Please don't make new year's resolutions

 The flowers and the butterflies don't make a new resolution, they just live the new. They are always new.
It is only the humans who make a folly of making resolutions.
Traditionally, people start thinking of making new year's resolutions at the end of the year: the things they want to change in their lives, the habits they want to drop or cultivate become part of their new resolutions.
Wait a moment! Stop and listen to the Osho advice before you jump into repeating the old pattern.

Osho says, there can only be one resolution for the new year : " I resolve never to make any resolutions for the future."
Wow! Never thought about it that this can also be a resolution.

But why does Osho say so? He has solid reasons for it.

*  All resolutions are restrictions for the future. All resolutions are imprisonments.
*You decide today for tomorrow? You have destroyed tomorrow. Allow the tomorrow to have its own being.
*Let it come in its own way! Let it bring its own gifts.
*Resolution means you will allow only this and you will not allow that.
*Resolution means you would like the sun to rise in the west and not in the east. If it rises in the east, you will not open your windows; you will keep your windows open to the west.
* What is resolution? Resolution is struggle. Resolution is ego.
*Resolution is saying, "I cannot live spontaneously." And if you cannot live spontaneously, you don't live at all -- you only pretend.
* So let only one resolution be there: I will never make any resolutions. Drop all resolutions!
*Let life be a natural spontaneity. The only golden rule is that there are no golden rules.

Walk without feet, fly without wings and think without mind

Every politician should meditate

Once Mandela was asked, how he kept himself from hating his tormentors, Mandela answered, "Hating clouds the mind... leaders can't afford to hate." Wish more politicians had this wisdom. It was an enigma for everyone close to him that how he did not carry any malice or a grievance against the whites who had tortured and humiliated him. This special quality of his being made Mandela tower over his detractors. Mandela was a politician in search of himself.

He did not talk about his interest in meditation publicly but his magnanimous heart and his behavior with his fellowmen had the fragrance of a maturity that blossomed within. He had turned his 27 years of incarceration into a retreat, where meditation transformed him into this rare human being.

He gave the same advice in a letter he wrote to his wife, Winnie Mandela, when she was sent to prison in Kroonstad: "You may find that the cell is an ideal place to learn to know yourself, to search realistically and regularly the processes of your own mind and feelings. In judging our progress as individuals we tend to concentrate on external factors such as one’s social position, influence and popularity, wealth and standard of education … but internal factors may be even more crucial in assessing one’s development as a human being: honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, purity, generosity, absence of vanity, readiness to serve your fellow men – qualities within the reach of every soul – are the foundation of one’s spiritual life…. Regular meditation, say of about 15 minutes a day before you turn in, can be fruitful in this regard. You may find it difficult at first to pinpoint the negative factors in your life, but the tenth attempt may reap rich rewards. Never forget that a saint is a sinner that keeps on trying.”

  

This is exactly what Osho has proposed for everyone in power, particularly politicians. “As far as I can see, all politicians should be meditators, should know something of the inner world. They should be more conscious, more compassionate, should know the taste of love. They should know the experience of the silence of existence, and the beauty of this planet, and the gifts of existence. And they should learn to be humble and grateful.”

"The world needs only one thing -- not great scriptures, just a simple method of becoming silent, of becoming yourself, of coming to your innermost center. Every politician should be forced to participate in some school of meditation, and unless he graduates from there he cannot stand for any political post. All politicians, unless they are meditative, are disqualified. They don't know themselves and they are controlling millions of people and their lives."

We saw another Osho insight inadvertently being followed outside Mandela's house, which is celebrating death. Yes, Mandela's admirers were singing and dancing instead of   mourning his death. A befitting farewell to a gorgeous life. The media lensemen who kept searching around looking for long faces outside Mandela's house were stumped!  

I am tempted to quote Osho once again, "Celebrating death will help you to understand that there is nothing in life to be afraid of. If death is a celebration, then what else can be a cause of fear? And if you can celebrate death, you have attained a maturity.It is possible only to those who live life as a rejoicing, a constant celebration."

Bharat Natyam at OSHO International Meditation Resort

Swati and Nupur Daithankar mesmerize  Osho Meditators

Renowned Bharat Natyam dancer Dr Swati Daithankar along with her competent daughter Nupur gave a stunning dance performance at Osho International Meditation Resort. The lovely duo opened the evening with a Shiva stuti and went along  presenting different aspects of this ancient temple dance namely rhythm, emotiing, foot work and theatre. Nupur's electrifying movements were a perfect foil to Swati's mature expressions and body postures. In the end Dhanjay Daithankar, Swati's famous husband, played Santoor while Swati danced to the tune of the hundred strings. A rare combination of North and South Indian music! The international audience was glued to their seats in the cold night as if mesmerized. 

Swati reads Osho's books and says they have helped through her  life, understand the art and are a great support inside.

 The union of inner man and inner woman

    

                                        Happy spectators at the concert

Allow the kids to throw tantrums

 

 When kids go astray, the parents ask, " Where did we go wrong?" but when the parents go astray, what can the kids ask, to whom? They suffer silently or maybe they are silenced forever by their own parents. And yet nobody dares to look with fresh eyes into this vital issue of bringing up children.

The repressive attitude of the past generations to their children will not work any longer. Osho endorses the new studies of psychologists who say that the screaming and shouting of a child is very healthy. Those children who cannot scream and shout in their childhood, who cannot throw tantrums, cannot show their displeasure openly become mentally sick forever. This screaming and crying of a child is a deep process, it is a method of relieving his pain. 

Osho has suggested a meditation for parents or elders who are bringing up children.

