'The Ego is Always in Search of Isolation', because when you are alone, only the ego remains; the ego becomes the whole world. Then there is nobody to fight with your ego; there is nobody to humiliate you; there is nobody with whom you can compare yourself. You become supreme in your own eyes. You can believe in your ego absolutely; there will be no distraction.
I am against isolation. In fact you have to dissolve the ego, not to isolate it. You are not to become an island, independent, separate from the whole: you have to become a part of the continent, one with it. How can you be one with reality in isolation? The reality needs participation, not isolation. That’s why the greatest samadhi occurs in love, not in isolation. And the greatest of Yoga is love, because in love you have to dissolve yourself. In love you have to die; in love you have to melt, merge.
I teach love, not isolation. Isolation is the way of the world, not the way of religion. But it happens: you have been seeking riches, political power, possessions; then you become frustrated. Then you turn to the Himalayas — you renounce the world. You don’t renounce the ego, you renounce the world. I teach you: renounce the ego, don’t renounce the world.
The ego is very subtle. You could not attain to political power, then you try to attain to religious power. You call it Kundalini, but still it is power. Still it is something that will make you separate, unique, independent, an island.
If your religion is also a search for power, then isolation is needed. But religion is not a search for power; it is a search for silence. It is a search for peace; it is a search for inner poverty...what Jesus calls poor in spirit. It is a search to be, in such a way that there is no difference between to be and not to be. Non-being becomes your only being. This is possible not through independence, this is possible only if you realize interdependence.
These three words have to be remembered: dependence, independence, and interdependence. Dependent you are; independence you seek; interdependence I teach. Dependent you are, because everywhere you will feel you are dependent, everywhere a limitation comes in. If you love somebody you become dependent on him or on her. Everywhere life brings dependence. Then the idea arises that in the world you can never be independent. Escape from the world. You can escape, but independent you can never be: you can only be deceived. Even in the Himalayas you are not independent; you are still dependent on the sun. If the sun does not rise, you will be dead immediately. You will be dependent on the oxygen and air: if the oxygen disappears, you will be dead. You will be dependent on water; you will be dependent on a thousand and one things.
Dependence has to be understood, not to be avoided. If you understand dependence you will understand immediately that hidden behind it is interdependence. Dependence is just a misinterpretation. Those who have known have also known that you are not dependent on the sun; the sun is also dependent on you. Without you the sun cannot be, as you cannot be without the sun. Even a small blade of grass will be missed from existence; the existence will never be complete without it. A gap, something missing, will be there.
But he had learned his lesson. He had dropped the idea of being the only begotten son of God; otherwise these Jews would crucify him too. He dropped the idea of being a messiah. He lived with his few intimate friends and followers in Pahalgam.
Pahalgam is named after Jesus, because he used to call himself "the shepherd" -- Pahalgam means "the town of the shepherd." So it was a small colony of Jesus and his friends, surrounding the grave of their forefather and the founder of Judaic tradition. Jesus remained a Jew to the very end; he never heard about Christianity.
But the followers who were left in Judea managed to create the story of resurrection. And there was no way to prove it this way or that. Neither could they produce Jesus -- if he was resurrected then where was he? Nor could the other party prove what had happened. They had put such a big rock on the mouth of the cave that it was impossible for Jesus to have removed it, and there was a Roman soldier on duty twenty-four hours, so there was no possibility of anybody else removing the rock and taking the body.
But because Pontius Pilate was from the very beginning against crucifying Jesus.... He could see the man was absolutely innocent. He has some crazy ideas, but they are not criminal. And what harm does it do to somebody? If someone thinks he is the only begotten son of God, let him enjoy it. Why disturb him, and why get disturbed? If somebody thinks he is the messiah and he has brought the message of God... if you want to listen, listen; if you don't want to listen, don't listen. But there is no need to crucify the man.
But Jesus learned his lesson -- learned the hard way. In Kashmir he lived very silently with his group, praying, living peacefully, no longer trying to change the world. And Kashmir was so far away from Judea that in Judea the story of resurrection, amongst the followers of Jesus, became significant.
So I say a kind of resurrection certainly happened -- it was a conspiracy more than a resurrection. But certainly Jesus did not die on the cross, he did not die in the cave where he was put; he lived long enough.
......................... OSHO.....
