GRATITUDE AND THANKFULNESS TOWARDS THE BODY

GRATITUDE AND THANKFULNESS TOWARDS THE BODY …..

Even if a small glimpse of meditation starts happening to you, a deep sense of friendliness will arise in you towards your body, because you will discover that it is this very body that is making meditation possible. 

And the day samadhi happens, you will see that this too has become possible because of the body. A liberated individual is full of immense gratitude and thankfulness towards his body even at the time of his death…..

“ So as the meditation will deepen, the mind will start coming to that midpoint. All enmities -- both kinds of enmity -- will drop, and a friendliness will be born. And this friendliness is not towards any particular person, it simply arises within you, so wherever you will look you will feel friendship.

You will look at the trees or at your friends or at the birds, and all around you will feel a friendship -- as though all are your companions, as though no one is in opposition to you. And really no one is. 

When you were in opposition, all were in opposition to you; but now, even if someone will oppose you, because of your meditation you will be able to see that this opposition too is there to benefit you.

This is why Kabir says, "The man who reproaches you, arrange him a hut so he can live in your courtyard." Bring the man who reproaches you and let him live next to you; make him a guest, because his reproach is of assistance to you. Now you see friendship even in the one who reproaches you.

You will see the friendship of your body too, and then you will be able to thank it.
A sannyasin is one who can thank his body too ... because it has not harmed you in any way, but rather has supported and been like a shadow to you.

If you wanted to go to the whorehouse, your body took you there -- but it was you who wanted to go. But we are very strange people: we say this body is the enemy, it took us to the whorehouse! 

When you wanted to go to the temple, it took you to the temple... This body has followed you like a shadow, has accomplished what you wanted, and yet you blame it.

When you commit a sin you say it is the body that is making you sin; when you are angry it is the body that is making you to do it. When you are overwhelmed by sexual desire, you say it is the body that is driving you into it.

Our habit of blaming the other is so old that when we cannot find anything else to blame, we impose it on the body. 

So if a sannyasin is condemning the body, understand well that he has not yet known the fragrance of sannyas; otherwise he would see that his body is a temple, a wonderful gift of nature. Nature has given you so much in this body, if only you could use of some of it.

In the body is hidden not sexual desire alone, there are also other centers higher than the sex, which contain in them other dimensions. 

Your body also contains that sahasrar from where opens the door to samadhi. Your lowest center is that of sexual intercourse from where opens the door to nature. Your seventh center is that of meditation from where opens the door to the divine. In the body is hidden everything. So do not blame the body; the body opens the door you knock at.

True, people travel the path to hell through this body, but they also travel to heaven through the body. The same ladder can be used to take you heavenwards or hellwards and the ladder does not ask you to climb upwards or downwards, this is entirely up to you.
Even if a small glimpse of meditation starts happening to you, a deep sense of friendliness will arise in you towards your body, because you will discover that it is this very body that is making meditation possible. And the day samadhi happens, you will see that this too has become possible because of the body. A liberated individual is full of immense gratitude and thankfulness towards his body even at the time of his death. [….]

The whole nature is body of the divine; this is why the five elements of nature have gathered in your body too in a miniature form. Your body is a miniature form of the divine. 

Out there is a vast sun burning, some sixty thousand times the size of the earth, and having immense heat and flames. In your house is burning a small lamp -- very tiny, that can in no way be compared with the sun, but a flame is burning in it too. In this flame too is the same sun -- the same rays, the same light. You are a lamp; the form of the lamp is your body, and you are the flame. The divine is the supreme flame, and nature is the lamp for that flame. So when you die your flame will merge into the supreme flame, and your lamp will merge into the ultimate nature.

This game is unique, and this leela, the play, is fascinating! Don't move in it with the feeling of enmity. One who becomes inimical to it goes astray. 

