Questions on Witnessing and Awareness

Question: Beloved Osho, you describe witnessing as a knack. Often, late at night, when I am in a very relaxed state, witnessing happens. At other times, though, it just seems to be mind watching mind watching mind. Please comment on this knack.
Osho: The moment I say that witnessing is a knack, it implies that there is no way to explain it, no way to teach someone about it, no way to train someone in it. That’s the whole meaning of the word ”knack.”
I can say things which are close enough, but they can never be exact descriptions of the knack. It is not an art, not a craft that can be explained in detail, step by step. But if it is happening to you, there is no problem. You should know what it is, you should know the taste of it.
The problem is arising because you must be trying to do it; not allowing the knack to happen, but trying to make an art of it, so that you can control it. Man wants to control everything; it is part of his basic ego. The knack cannot be controlled. Either you know it or you don’t know it.
You can play around it, and sometimes by chance you stumble upon it: suddenly you have come to know it. That is the moment when you have to be aware in what situation it is happening. In the night, when you are relaxed, you find it happening. That gives you a clue that relaxation, not an effort to attain witnessing, allows the knack to happen.
At other times when you are trying, making an effort, an endeavor to get it, then it is mind watching mind watching mind. It is always the mind. Mind cannot get the knack. Mind can learn any art, any technique, any craft: a knack is beyond it. It is not its language, it is not its world. A knack is something beyond mind.
So you have to be clearly aware: the thing is happening to you, the failure of the mind is happening to you. Whenever you are trying, you watch – then you find that it is mind watching another part of the mind. And then you find the one who has found this is also another part of the mind.
And this can go on ad infinitum. Mind is capable of dividing itself infinitely. But finally you will find only mind – you will not come to meditation, you will not come to witnessing. So your failure is helpful. It says, ”Don’t make the effort, don’t try.” Your success indicates that it happens when you are relaxed, when you are not trying. In relaxation, mind is no longer functioning.
The mind is going to be in sleep, it is ready to go into sleep; it is not going into an effort because effort will keep you awake. You cannot fall into sleep by effort. Sleep and witnessing have something in common. You cannot make the effort – one thing. Every effort is going to be a failure – another thing.
Unless you learn that every effort fails, you cannot get the knack. But once in a while when your mind is getting ready to go to sleep – in between, when you are still awake, and the mind is relaxing to go into sleep – suddenly, witnessing happens. You have got the knack! Now don’t ask me what it is.
That may destroy even your night witnessing, because you may start trying it. Just let it happen as it is happening in the night. You can, at the most, create the same atmosphere whenever you want it to happen, and wait. You cannot force it. One has to learn a great lesson – that there are things beyond you which you cannot force; you can only remain open, available, waiting, and they come.
The moment you become tense to get hold of them, they slip away. It is just like, in the open fist you have all the air possible. With the closed fist all the air disappears. You may be thinking that with a closed fist you are catching hold of the air. No, it has slipped out. It does not belong to the closed fist, it belongs only to the open hand – and it is easily available.
You just have to see when it happens, what the surroundings are. The surroundings mean you are going into sleep, you are tired of the whole day’s work – you don’t want to work anymore. In the gap, before the mind slips into sleep and you lose consciousness – the mind is preparing, is getting ready to go into sleep, but you are still awake – in that minute gap, witnessing happens.
Now, you cannot try the knack. You can simply create the outer situation. In the day, anytime, let the mind go into relaxation. Don’t try – as if you are going to create witnessing: you are simply allowing mind to rest. And at a certain point, that same gap will appear, and in the gap descends the witness. This is the mystery of a knack – its strangeness and its simplicity too.
Source: “Light on the Path” – Osho

Tale 52 ~ 100 Tales For 10,000 Buddhas

Today is the last day in Pahalgaon. With Osho, sometime it feels the time has

stopped and at other times it feels it is running very fast. While I am busy packing, I hear the voice of this Muslim watchman, who is standing at the door. I ask him to come after an hour to help us carry our luggage to the car. As a token of his services, I give him twenty rupees, which he receives with thanks and leaves.

We are sitting on the verandah with Osho, ready to leave. The watchman comes and salutes Osho saying, "Aleikum Salaam". Osho smiles at him. He asks Osho if he can come to Bombay to serve Him. I can see tears in his eyes. He is deeply touched by Osho's love. Osho blesses him by placing His hand on his head, and asks me if I have given him some money. I tell Osho about giving him twenty rupees. Osho says, "Give him twenty more". Twenty rupees is quite an amount in these days. People hardly give five rupees as baksheesh to their servants. Osho has the heart of an emperor who is always ready to share to the maximum. I give the watchman twenty rupees more. While receiving it he holds my hand and starts crying. It touches me deeply and tears overflow from my eyes also. Thank you beloved master, for giving me this opportunity to open my heart to a stranger.

Osho – When you want to be alone, simply say you want to be alone

A sannyasin, looking close to tears as he talked, told Osho that he was feeling very sad and was easily hurt, and had felt like this for several weeks but he was unable to say what he felt was the reason for this]
Osho asked his wife, who was also present, if she could comment, as her husband was not very clear about what was happening. Osho said that perhaps, unconsciously, he was avoiding facing up to the problem for fear that he would not be able to cope with it. He added that women are more perceptive than men about things pertaining to relationships, so perhaps she could be helpful.
She said that she was feeling a need to be alone lately – a feeling which was new to her – and that she thought this might be upsetting her husband, adding that she felt distant from him and wanted to have her own; space. She said she used to cling to him a lot before. Her husband said he felt rejected, ’wiped out’, but did not seem to see a connection between these feelings and his wife’s desire be alone.]

Osho – Now I understand exactly what the problem is. (to the husband) Because [your wife] has been always afraid of being alone, she was clinging to you and you enjoyed it, the ego enjoyed it. The male ego enjoys it very much when a woman goes on clinging. A woman is like a creeper, and the tree enjoys it tremendously – that the woman is dependent, mm? She was afraid of her aloneness, that’s why she was clinging to you. Now, the more meditative she will become, the more she will like to be alone – because that is the only way she can get rid of her fear. So she wants to be alone, to be left alone, and you feel as if you are not needed, rejected. But you are not rejected at all, and it is not that you are not needed.
In fact she is trying to stand on her own feet for the first time, and if you allow her and help her to stand on her own, only then will love be possible. Up to now it has not been love. She was clinging to you because of her fear, and you were enjoying that because of your ego – neither you nor she were in deep love. Now for the first time love is possible.
If you help her to be alone, to get rid of the fear, she will always be grateful to you. And when she can be alone, and out of her aloneness she calls you, then there will be love, because then there is no question of fear. Only then can she share herself with you. And it is going to be good for you also, because it is just the ego that is feeling hurt. Nothing else feels hurt, it is always the ego. The ego is like a wound – very touchy. You just touch it and it feels hurt. So she has been fulfilling your ego; now she wants to be alone and that hurts.
Try to understand. Let her be alone, leave her alone and give her more and more space. Whenever you feel that she needs to be alone, just move away – and she will love you tremendously for it because that is a gesture of love. When somebody needs to be alone you should leave them alone. If you love her, you understand the need – it is a growth need. And she will be grateful for it, more grateful than ever.
Remember always that if someone loves you out of fear, that love is bogus, because love cannot arise out of fear. It is an empty gesture. Love can arise only out of deep understanding, not out of fear. So this is going to help you both. And it was to come. Whenever a couple comes to me, the whole of their old pattern has to change, because they have lived in a certain relationship and now they start growing. That old relationship cannot contain you; you are becoming bigger and bigger. Your dresses were made for children and now they are too small and you feel confined.
So don’t cling to the old patterns; drop them. Help her to be alone. (addressing the wife) And… you remember not to hurt him unnecessarily. When you want to be alone, simply say you want to be alone. This too has to be understood, because many times we want to be alone but the way we express it is very ugly. We tell the other to go away or tell them that we don’t need or love them any more. We may say these things, when in fact all we wanted to say was that we wanted to be alone. So when you want to be alone, simply ask him and be very loving so that he can understand. If he is in a misunderstanding he will create trouble for you, and then growth becomes impossible.
You are both growing, and much love will happen. You are getting ready for it. Just a little waiting and patience is needed for it, mm? Don’t be worried. Within weeks you will see a totally new quality of love coming between you, flowing between you, and much understanding, Everything will be good.
Source: from Osho Book “Hammer on the Rock”

Osho – The greatest fear in the world is to be left Alone

Osho – To be alone is the greatest achievement. One feels always a need for the other. There is a Tremendous need for the other because something is lacking within ourselves. We have holes in our being; we stuff those holes with the presence of the other. The other somehow makes us complete, otherwise we are incomplete.
Without the other we don’t know who we are, we lose our identity. The other becomes a mirror and we can see our faces in it. Without the other we are suddenly thrown to ourselves. Great uncomfort, inconvenience arises, because we don’t know who we are. When we are alone we are in very strange company, very embarrassing company. We don’t know with whom we are.