People are fast asleep. Somebody is asleep as a Christian, and somebody is asleep as a Hindu. That doesn't matter -- sleep is sleep. A Christian, a Hindu, a Mohammedan -- if all these three get too drunk, will there be any distinction, differentiation between their drunkenness The Hindu will behave as foolishly as the Mohammedan; and the Mohammedan will behave as stupidly as the Christian. Once they are drunk, they are drunk. And people are asleep. It makes no difference what kind of theology you have used as a pillow for your sleep. Whether the pillow is white or green or blue or red does not matter. Once you fall asleep, you fall asleep; the pillow becomes immaterial. Whether you are sleeping on the Bible, on the Gita, on the Koran does not make any difference; you are using a pillow. Somebody is using the Bible as the pillow, somebody else is using the Koran as the pillow. And you are snoring over your scriptures. And Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and Krishna remain strangers.
They do not belong to this world, that's why Hindus call them avatars. Avatar means one who has come from beyond descended from the beyond, like a ray of light descends into darkness. It comes from the transcendental world, from the world of turiya -- the fourth.
Jesus LOOKS like you, but he is not like you. Don't be deceived by the appearance. He is here on the earth, and not of it. He moves in the same world, the same market-place, the same people, rubs shoulders with you, holds your hand, looks into your eyes, but he does not belong to this world. He belongs to the other shore. He has risen, he has risen in God.
You can also rise, and only by rising will you be able to understand him; befreind him, otherwise he will remain an outsider.
Jesus is a lotus. You are still the mud. There cannot be any dialogue between the lotus and the mud -- although the lotus is born out of the mud, although the mud is carrying many more lotuses than have become manifest. Many unmanifest lotuses are there in the mud, but the mud and the lotus are so different -- strangers to each other. That is the situation. If you want to understand the lotus you will have to become a lotus. Only a lotus can have a dialogue with the lotus.
You are not accidental. Existence needs you. Without you something will be missing in existence and nobody can replace it. That's what gives you dignity, that the whole existence will miss you. The stars and sun and moon, the trees and birds and earth - everything in the universe will feel a small place is vacant which cannot be filled by anybody except you........Owl'sway
The moment you put the mind aside, you have entered into the world of meditation.
My whole effort is to create a no-mind state in you. I am not here to convince you about anything. I am not here to give you a dogma, a creed to live by. I am here to take all creeds away from you because only then will life happen to you. I am not giving you anything to live by, I am simply taking all props away from you, all crutches.
Meditation or religion is a totally different world: it is relaxation, it is let-go -- it is not concentration at all. It is not one-pointedness, it is no-pointedness.
A meditator has to remember not to struggle with the thoughts. If you want to win, don't fight. That is a simple rule of thumb. If you want to win, simply don't fight. The thoughts will be coming as usual. You just watch, hiding behind your blanket; let them come and go. Just don't get involved with them.
Meditation is not a state of concentration; it is not a state of mind at all. It is a state of total mindlessness -- and not a state of sleep either. No mind, no sleep; no mind, but total awareness. Out of that awareness you bring a different quality to music, to painting, to poetry. And out of that meditativeness you can bring a totally different quality to science too. But before that can happen we will need large numbers of meditative people around the earth.
When I say to you that meditation is nothing but thoughtlessness, you can misunderstand me. You are not to do anything to become thoughtless, because whatever you will do will be again a thought. You have to learn to see the procession of thoughts, standing by the side of the road as if it does not matter to you what is passing by. Just the ordinary traffic -- if you can take your thoughts in such a manner that they are not of much concern, then easily, slowly, the caravan of thoughts which has continued for thousands of years disappears.
When you are in deep meditation, you feel a great serenity, a joy that is unknown to you, a watchfulness that is a new guest. Soon this watchfulness will become the host. The day the watchfulness becomes the host, it remains twenty-four hours with you. And out of this watchfulness, whatever you do has a wisdom in it. Whatever you do shows a clarity, a purity, a spontaneity, a grace.
You cannot move into meditation by controlling. You can move into meditation only by being indifferent, just a watcher. Whether it comes or not makes no difference; just let the thoughts flow on their own accord and you stand aloof, just watching. The word `watching' simply means being a mirror, reflecting and not making any commentary. No mirror makes any commentary. No mirror says to you, "Aha, how beautiful!" It is not interested in whether you are beautiful or weird, sane or insane, standing on your feet or on your head. It makes no difference to the mirror, the mirror simply reflects. The watcher is a mirror. It simply watches and remains empty. No content is caught by the mirror. Things come and go, the mirror does not cling to anything. The mirror is not in favor of something or against it. It has no notions about what passes before
When you are able to see with no dust of knowledge on the mirror of your soul, when your soul is without any dust of knowledge, when it is just a mirror,
it reflects that which is. That is wisdom. That reflecting of that which is,
is wisdom....Owlsway
Your marriage is a subtle politics of domination. Your fatherhood, motherhood, is a subtle politics.