" If a child is crying, neither you scold him, nor pat him, nor advise him, just sit with him silently, go on watching him meditatively, lovingly. But do not stop him from crying or try to make him sleep by patting his head. Do not give him toys because it means you are bribing him. Do not distract  his mind by showing him a beautiful sparrow sitting on a tree. By doing this you are distracting him from his natural way. Just be silent without getting angry – because your anger too can function as suppression for the child. Go on looking at the child silently and lovingly, then you will be amazed. As long as you give attention to a child lovingly, he would cry with all his heart, he would scream. The child will vent out his feelings  for a while and afterwards will become light. He will start smiling, will become happy. He is not smiling to please you. Now this laughter is arising from the release of his pain. Now he has become light-hearted.  

If we silently cooperate with the children's emotional needs  the perversion, the madness would be greatly reduced in this world. Parents should participate in  the emotional cleansing of their children, it will help their own cleansing, too. The children will start trusting their parents and a deep intimate bond will be created between both. So when the children mature sexually and they have strange sensations and attractions in their body and mind they will feel free to ask their parents about it, and the parents will not doubt their children's intentions. 

From medicine to meditation

                                           Osho Dynamic meditation at OSHO International Meditation Resort

Ever wondered why are there so many chemists and druggists' shops in the modern  world? Almost at every corner you will find a shop packed with medicines. Have you ever thought who on earth must be taking all these pills and syrups? And in the first place do they need them?

To be honest  they don't. Recently it has been discovered that fifty to ninety percent of man’s diseases are produced by the mind. But the repercussions occur in the body. Because by and by the poison oozes out from the mind and seeps in the body  who  has to suffer its long lasting effects. Viewing this Osho introduced cathartic meditations. Just by breathing vigorously, gathering your whole energy and expelling the foul air from lungs cleanses the body so much! One feels light like a balloon filled with air. And if you can introduce some chaos in your breathing,  which means breathe irregularly, breaking the rhythm you are giving additional fuel to the mind to break down the old habits and drop the dead patterns.

Osho says," If you can do it wholeheartedly then you will not only find that your mind becomes pure but your body will also attain new dimensions of health, you will find that many illnesses are suddenly released by your catharsis. So many diseases which had firmly gripped you have suddenly disappeared. As as an example, if you have asthma, it means that somewhere the relation between breathing and the mind has become unnatural, somewhere the link is broken, some obstacle has arisen. If you can rightly experiment with the deep un-rhythmic breathing, that obstacle will dissolve, it will drop away.

If you suffer from a constant headache, then more often than not it means that some worries are corroding your brain from within like worms. You are overburdened, you have become loaded. If those anxieties are dropped, suddenly you will find that your head has become light. As if there was a constant weight inside and it has been lifted."

Mysteriously enough, health is something inherent inside everybody; no one can give the gift of health to anybody. Neither physicians nor your friends. They can wish you good health  but they cannot make you healthy.

Then what do the medicines do? They just remove the ill health. They remove the negative blocks and knots that disturb the natural harmony of the physical system. It is interesting that  those who are unhealthy have a close bond with their body whereas the healthy people live in the body but are not bogged down by it. Their body hums with them This state is the prerequisite  to meditation. So move from medicine to meditation at the earliest.

Stay fit, emotionally

 When Darwin observed many species on earth and concluded that those who are the fittest alone survive, little did he think of any other fitness than the physical one. He was certain that to be fit means to be physically fit.  With the evolution of human mind and the modern lifestyle emotional fitness has become  as much important as physical fitness . Researchers are now trying to go into the depth of  the EQ: emotional quotient. The EQ is defined as “the ability to sense, understand, and effectively apply the power and acumen of emotions as a source of human energy information and influence.”

Emotions are  indeed a great reservoir of human energy which are neglected by our education and culture. Emotions are not blind as they are considered to be, they have their own sight, their own intelligence. They may be wild, unruly but that  exactly is their power. Our society has taught us to be afraid of wildness, to be polite and restricted which means repressive. This is why most people are afraid of emotions. They mirror that side of personality which no one wants to see.

It is time we use this human potential for making life healthier and richer. Emotions tend to explode, they are irrational hence the fear. Osho is the only scientist of the inner world who has devised meditations which can be used to  release emotions methodically, and then transform them into creativity. Emotion is a high voltage energy, it needs to be expressed and thrown out. There is no need to be afraid of it. Emotions if repressed, become poisonous, they seep into the body, the organs and the whole system becomes sick. If we allow the anger or fear or jealousy full  expression  it is so cleansing, so relaxing that one feels as if a burden of centuries is off the chest. Sometime alone in your room try to bring your anger out fully, roar like a lion, forget  about  all the social restrictions, be natural and feel the freedom that follows after this explosion. As if a thunder storm has gone away leaving the nature clean and washed. In that emptiness meditation happens naturally. Now just sit down and be silent.

   "Emotion is completely disregarded in our civilization, so the balance is lost and a lopsided personality develops,"   says Osho." If emotion is also used, then there is no imbalance. A balance of emotion and intellect must be maintained in the proper ratio; otherwise the whole personality gets diseased. Emotion and intellect are like two wings: when we use only one wing the outcome will be frustration. Then the bliss that comes from using both wings simultaneously, in balance and harmony, is never attained."

The Great Challenge/Courtesy Osho International Foundation/www.osho.com

Catch yourself red-handed!

                                             Courtesy Osho International Foundation

Gurdjieff was a great Russian mystic who was very down to earth. And a strange man too. He was extremely good at giving shock treatments to his disciples. His basic premise was that everybody is dreaming all the time; whether they are awake or asleep, doesn't matter. He used to take his disciples right in the buzz of the market and ask them to experiment with their meditation. He asked them to watch people walking on the street. Just stand by the side and look at people with passing by. When the disciples started watching alertly they found that  that  the people were sleepwalkers. They were walking like somnambulists. They looked awake because their eyes were open but they were walking in  trance. Their feet followed the road mechanically because they have trodden it many times. They were walking but their consciousness was not present in their walk. Their lips were moving as if they were talking to somebody, and there was nobody around! They were even found making gestures to somebody who was not present. Their faces had an invisible cloud of daydreaming, a dullness, a dark shadow, as if somehow they are forcing themselves to be awake, ready to fall any moment into dreaming, into sleep.  