With the other, things are clear, defined. We know the name, we know the form, we know the man or the woman — Hindu, Christian, Indian, American — there are some ways to define the other. How to define yourself?
Deep down there is an abyss… undefinable. There is an abyss… emptiness. You start merging into that. It creates fear. You become frightened. you want to rush towards the other. The other helps you to hang out, the other helps you to remain out. When there is nobody you are simply left with your emptiness.
Nobody wants to be alone. The greatest fear in the world is to be left alone. People do a thousand and one things just not to be left alone. You imitate your neighbours so you are just like them and you are not left alone. You lose your individuality, you lose your uniqueness, you just become imitators, because if you are not imitators you will be left alone.
You become part of the crowd, you become part of a church, you become part of an organization. Somehow you want to merge with a crowd where you can feel at ease, that you are not alone, there are so many people like you — so many Mohammedans like you, so many Hindus like you, so many Christians, millions of them… you are not alone.
To be alone is really the greatest miracle. That means now you don’t belong to any church, you don’t belong to any organization, you don’t belong to any theology, you don’t belong to any ideology — socialist, communist, fascist, hindu, christian, jain, buddhist — you don’t belong, you simply are. And you have learnt how to love your indefinable, ineffable reality. You have come to know how to be with yourself.
Your needs for the other have disappeared. You don’t have any loopholes, you don’t have any holes, you are not missing anything, you don’t have any flaws — you are simply happy by being yourself. You don’t need anything, your bliss is unconditional. Yes, it is the greatest miracle in the world.
Source: from Osho Book “The Discipline of Transcendence Volume1″

Osho Quote – Never feel lonely. You are never lonely. At the deepest core of your being, God resides

Osho – Remember the difference between loneliness and aloneness. Never feel lonely. You are never lonely. At the deepest core of your being, God resides; he is always with you. And whenever you are alone, only then will you be able to hear his footsteps. Whenever you are alone, only then will you be able to hear his music, his whisperings. He never shouts, he only whispers. He comes very silently and goes very silently. Be in a deep rest and you become the host; and he is the guest, God is the guest.

Osho – Loneliness is negative, an absence; Aloneness is positive, a presence

Osho – You must make a distinction between two words: lonely and alone. In the dictionary they carry the same meaning, but those who have been meditating, they know the distinction. They are not the same, they are as different as possible.
Loneliness is an ugly thing; loneliness is a depressive thing — it is a sadness; it is an absence of the other. Loneliness is the absence of the other — you would like the other to be there, but the other is not, and you feel that and you miss them. YOU are not there in loneliness, the absence of the other is there. Alone? — it is totally different. YOU are there, it is your presence; it is a positive phenomenon. You don’t miss the other, you meet yourself. Then you are alone, alone like a peak, tremendously beautiful! Sometimes you even feel a terror — but it has a beauty.
But the presence is the basic thing: you are present to yourself. You are not lonely, you are with yourself. Alone, you are not lonely, you are with yourself. Lonely, you are simply lonely — there is no one. You are not with yourself and you are missing the other. Loneliness is negative, an absence; aloneness is positive, a presence.
If you are alone, you grow, because there is space to grow — nobody else to hamper, nobody else to obstruct, nobody else to create more complex problems. Alone you grow, and as much as you want to grow you can grow because there is no limit, and you are happy being with yourself, and a bliss arises. There is no comparison: because the other is not there you are neither beautiful nor ugly, neither rich nor poor, neither this nor that, neither white nor black, neither man nor woman. Alone, how can you be a woman or a man? Lonely, you are a woman or a man, because the other is missing.
Alone, you are no one, empty, empty of the other completely.And remember, when the other is not, the ego cannot exist: it exists with the other. Either present or absent, the other is needed for ego. To feel ‘I’ the other is needed, a boundary of the other. Fenced from the neighbors I feel ‘I’. When there is no neighbor, no fencing, how can you feel ‘I’? You will be there, but without any ego. The ego is a relationship, it exists only in relationship.

Osho on Hobby – Hobbies are means to keep escaping from yourself

Question – Beloved Master, What is your Hobby?
Osho – Anando, I have none. I don’t need any. A hobby is needed to keep you occupied. When you are tired of your ordinary occupation — and naturally one gets tired of earning bread and butter — when you are tired of your ordinary occupation there are only two alternatives. Either be unoccupied…which creates great fear in you, because to be unoccupied means to be with oneself, to be utterly alone with oneself. It is to face one’s own abysmal depth — it frightens, it scares. It means to face one’s life and one’s death, it means to face one’s own interiority — which is infinite, so vast you cannot comprehend it. And the very vastness frightens. A great trembling arises in you.
The one alternative is: meditate when you are unoccupied with your ordinary business. The other alternative is: get occupied again in some foolish activity, and call it a hobby.
A few people collect postage stamps — now, see the stupidity of it — and they call it a hobby. And all hobbies are like that. These are ways and means to keep escaping from yourself.
I am utterly blissful with myself. To be alone, to be, without doing anything, is such a profound experience that if once you have tasted it you will drop all these stupid activities called hobbies. Hobbies are pseudo occupations. When real occupations are not there, you get into pseudo occupations.
Now, see the foolishness of it. Six days of the week you are waiting for Sunday — so that you can relax, so that you can rest, so that you can be with yourself. You are tired of the world; the world is too much with you. You are tired of people, you are tired of everything. And you are hoping Sunday will come soon, and when Sunday comes you are again occupied — now it is your hobby. You cannot remain unoccupied; that is your problem.
And it often happens that a person is more tired after Sunday than after any other day, because of so many hobbies, and going for a picnic, and driving, and doing a thousand and one things for which you have been waiting for six days. And you were thinking you were going to rest?
You cannot rest! You don’t know how to rest. You cannot relax — you don’t know how to relax. Even in the name of relaxation you will get into some work, some kind of work; even in the name of rest you will start some kind of work. Simply because you are not paid for it, does it become rest? You will play cards or chess. You are not paid for it, that’s true, but that doesn’t make much difference; it is only unpaid work.
Rather than searching for hobbies, use the opportunities. Whenever you are capable of having a time empty, utterly unoccupied, with yourself, remain…remain in it, don’t move out of it. Don’t start collecting stamps.
Two old Jewish men were sitting on a park bench. “Well, what do you do now that you are retired?” asked one.
“I have a hobby: I raise pigeons,” replied the other.
“Pigeons? Where do you keep them? You live in a condominium!”
“I keep them in a closet.”
“In your closet? Don’t they shit on your shoes and on your clothes?”
“No,” said the man. “I keep them in a box.”
“In a box? How do they breathe?”
“Breathe? They don’t breathe,” said the man, “they are dead.”
“Dead?” exclaimed the friend, shocked. “You keep dead pigeons?”
“What the hell, it is only a hobby!”
Source – Osho Book “The Dhammapada, Vol1″

Osho – Loneliness is darkness, impotence; aloneness is light, potence

Osho – Asango means absolute aloneness. It does not mean loneliness. Loneliness is a negative state, it is miserable. You are hankering for the other and the other is not available; you would like to be with the other but you are forced to be lonely. Loneliness is enforced, it is empty. Aloneness is positive; it is not forced. You don’t miss the other; on the contrary, you find yourself. The other is completely forgotten, you rejoice in your being; that is aloneness.
Aloneness makes one an individual, otherwise a person remains just a part of the crowd, dependent, in subtle ways a slave. Freedom is the fragrance of aloneness. And the paradox is that only one who knows what aloneness is, is capable of love too; that is one of the mysteries of life. Only an individual can love: you can love only when you are, otherwise who is going to love? People go on playing the game of love but they ARE not, so those gestures are empty. There is no substance in it; it is just fantasy… sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly, but it is fantasy all the time. Only a real person can love, only an individual can love. Love can only come out of your being, never otherwise. And in aloneness the being is found.
So this is the paradox: the person who hankers for the other never finds it possible to commune with the other because he is not; there is nobody to commune. So he goes on rushing from one relationship to another, from one thing to another, from one sensation to another sensation; he goes on hoping and goes on being frustrated at every step. His whole life is just a hope and a frustration, and no hope is ever fulfilled. He chases the other but he never finds the other, because he has not done the homework: he has not yet found himself.
Asango means one who is alone, and out of that aloneness, all that is beautiful is born: love, freedom, silence, communion. So aloneness is not anti-love or anti-relationship: aloneness is the very foundation of love and relationship. And it is a very very ecstatic state of being; it is not empty. So those two words, aloneness and loneliness, appear to be synonymous; they are not. Linguisticaly they may be, but existentially not; they are poles apart. Loneliness is darkness, impotence; aloneness is light, potence. Aloneness has a power to it.
Source – Osho Book “Don’t Bite My Finger, Look Where I’m Pointing”

Osho – Solitariness is ugly, Solitude is beautiful.