Marriage has made love disappear badly, marriage has made love disappear from the earth. Because for other considerations marriage is arranged — money, finance, family, prestige, astrology — all absurd. They have nothing to do with the heart of the two persons who are going to be married. So marriage is almost always a failure; only in rare accidents it is not so — but they are accidents, exceptions. They cannot be counted. Marriage is always on the rocks, because it is for wrong reasons. Only love can become the foundation of a real marriage, there is no other way. Because there is no other way to find that your wave length is exactly the same as the other’s, that you vibrate in the same way as the other. There is no other way to find it out.
One should marry only when one is wise enough. Marriage is not for young people. For young people is to fool around. Marriage is for those who have experienced life in many ways, who have seen all the colors, the whole spectrum of it, and are now ready to settle.
I am not against marriage -- I am for love. If love becomes your marriage, good; but don't hope that marriage can bring love. That is not possible. Love can become a marriage. You have to work very consciously to transform your love into a marriage. Ordinarily, people destroy their love. They do EVERYTHING to destroy it and then they suffer. And they go on saying, "What went wrong?" They destroy -- they do everything to destroy it.
There is a tremendous desire and longing for love, but love needs great awareness. Only then can it reach its highest climax -- and that highest climax IS marriage. It has nothing to do with law. It is a merging of two hearts into totality. It is the functioning of two persons in synchronicity -- that is marriage.
But people try love and because they are unconscious...their longing is good, but their love is full of jealousy, full of possessiveness, full of anger, full of nastiness. Soon they destroy it. Hence for centuries they have depended on marriage. Better to start by marriage so that the law can protect you from destroying it. The society, the government, the court, the policeman, the priest, they will all force you to live in the institution of marriage, and you will be just a slave. If marriage is an institution, you are going to be a slave in it. Only slaves want to live in institutions.
Marriage is a totally different phenomenon: it is the climax of love. Then it is good. I am not against marriage -- I am for the REAL marriage. I am against the false, the pseudo, that exists. But it is an arrangement. It gives you a certain security, safety, occupation. It keeps you engaged. Otherwise, it gives you no enrichment, it gives you no nourishment..Good luck to all
THEY ARE NOT RELIGIOUS they are only so-called religious, hence they are bound to be against me. The so-called religious people have always been against the religious people; it is nothing new. It is the most ancient thing in the world. They worship a religious person only when he is dead because then there is no problem.
Jesus alive is a problem. He disturbs you in many ways, in thousands of ways. In his presence you start feeling that all that you are is just holy cowdung, nothing else. It hurts, it hurts the ego. The so-called religious person starts looking so stupid. He is stupid, but when he is living with other so-called religious people he looks like a saint. He is a rabbi, he is a pundit, he is a priest; he is respected by people. The moment he comes close to a really religious person, immediately he is nothing. That negative nothingness is felt. Now he can see that he is like darkness. Encountering a Buddha you are encountering a mirror, a perfect mirror.I have heard about a woman who was very ugly. She was very much against mirrors, obviously, so much so that whenever she came across a mirror she would immediately destroy it -- even other people's mirrors! People were afraid to let her come close to their mirrors. She would immediately hit the mirror with anything available. And her logic was the same, her argument was the same. She used to say, "These mirrors make me look ugly. I am not ugly -- these mirrors are wrong!"
Somesh, the so-called religious people are bound to be against me. The argument is the same: I am functioning like a mirror. The moment your mind disappears and you become a no-mind, you are a mirror. Whosoever comes to you is bound to see HIS reality. And people live such unreal lives, such unauthentic lives, that how can they forgive me? Impossible. They have to be angry.
They would like to destroy me the way they destroyed Jesus, the way they destroyed Socrates, the way they destroyed Mansoor. They would like to destroy me too, because once they have crucified me they will be at ease again. Again they are beautiful because there is nobody to reflect them. The mirror is no more there, so they can believe in whatsoever they want to believe.
They are against me because I am trying to expose them. I am trying to bring to their notice their real, original faces. They are hiding behind masks and I am pulling their masks away. And they are hiding because they feel their ugliness. They have found a cheap way to feel beautiful: to wear a mask. That is the meaning of the word "personality": it comes from PERSONA; PERSONA means a mask. You can wear a beautiful mask and you can deceive others. And slowly slowly, when many people are deceived by you and they start thinking this is your real face, you become auto-hypnotized; by your OWN deception you create a self-deception. First you deceive others, then their eyes reflect your face -- the mask -- then you think, "This is my real face."
