Friendliness : The Real Juice of Life

Enjoying Friendliness

OSHO International Meditation Resort, Pune

I have a friend who is very sociable, gets into relationships easily and gets out of them quickly, but  not without scars and wounds. We all see such people around and within us.

Is there a way out? No, there is a way in, says Osho.

 Beware, the moment  friendliness is  frozen into a " friend-ship" it sinks like The Titanic.

Osho says: " Friendship exists between two persons; it is relationship. Friendliness is only a quality; it need not depend on any relationship. It is just the way you live your lire -- it is a friendly life. You are friendly to everything, to the whole existence. You are just a friend, not addressed to anybody in particular, but addressed to the whole, to all.

" In friendship you make an exclusive relationship and you may remain inimical to many people. So enmity and friendship can exist together -- in fact you will have very few friends and many more enemies. But friendliness cannot have any enmity in it, it is inclusive, inclusive of all. And to know friendliness is to know the real juice of life. Life reveals its mysteries only to those who have come to the state of friendliness."

Excerpted From Going All The Way

Sivamani's Magic At The Osho International Meditation Resort

Sivamani  Playing

"Oh, What an evening! " That's what everyone was saying after the highly energetic concert . Sivamani, the incredible drum wizard, played at the Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune on January 11th. The drums thundered and whispered,  hummed and sang with the magic touch of  Siva.With the rhythm ensemble of more than a hundred percussion instruments, Siva had the ecstatic audience eat out of his hands.

You should have heard the screams and laughter, the clapping and dancing in the Osho Auditorium to believe it.

Why are drums so popular?

The Cheering Audience

Osho says :  "The drum has a special appeal -- the reason is very deep rooted You will have to understand it.


" When a child is conceived in the womb, the child grows, but he cannot breathe, he has to breathe from the mother. In fact, the mother breathes for him. And for nine months continuously he hears the beating of the mother's heart -- continuously. It is the first meeting with music and rhythm.
For nine months the child goes on hearing the heartbeat of the mother. That is the first drum he encounters, and it becomes very deep-rooted in the being of the child. Every pore of him is filled with it, every fibre of his body vibrates with it, he has no life except the mother's heart. And there is the beating continuously for nine months... you just think about it.

"And then the child is born. The whole body system, the mind system, carries that desire for the beat, for the rhythm of the mother's heart. And mothers know, knowingly or unknowingly, that whenever a child is restless, crying, weeping, uncontrollable, they have just to put his head on their chest, and immediately the child goes to sleep, falls into sleep. When again he hears the beat -- the beat is soporific -- he immediately falls into sleep."
 
Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 1

Osho Explosion On Social Media

The Event at the Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune

The explosion of Osho on social media like Youtube, Twitter and Facebook makes him one of the most viewed persons in the world. The viewership of Osho videos on the Youtube just crossed 8 million viewings this week.

Osho has become a world bestselling author – translated and published into 58 languages by 250 publishing houses.
Every day an Osho book is published on planet Earth.

Wow!

There was a "Wow!" factor when the Osho Media International presented this phenomenon to the international visitors to Osho Meditation Resort and Pune Press on Thursday, 9.30 pm at their venue. Many people were so turned on by the new technology, they  were eager to participate in this global phenomenon of making Osho available.

More in the next blog.

Gravitation and Grace

Today is Isaac Newton's birthday. People have seen apples falling from trees down the ages but it needed a genius like Newton to apply this phenomenon universally and discover the law of gravitation.


However, Newton could not decipher the emotional laws that govern human minds. To quote his famous statement : "I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people."


Osho says, because Newton was not a meditator, he could not find the law of grace which is excatly opposite of the law of gravitation.

Osho points out : "Gravitation is the law which pulls you down; grace is the law which pulls you up. Science has not yet discovered, maybe it is not going to discover it ever, the other law. It has discovered one law.

"You have heard the story that Newton was sitting in a garden, and one apple fell. Watching that apple fall, Newton started thinking, "Why does the apple fall towards the earth? Why directly towards the earth? Why not sideways? Why does it not start flying upwards?" The law of gravitation was discovered, that the earth has a pull and pulls everything towards it.

" But Newton saw the fruit falling; he didn't see the tree rising up. Whenever I read the story. I always felt he saw the small fruit falling towards the earth; he didn't see the tree rising upwards. You throw a stone. It falls back, true, but a tree goes on rising higher and higher. Something is pulling the tree up. A stone is dead; the tree is alive. Life goes higher and higher and higher.

"Man, in his consciousness, has reached to the highest point on this earth. When you close your eyes to the world, when you are in a deep meditative mood, prayerful, blissful, ecstatic -- suddenly, the body is not there. You have become aware of the inner tree of life, and it is going higher and higher, and suddenly you feel that you can fly."



Excerpted from Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 7

Have some silent spaces in your day

Speed and efficiency have created more worry, made people more tense. Technology saves time, but we don't know what to do with the saved time. Even if the time is saved, you will worry and become anxious and ask for some entertainment in that time.
The modern man needs to learn to be unoccupied for some time in twenty four hours. Just by slowing down ordinary processes, you will see how peaceful you can become.

Osho suggests some simple exercises : eat slowly -- take time. If you eat in ten minutes, take twenty minutes. Enjoy the food. Chew it more; it will be digested better. Your body will feel more at ease and at home. And when the body is at home, the mind too feels at home.

Another Osho tip : Sometimes when you don't have anything to do, just sit silently doing nothing. There is no need to read the newspaper or to watch the TV. Don't be in such a mad rush to occupy yourself. That is a way to escape from oneself. So sometimes when you have nothing to do, feel happy that you have some leisure of doing nothing. Then just sit silently, look at the stars or at the trees, listen to the birds or just close your eyes and look inward.

Slow down your speed in everything you do: walk slowly, talk slowly, breathe slowly, and by and by, you will come to know the beauty of inactivity, the beauty of passivity.

 www.osho.com/meditation

New Year's Resolution

Someone asked Osho: " if one were to make only one new year's resolution, what would you suggest?"


Osho said: " This and only this can be the new year's resolution: I resolve never to make any resolutions because 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

Religious For Wrong Reasons

People give donations to religious institutions , but what matters is the motive behind the donation.  There could be may  hidden reasons behind the seemingly generous act. Life is not as simple as it appears , you know!

Osho takes a dig at such donors: " People become religious for wrong reasons, and you cannot be religious for wrong reasons. And the person who lives rightly need not be religious: he is religious already.

' Perlman made millions in the bakery business. While on a visit to Rome he went to see the pope and made a huge donation to the church.

The pope was very pleased and said, "Mr. Perlman, is there anything I can do to show my appreciation?"

"Yes, Your Holiness," answered the baking magnate. "Could you make a little change in the Lord's Prayer?"

"Ah, Mr. Perlman," frowned the pope, "I am afraid that would not be possible. The Lord's Prayer is repeated daily by millions of Christians."

"I know," said Perlman, "but I only want a small change. Where it says, 'Give us this day our daily bread,' just make it, 'Give us this day Perlman's pumpernickel bread.'"

"Now, that great donation to the church has nothing to do with religion, it has nothing to do with charity; it is business, pure business.

And that's what people are doing. They donate to the poor, they serve the poor, to go to heaven. It is an investment, it is not service. Unless you are conscious, whatsoever you do is going to be wrong. "

The Dhammapada:The Way of the Buddha/ courtesy Osho International Foundation/www.osho.com