Osho – Man can live either on the circumference or at the centre. To live at the circumference is easy, cheap, because everybody is living there. But to live at the centre is a great challenge, because you will be living there all alone. You will not find a crowd there. And to be alone needs the greatest courage in the world, that’s why very few people have been able to know their innermost core, because the journey is absolutely solitary.
So meditation prepares you for this journey. It transforms your loneliness into aloneness, your solitariness into solitude — that’s the miracle of meditation. There is vast difference between the feeling of loneliness and the experience of aloneness, between solitariness and solitude.
Solitariness is negative, solitude is positive.
Solitariness is ugly, solitude is beautiful.
Solitariness is like a wound, a black hole inside you, which hurts. One wants to cover it, one wants to escape away from it, one wants somebody to be with so one can forget one’s solitariness. Solitude is like Everest: it is a virgin peak. Just a single moment of it is more valuable than the whole life of living with the crowds. the whole life of so-called relationships is just sheer madness compared to a single moment of solitude. It is so healthy and so whole.
And the same is true about loneliness and aloneness: loneliness is negative, aloneness is positive; loneliness means you are missing the other, aloneness means you are enjoying yourself. And meditation’s whole function is to transform the negative into the positive, to transform the miserable into the blissful. Once you have tasted the joy of being alone, the beauty of solitude, you can rush in — then there is no problem, then the journey is a joy. That each moment the joy becomes bigger and bigger, each moment it is more and more incredible, each moment you are surprised because you were thinking that you had reached the last — now what more there can be? But again there is more: once you reach one peak suddenly you see another peak waiting ahead of you, higher. And it goes on, it is an endless journey.
As you start coming closer and closer to your centre, your behaviour on the circumference changes. It becomes more and more loving, compassionate, calm, friendly. It becomes less greedy, less angry, less jealous, less possessive. It becomes more and more a song, a dance, as if suddenly a spring has come to you and thousands of flowers has burst forth.
And when you have reached to the very centre of your being you have known all that is worth knowing — knowing oneself one knows all. The name of that innermost core is the supreme self. It is not YOURself. You are left far behind, you are lift on the circumference. The ego is no more there so you are no more there, but in a way you are for the first time but egolessly. That is the meaning of the supreme self: egoless experience of one’s being.
Source – Osho Book “Nirvana Now or Never”

Osho – When depressed, be depressed. Simply be depressed. Don’t get depressed about your depression

Osho – Remember this: Whenever you are depressed, wait for the moment that the depression goes. Nothing lasts forever; the depression will go. And when it leaves you, wait — be aware and alert — because after the depression, after the night, there will be a dawn and the sun will rise. If you can be alert in that moment. you will he happy that you were depressed. You will be grateful that you are depressed because only through your depression was this mint of happiness possible.
But what do we do? We move in an infinite regression We yet depressed. Then we yet depressed because of the depression: a second depression follows. If you are depressed. that’s okay! — nothing is wrong in it. It is beautiful because through it you will learn and mature. But then you feel badly. “Why do I get depressed? I should not get depressed.” Then you start fighting with the depression. The first depression is good, but the second depression is unreal. And this unreal depression will cloud your mind. You will miss the moment that would have followed the real depression.
When depressed, be depressed. Simply be depressed. Don’t get depressed about your depression. When depressed, simply be depressed. Don’t fight it, don’t create any diversion, don’t force it to go. Just allow it to happen; it will go by itself. Life is a flux; nothing remains the same. You are not needed; the river moves by itself, you don’t have to push it. If you are trying to push it, you are simply foolish. The river flows by itself. Allow it to flow.
When depression is there, allow it to be. Don’t get depressed about it. If you want to remove it sooner, you will get depressed. If you fight it, you will create a secondary depression that is dangerous. The first depression is beautiful, God-given. The second depression is your own. It is not God-given; it is mental. Then you will move in mental grooves. They are infinite.
If you get depressed, be happy that you are depressed and allow the depression to be. Then suddenly the depression will disappear and there will be a breakthrough. No clouds will be there and the sky will be clear. For a single moment, heaven opens for you. If you are not depressed about your depression you can contact, you can commune, you can enter this heavenly gate. And once you know it, you have learned one of the ultimate laws of life: that life uses the opposite as a teacher, as a back-ground.
Nothing is wrong; everything is for the good. This is what I call a religious attitude. You may not believe in God — that makes no difference. Buddha never believed in God. Mahavir never believed in God but they were religious. There is no need to believe in an afterlife no need. You can still be religious. There is no need even to believe in a soul. You can be religious without believing in it. Then what is religion? Religion means this trust: that everything is for the good. This trust that everything is for the good is a religious mind; this is religiousness.
Source – from Osho Book “The New Alchemy: To turn you on”

Osho – Should one first come to terms with his own loneliness before entering into Relationship

Question – Should one first come to terms with ones own Loneliness before entering into relationship?
Osho -Yes, you have to come to terms with your loneliness, so much so that the loneliness is transformed into aloneness. Only then will you be capable of moving into a deep enriching relationship. Only then will you be able to move into love. What do I mean when I say that one has to come to terms with one’s loneliness, so much so that it becomes aloneness?
Loneliness is a negative state of mind. Aloneness is positive, not withstanding what the dictionaries say. In dictionaries, loneliness and aloneness are synonymous — they are synonyms; in life they are not. Loneliness is a state of mind when you are constantly missing the other, aloneness is the state of mind when you are constantly delighted in yourself. Loneliness is miserable, aloneness is blissful.
Loneliness is always worried, missing something, hankering for something, desiring for something; aloneness is a deep fulfillment, not going out, tremendously content, happy, celebrating. In loneliness you are off center, in aloneness you are centered and rooted. Aloneness is beautiful. It has an elegance around it, a grace, a climate of tremendous satisfaction. Loneliness is; beggarly; all around it there is begging and nothing else. It has no grace around it. In fact it is ugly. Loneliness is a dependence, aloneness is SHEER independence. One feels as if one is one’s whole world, one’s whole existence.
Now, if you move into a relationship when you are feeling lonely, then you will exploit the other. The other will become a means to satisfy you. You will use the other, and everybody resents being used because no man is here to become a means for anybody else. Every man is an end unto himself. Nobody is here to be used like a thing, everybody is here to be worshipped like a king. Nobody is here to fulfill anybody else’s expectations, everybody is here just to be himself.
So whenever you move in any relationship out of loneliness, the relationship is already on the rocks. Even before it has started, it is already on the rocks. Even before the birth, the child is dead. It is going to create more misery for you. And remember, when you move from your loneliness you will fall in relationship with somebody who is in the same plight, because no man who is really living his aloneness will be attracted towards you. You will be too below him.
He can, at the most, sympathize, but cannot love you. One who is on his peak of aloneness can only be attracted towards somebody who is also alone. So whenever you move out of loneliness, you will find a man of the same type; you will find your own reflection somewhere.
Two beggars will meet, two miserable people will meet. And remember, when two miserable people meet, it is not an ordinary addition, it is a multiplication. They create much more misery for each other than they could have created in their loneliness.
First become alone. First start enjoying yourself. First love yourself. First become so authentically happy that if nobody comes it doesn’t matter; you are full, overflowing. If nobody knocks at your door it is perfectly okay — YOU are not missing. You are not waiting for somebody to come and knock at the door. You are at home. If somebody comes, good, beautiful. If nobody comes, that too is beautiful and good.
THEN move into relationship. Now you move like a master, not like a beggar. Now you move like an emperor,. not like a beggar. And the person who has lived in his aloneness will always be attracted to another person who is also living his aloneness beautifully, because the same attracts the same. When two masters meet — masters of their being, of their aloneness — happiness is not just added, it is multiplied. It becomes a tremendous phenomenon of celebration. And they don’t exploit, they share. They don’t use each other. Rather, on the contrary, they both become one and enjoy the existence that surrounds them.
Two lonely people are always facing each other, confronting. Two people who have known aloneness are together, facing something higher than both. I always give this example: two ordinary lovers who are both lonely always face each other; two real lovers, on a full moon night, will not be facing each other. They may be holding hands, but they will be facing the full moon high in the sky. They will not be facing each other, they will be together facing something else.
Sometimes they will be listening to a symphony of Mozart or Beethoven or Wagner together. Sometimes they will be sitting by the side of a tree and enjoying the tremendous being of the tree enveloping them. Sometimes they may be sitting by a waterfall and listening to the wild music that is continuously being created there.
Sometimes, by the ocean, they will both be looking to the farthest possibility that the eyes can see. Whenever two lonely persons meet, they look at each other, because they are constantly in search of ways and means to exploit the other: how to use the other, how to be happy through the other. But two persons who are deeply contented within themselves are not trying to use each other. Rather, they become fellow travellers; they move on a pilgrimage. The goal is high, the goal is far away. Their common interest joins them together.
Ordinarily the common interest is sex. Sex can join two persons momentarily and casually, and very superficially. Real lovers have a greater common interest. It is not that sex will not be there; it may be there, but as part of a higher harmony. Listening to Mozart’s or Beethoven’s symphony, they may come so close, so close, so close, that there may be love. They may make love to each other, but it is in the greater harmony of a Beethoven symphony. The symphony was the real thing; the love happens as part of it. And when love happens of its own accord, unsought, unthought, simply happens as part of a higher harmony, it has a totally different quality to it. it is divine, it is no longer human.
The word ‘happiness’ comes from a Scandanavian word ‘hap’. The word’happening’ also comes from the same Scandanavian root. Happiness is that which happens. You cannot produce it, you cannot command it, you cannot force it. At the most, you can be available to it. Whenever it happens, it happens.
Two real lovers are always available, but never thinking, never trying to find happiness. Then they are never frustrated, because whenever it happens it happens. They create the situation. In fact, if you are happy with yourself, you are already the situation, and if the other is also happy with himself or herself, she is also the situation. When these two situations come close, a greater situation is created. In that greater situation much happens — nothing is produced.
Man has not to do anything to be happy. Man has just to flow and let go. So, the question is: should one first come to terms with his own loneliness before entering into relationship? Yes; yes, absolutely. It has to be so, otherwise you will be frustrated, and in the name of love you will be doing something else which is not love at all.
Source – from Osho Book “Come Follow to You, Vol 4″