Gurdjieff would say to his  disciples, "Unless you realize in your dreams that they are dreams, you will not be able to awake during the day." A tough criterion indeed. In the first place watching oneself during the day is so difficult, how can one watch in the dream?

Osho gives a clue, he says, "catch  yourself red-handed."  Start in the daytime.The moment you feel you are daydreaming, shake yourself and take note of it. You can even make a code word for waking yourself up. Like, ' not again!' or ' wake up!" or anything that suits you. It is a delightful game. You will start enjoying yourself like a child, every moment will be a new moment. You may even giggle or clap or dance. Bring more liveliness to it.

When you start becoming alert and awake you will find the activities and people all around are also part of a dream, they stop being real. If you can deepen this experience during the daytime this awareness will sink into your dream.

Osho says: " The dream has power only because you impart power to it. The more you become alert about your dreams, the more you will see gaps arising in your consciousness. But we have great investments in our dreams. We may be afraid of nightmares, but we are not yet fed-up of dreaming. We still go on cherishing sweet dreams."

So the only alternative is, catch yourself read handed while daydreaming.

Sadhana

Osho International Foundation felicitated for 'enlightening lives' across the globe

                              The trophy awarded to Osho International Foundation

In an event called " Public Service Week" organized by the Lions Club International Mumbai a gorgeous trophy was awarded to OSHO International Foundation recognizing their contribution to awakening many souls by sharing Osho meditations and his words internationally.

Amrit Sadhana, one of the trustees of Osho International Foundation received the award on behalf of the foundation.

In a letter to the trustees of Osho International Foundation, the district governer Lion Dinesh Shah wrote," We are very happy to know that your foundation is  spreading and imparting education in Yoga, meditation and various other forms to participants without any restrictions of cast, creed or special status for the full development of mind, body and soul and make them conscious human beings. The foundation is also imparting formal training in the field of art, science and humanities to make complete self development of human beings as  ideal citizens of the world."

Business the Osho way

While addressing the students of University of Pune a few weeks back, Wipro chief Aziz Premji shared some secrets of his success. He said that for him life is an eight-lane expressway — if you use these lanes intelligently, you are bound to zoom ahead.

One of Mr Premji’s commandments was “respond, don’t act”. It was significant to note that a top-notch businessman like him advised students to be aware of their emotions and to manage them. But you cannot learn this lesson in any of the management schools; one has to learn this from life. It can be learnt if you are watchful and observe the difference between people who react impulsively and those who disengage themselves from their emotions and respond objectively. By reacting emotionally, you are letting the other person control your behavior and by using your will and reason you are looking at the issue directly.

Most people are afraid of taking a decision because they want to avoid making mistakes. This thought is an obstruction to both personal and professional growth because making mistakes is an essential ingredient of learning. Osho says, “Don’t be afraid of making a mistake, but don’t make the same mistake again. Make a new mistake!” What people forget is that making a decision is an intuitive flash, it is a gift of the heart. Intuition is to be in tune with oneself. And out of that tuning, solutions arise. It is not a logical conclusion, it is a leap of consciousness. Once your intuition has started functioning, you need not go and ask a guide for any advice.

When the brain works in sync with the heart you arrive at the right decision. But that also means living dangerously.

Heed Osho’s suggestion: “Whenever you have alternatives to choose, always choose the unknown, because the known you have already lived. The known is known, so you will simply be repeating it. Never miss the unknown. Always choose the unknown and go headlong. Even if you suffer, it is worth it, it always pays off.”

The more decisive you become, the more integrated you become. Of course there are possibilities of going astray, but the risk is worth taking.

By going astray you will become richer. You will be happy that you went astray, because there are many things that can be learnt from the new experience. From all this struggle you will emerge a winner.

But playing to win does not mean winning all the time; it means putting all your energy with maximum intensity. Then whatever happens, you will not be a loser.

Express satisfaction

Tantra says:  Whenever satisfaction is found in whatever act, actualize it.

 Satisfaction is the juice your heart extracts from each moment, each sensation, provided you know the art of squeezing it. Just look, there are so many tiny moments of gratification every day: you feel thirsty and you drink a cool glass of water, can anything match the satisfaction that is felt after the thirst is quenched? But you don't pay attention to it because you are not present in the act of drinking water. You do it mechanically, unconsciously.

Tantra says, this small act can be turned into meditation. How? Forget the thirst, forget the water, remain with the deep satisfaction you feel after drinking it. Be filled with it, like the sky is filled with warm sunshine in the morning. Let your inner sky be filled with the warmth of this feeling.

Pick up myriads of moments you come across during the day. Have you noticed the "Ah!" that slips out of your heart when you have your first hot tea or coffee after waking up? Sipping the beverage, feel the vibrations of contentment spread all over your body. It is a state of meditation.

Do you steel feel that life is misery? Look closely, misery is your interpretation, it is not real. It is a projection of the mind clouded by negative emotions. The mind basically is negative, it pounces on a negative thought and archives it in the warehouse of the unconscious.

The Osho approach is completely attuned to Tantra. He says: "This technique gives you a positive approach, a total reversal to the ordinary mind and its process. Wherever satisfaction is found, feel it, become one with it. Don't take it as a passing phase. The satisfaction can become a glimpse of a greater positive experience. Everything is just a window. If you are identified with pain, you are looking from a window; and the window of pain, of suffering opens only towards hell. If you are one with a satisfactory moment, a blissful moment, you are opening another window. The existence is the same but your windows are different."