Gurdjieff started teaching on the same lines, the essential note is the same: he said nobody has a soul already; you can create it, you may miss it, so don't take it for granted -- work it out! If you make much effort, only then will a center be born, and that center will live; but not you as you are, because you are just vegetables. And to say that you are just vegetables, he created a new myth. He said, "You are vegetables for the moon, food for the moon." He joked, but it is a very beautiful joke, and very meaningful. He said everything in the world is food for something else: this animal eats that, that animal eats something else.
Everything is food for something else, so how can man be an exception? Man must be a food for something and Gurdjieff said, "Man is the food for the moon, and when the moon is very hungry there are wars. When the moon is very hungry, there are wars because many people are needed. But he was joking about the moon, he was not serious. And followers are always blind, so they have taken even this joke as a truth. Gurdjieff's followers go on saying that this is one of the greatest truths he discovered -- if he were to come back he would laugh.
He was joking, but when Gurdjieff jokes he jokes meaningfully. And the insistence was, the emphasis was, that you are vegetables -- as you are. Only this much can be done with you: the moon can eat you. Can you find anything more stupid than the moon? Difficult to find! When the astronauts reached it, they thought that they were going to fulfill all the dreams and all the poetry of the world, because man has always been thinking about reaching the moon. But when they reached it, there was nothing. The moon is nothing -- you are food for nothing. The moon is just a dead planet. And you are food for a dead planet, because you are dead!
Remember this: Christianity, particularly Jesus, knows well that there is incarnation, reincarnation, rebirth. Life is a long continuity, this death is not going to be the ultimate death. But once this is said, you relax. And the whole method of Jesus depends on friction: you are not allowed to relax, you have to fight, create friction, so that you can become crystallized.
"Every lover feels that something is missing,
because love is unfinished.
It is a process, not a thing,
Every lover is bound to feel that something is missing.
Don’t interpret it wrongly.
It simply shows the love in itself is dynamic."
Love is just like a river, always moving.
In the very movement is the life of the river.
Once it stops it becomes a stagnant thing;
then it is no longer a river.
The very word river shows a process,
the very sound of it gives you th e feeling of movement.
Love is a river.
So don't think that something is missing;
it is part of love's process.
And it is good that it is not completed.
When something is missing
you have to do something about it,
that is a call from higher and higher peaks.
Not that when you reach them you will feel fulfilled;
love never feels fulfilled.
It knows no fulfillment,
but it is beautiful because then it is alive forever and ever.
And you will always feel that something is not in tune.
That too is natural,
because when two persons are meeting,
two different worlds are meeting.
To expect that they will fit perfectly is to expect the impossible,
and that will create frustration.
At the most there are a few moments
when everything is in tune, rare moments.
This is how it has to be.
Make all efforts to create that intuneness,
but always be ready if it doesn't happen perfectly.
And don't be worried about it,
otherwise you will fall more and more out of tune.
It comes only when you are not worried about it.
It happens only when you are not tense about it,
when you are not even expecting it-
just out of the blue.
Osho
I have heard: In a school, a Christian missionary school, but with a few non-Christian boys as well, who were also taught the Bible, the parables and the stories -- and they had to learn.... One day, the inspector of schools came and he asked a small kid, "Who was the first man, and who was the first woman?"
The kid replied, "Adam and Eve."
The inspector was pleased and he said, "To what nationality did they belong?"
And the kid said, "Indian!"
The inspector was a little bit disturbed, but he still asked, "Why do you think they belonged to the Indian nationality? Why do you think they were Indians?"
And the kid said, "Easy! They had no shelter over their heads, no clothes to wear, nothing to eat except one apple between the two of them -- and still they believed this was paradise! They were Indians!"
The Indians are at ease with whatsoever is. They are not worried about doing anything, because they think, "Life is such a long affair, why worry? Why get in a hurry? There is no need to run."
Christianity created an intensity by the idea that there is only one life. And remember well: Hindus are right, as far as the theory is concerned, and Christians are wrong, as far as the theory is concerned. But theory is never a question for a Jesus. The problem is the human mind and its transformation -- and sometimes truth can be poisonous, sometimes truth can make you lazy.