Osho – Loneliness cannot create love, it creates need

Osho - Loneliness cannot create love, it creates need. Love is not a need. Then what is love? Love is luxury. It comes out of aloneness, when you are tremendously alone and happy and joyous and celebrating, and great energy goes on storing in you. You don’t need anybody. In that moment the energy is so much, you would like it to be shared. Then you give, you give because you have so much, you give without asking anything in return – that is love.
So very few people attain to love, and those are the people who attain first to aloneness. And when you are alone, meditation is natural, simple, spontaneous. Then just sitting silently, doing nothing, you are in meditation. You need not repeat a mantra, you need not chant any stupid sound. You simply sit, or you walk, or you do your things, and meditation is there like a climate surrounding you, like a white cloud surrounding you – you are suffused with the light. You are immersed in it, bathed in it, and that freshness goes on welling up in you. NOW YOU start sharing.
What else can you do? When a song is born in your heart you have to sing it. And when love is born in your heart – love is a by-product of aloneness – you have to shower it. When the cloud is full of rain, it showers, and when the flower is full of fragrance, it releases its fragrance to the winds. Unaddressed, the fragrance is released. And the flower does not wait to ask ”What is coming back to me in return?” The flower is happy that the winds have been kind enough to relieve him of a burden.
This is real love; then there is no possessiveness. And this is real meditation; then there is no effort.
source – osho book “the secret of secrets, vol2″

Osho on Bliss, The whole existence is made of bliss and nothing else

Osho – Bliss needs great courage. Any courage can afford misery — that’s why there are so many miserable people. It costs nothing to be miserable, it is not a risk at all. It is very convenient to be miserable; in fact, comfortable to be miserable. It feels secure to be miserable. But to be blissful is dangerous, risky. It is dangerous because it is going into the unknown. It is taking your small boat onto the uncharted sea. One knows nothing of the other shore — it may be, it may not be. Even if it is, one has no map, one can’t be certain that one will ever be able to reach it. The boat is small, our energies limited, and the ocean is vast. It really needs guts to get into the boat one day and just move, not looking back, not looking at all the securities on this shore.
This shore is familiar; altough there is misery we have become familiar with it. We have lived together for so long that it is almost difficult to say goodbye to it. We are “married” to misery. It needs great courage to divorce misery because it is divorcing the known, the familiar, the accustomed, the conventional. It is divorcing that which nobody else is divorcing. The whole crowd is living in it. One has to learn how to be alone; for miles and miles there is nobody. One has to learn how to be alone; hence bliss needs courage, the courage to die to the past and be reborn.
Sannyas is a great leap into the unknown. Gather yourself together for a great journey. Yes, there is risk but with risk is life. Yes, there is insecurity but insecurity is adventure. Yes, there is danger but with danger millions of thrills arise, and you are always in for a surprise because you are moving into unknown territory. Danger is there, risk is there, but boredom — never. In hell you will have great company. The path to heaven is of deep aloneness.
Remember it, because entering onto the path is a momentous phenomenon. Buddha used to say that to enter into the river — “srotaapanna”, that was his word — to enter into the river that is going to the ocean is risky, dangerous. But those who dare are the blessed ones. Once you enter the river sooner or later you will reach the ocean. This is entering the river.
Bliss is not something that you can think about; you cannot philosophize about it. There is no way to speculate about it, and whatsoever you think about it is going to be wrong. It is an existential experience. It is just as a blind man cannot think anything about light. Unless his eyes are cured he will never know what light is. He can go on guessing, inferring, listening to great dialogues on light, reading books on light, talking to people about light, accumulating great information and knowledge about light — but still he will not have any glimpse of what it is. The only way to know light is to open your eyes and see it.
That exactly, precisely the case with bliss: one has to experience it. One has to prepare oneself for the great experience. Meditation simply prepares the ground, it helps you to open your eyes, it is medicinal. And once your eyes are cured you know what it is.
Many times many people asked Buddha “What is bliss?” and he would always say “Just be with me and be silent for a few months, a few years, and whenever you are right, ripe, mature enough to know it, I will tell you.” Many stayed with him and he would never tell them what it was. One day he would ask them “Now do you want to know what bliss is?” And they would say “It can’t be said, but we ourselves know we are grateful that you tricked us into bliss. You never said anything about it but you helped us to be silent, to be still.”
When you are silent and still something wells up within you — that is bliss. It is your innermost nature. But remember it is an experience; it is not a theory, it is not a dogma, it is not contained in any scriptures. Though it is written all over existence, on each leaf of a tree, on each pebble on the seashore, you will only be able to see it when you have experienced it in the innermost shrine of your being. Then you will see it everywhere. Then the whole existence is made of bliss and nothing else. Let bliss be a song that resounds in you.
Source – Osho Book “Scriptures in Silence and Sermons in Stones”

Osho on Home – The being who is born homeless, and will remain always homeless

Question – Beloved Osho, What is Home?
Osho – There is no home, there are only houses. We try to make homes out of houses, but in fact, home is projection – there is only a house – it feels cold. We need a home: we want something cozy, something that belongs to us, something to which we belong. Something which is an extension of our being, something which we can make part of us; something which is not just a place where you live, but which becomes alive with you. A house is a dead thing; a home is a living entity, but it is a projection.
So those who are searching for a home will find themselves frustrated again and again because they will find again and again that it turns out to be only a house. Home was their idea. It was their illusion, their hallucination. It was their poetry, their romance. They have been weaving and spinning something invisible around the house which nobody else can see – only they can see it. But it is just Man is born homeless, and man remains his whole life homeless. Yes, he will make many houses into homes and he will get frustrated. And man dies homeless.
To accept the truth brings a tremendous transformation. Then you don’t search for a home – because home is something there, far away, something other than you. And everybody is searching for a home. When you see its illusoriness, then, rather than searching for a home, you will start searching for the being that is born homeless, whose destiny is homeless.
There is no way to make a home. And this is a miracle: the moment that you realize that there is no way to make a home, then this whole existence is home. Then wherever you are, you are at home; because now there is no question of making a home – now there is no question of creating an illusion. You have accepted your homelessness, not with any unwillingness, any resistance, but joyously, because it is good that you are born without a home; otherwise that home will be an imprisonment.
Just think, if people were born with a home, they would be born imprisoned. To be homeless is to be free. It is freedom. It means there is no attachment, no obsession with anything outside; that you are not in need of getting some warmth from the outside, but that your warmth is within you. You have the source of warmth inside; you don’t need it. So wherever you are – without a home – you are strangely at home.
The people who are searching for a home are always getting into despair, and finally are going to feel, ”We have been cheated, life has cheated us. Somehow it gave us the desire to find a home – and there is no home at all, it simply does not exist.”
We try in every possible way: one finds a husband, one finds a wife, one brings children into the world…. One tries to create a family – that is a psychological home. One makes, not a house, but tries to make it almost a living entity. He tries to make a house according to his dreams – that it is going to be a fulfillment of warmth, that in this coldness…. And it is vast, the coldness of existence. The whole universe is so cold, so indifferent, that you want to create a small shelter for yourself where you can feel that you are taken care of, that something protects you… that it is something that belongs to you – you are an owner, not a homeless wanderer.
But in reality this kind of idea is going to create misery for you because one day you will find that the husband you have lived with, the wife you have lived with – is a stranger. Even after living together for fifty years, the strangeness has not disappeared; on the contrary, it has deepened. You were less strangers on the first day you met.
As time has passed and you have been together, you have become more and more strangers to each other, because you have come to know each other more and more – and now you don’t understand at all who the other person is. The more you have known, the less you know. It seems that the more you have become acquainted with the person, the more you become aware that your ignorance about the other is absolute… there is no way to destroy it.
Your children – you have thought they were your children, and one day you find they are not your children. You have been just a passage they have come through. They have their own lives – they are absolutely strangers. They don’t belong to you. They will find their own ways and their own lives.
Who is with you? Nobody is with anybody. You are in a crowd always, but alone. Either alone or in the crowd makes no difference: either in a home or just a wanderer – it makes no difference. I have never had a home. When I left my father’s house for the last time, I told him, ”I will not be coming back again, because this was only a commitment to my maternal grandmother. She had a promise from me that I would come back at least at the time of her death. So just to keep the promise, I have come. Now there is no longer any commitment.”
My father said, ”You always say strange things – this is your home!”
I said, ”That’s where we differ. Neither is it my home nor is it your home. But you continue to live in an illusion and one day you will understand that this is not home.” And I told him a famous Sufi story I have told many times.
The king heard one night the sound of footsteps, somebody walking on the roof of his palace. He could not believe it. The palace was so well guarded – how had somebody reached the top?
He shouted, ”Who are you?”
And the man on the roof shouted, ”You should ask it of yourself first: who are you?”
The king rushed out and called the guards to catch hold of the man, but he was not found. And the next day, again there was a stranger. But the king recognized the voice – it was the same man. And the strange behavior that he had shown the night before… to walk on the roof and then to talk in such a way, and to say to the king, ”First you should ask, who are you? You don’t even know that and you are worried about me! You do your business – I’m doing mine.”
The man was fighting with the guard at the gate of the palace and saying, ”I want to stay in this caravanserai for a few days.”
The guard was saying again and again, ”You seem to be an absolute idiot; this is not a caravanserai! This is the palace of the king, his home!”
And the man said, ”Then I would like to see the man who lives in such an illusion.”
The king was listening: he recognized the voice. He called the guard and said, ”Bring that man in.”
And he asked him, ”Are you the same man who was on the roof?”
The man said, ”Yes.”
”And what were you doing there?”
He said, ”My camel was lost, so I was searching for it.”
He said, ”You seem to be really mad! Your camel was lost on my roof? Has anybody ever heard of camels getting lost on the roofs of houses? And now you are fighting with my guard and calling my home a caravanserai! This is very disrespectful to me: I am the king, and this is my home, and you have to learn how to behave!”
And the man started laughing. He said, ”Strange! You are telling me to learn how to behave, and you don’t know at all what behavior means! Because I came here once before, and I found another man in your place. He was also saying that this is his home. I had come before that too, and there was another man and he was also saying that this is his home. Now you are saying this is your home!”
The king said, ”That man was my father, who has died. And the first time you came you met my grandfather.”
The stranger said, ”That is what I wanted to make clear to you, that they called this their home, and then they had to leave it behind. They could not take it with them. It is a caravanserai. This is an understanding, that many people have been here who thought it was their home, and they are all gone. You will be gone when I come next time! When so many people stay here and come and go, this is a caravanserai!”
”And I also wanted to stay for a few days, so what is wrong? You will stay a few days, your father stayed a few days, his father stayed a few days, and this has been going on for centuries. But I am not illusioned: to me it is a caravanserai.”
I told my father, ”One day you will also understand that this is not home, because in this world we are born and the day we are born, we start dying. You can call your homes your graves, but you cannot call them homes, because you are only dying in them, you are not living!”
And since then I have been in many houses which people thought were my homes, and I have been telling them that they were not, that there is no possibility. It is good to understand that we are wanderers, gypsies – searching for something, certainly. But the search can either be for a home… that means some security, some warmth, some coziness, some love from the outside, from somebody else – and that is the wrong way. That is the way of the worldly man – and he always ends in misery.
A sannyasin basically recognizes the fact that the search is not for a home, the search is for: who is this being? – the being who is born homeless, and will remain always homeless. Don’t search for the home, because there is none. Search for your self, because there is one! And finding that one, suddenly, miraculously, the whole existence becomes your home. And you don’t create it, you don’t project it, you don’t make it. Suddenly it is a revelation. You cannot believe how you have been missing it up to now. The home was always where you were.
The gypsies have a better name in the Indian language. The gypsies are basically from Rajputana in India. They got the name ”gypsy” because they first went out of India to Egypt and from Egypt they entered Europe. It is Egypt that gave them the name ”gypsy” – from Egypt. But they are really people from India, and in India their name is ”khanabadosh.”
That name has tremendous beauty. It means a person whose home is on his shoulders; so wherever he goes, he is always at home. The word khanabadosh is tremendously significant: khana means ”home”, badosh means ”on your own shoulders”.
It is not visible, it is there, but it is revealed only to those who can find who this wanderer is, who this seeker is. Rather than going after the sought, search for the seeker. And finding the seeker, you suddenly find the whole existence is your home; wherever you are, you are at home, even in a hotel. Because every house is a hotel and every place is a caravanserai.
So it is a question of how you look at things. When I was in India, I was at home; when I was in America, I was at home. When I am in Nepal, I am at home. And tomorrow I don’t know where life may take me, but wherever it takes me, I will be at home. That, nobody can take away from me for the simple reason that I am not making any projection which can taken away. Just finding yourself, you find that the whole existence is your home.
Source – Osho Book “Light on The Path”