One who becomes friends with it, nature opens all its mysteries to him. Only as a friend you will be able to know, to recognize what you have. Your eyes will be towards the door, you will open the door, and you will enter into the palace. “
OSHO
Nowhere To Go But In, Chapter 13 - None (6 June 1974 am in Buddha Hall) , [NOTE: This is a translation from the Hindi discourses: Nahim Ram Bin Thaon. It is being edited for publication, and this version is for reference only.]

When love is no more a necessity but just fun

You love a person and the person loves you
and then one day you see him being
attracted towards some other woman -
and comparison comes in.

So he is deserting you;
so he has found somebody who is better than you?
Then has he found somebody who is more beautiful than you?

You may not figure it out so clearly but that's exactly what creates jealousy:
the very idea that somebody can be better, that somebody can be more beautiful,
somebody can attract your man more than you yourself.

That creates a kind of inferiority inside and you start being jealous.
You will create all sorts of hindrances possible to destroy this possibility.

No jealousy is possible only when you have come to accept yourself so utterly that now
there is no comparison; you don't compare yourself with anybody.

Even if your man moves to somebody else it does not create any comparison;
it is just a simple fact that he became attracted to that woman.
It does not bring you into any conflict with the other woman;
it does not say anything about you. If it says anything,
it says something about the man, nothing about you,
it has no reference to you at all.

But that is possible only when you have become so integrated that you can
live without a lover, you can live without being loved and you will be as happy
as when you are being loved, when love is no more a necessity but just fun.

If you are loved, good.
if you are not loved,
perfectly good -
you don't hanker for it.

OSHO - Far Beyond The Stars

MAINTAINING A BALANCE BETWEEN EFFORT AND NO-EFFORT

MAINTAINING A BALANCE BETWEEN EFFORT AND NO-EFFORT. ….
Once that balance is there, meditation comes like a spring and you become full of flowers.
Your life all the splendour and all the joy that existence can give to you -- it is infinite…..

“ Meditation is not achieved through effort, it is achieved through surrender. All the effort that is made, is made to make surrender possible. Once surrender becomes possible then you are ready to receive the gift. 

Effort is needed, but not for meditation; effort is needed only to prepare you to receive the gift. Meditation always comes as a gift; hence it is never food for the ego, it cannot be because it is not your achievement at all. On the contrary, it happens only when the ego has been totally surrendered.

You cannot say 'I have found it,' you can only say, 'God has found me.' You cannot say, you cannot brag 'This is my achievement, my realisation,' because it happens when you are not, hence how can it be your realisation and your achievement? It is god's grace.

But it is a very complex phenomenon.

There are two kinds of misunderstandings about meditation.
One is that no effort is needed. Then why make any effort? Whenever it is going to happen it will happen -- what can we do about it?

That is a misunderstanding. You can do something, not to achieve meditation but to prepare yourself to be receptive.

The other misunderstanding is that because effort is needed to prepare, then effort is essential, and you achieve meditation through your effort. 

So: go on making effort. If you are not achieving it, that means your effort is still not enough, so make more effort, put more intensity into it, put more energy into it, get more involved.

Both are misunderstandings.

Effort is needed but not for meditation. Effort is needed only up to a point. 

It has nothing to do with meditation, but it is very essential too, because unless you are ready you will miss the gift. 

The gift is arriving every moment, it is showering on everybody, but people are missing it because they don't have any space to absorb it, they don't have any place to allow it entry into their being.
It is all full of rubbish, all full of junk.

This has to become one of the most important understandings, that effort is needed, yet meditation is a gift. 

It is needed for surrender and surrender is needed for meditation. 

So there is no direct connection with the effort, but a very indirect connection is there.

So avoid both pitfalls and just be in the middle. It is a razor's edge: if you fall here, you fall into a lake, if you fall on the other side you fall into a well.

You have to keep yourself like a tightrope walker; avoiding both pitfalls, avoiding both extremes, maintaining a balance between effort and no-effort.

Once that balance is there, meditation comes like a spring and you become full of flowers.

