IF YOU BREATHE DEEPLY,
so deeply that the belly comes up and down, your chest will relax.
Your belly is bound to become bigger, but a strange phenomenon happens as you start breathing from the belly -- you feel tremendous relaxation.
It is a kind of meditation. You are so close to death, and just as a dead body relaxes, you start relaxing.
And the closer you are to death, the farther away you are from the mind.
Mind stops thinking……..
--“ BELOVED OSHO,
MOST OF THE TIME I LIVE ON THE SURFACE, MY EGO IS DOMINANT AND I THINK THE WHOLE TIME. THEN ONCE IN A WHILE, WHEN I SEE YOU IN THE MORNING DISCOURSE, OR WHEN I FEEL CLOSE TO YOU, I FEEL GREAT LOVE AND MY HEART OPENS, AND I GET A TASTE OF WHAT IS POSSIBLE. BELOVED MASTER, PLEASE HELP ME TO CHANGE MYSELF.
Anurag Sudeha, you are saying, "Most of the time I live on the surface." That is the reality of the whole of humanity, so you should not feel sad about it. It is where humanity is stuck -- on the surface.
There are depths beyond depths, but the fear of the unknown, the fear of losing the known and entering into unknown dark waters prevents people. They start making their whole life superficial. They love superficially, they live superficially.
There are at least six thousand holes in your lungs, but you breathe by only two thousand holes. Four thousand holes, which are deeper, never come into contact with fresh air, with oxygen, with life. They remain filled with stale carbon dioxide. Not only metaphorically, but physiologically too, you breathe very superficially. Perhaps there, too, is some deep-rooted fear.
Only in Japan have they worked to find out, for centuries... and that is their speciality, their uniqueness, their contribution to the world. Just as India has been trying to find out the center of your life, Japan has been trying to find out the center of your death.
Both have discovered that just below the navel, two inches below the navel... the Japanese call the center of death hara. That is why in Japanese suicide is called hara-kiri. Hara-kiri is the least painful way of committing suicide, because you are directly forcing the dagger into the very center of death. It takes only a split second. Everything else is far away from the death center.
Perhaps man is afraid of taking deep breaths because if you take deep breaths you will not be breathing in the chest; on the contrary, your belly will start rising up and down where the death center is.
If you have observed Indian statues of Gautam Buddha you will see a very athletic body. The belly is almost missing, the chest is big -- just like a lion whose belly is small and chest is big. That was the conception of the athletic body.
so deeply that the belly comes up and down, your chest will relax.
Your belly is bound to become bigger, but a strange phenomenon happens as you start breathing from the belly -- you feel tremendous relaxation.
It is a kind of meditation. You are so close to death, and just as a dead body relaxes, you start relaxing.
And the closer you are to death, the farther away you are from the mind.
Mind stops thinking……..
--“ BELOVED OSHO,
MOST OF THE TIME I LIVE ON THE SURFACE, MY EGO IS DOMINANT AND I THINK THE WHOLE TIME. THEN ONCE IN A WHILE, WHEN I SEE YOU IN THE MORNING DISCOURSE, OR WHEN I FEEL CLOSE TO YOU, I FEEL GREAT LOVE AND MY HEART OPENS, AND I GET A TASTE OF WHAT IS POSSIBLE. BELOVED MASTER, PLEASE HELP ME TO CHANGE MYSELF.
Anurag Sudeha, you are saying, "Most of the time I live on the surface." That is the reality of the whole of humanity, so you should not feel sad about it. It is where humanity is stuck -- on the surface.
There are depths beyond depths, but the fear of the unknown, the fear of losing the known and entering into unknown dark waters prevents people. They start making their whole life superficial. They love superficially, they live superficially.
There are at least six thousand holes in your lungs, but you breathe by only two thousand holes. Four thousand holes, which are deeper, never come into contact with fresh air, with oxygen, with life. They remain filled with stale carbon dioxide. Not only metaphorically, but physiologically too, you breathe very superficially. Perhaps there, too, is some deep-rooted fear.