Osho – The greatest fear in the world is the fear of the unknown

Osho – The greatest fear in the world is the fear of the unknown – and mind is a coward. Hence, the world at large perhaps may never be ready. Not that it does not feel the thirst; it feels the thirst, but it has not the guts to recognize it. Even to recognize it is dangerous. That means the beginning of a search, the beginning of a seeking, again moving into the unknown.
The moment you start searching, you become alone. If you don’t search, you are surrounded by a crowd, a vast crowd of believers, of people who have faith. The crowd gives you a certain warmth, coziness. It makes you feel that you must be right because so many people, millions of people, are on the same way. You can be wrong, but so many people cannot be wrong. And if they are all moving in the same direction, it brings you a certainty.
That’s why people want to belong to a church, to a religion, to a dogma, to a creed, to an ideology – political, religious, social; but they want to belong to a crowd, they don’t want to stand alone.
To stand alone… the fear arises: Who knows whether you are right or wrong?
To stand alone, you stand in coldness.
To stand alone, you lose the coziness of the crowd.
To stand alone, you lose the faith of the fanatic.
To stand alone, you lose the authority of a long tradition.
But if you recognize your thirst, you have to stand alone and you have to walk alone, because the truth is never found by the crowd. It is never found on the superhighway. There are not even footpaths which lead to it. As you search for it, as you walk, you create your footpath yourself. It is a very strange phenomenon. You don’t have a footpath ready-made, waiting for you, which will lead you to the truth, to the temple; you have to walk, and just by walking you have to create it.
Each step is full of hesitation, fear, trembling. You cannot be certain because you don’t have any map – there exists none. You don’t know where you are moving – are you going towards the truth or away from it?
That’s why I say it needs guts, courage. It needs the courage of the gambler who can stake everything, not knowing what is going to be the result. He may lose all or he may win all. All or none – that is the choice facing you on each step, every moment. One who accepts this situation becomes more and more integrated, becomes more and more independent, becomes more and more together, centered, rooted.
Source – Osho Book “Light on the Path”

Osho – The more egoist a person is the more he has to remain lonely

Osho – The ego is cowardice. Cowardice is not an essential part of the ego, it is the whole of the ego. And it is bound to be so, because the ego lives in constant fear of being exposed: it is empty within, it is non-existential; it is only an appearance, not a reality. And whenever something is only an appearance, a mirage, the fear is bound to be there at the very center of it.
In the desert you see the mirage from far away. It looks so real that even the trees standing by its side are reflected in the water, which does not exist. You can see the trees and you can see the reflection; you can see the waves in the water and also the reflections shimmering with the waves – but it is all from a distance. As you come closer, the mirage starts disappearing. There has never been anything; it was just a byproduct of the sunrays being reflected by the hot sands of the desert.
In this reflection and the sunrays returning, the mirage of an oasis is created. But it can exist only when you are far way; it cannot exist when you come close. Then, there are only hot sands, and you can see the rays of the sun being reflected back.
It will be easier to understand in a different context. You see the moon, you see its beauty, you see its cool light. But the first astronauts were shocked, because as they came closer to the moon, there was no light. The moon was just a flat, barren piece of earth – no greenery, no life – a dead rock. But standing on the moon, when they looked at the earth they were amazed: the earth was radiant with beautiful light.
In comparison to that light, the moon and its beauty is nothing, because the earth is eight times bigger than the moon; its light is eight times more intense, all silver. And the astronauts knew that it was all false, but they were seeing it. It is not there… but a strange thing: when they were on the earth, they were seeing the beautiful silver light shimmering from the moon. Now they were on the moon, and it was just a dead rock, and the whole beauty was radiating from the earth. And they knew the earth, they have lived their whole lives on the earth; they had never seen anything of the sort. To see the reflection of the sunlight, you need a distance.
The earth is also radiating: when the sunlight comes, some of it is absorbed by the earth, but most of it is reflected back. That reflected light can be seen only when you are far away from the earth; otherwise you cannot see it. The ego is a non-existential phenomenon – the people who are farther away from you can feel it, can see it, can be hurt by it.
Your only concern is that they should not come too close. Everybody is keeping everybody else at a distance, because to allow people to come too close means opening the doors of your emptiness. The ego does not exist. And you are so identified with the ego that the death of the ego, the disappearance of the ego feels as if it is your death. It is not so; on the contrary, when the ego is dead then you will know your reality, your essential being. The egoist is going to be a coward. He cannot allow anybody closeness of any kind – friendship, love, even companionship.
Adolf Hitler never allowed anybody to sleep in his room. He always slept alone, locking the door from within. He never got married for the simple reason that if you are married then you have to allow the woman inside the room – not only inside the room, but in the bed. This is too close and too dangerous.
He had no friends. He always kept people as distant as possible; there was not a single person in his whole life who had ever put a hand on his shoulders – this much closeness he would not allow. What was the fear? Why was he so afraid? The fear was that the moment he allowed anybody such closeness, his greatness – ”the great Adolf Hitler” – would disappear. You would find a very tiny and pygmy creature, nothing of greatness – that was all on the posters, that was all part of a great propaganda.
The more egoist a person is the more he has to remain lonely. And to be lonely is miserable, but one has to pay. You have to pay for a non-existential ego to appear real – with your misery, with your pain, with your anguish. And anyway, even if you succeed in not allowing anybody to be close to you, you yourself know perfectly well that it is just a soap bubble – a small pinprick, and it will disappear.
Source – Osho Book “The Osho Upanishad”