Satisfaction is like having a bouquet of fragrant flowers in the room. Its perfume permeates all around and within.

Don't call problem a "problem"

  

If you look at the world today you will find problems and problems everywhere. You will be terrified and will  shut your eyes, or feel bogged down and try to drown the problems in drinks or in drugs. These are merely escape routes.

Osho has come up with a novel suggestion: he says, do no call problem a "problem" , call it a situation. Immediately  your attitude towards the situation will change. The mind lives in labels, and the moment we label something as negative, the mind doesn't want to look at it. The brain enters a deadlock, it is blocked by fear and worry  and our thinking capacity goes in a negative mode.  

  Simple things like a leaking water tap  or a fused light bulb, or an un ironed dress seem to be big problems for people. Life will become  very stressful if we look at these day to day incidents as problems.

Can the life stop being a hurdle race and become a dance of joy and music? Yes, if you can look upon a problem as a new situation or even a challenging situation.  Jump and say "Yahoo!" because these situations activate that unconscious part of the brain which normally we do not use. Unless we encounter difficulties and are pushed to the wall we do not not tap our hidden resources. Usually the brain  becomes trapped into thinking along the same old lines and appear to be  incapable of breaking free. 

What we require on such occasions is to press a "pause" button of our conscious  brain and to allow our deep unconscious to come up with answers. It has a great creative energy  so it is exciting to deliberately engage different parts of the brain in the problem-solving process. This is an essential part of creative thinking. Maybe the situation will not change but your attitude towards it will definitely change.  This changed attitude will open you up to look into the situation.

The mystery of existence is such that the answer lies within the question. It is like diving into a whirlpool: if you fight the current you will be drowned, but if you let go and whirl with the circular motion the current itself will throw you on the surface.

Osho says, "Look at the question deeply, and if the look is clear and total , the question disappears. No question is ever answered, it simply disappears; and  it disappears without a trace. All that you have to do is put the analytical mind away. When the unconscious finds the solution there is a leap of understanding which seems to come out of the blue. "

Courtesy OSHO International Foundation 

Can you listen to the birds?

I have heard Osho say that if you listen to the birds in the morning you will be able to listen to people throughout the day. Why listening has become so important these days?  Because everybody exclaims,  "Nobody listens to me!" Whether it is a child or a parent; a teacher or student, everyone feels they are not heard. It is so frustrating that you cannot share yourself with others. 

Listening is never easy but it is crucial in relationships.  It involves overcoming the habitual tendency of the mind to block itself. People have stopped listening because they have stopped conneting from the heart. Everyone loves to hear the sound of their own voice but not that of the other's. It is interesting to know why people avoid listening to others. To listen deeply means to be vulnerable, to expose yourself to the other, to change your ideas and values.

 " It requires a certain maturity,  an openness to understand values and points of view very different from our own. When we really listen, our own ideas and values are sometimes altered .  Listening is intensely demanding and therefore should not be entered into lightly.”   -Robert Bolton, People Skills.

Osho says: " Once you know how to listen, in deep receptivity, sensitivity, you are not there. The listener is not there, only listening. And when the listener is not there, there is no ego: there is no one who listens, only listening. And then it penetrates to the very core of your being.

"If you listen to me with mind, you will miss. If you listen to the waterfall without mind, you will get. It is not a question of listening to me; it is a question somewhere concerned with you, with the listener. What I am saying is irrelevant; who is saying it is irrelevant. The whole thing is: are you surrounded by a deep silence? Have you become non-existent in that moment? Do you find suddenly that you are not, that you are a deep emptiness, throbbing with life, full, but empty, a tremendous silence, with not a single ripple of thought? Only then do you attain to a plane where truth can penetrate you.

So try to be a listener. Just hearing is not enough. Hear, you can; listening will need great discipline. It is the greatest discipline there is. If you listen, you are already delivered; because in that listening, suddenly you find yourself.

And listening to sounds will be very helpful. Not to any sound in particular, because that becomes a concentration. this noise of the train... the traffic, some dog starts barking... an airplane passes by; all have to be accepted. Not that you have to concentrate on any sound – listen to all sounds from everywhere. You have just to be alert, listening, with no choice. That will help you immensely and that will become your meditation."

Come Follow To You, Vol 3/OSHO International Foundation/www.osho.com

If sex follows love, sex becomes beautiful

Every one is thirsty for love but no one knows how to love, for love is not part of any education system, it is not taught like maths, science or literature. People don't realize that love needs a long training of the heart and meditation alone can help the love grow. If people start loving in the true sense the problems of today's world like violence, corruption, destruction of environment will disappear. Because a loving heart cannot hurt anybody.

Osho is the only mystic who has talked about human love in great detail. In the following piece he explains how love can become compassion and evolve the lower into the higher.

"Passion has to be transformed into compassion, only then will you move from the sex center to the heart center. Now even your heart has to follow your sex center, which is the higher following the lower. Then your sex center will follow the love center, the heart center -- the lower following the higher. And this should be the order of your being -- always the lower following the higher. Then the lower becomes totally different, the quality changes.

"When sex follows love, sex becomes beautiful, a grace, a blessing. When love follows sex, love becomes ugly, a destructive force; you destroy each other through your love. All the courts of the world are filled with persons who have been in love and now are destructive to each other. Fifty percent of marriages break down completely, and the other fifty percent are continued somehow, not for love, but for other reasons -- for children, for society, for family, for prestige, for money, for other reasons, but not for love. Fifty percent break down completely.

"Love has become so destructive because it is following a lower center. Remember, this should be the law within you: always remember that the lower should follow the higher, then everything is beautiful and a blessing. Nothing is to be denied, there is no need to deny anything; only let the higher lead, because following the higher the lower changes its quality. And if the higher has to follow the lower everything becomes ugly."

