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