Osho – Seekers have always moved into solitary existence

Osho – It has been happening always, that a Buddha moves to the mountains, a Jesus moves to the mountains, a Mahavira goes into the mountains. Why do they move to the mountains, to the loneliness? Why do they become solitaries?
Just to face their inner mountains immediately and directly. In society it is difficult because the whole energy is wasted in day-to-day work and routine and relationship; you don’t have enough time, you don’t have enough energy to encounter yourself — you are finished in encountering others! You are so very occupied — and to come face to face with oneself a very unoccupied life is needed, because it is such a tremendous phenomenon to face oneself. You will need all your energies. It is such an absorbing job, it cannot be done half-heartedly.
Seekers have always moved into solitary existence, just to face oneself. Wherever they go — just to face oneself; to make it uncomplicated, because in relationship it becomes complicated because the other brings his or her miseries and mountains. You are already loaded — and then comes the other! And then you clash, then things become more complex. Then it is two diseases meeting, and a very complicated disease is created out of it. Everything becomes entwined, it becomes a riddle. You are already a riddle — it is better to solve it first and THEN move in relationship, because if you are not a mountain, then you can help somebody.
And remember, two hands are needed to make a sound, and two mountains are needed for a clash. If you are a mountain no more, now you are capable of being related. Now the other may try to create a clash, but it cannot be created because there is no possibility of creating a sound with one hand. The other will start feeling foolish — and that is the dawn for wisdom.
You can help if you are unburdened; you cannot help if you are not unburdened. You can become a husband, you can become a father, a mother, and you will be burdening others with your burdens also. Even small children carry your mountains; they are crushed under you — it has to be so because you never bother to have a clarity about your being before you become related.
That must be the basic responsibility of every alert being: Before I move in any relationship I must be unburdened. I should not carry a hangover; only then can I help the other to grow. Otherwise I will exploit, and the other will exploit me! Otherwise I will try to dominate and the other will try to dominate me. And it will not be a relationship, it cannot be love, it will be a subtle politics.
Your marriage is a subtle politics of domination. Your fatherhood, motherhood, is a subtle politics. Look at mothers, just simply watch! — and you will feel they are trying to dominate their small children. Their aggression, their anger, is thrown on them — they have become objects of catharsis, and by this they are already burdened. They will move in life carrying mountains from the very beginning, and they will never know that life is possible without carrying such loaded heads; and they will never know the freedom that comes with an unloaded being. They will never know that when you are not loaded you have wings and you can fly into the sky and into the unknown.
And God is available only when you are unburdened. But they will never know. They will knock at the doors of temples but they will never know where the real temple exists. The real temple is freedom: dying moment to moment to the past and living the present. And freedom to move, to move into the dark, into the unknown — that is the door to the divine!
Source – Osho Book “And the Flowers Showered”

Osho – Each individual is unique, so unique that you have to discover yourself all alone

Osho – The greatest courage in life is needed when you go inwards, for many reasons… The first is: it is a flight from the alone to the alone, it is going deeper into your aloneness. And man is caught up in such a way that he becomes accustomed to company, to people, to family. He forgets absolutely the joy of being alone; hence there is a fear of being left alone.
That’s why nations exist: it is because of fear, not because of any love. That’s why religions exist — not because of a longing for god. How many people really long for god? Not so many Christians, not so many Hindus, not so many Mohammedans. The whole world is religious in that way. But people are afraid of being left alone; they have to be part of some crowd — a political crowd, a social crowd, a religious crowd; any crowd will do, but they are dependent on the crowd. They feel good when they are surrounded by people; they start feeling shaky, scared when they find there is nobody and they are alone. That is the fear that grips you when you are lost in a jungle or in a desert where, as far as you can see, there is nobody. That utter aloneness creates great fear because we are conditioned by the crowd, for the crowd, as part of the crowd. We are not brought up as individuals. We are brought up as small units of a great mechanism called the society, the nation, the church.
People are not satisfied with these crowds — they create their small crowds — because when the crowd is very big you start losing yourself in the crowd. It becomes impossible for you to recognise people, to see who is who; hence people create small crowds of their own: the Rotary Club, the Lion’s Club. These are just small crowds where everybody knows everybody else, where everybody is acquainted with everybody else. The greatest fear arises when you move inwards… because it is possible to find a man in the desert, it is possible to find somebody in the jungle when you are lost.
I have heard a story: Once a hunter got lost in the jungle. He tried for three days continuously, but he could not find any way to get out. He got deeper and deeper in the thicker parts of the jungle. He became desperate: he could not sleep, there was nothing to eat. After three days he thought ‘This is death. Now I cannot survive.’ He shouted and did everything and on the third day evening, he suddenly saw a man coming. They both rejoiced, both ran towards each other and hugged each other. They were absolutely unacquainted, but what a joy to see another man! But soon they found that that joy was wrong, they were disillusioned: both were lost. Each was thinking ‘Now I have found a person who will help me to get out,’ and both rejoiced for a moment, but the moment they explained to each other why they were rejoicing so much, both were shocked.
They were still lost in the same way, but they were not in so much despair. At least they could share their misery, they could communicate, relate, talk to each other, converse, do something — together. They were still lost in the same way but somehow it felt different.
That’s how marriage came into existence. Two lost people for a moment enjoy the honeymoon, thinking ‘I have found the person whom I was seeking,’ and each is thinking the same; soon they will be disillusioned. But still, even though they will be miserable, they will be miserable together. It is better, people think, to be miserable together than to be miserable alone; in fact in togetherness misery is multiplied. But people love togetherness because we are brought up in that way. From the very first moment of birth the child depends on the mother, on the father, on the family. Then his circle becomes bigger, but he always remains part of some group, some collectivity.
Meditation is the only phenomenon where there is no possibility of meeting anybody, where you have to go alone, totally alone. Hence only very courageous people can enter into the world of meditation. That’s why so few people have ever entered, Why so few people have ever become enlightened.
Secondly: when you move inwards you move without any maps. Even if you go to the moon you have a certain map, a certain route. There have been people before you, their footprints are there, there are milestones everywhere. Even in the sea you are not totally lost, in the sky you are not totally lost: you can communicate with people, you can give messages — even from the moon! You can remain in some kind of relationship; it may be just through radio waves, but you can remain connected. You can still hear the voices of people, you can still see that others are there; you are connected.
But when you move inwards, the people who have gone in cannot leave any footprints for anybody. It is impossible, because everybody’s inner territory is so different that Buddha’s footprints won’t help you and if you follow Buddha’s footprints literally, you will never find yourself.
Jesus’ map won’t help you; you cannot follow it literally. It can help in a very indirect way; it can make you aware of certain things inside, but in a very vague sense. It can give you the confidence that ‘Yes, there is a world inside, no doubt about it, because so many people cannot be lying. Buddha, Jesus, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, Mahavira, Krishna, Mohammed, such beautiful people cannot all be lying. They cannot be in a conspiracy — for what? They never existed together — they lived in different ages, in different countries — yet they all speak almost the same language… But you cannot follow it exactly because Buddha’s inner territory is different. Each individual is unique, so unique that you have to discover yourself all alone; hence great courage is needed. This is the greatest adventure in life, and one who goes on this adventure is blessed.
Source – Osho Book “The Imprisoned Splendor”