Vedanta : Seven steps of Samadhi/Courtesy Osho International Foundation/www.osho.com

The other is always right

Several retail concerns in the US used the phrase: "the customer is always right" as a slogan from the early 20th century onward. The phrase was coined by Field or Selfridge, two successful businessmen in the US and UK. This phrase has become a trading policy of the entire business world.

If people are little tactful the same attitude can work in relating with people on the emotional level. Osho has coined a parallel idiom for those who have problems in relating with people: "The other is always right." It is a one- eighty- degree turn from the popular attitude of “ I am right, you are wrong”. Whenever there is a disagreement between people each of them thinks that the fault lies with the other. Relationship becomes a thinly disguised power struggle.

Try this sentence as a meditation technique while interacting with people.You will find that the success rate will be higher. If you hypothetically accept that the other is right and you are wrong the next time there is a fight you will review the incident differently.You will find yourself placing a high value on listening, not arguing ; openness, sensitivity, finding the truth, and having a passion for learning and growing. It also helps melt your ego because when there is a disagreement between two people the first casualty is communication. They stop speaking to each other. If this period is stretched longer, then it becomes the point of honour : who will speak first? Speaking first means accepting your defeat. But ask yourself, is relating about winning and loosing? Isn’t it about connecting and sharing with each other, enjoying each other's being?

The Osho adage ‘the other is always right’ means you have the opportunity to view your own behaviour. Sit down, close your eyes and look within : what words did you use, what was your tone and intensity, what were your feelings, was there sarcasm, or a desire to hurt somebody because you were hurt yourself? As your inner vision opens, and you begin to see it objectively, you will watch it as a movie in which you played a role, too. This is how it becomes a meditation. Slowly your ego will melt and you will feel softness flowing through your body, your heart will be more receptive and you would like to go and express your feelings to the other person. If you approach him sincerely he will change like magic and will start seeing his/her own mistake in the whole episode. Both of you will meet on a higher plane with more understanding and compassion.This meditation is a sure winner in any relationship.

Badri Kedarnath is no more a sacred place: Osho

Kedarnath: old view

 What makes a place sacred? The pure energy which surrounds the place and second, the love and devotion of people who visit it. There was a deep significance in creating these energy-fields called temples in the remote, inaccessible mountains. Now people have "developed" the surrounding area and have destroyed the wildness, insecurity and risk involved in visiting such places. Now the quantity of visitors has increased but the quality has decreased," says  Osho.
" In India, for centuries people have traveled on foot to Badri Kedarnath. The Himalaya is so virgin, so pure, so unpolluted by man and his stupidities. And there was a suggestion that because so many people go -- and it is dangerous, the footpath is narrow and many have died and never returned -- it would be better to make a road.
Now the road has been made. People don't go on foot, they travel by bus. At each stop, there is a restaurant, tea shops, vendors of all kinds of things. They have destroyed the beauty. Now Badri Kedarnath is no more the same sacred place it used to be. Because it is not the place that is sacred. It is the heart full of love -- so full of love that it is even ready to die -- that makes the place a sacred place.


OSHO Auditorium: the new place for meditation



" Now going in a bus, with all the facilities available by the side of the road... one beautiful phenomenon has been corrupted. And the people who have corrupted it think they are serving God because now more people can go there. Now Badri Kedarnath is always crowded. These are not the right people. Their only qualification is that they can afford a ticket for the bus. But the people who used to go on foot were given a farewell by the whole town, because there was not much possibility of their returning. The path was dangerous, the height was dangerous, but they had heard some call, and they were ready to sacrifice their lives for it. They were brave people.

" Then, in the silence and eternal peace of the Himalayan peaks, Badri Kedarnath was a totally different phenomenon. It was a temple. Now it is not even a home. It is just a house surrounded by all kinds of business people, shops. Whatever you want you can get. It has become a bazaar. Now only idiots go there, or tourists, which means the same. It used to be a spiritual pilgrimage because of its risk, because you had to put yourself aside -- all your fears of death, you had to drop."
Reflections on Khalil Gibran's The Prophet

Problems are not problems anymore!

This is an expression of a visiting businessman who stayed here for three days. He spent the time with himself, enjoying his aloneness and the serene surroundings of the meditation resort. An authentic life changing experience !

" This is about my personal experience during a 3-day visit to Osho International meditation Resort, Pune between June7-9, that changed my life forever!"

Day 1:
My first day at Osho International Meditation Resort was good. The best activity was the silent sitting. All through the day, I was with myself only. I could see people jumping, dancing and shaking themselves....as if they are kids, behaving and dancing mysteriously. For the first time ever, I actually jumped like a kid, as if no one else was watching. The best thing is that you can sit, or lie down or just don't participate in the activity, it’s completely up to you.

Later at night, there was Sannyas ceremony. Anyone could take Sanyaas. For Osho, Sanyaas is the starting of the inward journey. And I am so sure that my inward journey has begun. So I took the Sanyaas. When we think of Sanyaas, first thing that comes to our mind is leaving our normal life. But for Osho, Sanyaas is more about an inward journey. For osho, one can lead a normal life and can become a Sanyaasi at the same time.
The best part is that for the most of the time, I'm with myself only. I have not been talking much about anything. Lost in myself. Not talking to anyone on phone or sms. Even writing diary seemed a burdon but now when I am writing this, I am feeling better. I have truly indulge myself in myself. It's not that I don’t talk to myself, but the difference is that now I am talking to myself only, exclusively.

Day 2:

I am lost in myself.