Your life has all the splendour and all the joy that existence can give to you -- it is infinite. “

OSHO
Darshan Diary - The Imprisoned Splendour (Unpublished), Chapter # 19, Chapter Name – None , Date - 19 June 1980 Evening, Venue - Chuang Tzu Auditorium, Rajneesh Ashram, Pune, India

“ Do my meditations, but not wilfully. Don't force them, rather let them happen.
Float in them, abandon yourself in them. be absorbed, but not wilfully.

Don't manipulate because when you manipulate you are divided, you become two: the manipulator and the manipulated. 

Once you are two, heaven and hell are created immediately.

Then there is a vast distance between you and the truth.
Don't manipulate.
Allow things to happen. “

OSHO
The Orange Book , page 134.

Meditation brings emptiness

Your question is, “The other night, following the energy between my eyes, I went into myself looking for ‘Who am I?’ At a certain point I found myself immersed in great nothingness.” 

FEAR OF EMPTYNESS AND NOTHINGNESS IN MEDITATION….

Very few people have traveled inwards because of this fear. As they move in, the fear stops them and they turn back into the mundane world where everything is ephemeral, where everything is going to die, where all that you possess is going to be taken away by death.

Death is impotent only against a person who knows himself. But before you can know yourself, you will have to pass through this beautiful space of nothingness, emptiness, aloneness. So rejoice and be grateful that a great experience has happened to you….

“ Ramaprem, this is the right way. That’s why you became so afraid, because the right way means a certain death, the death of your ego, the death of your personality as you have known it, and the beginning and the birth of your essential self. But the death comes first, hence the fear and trembling. The resurrection comes later.

You have been in a very beautiful space. This is the third eye that in the East has been talked about for at least ten thousand years. It is only symbolic. You have two eyes to see the world of duality – the day and night, the beautiful and the ugly, the true and the false. The whole world consists of dualities. The third eye is a poetic and symbolic expression that your two eyes have become one, that all duality has disappeared.

For the outside world two eyes are needed, for the inside world only a single clear vision–because inside there is no duality, there is only oneness.

These are the spaces if you go inside. But this nothingness is not negative; just a little more acquaintance with it and you will be surprised: it appeared as nothingness because there was nothing that you have ever known before or even dreamt before. But once you become acquainted with the nothingness you start feeling an immense fulfillment, an overflowing energy. This nothingness is the beginning of fullness and wholeness.

“The sensation,” you say, “was very strong. I couldn’t go on; I felt so afraid of this emptiness that I stopped.” Just be a little more intelligent.

The nothingness was surrounding you, but you were not nothing. You were witnessing it; you were separate from it. The emptiness may be surrounding you; it may be vast and may create trembling in you, but you are not it; otherwise who will become afraid and who will stop going forward? Who will turn back?

Your being is totally separate from the nothingness and emptiness that you have felt. If you had remembered only this much, “I am not it,” the fear would have disappeared. Perhaps next time, remember that you cannot be anything that you come across. You cannot come across yourself; you cannot meet yourself. So whatever you come across is separate from you. There is no need to be afraid.

But Ramaprem, it happens to almost everybody. You are alone, surrounded by nothingness, emptiness, and a deep fear arises that perhaps you are coming close to death, because in our minds the association with nothingness and emptiness is with death. 

But even death is not you. You pass through it; it is a passage. And if you are alert, you can pass through without any fear. On the contrary, you can enjoy the silence, the peace, the immensity, the infinity that is surrounding you. You are almost in an oceanic state of consciousness.

But now you know the door, the third eye. Travel more into it so that you become more and more acquainted, and nothingness, rather than making you afraid, will make you dance, because it is not destructive. It will give you individuality, it will give you freedom, and if you go on and on you will reach to your innermost center, which is life.

Death always happens to the body, but never to you.
And if you have found the deathless in you, all your fears, forever will disappear – and a man without fear is truly and authentically dignified. You will be proud that you have found the right path.

Very few people have traveled inwards because of this fear. As they move in, the fear stops them and they turn back into the mundane world where everything is ephemeral, where everything is going to die, where all that you possess is going to be taken away by death.