Osho on Darkness – Darkness has a silence and Darkness has a depth

Question – Beloved Osho, What do you have to say about darkness?
Osho – I have much to say about darkness, because nobody has taken notice of the mystery that darkness is. Much has been said about light, almost nothing about darkness. But darkness is a much deeper phenomenon than light is. Light comes and goes — darkness remains; it never comes, it never goes. Light is not eternal, because it needs fuel, some kind of fuel, and the fuel will be exhausted sooner or later. Darkness needs no fuel, no cause; hence darkness is not an effect and can remain eternally there.
In the morning, you see the sun arises and there is light; in the evening the sun sets, the light disappears, and suddenly all over there is darkness. It does not mean that when the sun disappears, darkness comes in. It has been there all the time; just because of the light you could not see it. How can one see darkness while light is there? The light prevented your vision. So anytime just close your eyes and darkness is there. Anytime just blow out the candle and darkness is there.
Gautam Buddha is perhaps the only man who, for the ultimate state of consciousness, has chosen a word which can be interpreted as darkness; otherwise all the religions have talked about light, forgetting completely that light is not eternal, and if you are light, you are also not eternal. Light is dependent on something, it is caused by something.
Gautam Buddha has called his ultimate state of being, nirvana. Even Buddhists have not thought of it as darkness, because the very word produces bad associations in us. But nirvana means exactly “darkness”; literally it means blowing out the candle. So for twenty-five centuries Buddhists have been using the literal meaning “blowing out the candle.” But what does it mean? Blowing out the candle, what remains then? Eternal, deathless, abysmal darkness.
Feeling yourself full of light may be again an ego trip. Feeling yourself identified with light, you may be simply changing your identity — but the ego remains. But blowing out the candle is blowing away the ego; and the vast darkness is bound to create in you a similar vastness of humility, humbleness, egolessness. So I love the word.
I always see light as a disturbance, and darkness as silence. But centuries of continuously fearing darkness… because it became associated with the time when man was living in jungles. The night was the most dangerous time. In the day somehow he managed to protect himself from the wild animals; he managed to kill them for his own food. But in the night he was absolutely helpless. Darkness all around, he was a victim. Any animal was capable of destroying him. In the day he could have managed to escape, to climb a tree or do something, but in darkness he was simply in the hands of wild death. So it was very easy to get a deep association between darkness and death.
All the religions depict death as darkness and life as light. It is simply the experience of man in the past when he lived in the jungles. That experience has molded his language, given it meanings. And he has not yet been able to clean those words again — because now he is not living in jungles, but still there is a certain reason why he continues to be afraid of darkness.
When there is light you are not alone, you can see everybody else. If suddenly the light goes off, the others may be there still, may not be; one thing is certain, you feel lonely. You are no more associated with the crowd. The crowd gives you a certain security, safety, a certain warmth, and you feel that you are not alone. Any danger — so many people are with you. But in darkness suddenly you are lonely, nobody is with you.
And man has not learned yet to know the beauties of his loneliness. He is always hankering for some relationship, to be with someone — with a friend, with a father, with a wife, with a husband, with a child… with someone. He has created societies, he has created clubs — the Lion’s Club, the Rotary Club. He has created parties — political, ideological. He has created religions, churches. But the basic need of all is to forget somehow that you are alone. Being associated with so many crowds, you are trying to forget something which in darkness suddenly is remembered — that you were born alone, that you will die alone, that whatever you do, you live alone. Aloneness is something so essential to your being, there is no way to avoid it.
You can befool yourself and deceive yourself; you can pretend that you are not alone — you have a wife, you have children, you have friends — but it is all pretension. You know and everybody knows that the wife is alone as much as you are alone, and two alonenesses joined together do not change the situation; instead they make it worse.
As I see it, why lovers are continuously fighting — there may be thousand other reasons, but those reasons are superficial. The basic reason is that they had chosen the other as a beloved, as a lover, to destroy their loneliness — and it has not happened. On the contrary, the presence of the other makes them more aware of their loneliness.
I used to have a very rich friend — he had a beautiful wife, children… all that one needs, perfectly comfortable, so much so that when I asked him, “Now you are fifty, and you have enough money — retire from the businesses,” he did not hesitate for a single moment. He just informed people that he is no more an active participant in any businesses, he has retired.
I was going to Mount Abu; I told him, “It is a beautiful place — “sometime you and your wife should go there. And now you are retired, you have enough time. Be there for a few weeks or months.”
He said, “You are right, we have time, but you don’t know what you have done to me. I was also thinking that when I am retired I will feel relaxed for the first time in my life. My father died when I was young, and since then I have been working continuously, becoming richer and richer. And I had a hope that one day I will retire and relax and will not have any worries of the world. And when you told me, `Now it is time — you have enough…. What more do you need? Your girls are married, you don’t have a son — for whom are you earning now? You may live twenty years, thirty years — for that you have too much. You could live with what you have for three hundred years. You retire!’”
He said, “I understood, because I have been deep down always hoping to retire, and when it came from you, I said, `This is the moment to take the jump.’ But you have created a trouble; now I am lonely. I have never felt it before. And I am so utterly lonely that I am angry at you. How can I relax in such loneliness? And if this loneliness continues, I don’t think I can survive twenty or thirty years. It is becoming colder and colder, and darker and darker. And I am feeling absolutely cut off from the world.”
“But,” I said, “you have your wife.”
He said, “That is another trouble. I had never felt so lonely in her presence as I feel now. I was so busy in my businesses that I would come home late and she was always quarreling, nagging, asking for this and asking for that. There was no time to feel each other. Now the whole day I am sitting at home, and when I see her I know: just as I am alone, she is alone. And two alonenesses do not help in any way; on the contrary they make each other more clear.”
He said, “I will come to Mount Abu, but I would like some friend to be with us; otherwise three weeks or three months, just living with my wife” — and he loved the woman — “will be too much, intolerable.”
I realized his situation and I told him, “Now, you have listened to my first advice which has created the trouble for you; but it has not created the trouble — the trouble was already there. Your businesses were just keeping you occupied so you were not aware of it — now you are aware of it. Now take my other advice: go deeper into it rather than escaping. It is your reality — there is no way to escape from it.
“It is just like your shadow — the faster you run, the faster your shadow runs. Wherever you go, the shadow goes. It is simply stupid to fight with the shadow. Rather, sit silently and let the whole feel of being alone envelop you. In the beginning it may be fearsome. You may feel you are falling into an abysmal depth. It will be dark, and you may feel that it may become darker if you go deeper into it.
“But I say from my own experience that the more you know it, the more you love it. It is your privacy, it is your individuality. It is something which cannot be trespassed by anyone. It is your privilege. And there is nothing wrong in being alone.
“But never use the word `lonely’ because `lonely’ automatically suggests the need for somebody else. `Lonely’ is a sick word. Use the word `alone’; `alone’ has a health of its own.” I told the man, “And if you can do that then there is no need for any other meditation, this will be your meditation — just be alone. Even in the crowd remember that you are alone, don’t forget it. Your whole life you have tried to forget it; now remember it.”
The man was immensely courageous. He tried it — he succeeded, and he was immensely grateful to me… because the moment you feel you are absolutely alone, that is the time you start feeling that you are not the body, it is only a cover; that you are not the mind, it is only a mechanism; that you are not even the heart — that too is a mechanism of a different sort for different purposes.
Behind all these layers there is a space, crystal clear — nobody else has ever passed through it; its purity is absolute. To enter that space is to enter in meditation. Feeling that aloneness, you will feel the whole existence is alone.
There is no God — that was the need of the lonely people. Those who have tasted aloneness have discarded God, hell, heaven, and every other nonsense. You are alone, the whole existence is alone: aloneness is the only reality. Yes, it is immensely dark, but darkness has a silence and darkness has a depth. And darkness has peace, and darkness takes away all your knowledge, takes away everything that you thought belonged to you. It leads you absolutely into the unknown and into the mysterious. So to me, darkness is one of the greatest mysteries in existence — far greater than light. And those who are afraid of darkness will never be able to enter into their own being. They will go round and round, they will never reach themselves.
And it has to be darkness, not light, because light comes and goes; once you have discovered the spot of darkness in you, you have discovered something that is eternal, something indestructible, something which is more than what you know of life. It is the basic substance existence is made of. But they are just two names of one thing — aloneness or darkness.
Source – Osho Book “Light on the Path”