I have become so calm. Don’t feel like uttering a word. Love silence. 'Silent sitting' sessions are amazing. I am loving everything, enjoying everything. Simple chapatti (Tortilla) was never so tasty, working out in the guesthouse is so pleasing, taking shower is good, even the simplest of the routine tasks have become so enjoyable. Amazing!
There's very thin line between Meditation and sleep. While meditating, I try my best to cut off myself from the outer world. I avoid thinking about anything. And while doing this, I feel as if I have gone off to sleep. This not actually sleep, this is Meditation. (Life is changing, changing for good.)

Meditation for me, is not concentration, it’s the ability to not to concentrate on anything. Cutting down all the connections from the outer world. I myself become an individual and part of the outer world. Going into zero. Its not being unconscious, it doesn't mean sleep. One has to experience it to actually understand this.
I’m falling in love with everything. ...tea, candy, books, rain, people, trees, water, sleep, table, Pune....Problems are not problems anymore.


Day 3:

I don't feel like going back home. I have already explored so many ways to settle down here permanently. Where have my dreams of being at top disappeared? The only target I am left with is my own spiritual growth. I owe Osho.
I had come here so that I could refresh my mind as I have to work hard in coming months on our new project. I wanted to make my business so organized that it runs smoothly even when I am away for a few hours or days, but now priority has changed. I have to organize my all business operations in such a way that it runs smoothly even when I am away for months or years or for rest of my life.
Had money been not necessary to be here at the Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune, I would probably have thought to settle here for a longer period, maybe indefinitely.
I am afraid of going back to my routine life. The moment I land there in New Delhi, I will have a long list of pending tasks. Purpose of the meditation can only be achieved if I stay relaxed and untouched by unnecessary emotions while staying in my routine normal life instead of permanently leaving home and getting settled here.
But yes, if I have learned enough that I can help others too to change their lives, I should settle here in Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune.

The real challenge would be to stay in routine life and keep myself as calm and happy as I am here in Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune. I am excited to see myself coping with the routine stress without getting affected. Wow! What a state I am in that I can be happy anywhere and in anything I am doing. O dear Life! Keep challenging me, I am here to stay happy and unharmed by your miseries because problems are not problems anymore.
Every time I get an answer to some very important question, that answer comes up with another question. And that new question makes the previous question so unimportant. Now I am sure that when I will get answer to this new and more important question, it will come with another question that will make that new question meaningless. I am up for this. I am ready to start this journey of looking for answers that comes with new questions attached.
I was confused which lifestyle is better: a spendthrift’s lifestyle or my simple lifestyle. Now when I got an answer, it's asking me again: my current stressful lifestyle or this new spiritual lifestyle?

After coming back to my hometown
Since I have come back from Pune, I have been talking less and in a lower tone. I look like I am lost. I always used to wish I were more than one Sachin, one would have been handling marketing, one taking care of accounts, one is busy purchasing...and so on. But I was only one. Now I realise that I was never one. I always was so many Sachins: thinking and doing so many things at a time. It's only now that I have become one, being with myself, present and working at one place at a time. I thought being more than one is a bliss but now I realised its a curse. All other Sachins in me are dead now. I used to think I was everywhere but now I realise that I was nowhere. Now I just want to be now here, with myself.

I look feeble, but the thing is that I am not concentrating on anything around. I am kinda preserving energy. When I talk loud, I feel so bad and tired as if the whole energy has been taken out.
If you haven’t been there, you are everywhere; and once you are there, you are with yourself only.
Wisdom is not knowing everything, its knowing that you don't know anything. I had gone to Osho Pune to fill my mind with knowledge and came back with empty mind. Osho ashram visit didn’t kill my passion and desires, its actually helping me to look at life with a different perspective without letting go of all the materialistic desires.

I owe Osho!
Spiritually yours,

Sachin Jain

Misunderstanding love

Courtesy Osho International Foundation

Reading about  the sad story of Jiah Khan, a  twenty five year old beautiful actress who committed suicide out of depression and feeling cheated by her boyfriend, I was reminded of the Osho wisdom about human love and its frailty. His comment echoes truth :" Lovers love only while they are not yet in a fixed relationship. As the relationship settles, love disappears. Once the relationship is fixed, instead of love, something else takes place: possessiveness."
One comes across this mishap again and again. Every love story ends in a sob story, or even worse, a suicide story. More often love is sacrificed at the altar of marriage for the sake of security, social recognition.They still go on calling it love, but it is hate, not love. It is adjustment, not love.
Osho suggests, instead of saying "I love you" say, "I possess you." It will be more realistic and lovers will not be disillusioned by the relationship.
There is a great misunderstanding about love. Basically people are afraid of their loneliness, and because they cannot be alone they cling to the other person like a lifeline. This very clinging makes the other wriggle out of the bondage. This sentence "I cannot live without you," is a danger signal. It is against the essential nature of love. Love is a flower that blossoms in freedom. It needs its own space, its own sky, its own sunlight and soil. If lovers don't give that kind of freedom to each other the flower is bound to die.
It's unfortunate that there is a great thirst for love but there is no education on the art of loving. Meditation should be taught to all lovers so as to understand the complexity of love. People have everything that wealth can give them, they are talented but have no training of handling their emotions. All the dark emotions are lurking inside like snakes and scorpios. As a result, when they fall in love they also fall in hate, they fall in jealousy, domination. They try to possess the lover because they don't possess themselves. After the rosy romance wears off the reality looms up and they start blaming each other for the ugliness of their relationship.
Another misunderstanding about love is that it should be everlasting. On the contray love is very fragile, it's like a breeze, it drifts at will. No love can be permanent and that's why it is so precious. It is a mystery.
The idea that you can only love oner person and nobody else is another killer of love. Words like ' infidelity, loyalty' are old fashioned, they strangulate the aliveness of love. The more lovers are allowed to share their love with others the more they can grow in love. They say, the emotion is blind. So why not give it the vision of meditation?