Death is impotent only against a person who knows himself. But before you can know yourself, you will have to pass through this beautiful space of nothingness, emptiness, aloneness. So rejoice and be grateful that a great experience has happened to you. […..]

Every person has the potential, but you have been diverted into looking for God outside yourself – and He is sitting inside you. 

All the priests of the world are against God, because once you know that God is within you, the whole profession of the priesthood is finished. Churches will be empty, mosques will be empty, temples and synagogues will be empty, and the whole politics of numbers and the power that it brings to the priests will be gone.

You are only an individual without any adjective.
The world will be immensely beautiful if there are only individuals, not belonging to any religion or any political ideology, but belonging to their own inner self. That’s enough, more than enough. Belonging to life itself is the only true religion, the only truth that has to be discovered. And it is not far away, just a little fear has to be dropped.

And if you go on trying, as you will become acquainted with the beauties of nothingness, the fear is going to disappear automatically. You have accidentally found the right path – now don’t lose it. "
OSHO
The Razor’s Edge, Chapter 30.

“Friends come to me for meditation. When they have meditated for some time – say for a month or so – they start seeing that emptiness inside themselves. That emptiness was always there but it was not noticed. Meditation makes you more aware – awareness increases and then one becomes aware of the emptiness. 

A very peculiar thing then happens. Whosoever feels that inner emptiness starts eating a lot. One or two cases of this type come to me every day. They say, ”What are we to do? We never used to eat so much food. The effect of the meditation is such that we want to eat all the time.”

I explain to them that the reason for this is that meditation has shown you the inner emptiness, and this emptiness hurts so it has to be filled up. 

You therefore fill up this emptiness with money, position and fame. By accumulating things and sitting amongst them, one feels that one has something. 

Those who do not have anything have the desire of accumulating. But those who have something do not accumulate, they are sufficient unto themselves. Just ’being’ is so fulfilling that there is no need to collect anything.

That is why we worshipped Buddha, we worshipped Mahavira, we worshipped Shankara, because we noticed that their wealth is within them; there is something in them on account of which the emptiness has disappeared. There is some light within them on account of which the inner emptiness has become fulfilment, the inner emptiness has become truth. Meditation brings emptiness.”
OSHO
The Great Transcendence , Chapter 1. Always Sing The Song Of The Divine

Misery Functions Like A Magnet

Misery Functions Like A Magnet
You suffer misery in the hope of pleasure. If it is pure misery, it is impossible to cling to it.

Your joy in a world full of misery has no relatedness to the miserable humanity. You are completely alone.

You would like to be happy, but then suddenly you start thinking about the world. The beggars on the street, the poverty, the starvation and the wars -- all kinds of problems simply start coming from every direction to your mind. And your mind starts saying, "When the world is in such misery how can you be happy? You have to share, you have to go and serve society." This is a very, very cunning device of the mind.

I have seen people living together for years, their whole life, thinking only of divorce -- just thinking, but never being courageous enough to be alone. How are you going to live without misery? When you come home, it will look so empty, with nobody there to nag you.

It is easier to be miserable because the whole crowd is miserable.

You suffer misery in the hope of pleasure. If it is pure misery, it is impossible to cling to it. Just watch, be more alert about your misery. For example, you are feeling jealous. It creates misery. But look around -- there must be something positive in it. It also gives you some ego, some sense of your being separate from others, some sense of superiority. Your jealousy at least pretends to be love. If you don't feel jealous you will think maybe you don't love anymore. And you are clinging to jealousy because you would like to cling to your love -- at least your idea of love.

If you want your love you will have to accept your jealousy and the misery that is created by it.

Man remains a slave of misery because he has chosen it. It is easier to be miserable because the whole crowd is miserable. 

It feels more comfortable to be with the crowd than to be alone. 

To be blissful means to be alone. To be blissful means to seek and search for something inside you and not to imitate the crowd.

By Osho