Osho on Fear of being Left Alone and Aloneness

Question : Beloved Osho, My biggest fear and limitation, as far as i can discover, is the fear of being left alone. I feel that this always had, and still has, a strong influence on my life and my relationships. Besides feeling this fear and letting it be there — which i obviously haven’t done enough — is there any other way out of it? Beloved master, would you like to talk about this fear of being left, and alone?
Osho : Sadhan, the fear of being left alone is something natural, because everybody is born in a family, so from the very beginning one is always within a certain group, a certain crowd, a certain religion. Always there are people surrounding you. So being amongst people becomes almost natural to us, although it is only a habit.
It is not natural; as far as nature is concerned, everybody is born alone. It does not matter that one is born in a family. For nine months in the mother’s womb you are alone. After you are born, whenever you close your eyes you will find your aloneness. Even in the marketplace, just close your eyes and you will find yourself alone.
Aloneness is your very nature, and the crowd is just a habit. But the habit has become so strong and you have become so unaware of your nature that there is always a fear that if everybody leaves you, what are you going to do? In fact, you don’t know who you are if everybody leaves you. It is their opinions which create an identity for you.
Somebody says to you, “Sadhan, you are so beautiful.” He is giving you a certain identity. Somebody says, “You are so intelligent,” somebody says, “You are so joyful,” somebody says, “You are so loving.” These are all opinions. They may have been expressed only as a form of etiquette, they may not mean anything, but you collect these opinions. And this is what your personality is.
Your personality depends on what people say about you. That’s why everybody is so much concerned about his reputation, his name, his prestige. And society exploits this situation very cleverly. It keeps everybody trembling, afraid, because society has the power to take away your respectability, your honor. You are a slave, unknowingly, because you depend on society for your identity. Without that identity you don’t know who you are. That is the ultimate fear of being left alone, that you will not know who you are.
I have told you a Sufi story …. A Sufi mystic comes to Mecca. It is a festival time, when Mohammedans from all over the world come to Mecca. It is part of their religion that every Mohammedan at least once in his life must go to Mecca. I have seen poor Mohammedans … And Mohammedans are poor because of certain of their religious ideas. They are so fanatic that they cannot change those ideas, and unless they change those ideas they are not going to be rich. Their ideas simply go against the whole economics.
Mohammedans are against lending money with interest or borrowing money with interest. Now, the whole world of economics depends on interest. The whole of banking, the whole of business, even the nations, even the greatest industrialists, the super-rich — all are dependent on loans. Nobody is going to give you money without interest, and Mohammedanism is against interest, saying that it is the greatest sin, to take interest or to give interest. Naturally, Mohammedans have remained the poorest people of the world.
I have seen poor Mohammedans selling their houses, their land or whatsoever they had, just to go at least once to Mecca; otherwise they are not perfect Mohammedans. How are they going to face their God? The first question he will ask is, “Have you been to Mecca or not?”
This Sufi mystic, a poor Mohammedan, went to Mecca. All the hotels were full, all the caravanserais were full. And he was not a rich man. He knocked on many doors, but everywhere he was refused — millions of people had gathered there. And in the desert in the cold night, hungry and thirsty, how was he going to survive? Finally he told the manager of a hotel, “I will lie down anywhere — on the steps, in the basement. But at least for the night … I am tired, I have been walking miles and miles to reach here.”
The manager said, “I can see you are tired and you look a very simple and humble man. I cannot refuse you. But the trouble is, we don’t have any room, any place. Just one thing is possible. One room I have given to a man — he is rich. It is a double bedroom; he is alone, but he has paid for the room. I can ask him, perhaps he may feel some compassion for you. So come with me.”
The manager thought, “There is no problem, because one bed is empty. Why send this poor man …? He can go to sleep.” So the manager left, and the mystic, with his turban, with his shoes, with his coat, went to bed — even with his shoes on. He wore everything, and of course sleep was difficult. He was tossing and turning, and because of his tossing and turning the man to whom the room belonged could not sleep.
Finally the man said, “Listen, I have allowed you to sleep here but you don’t sleep, you are simply tossing and turning. And I can see that in such a situation nobody can sleep: you have not even taken your shoes off, your turban is on, you are sleeping in a tight coat; it is impossible. And you are not allowing me either to sleep.”
The mystic said, “It is a great problem.”
The man said, “What is the great problem?”
He said, “You are sleeping naked; I also have the habit of sleeping naked.”
So the man said, “Then what is the problem? Just get naked and go to sleep!”
The mystic said, “It is not so easy. The problem is, if I go to sleep naked, in the morning how am I going to find out who is me — you or me? Because my only identity is my clothes: my turban, my shoes. Naked, I don’t have any identity. So in the morning who will say who I am ?”
The man laughed at the stupidity. He said, “I will suggest to you something. Just look in the corner — some toy … perhaps the previous people who stayed in the room, their children must have left it.” So he said, “Do one thing: take that toy, tie it to your foot and go to sleep. In the morning you can see that the toy is there, so it is certainly you.”
The mystic said, “That sounds absolutely right.” He dropped his clothes, got naked; the other man helped in tying the toy to his foot and he fell asleep and immediately started snoring. He was really tired. The other man had an idea. He untied the toy, tied it to his foot, and went to sleep. In the morning the mystic woke up, looked at his foot, looked at the other man’s foot and said, “My God, I know you are me, but who am I? It is absolutely certain you are me, because the toy is there on your foot. But now the problem arises, who am I?”
Mystics have used this story for centuries to tell you that your whole identity consists of very nonessential things: and those are the opinions given by others to you. They can withdraw their opinions; hence people are always afraid to do anything that goes against tradition, religion, political ideology, nationalistic attitudes. Even if it seems absolutely wrong, people go on supporting it for the simple reason that they are afraid that if they raise their voice against anything traditional, society can withdraw the identity that it has given to them. And then you will not know who you are.
This is the fear, Sadhan, that if you are left alone, how will you know who you are? Those people who had made you something, somebody, are all gone. And the fear remains until you come to know yourself directly, not via the other.
These are the two things to be remembered. When you know yourself via others, it is your personality, just a thin layer of opinions. When you know yourself directly, you know your individuality. And once you have known your individuality, the fear of being left alone disappears. There is no other way.
You are asking, “My biggest fear and limitation, as far as I can discover, is the fear of being left alone.” This is not only your fear, this is the fear every human being suffers from. It is good that you have become aware of it, because that is the first step towards getting rid of it.
“I feel that this always had, and still has, a strong influence on my life and my relationships.” If the fear is there it is bound to have an influence on your life, because you will always move in such a way that you are not left alone, whatever the price you have to pay, even if you have to remain a slave your whole life. If you have to sell your soul you will sell it, but you will remain surrounded by the crowd. It feels cozy, secure, safe. You know who you are.
It will destroy your whole spiritual beauty, your spiritual glory. It will destroy all your possibilities of inner growth. And it is going to influence your relationships. Millions of people go on living in relationships which are simply hell; but just out of the fear that they will be left alone they go on clinging. It is miserable, it is a great suffering, it is a torture, but at least somebody is with you.
In comparison to being left alone, it is better to be miserable but to be with someone. That is one of the reasons why millions of people go on suffering, and still go on clinging to the same relationships which are not giving them any nourishment, but are simply destructive, suicidal.
Only a man or a woman who is capable of being alone is also capable of being in a relationship without being destroyed by it — because being alone is no longer a fear. If some relationship is creating misery, you can simply get out of it. Nobody can prevent you. It is a very pathetic situation, that millions of people are clinging to each other just out of the fear that they might be left alone. And to be alone is our nature. There is nothing to fear, only you have to experience it. Once you have experienced, in the deep silences of your heart, the beauty of your aloneness and the ecstasy of your aloneness, all fear will be gone. And you will laugh at your past: how stupid you have been! What have you been doing with yourself?
“Besides feeling this fear and letting it be there — which I obviously have not done enough — is there any other way out of it?” There is only one way out of it, and that is: learn to enter into your aloneness as often as possible. Whenever you have a chance, don’t unnecessarily get busy to avoid your aloneness.
Whenever you have a chance, close your eyes, sit silently, relaxed, and look inside. Slowly, slowly the turmoil settles, the mind becomes quiet, and a deep silence prevails. And suddenly you start feeling your innermost being, your very center of life, which is alone. There is nobody and there can never be anybody. Nobody can approach there except you. It is your territory. It is the only place which belongs to you.
Nobody can take it away, not even death. That will happen to the outside, to the body, to the mind, but not to this inner space, which for centuries we have called the soul, the spirit or the god within you — whatever name you want. But this aloneness, once known, simply removes all fear. In fact it brings a new dimension of blissfulness. Rather than being afraid of aloneness, you become more and more intrigued with its mystery. You want to be more and more alone.
In the middle of the night you will awake and sit in your bed and just move into your aloneness. And it is only a question of going again and again. By your moving in and out the way becomes easier, the path becomes easier. It becomes so easy that just any moment you close your eyes you immediately reach, without losing a split second, to the center. Then in the very marketplace you can be alone, in the crowd. And you will feel such a joy arising in you, such a song out of your silence, such fragrance that you have never known before.
Sadhan, it is not a big problem. It is a very simple thing. Just, because people have forgotten the very idea of going within themselves, it looks like something difficult. But I say unto you, it is the simplest thing in the world.
This fear of being alone, or left alone, is not a simple phenomenon; it is very complex. Because of it, many other things happen to you: jealousy is part of it, anger is part of it, sadness is part of it, attachment is part of it, possessiveness is part of it. You can see why — why you want to dominate as a husband, as a wife, as a parent. Why do you want to dominate? Just to make sure that the other is absolutely under your control. Hence everybody is trying to keep everybody else under control. But deep down it is only the fear of being alone. And it is not only today; perhaps from the very beginning — if there has ever been a beginning — the fear has been there.
And, Sadhan, because you are a woman it is even more complex, because man has taken away all possibilities of your independence. Mostly he has not allowed you to be educated, he has not allowed you to learn any craftsmanship, any skill; he has not allowed you to be financially free and independent. That was his strategy to keep you in bondage. He is also afraid of being left alone. Out of his fear he has destroyed women’s liberty. And a woman is more afraid of being left alone because now she is absolutely dependent.
She will not be able to earn, she will not be able to stand on her own. So even if her husband is just a torturer, a sadist, she has to remain with him. At least he takes care of her food, of her clothes, of a shelter.
Coming home very late one night, Adam found Eve waiting angrily. “Late again,” she shouted, “you must be seeing some other woman.”
“I consider that accusation wildly absurd,” said the outraged Adam. “You know perfectly well that you and I are quite alone in this world.” Adam stamped off to bed.
He was awakened by a tickling sensation on his chest. Opening his eyes, he saw Eve hovering over him, carefully counting his ribs.
Because God had created Eve by taking one rib out, she is counting the ribs. Perhaps he has taken out another rib and somewhere in the surroundings there is another woman in the bushes. This fear, although natural, can be dropped, because you have the possibility of rising above nature. Your awareness can go higher, and from those heights what was very important in the dark valleys of life becomes absolutely unimportant and ridiculous. The day you can laugh about all your fears will be a great day in your life — and I am preparing you for that day.
A naive priest is moved to a parish in a bad neighborhood of New York and is bewildered by the many women who are constantly approaching him to whisper, “Five bucks for a blowjob, buddy.”
Not wanting to remain ignorant any longer, he approaches a local nun. “Excuse my ignorance, sister,” says the young priest, “but could you please tell me what a blowjob is?”
The nun snaps back, “Five bucks, just like anywhere else.”
I am preparing you so that one day you can laugh about everything that has been a fear, a misery, a possessiveness, a domination, and you can joke about everything that people are taking too seriously.
Two Irish girls were commiserating with each other about their unmarried state. “At least I was two-thirds married once,” said Maureen.
“What do you mean, two-thirds married?” asked Eileen.
“Well,” replied Maureen, “I was there, the priest was there, but that bloody Paddy never showed up.”
Life is so hilarious. Why should you unnecessarily get worried about fear, about misery, and about Latifa and Om? I think most of your problems seem important because they are the problems of millions of people. So you think that certainly your problems are serious, and great, and difficult. But that is not the right conclusion.
Hymie and Betty Goldberg were having a day in the country. Betty saw a lovely place under a tree next to a small pond and pointed it out to Hymie.
“That’s a beautiful spot for a picnic,” she said.
“It must be, dear,” shrugged Hymie. “Fifty million mosquitoes can’t be wrong.”
That is the trouble. But I say to you, fifty million mosquitoes may not be wrong, but fifty million human beings may be wrong, because they are simply imitating each other. It is the same story. They are all playing the same game, the same role, and just because the whole crowd is suffering from the same problem, a small problem becomes an epidemic. If you look at the problem and forget the fifty million mosquitoes, it is a very small problem, and a very small method can bring you out of it.
Source – Osho Book “The New Dawn”