Sadhana













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Love means...

Respect the other

Who knows what love is but one thing is certain, everybody is thirsty for it and yet very few find it. Why? What obstructs the flow of love? Why can't the contemporary people love and be loved ? 

Osho is a master of intricate human feelings. You will be reading many of his tips on love over a period. Maybe that will teach you the art of loving!

Here is one for the starters:

"Love means that you have to learn to respect the other as an end unto himself, the other is not a means. That is the only immoral act in the world. In fact the whole of immorality can be defined through this simple things if you are using the other as a means you are immoral; if you are full of respect for the other person as an end, then you are moral.

"As sooner or later the other person wants his space and fear arises in you.

"You would like to make the other a prisoner -- of course, with beautiful chains, golden chains, studded with diamonds. But you would like the other to be imprisoned so that you can be certain of the tomorrow. Otherwise who knows? -- your lover may leave you.

"One never knows what is going to happen the next moment so one wants to be certain about the next moment, one wants a certain guarantee -- and that very guarantee kills love.

" Never avoid love and its problems. Face them, accept the challenge and the trouble, but at the same time remain calm and quiet."

From the book :I am not as thunk as you drink

Copyright Osho International Foundation/www.osho.com

The dance of push and pull

The marketing world is widely acquainted with the push-pull strategy. In fact that is the essence of advertisement. Companies push the new product by advertising it through the media and then pull the consumers to them.
It sells the product, companies collect money and hyper tension for money brings its side effects on the trail.
This is one way of living, but the deeper you go in existence which means in yourself, the more you find that pushing doesn't work here. Because existence is not a consumer whom you have to convince and sell your product. Existence is an organic whole, where each particle, each person is part of the whole. Pushing doesn't work here as much as pulling does.
There is a story of Swami Rama that while he was in the U S, he wanted to enter an office and he tried to push hard to open the door but the door didn't budge an inch. It stood like a strong wall. When he looked down he noticed the sign "pull," he laughed and pulled the door to himself and the door opened. Then he narrated this incident in his talks and said, "On the gate of the divine the sign says, ‘pull’, not ‘push.’ But people keep on pushing and therefore can't enter."
This is the secret of a harmonious and peaceful life. Our life has become stressful because everybody is pushing, struggling to get ahead of each other. As if life is a great battlefield and we have to win by defeating people, fighting our destiny. These are very egoistic ideas.
Existence is both an eco system and an echo, whatever we do returns to us in multiple waves.
Pushing is easier for the ego, but pushing is using violence on nature. Of course pushing is needed sometimes but one should learn where to push and where to pull. Pulling is more difficult today because pulling is passive, it feels like weakness.
Osho says, "Pulling is an art. Surrender is the art of pulling towards oneself. The rain falls on the mountain, flows downwards and fills up the lakes. As lakes are empty, they pull rain towards themselves. Surrender pulls. When you are empty inside, yielding, when you are receiving, you become a womb. Then you start pulling, in that very pulling the walls become the doors. Love pulls, struggle pushes. Surrender pulls, resistance pushes. The art of pulling is subtle."
We have lost the balance of push and pull. Love is required for pulling and there is no love in us. If we are in a state of surrender we create a vacum. The cosmic energy starts flowing towards the vacum and fills it. We can learn this art from the earth and the clouds. The earth heats up and pulls the clouds; they come running and pour their heart out. The clouds don't push, they simply repond to the need of the earth.


Sadhana

Longer life or fearless life?

Living longer or if possible, forever, is a deep seated desire of human beings.

Longevity has always been one of the key points of search of health practitioners, medical doctors or the alchemists. Longevity has been a topic not only for the scientific community but also for writers of folklore, science fiction, and utopian novels. As if living longer has some great value in itslef. This desire probably comes from acknowledging but not accepting the brevity of human life. The human mind is such that it carries unlimited desires and dreams but the years given by nature to fulfill them are very few in comparison. Everyone thinks, if I had more years I could have achieved my target. The dreamers never checke into the reality of people living longer. Are they happy living longer? In fact nobody waits for death as desparately as they do.

All this was triggered by the latest news that scientists and researchers of the ULCA university have discovered a “Dorian Gray” gene that may extend lifespan and delay the onset of ageing. Alright, so with this wonder gene people may live longer or stay younger for a long time. So what?

Nobody asks the basic question, what will be the quality of life of those who go on living till, say, a hundred years? What will people do if they live longer ? Will their life be worth living? For that matter what are they doing with their lives right now?

A prolonged period of unconscious living , repeating the same old follies, nurturing the same ugly emotions like hatred , jealousy, anger, and living under the hanging sword of death -- is this the life they have aspired for?

This discovery reminded me of Osho's insight: " A medical science which cannot free man from the fear of death can never cure this disease which is man. Of course medical science tries hard; it tries to accomplish this by increasing our lifespan. But increasing your lifespan increases only the waiting period for death and nothing else. And it is better to wait for shorter period of time than a longer one. You make death even more pitiful by increasing the lifespan."

Just by increasing the age of a person you cannot remove the fear of death from him. He may even be healthy but he will not be fearless. Fearlessness comes only by meditation; when someone comes to know that there is something in him that never dies.

Meditation makes you aware of your body and the center that is beyond the body. And if this awareness can increase then the fear of death will fade away. Long life is valuable if it helps people get rid of the fear of death and find the deathless within.

Sadhana

John Abraham visits OSHO International Meditation Resort

It is wonderful to see the growing interest in meditation and OSHO International Meditation Resort by

superstars and the super busy. John Abraham, the hot and hit star of Bolywood recently walked itoured the beautiful premises of the meditation resort.