Only in Japan have they worked to find out, for centuries... and that is their speciality, their uniqueness, their contribution to the world. Just as India has been trying to find out the center of your life, Japan has been trying to find out the center of your death.
Both have discovered that just below the navel, two inches below the navel... the Japanese call the center of death hara. That is why in Japanese suicide is called hara-kiri. Hara-kiri is the least painful way of committing suicide, because you are directly forcing the dagger into the very center of death. It takes only a split second. Everything else is far away from the death center.
Perhaps man is afraid of taking deep breaths because if you take deep breaths you will not be breathing in the chest; on the contrary, your belly will start rising up and down where the death center is.
If you have observed Indian statues of Gautam Buddha you will see a very athletic body. The belly is almost missing, the chest is big -- just like a lion whose belly is small and chest is big. That was the conception of the athletic body.
But if you see the Japanese statues of Buddha, you will be surprised that he has such a big belly. What happened? Why did Japan create... Gautam Buddha was not a Japanese, why did they create the statues with big bellies? -- because Japan has an understanding which India has never bothered to discover: one has to breathe from the belly.
In all other kinds of gymnastics developed all over the world, you are taught that you should pull the belly in and force your chest forwards; fill your chest with as much air as you can, but pull your belly in. Aesthetically it looks beautiful. The big belly does not look very beautiful.
But the question before the Japanese was totally different. It is not a question of beauty; the question is that if you breathe deeply, so deeply that the belly comes up and down, your chest will relax. Your belly is bound to become bigger, but a strange phenomenon happens as you start breathing from the belly -- you feel tremendous relaxation. It is a kind of meditation. You are so close to death, and just as a dead body relaxes, you start relaxing. And the closer you are to death, the farther away you are from the mind. Mind stops thinking.
So in Japan the first exercise for meditators is breathing from the belly, which goes against all gymnastic rules, but it has a tremendous spiritual value. Your mind relaxes, your body relaxes, and oxygen reaches to all the holes of your lungs, forcing out dead carbon dioxide. It brings a tremendous release of liveliness, playfulness, laughter. Whenever you laugh deeply it is called "belly laughter."
Unless your belly also laughs with you, your laughter is superficial. It is a Jimmy Carter smile -- just an exercise of the lips. It is possible without any difficulty. You can stretch your lips ear to ear.
[………]
A little taste of silence, and you will enjoy all those moments when you are not needed to talk, when you can sit silently.
In all other kinds of gymnastics developed all over the world, you are taught that you should pull the belly in and force your chest forwards; fill your chest with as much air as you can, but pull your belly in. Aesthetically it looks beautiful. The big belly does not look very beautiful.
But the question before the Japanese was totally different. It is not a question of beauty; the question is that if you breathe deeply, so deeply that the belly comes up and down, your chest will relax. Your belly is bound to become bigger, but a strange phenomenon happens as you start breathing from the belly -- you feel tremendous relaxation. It is a kind of meditation. You are so close to death, and just as a dead body relaxes, you start relaxing. And the closer you are to death, the farther away you are from the mind. Mind stops thinking.
So in Japan the first exercise for meditators is breathing from the belly, which goes against all gymnastic rules, but it has a tremendous spiritual value. Your mind relaxes, your body relaxes, and oxygen reaches to all the holes of your lungs, forcing out dead carbon dioxide. It brings a tremendous release of liveliness, playfulness, laughter. Whenever you laugh deeply it is called "belly laughter."
Unless your belly also laughs with you, your laughter is superficial. It is a Jimmy Carter smile -- just an exercise of the lips. It is possible without any difficulty. You can stretch your lips ear to ear.
[………]
A little taste of silence, and you will enjoy all those moments when you are not needed to talk, when you can sit silently.
And remember one fundamental law of existence, that if you can deepen your experience in any one dimension, you become capable of deepening your experience in other dimensions to the same extent.