I will give you another example which will be helpful: Gurdjieff used to say that you don't have any eternal soul, remember. You can attain it, but you don't have it -- you can miss. And if you don't attain it you will simply die, nothing is going to survive. And Gurdjieff said that only one in millions attains to the soul, and then the soul goes on moving. The body is left and the soul moves on. But this does not happen for everybody. The soul is not given to you, it has to be worked out, it is a crystallization. When they work it out, then a Mahavira, a Buddha, a Jesus -- they become eternal. Not you! -- Gurdjieff used to say you are just vegetables! You will be eaten, you will dissolve; you don't have any center, so who can survive?
He was again using the Jesus tactics. He was not right because you do have a soul, an eternal soul. But the theory is dangerous, because when you hear that you have an eternal soul, that you are the Brahman, you go to sleep. This becomes a hypnotic thing: if you are already that, why worry? What need is there of sadhana? What need is there to meditate? "Aham brahmasmi -- I am God already." So you go to sleep because nothing is left to be done. Theories can kill, even true theories can kill. Gurdjieff is not right, but he is more compassionate. And you are such liars that only lies can help you. Only lies can bring you out of your lies, just as when a thorn is in your flesh, another thorn is needed to bring it out.
Jesus knew well, he knew about reincarnation -- nobody else knew so well. But he simply dropped the idea because he had been to India! He looked at the Indian mind, saw that the whole mind had become a postponement because of the theory of reincarnation, and he dropped that theory. Gurdjieff also went to India and Tibet, and he looked at the whole nonsense that has happened because of the belief that you already have within you all that is needed. You are divine already, there is no need to do anything. So beggars think they are emperors -- then why bother?
He says: "Just repent and the whole past is washed clean!" It seems to be a very unbelievable thing, because how can it happen? And that is the difference between Hindus, Buddhists, Jainas and Christianity. Hindus, Buddhists and Jainas can never believe that can happen just by repentance, because they don't know what repentance is. Jesus worked it out. It is one of the oldest keys.
But understand what repentance is. Just saying the words won't do, and saying them halfheartedly won't do. When your whole being repents, your whole being throbs and you feel it in every pore, every fiber, that you have done wrong, and you have done wrong because you have been drunk and now you repent -- suddenly there is a transformation. The past disappears and the projection of the future from the past disappears; you are thrown to here and now, you are thrown to your own being. And for the first time you feel the inner nothingness. It is not empty negatively, it is just that the temple is so vast, like space.... You are forgiven, Jesus says, you are forgiven if you repent.
Jesus' master was John the Baptist. His whole teaching was, "Repent, because the day of judgment is near!" This was his whole teaching. He was a very wild man, a great revolutionary, and he went from one corner of his country to another, just with one message: "Repent, because the last judgment is very near!" That is why Christians completely dropped the theory of rebirth. Not that Jesus was not aware of rebirth -- he knew, he knew well that there is a cycle of continuous rebirths. But he completely dropped the idea just to give repentance totality.
If there are many lives your repentance cannot be total. You can wait, you can postpone. You can think, "If in this life I have missed, nothing is wrong. The next life...." That's what Hindus have been doing. They are the laziest people in the world, because of this theory. And the theory is right, this is the problem; they can always postpone, there is no hurry. Why be in such a hurry? That's why Hindus have never bothered about time. They never invented watches, and, left to themselves, they would not invent them. So a watch, for a Hindu mind, is really a foreign element: a clock in a Hindu house doesn't suit. The clock is a Christian invention, because time is short, running fast; it is not a clock, it is life running fast out of your hands. This death is going to be the final one, you cannot postpone.
Just to avoid postponement Jesus and John the Baptist -- who was his master, who initiated Jesus into the mysteries -- their whole teaching depends on: Repent! For there is no more time left, don't postpone any further, because you will then be lost. They bring the whole thing to an intensity.
If I suddenly say that this is going to be the last day, and tomorrow the world is going to disappear, the H-bomb is to be dropped, and then I say: Repent! -- then your total being will be focused, centered, you will be here and now. And then there will come a scream, a cry, a wild scream from your being. It will not be in words -- it will be more existential than that -- it will be from the heart. Not only will your eyes weep, but your heart will be filled with tears, your whole being will be filled with tears: you have missed.
If this repentance happens -- this is an intensity of becoming alert -- all the past is cleaned. No need to undo it -- no, because it has never been a reality. It was a dream, no need to undo it -- just become alert. And with the sleep, all the dreams and nightmares disappear. They have never been there in reality in the first place, they have been your thoughts. And don't be lazy about it -- because you have been postponing for many lives. You can postpone for many more: postponement is such an attraction for the mind. The mind always says, "Tomorrow" -- always. Tomorrow is the shelter. Tomorrow is the shelter of all sin, and virtue arises at this moment.
owlsway Blog (332)