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