periphery you will remain untrue. Let your centre dominate the periphery. You move to the centre.
And be in a hurry. I don't mean be impatient. I mean don't be lazy. Because the problem is that if you have lived too long in the society and you have followed its rules and regulations for too long, one becomes accustomed to it. One forgets that it is a bondage, one forgets that these are chains. The chains start appearing like ornaments. You in fact start protecting them."

Excerpted from Dang Dang Doko Dang/courtesy Osho International Foundation

Those who can't love write poetry

Sadhana

Love is the most depicted, written about subject in human culture. Does that mean people are very loving? Far from it! Osho says, all this talk of love indicates that we cannot love.
Osho's view on love:
"It almost always happens that when you are missing something you start thinking about it, you start creating a philosophy about it. Love is that which you are missing. This is my observation, that people who have not loved write books about love; that is a kind of substitute. People who have not been able to love, write poetry, they write very great love poetry, but they don't have any experience of love so all their poetry is just speculation. They may have great flights of imagination but it has nothing to do with the reality of love. Love's reality is totally different; it has to be experienced."
Believing the Impossible Before Breakfast

Will There Be A Third World War?

Sadhana

These days there are so many fights erupting all over the globe, that people have forgotten about a The World War. Osho has foreseen this and said almost two decades ago that there won't be any world war because people will always be at war!
Look what Osho says in this book, " A Third World War is not possible for the simple reason that science has given us so much technology to destroy each other that a Third World War means a total world war. A total world war means that nobody will be the survivor -- neither will there be any winner or any loser. For the first time war has lost all its meaning. It is not because of Buddha or Christ that the Third World War is not going to happen; it is because of scientific technology -- atom bombs, hydrogen bombs, super-hydrogen bombs, death rays. They have made it impossible. Unless we decide on a global suicide, a Third World War is impossible.
Small conflicts will go on happening because they are needed; they are an economic need. Sometimes in Vietnam, sometimes in Korea, sometimes in Israel, sometimes in Kashmir, sometimes in Afghanistan -- small wars, not a Third World War. Small wars have to happen, otherwise where are these big powers going to sell their weapons? And those weapons are accumulating and every day new developments are happening so their old weapons become out of date. Who is going to use them?
Poor countries, backward countries, like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, these small countries can be sold out-of-date weapons. So these countries have to be continuously quarreling with each other -- small quarrels, lukewarm fights. The superpowers, America and Russia, need these wars to sell their weapons, otherwise their stockpile of weapons will be so great that they themselves will die under the burden. So these small wars are an absolute necessity.
A Third World War means those two superpowers coming in conflict directly.If Russia attacks America, then it will take only ten minutes for America to retaliate; or if America attacks Russia, it will take only ten minutes for Russia to retaliate. There will be only a ten-minute gap, that's all. If you think that is victory, then it is okay. After those ten minutes both are finished. In fact, if these superpowers come in conflict there is every possibility that people who are very primitive and living far away in the forests of South Africa or in the Himalayas, in Tibet, may be the only survivors. They will be the only people who will be benefited. For the first time their backwardness will pay; for the first time they will be the winners and the winners will be the losers.
With the Second World War, world wars were finished. Now there will be only small fights -- battles but not wars."

Excerpted from Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen

The Osho vision of nuclear weapons

Sadhana

Since President Obama is talking about his utopian vision for ridding the world of nuclear weapons and his address in Prague: "America's committment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," I am reminded of Osho's strong statements and fervent appeal to the super powers to drown the huge pile of arsenals in the ocean if they want this planet to survive.

Osho also gives a blueprint to America's inner development.

" If we want to change the violent structure of America, there are three things to be done. One, the country should be ruled by its native people. It belongs to them. Anybody who wants to remain here should remain here, but he cannot remain here as a ruler. Secondly, America should stop bothering about other countries' poor people. It should help its own poor people.
Thirdly, America should stop piling up nuclear weapons. They are pointless, and so costly, so meaningless. You already have enough to destroy the whole world, what more do you want?America should declare, "We drop the whole idea of war. We destroy all our nuclear weapons. We drown all those weapons in the Pacific, in the Atlantic. We're finished with it."
America should declare, "We will not have any defense department any more -- it is just pointless."If America can do that, its people can be immensely rich, happy. And people who are happy do not do violence. It is out of misery, suffering, anger, that violence comes. When you are comfortable, happy, at home, and all that you need is available to you, you don't want to be violent -- because your being violent will destroy your cozy home, your beautiful surroundings, your love life. Your children, your wife, your parents will be lost. It is the people who have nothing to lose who become violent."
The Last Testament, Vol 1

Swimming meditation

Swimming Pool at the Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune, India

Sadhana

Make swimming a meditation as per Osho. He says every act can be turned into meditation if done with awareness -- be it swimming, running or even smoking.

It is hot summer time in Pune. Naturally every one is gravitating towards the coolness of the Olympic Size pool. Shaped like an ameba, with crystal clear water, black tiles and the luxurious trees all around makes swimming a heavenly experience.
www.osho.com

The mind cannot make a committment

Sadhana

Wonder why the love affairs or freindships -- political or any kind, do not last long in today's world? Osho says, it is so because the modern man is too much in the mind, too rational, too intellectual. This type of mind cannot go deeper into anything.
Osho explains this in his book Come Follow To You:
"The mind, at the most, exploits. It can never become a deep commitment. Deep commitment is of being. It knows no time, it knows no death. I am not saying that it is permanent, because permanence is part of time. It is eternal. It has the fragrance of divineness.
Let me tell you one anecdote:
A politician named Strange lay dying. A friend asked him what he would like inscribed on his tombstone.
'Just put,' said the politician: Here lies an honest politician.'But,' said the friend,'that doesn't tell who it is.
''Oh yes, replied the politician,'the passer-by will say,'That is strange -- a politician, and honest?' -- no need to say the name. Passers-by will by themselves say,'That is strange.'

courtesy Osho International Foundation