For example, if you can deepen your silence, you can deepen your love without any difficulty, because it is the same process. You can deepen your laughter, you can deepen your vitality. Your life can become not just a superficial, formal thing, but something that contains depths beyond depths. Just to sit by the side of a man who has looked deeply, you will find yourself moving into deeper waters.
Your observation, Sudeha, is right, that most of the time you live on the surface. Most of the people do the same. You say, "My ego is dominant and I think the whole time." Thoughts are basic constituents of the ego. The more thoughts you have, the stronger is your ego. That's why when a meditator comes to a point where mind stops completely, his ego also disappears.
Ego is nothing but the collective name of your thoughts. It is not a separate entity, it is just the collective name. All your thoughts are just the bricks... out of those bricks, the house of the ego is made.
As you stop your thoughts and start moving into a space of no-mind, of non-thinking, you will not find the ego there. You will be there, but there will not be any sense of "I-ness," only a pure "is-ness." And it is a great achievement.
It is a tremendously valuable achievement to lose your I, and just to feel a simple existence, a pure "is-ness." It is the beginning of experiencing God. As your "is-ness" becomes more and more crystallized, you become aware that you are not and God is; you are not, and the universal consciousness is.
And because you are not, there is no question of your death -- you have never, been in the first place, so how can you die? And this "is-ness" that you are feeling now, in the silence of no-thought, has always been here. You have been part of it from eternity, and you will remain part of it until eternity. This is the experience of the immortal soul.
The seers of the UPANISHAD have the best expression for it. They call man, amritasya putrah: sons and daughters of immortality. You are not born out of a mother's womb; you are not born out of a father, a mother; they have been just a passage for the immortality to take shape. They have given you your blood, your bones, but they have not given you your life. Your life has always been here.
Nobody is preventing you; and the doors are always open. Don't ask me, "Beloved Master, please help me to change myself." There is no need to ask me. You are moving in the right direction, just a little more courage.... “
OSHO
The Razor's Edge
Chapter 13 - You can't hold on and clap too (3 March 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium)
For example, if you can deepen your silence, you can deepen your love without any difficulty, because it is the same process. You can deepen your laughter, you can deepen your vitality. Your life can become not just a superficial, formal thing, but something that contains depths beyond depths. Just to sit by the side of a man who has looked deeply, you will find yourself moving into deeper waters.
Your observation, Sudeha, is right, that most of the time you live on the surface. Most of the people do the same. You say, "My ego is dominant and I think the whole time." Thoughts are basic constituents of the ego. The more thoughts you have, the stronger is your ego. That's why when a meditator comes to a point where mind stops completely, his ego also disappears.
Ego is nothing but the collective name of your thoughts. It is not a separate entity, it is just the collective name. All your thoughts are just the bricks... out of those bricks, the house of the ego is made.
As you stop your thoughts and start moving into a space of no-mind, of non-thinking, you will not find the ego there. You will be there, but there will not be any sense of "I-ness," only a pure "is-ness." And it is a great achievement.
It is a tremendously valuable achievement to lose your I, and just to feel a simple existence, a pure "is-ness." It is the beginning of experiencing God. As your "is-ness" becomes more and more crystallized, you become aware that you are not and God is; you are not, and the universal consciousness is.
And because you are not, there is no question of your death -- you have never, been in the first place, so how can you die? And this "is-ness" that you are feeling now, in the silence of no-thought, has always been here. You have been part of it from eternity, and you will remain part of it until eternity. This is the experience of the immortal soul.
The seers of the UPANISHAD have the best expression for it. They call man, amritasya putrah: sons and daughters of immortality. You are not born out of a mother's womb; you are not born out of a father, a mother; they have been just a passage for the immortality to take shape. They have given you your blood, your bones, but they have not given you your life. Your life has always been here.
Nobody is preventing you; and the doors are always open. Don't ask me, "Beloved Master, please help me to change myself." There is no need to ask me. You are moving in the right direction, just a little more courage.... “
OSHO
The Razor's Edge
Chapter 13 - You can't hold on and clap too (3 March 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium)
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