Here are some photos from John Abraham's recent visit. He called himself a beginner but wanted to learn

what Osho has to say on meditation. So  he walked  away with the Osho book Meditation the First & Last Freedom.

Happy meditations John.

OSHO Monsoon Festival

 



How to stop chain-smoking?

Once  a chain-smoker asked Osho, "How toget rid of my smoking? Is it a sin to smoke? I feel so guilty, please help me!"

Osho said:
"You must be a deeply anxiety-ridden person, otherwise chain-smoking is not possible; chain-smoking is a by-product. You must be so concerned about a thousand and one disturbances inside, you must be carrying such a big load of worries on your heart, on your chest, that you don’t know how to forget them. Smoking at least helps you to forget about them.

The hypnotists have discovered a fundamental law; they call it the Law of Reverse Effect. If you try hard to do something without understanding the fundamentals, just the opposite will be the result. Try to avoid anything with great effort and it becomes a hypnotic force, it hypnotizes you. It becomes like a magnet. You cannot avoid it.

Be relaxed. Don’t try hard, because it is through relaxation that you can become aware, not by trying hard. Be calm, quiet, silent.

Smoke as much as you want to smoke. It is not a sin in the first place. I give you a guarantee – I will be responsible. If you meet god on Judgment Day you can just tell him that this fellow is responsible. So don’t be worried about sin. Relax and don’t try to drop it with effort. No, that is not going to help.

This is my suggestion: smoke as much as you want to smoke – just smoke meditatively. If Zen people can drink tea meditatively, why can’t you smoke meditatively? In fact, tea contains a stimulant, the same as cigarettes contain; there is not much difference. Smoke meditatively, make it a ceremony.

Make a smoking temple
Try it. Make a small corner in your house just for smoking – a small temple dedicated to the god of smoking. First bow down to your cigarette packet. Have a little chit-chat. Talk to the cigarettes. Inquire, “How are you?” And then take a cigarette out as slowly as you can, because only if you take it very slowly will you be aware. Don’t do it in a mechanical way, as you always do. Then tap the cigarette on the packet very slowly and for as long as you want. There is no hurry. Then take the lighter, bow down to the lighter. These are great gods! Light is god, so why not the lighter?

Then start smoking very slowly, just like vipassana. You smoke naturally – very slowly, no hurry. If it is a sin you are in a hurry; you want to finish it as soon as possible. If it is a sin you don’t want to look at it. You go on reading the newspaper and you go on smoking. Who wants to look at a sin? But it is not a sin, so watch it – watch each of your acts.

Divide your acts into small fragments so you can move very slowly. You will be surprised: by watching your smoking, slowly, slowly smoking will become less and less. And one day suddenly, it is gone. You have not made any effort. It has dropped of its own accord, because by becoming aware of a dead pattern, a routine, a mechanical habit, you have released a new energy of consciousness in you. Only that energy can help you; nothing else will ever help.

And it is not only so with smoking, it is so with everything else in life. Don’t try too hard to change yourself. That leaves scars. Even if you change, your change will remain superficial. You will have to find a substitute somewhere, otherwise you will feel empty.

When something withers away of its own accord – because you have become so silently aware of the stupidity of it that no effort is needed – when it simply falls like a dead leaf falling from a tree, it leaves no scar behind and it leaves no ego behind.

If you drop something by effort, it creates great ego. You start thinking, “Now I am a very virtuous man because I don’t smoke.” That’s how your virtuous men are. Somebody does not smoke, somebody does not drink, somebody eats only once a day, somebody does not eat in the night, somebody has even stopped drinking water in the night...and they are all great saints!

Not-smoking is not virtue, smoking is not sin; awareness is virtue, unawareness is sin. The same law is applicable to your whole life.

Excerpted from Ah, This! 

Clean the basement of human mind



Catharsis in OSHO Dynamic Meditation


Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the two brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon said they were prompted by their religious beliefs and anger over the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The gang rapists in India express their anger and frustration against the social system through perverted sexual attacks. A United Nations statistical report compiled from government sources showed that more than 250,000 cases of male-female rape or attempted rape were recorded by police annually. The reported data covered 65 countries.

All over the world we see an outburst of violence in some form or the other. And it is not only the youth who is responsible for this but the older generation also carries the hatred, like that of Tsarnaev brothers mother who radicalized her sons out of her hatred for America and fundamental views of Islam.

It seems the whole world has become a human volcano that pelts anger, violence, perverted sex , insatiable greed –– an explosion of destructive energy. And the authorities are out of their depth.There seems to be no respite from these incidents. The problem is global with no solution in sight.

Not entirely so, because Osho is adept at finding simple solutions to seemingly huge problems. He says, "Clean the basement of the human mind's unconscious... and it can be cleaned away."

Osho had really warned us about it a while ago, had almost profesied aboutt this situation. He said that all the governments and all the religions will go on perpetuating the old strategies without understanding the new situation. The new situation is that every human being needs to go through therapies, needs to understand his unconscious intentions, needs to go through meditations so that he can calm down, and look towards the world with a new perspective of silence.

Hammering the sex center with Hoo!

The most effective therapy is OSHO Dynamic Meditation which blasts the hidden monstors in the unconscious. Whether anger or hatred or fear or sex, they are all different aspects of one force –– the primal sex energy. This is a life energy which, if not handled properly, can be very destructive. The real concern should be : how to transform this destructive energy into creativity.

This method uses fast and chaotic breathing to cathart the emotional repression. And once catharsis is done the blocks are removed and one can go deeper to awaken the dormant energy at the naval center.This fresh energy is very positive, creative and blissful. This is our own reservoir which is unused. We are like a rich man who roams around with a begging bowl. Those who have been doing this meditation have felt no need to rape or kill anybody. Because happy people never hurt others. It is the miserable, the unhappy who want to destroy the whole world .