Unwinding Before Sleep

Every night sit comfortably in a chair and rest your head back, like you do at the dentist. You can use a pillow. Then release your lower jaw. Just relax it so the mouth opens slightly, and start breathing from the mouth, not from the nose. Don’t change your breathing – let it be natural.

The first few breaths will be a little hectic. By and by your breathing will settle down and become very shallow. It will go in and out very slightly. Keep your mouth open, eyes closed, and rest.

Then start feeling that your legs are becoming loose, as if they are being taken away from you, cut loose from the joints. Then start thinking that you are just the upper part of your body; the legs are gone.

Then the hands – think that both the hands are not becoming loose and being taken away from you. You are no more your hands – they are dead, taken away.

Then start thinking about the head – that it is being taken away, that you are being beheaded. Leave it loose: wherever it turns, right, left, you cannot do anything. Just leave it loose; it has been taken away. Then you have just your torso. Feel that you are only this much – this chest, the belly, that’s all.

Do this for at least twenty minutes, just before you go to sleep. And do it for at least three weeks.

ZAZEN--just sitting at the very source, not moving anywhere.

IS THIS ZAZEN?

From Osho ‘s last discourse….
QUESTION : WHEN ENERGY GOES INWARD IT TURNS INTO THOUGHTS, FEELINGS, EMOTIONS, AND WHEN ENERGY GOES OUTWARD IT TURNS INTO RELATIONSHIPS WITH BEINGS AND NATURE. BUT WHEN ENERGY DOES NOT MOVE INWARD OR OUTWARD, IT IS JUST THERE PULSATING, VIBRATING. THEN IT IS ONE WITH THE EXISTENCE, ONE WITH THE WHOLE. IS THIS ZAZEN?

“ Exactly. When the energy is just there -- not going anywhere, just pulsating at the original source, just radiating its light there, blossoming like a lotus, neither going out nor going in -- it is simply here and now.

When I say go inward, I am simply saying don't go on moving in the head.

The whole society forces your energy to move in the head. All education consists of the basic technique of how to pulsate the energy only in the head -- how to make you a great mathematician, how to make you a great physician. All the education in the world consists of taking the energy into the head.

Zen asks you to come out of the head and go to the basic source -- from where the educational system around the world has been taking the energy, putting it into the head, and turning it into thoughts, images, and creating thinking. 

It has its uses. It is not that Zen is not aware of the uses of energy in the head, but if all the energy is used in the head, you will never become aware of your eternity. 

You may become a very great thinker and philosopher, but you will never know, as an experience, what life is. 

You will never know as an experience, what it is to be one with the whole.

When the energy is just at the center, pulsating... When it is not moving anywhere, neither in the head nor in the heart, but it is at the very source from where the heart takes it, the head takes it... pulsating at the very source -- that is the very meaning of Zazen.

Zazen means just sitting at the very source, not moving anywhere. 

A tremendous force arises, a transformation of energy into light and love, into greater life, into compassion, into creativity. 

It can take many forms, but first you have to learn how to be at the source. Then the source will decide where your potential is. 

You can relax at the source, and it will take you to your very potential. 

It does not mean that you have to stop thinking forever, it simply means you should be aware and alert and capable of moving into the source. When you need the head you can move the energy into the head, and when you need to love, you can move the energy into the heart.

But you need not think twenty-four hours. When you are not thinking you have to relax back into your center -- that keeps the Zen man constantly content, alert, joyful. A blissfulness surrounds him; it is not an act, it is simply radiation.

Zazen is the strategy of Zen. Literally it means just sitting. 

Sitting where? Sitting at the very source. 

And once in a while, if you go on sitting in the source, you can manage all mental activities without any disturbance, you can manage all heart activities without any difficulty. 

And still, whenever you have time, you need not unnecessarily think, you need not unnecessarily feel, you can just be.

Just being is Zazen.

And if you can just be -- only for a few minutes in twenty-four hours -- that is enough to keep you alert of your buddhahood. “

Osho
The Zen Manifesto: Freedom From Oneself -Chapter #11 -Chapter title: Sammasati -- the last word
10 April 1989 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

“ What I do every day
Is nothing special:
I simply stumble around.
What I do is not thought out,
Where I go is unplanned.
No matter who tries to leave their mark,
The hills and dales are not impressed.
Collecting firewood and carrying water
Are prayers that reach the gods.
Face to face,
Speaking of what is unborn. “
Layman P'ang

How to remain unoccupied

That's the whole trick of meditation : how to remain unoccupied….

"When people come to me and they ask, 'How to meditate?' I tell them, 'There is no need to ask how to meditate, just ask how to remain unoccupied. 

Meditation happens spontaneously. Just ask how to remain unoccupied, that's all. That's the whole trick of meditation – how to remain unoccupied. Then you cannot do anything. The meditation will flower.'

"When you are not doing anything the energy moves towards the centre , it settles down towards the center. When you are doing something the energy moves out. 

Doing is a way of moving out. Non-doing is a way of moving in. Occupation is an escape. You can read the Bible, you can make it an occupation. There is no difference between religious occupation and secular occupation: all occupations are occupations, and they help you to cling outside your being. They are excuses to remain outside.

"Man is ignorant and blind, and he wants to remain ignorant and blind, because to come inwards looks like entering a chaos. 

And it is so; inside you have created a chaos. You have to encounter it and go through it. 

Courage is needed – courage to be oneself, and courage to move inwards. I have not come across a greater courage than that – the courage to be meditative. “

OSHO
Source : Just Like That, Talk #6


“ Just sit there right now
Don't do a thing
Just rest.
For your separation from Tao,
From love,
Is the hardest work
In this World. “
[Persian mystic Hafiz]

Sun rise inside the navel

Sun rise inside the navel

The whole art of meditation ….

“ JUST fifteen minutes before the sun rises, when the sky is becoming a little lighter, just wait and watch as one waits for a beloved: so tense, so deeply awaiting, so hopeful and excited – and yet silent. 

And just let the sun rise and go on watching. No need to stare; you can blink your eyes. Have the feeling that simultaneously inside something is also rising.

When the sun comes on the horizon, start feeling that it is just near the navel. It comes up over there; and here, inside the navel, it comes up, comes up, slowly. 

The sun is rising there, and here an inner point of light is rising. Just ten minutes will do. Then close your eyes. 

When you first see the sun with open eyes it creates a negative, so when you close your eyes, you can see the sun dazzling inside.

And this is going to change you tremendously.
This is the whole art of meditation: how to be deep
in action, how to renounce thinking, and how to
convert the energy that was moving into thinking
into awareness.”

OSHO
Source : The Orange Book , Page 23.


“ The mind picks up many thoughts, desires, opinions and ideas
and is constantly absorbing and changing .
' No Mind ' , in contrast, is always the same .
From birth to death, this is how it is. “
Ma-tsu , Zen master

Total relaxation

Total relaxation

“ Total relaxation is the ultimate. That's the moment when one becomes a Buddha. That is the moment of realization, enlightenment, Christ-consciousness. You cannot be totally relaxed right now. At the innermost core a tension will persist.

But start relaxing. Start from the circumference – that's where we are, and we can start only from where we are. 

Relax the circumference of your being – relax your body, relax your behaviour, relax your acts. Walk in a relaxed way, eat in a relaxed way, talk, listen in a relaxed way. Slow down every process. Don't be in a hurry and don't be in haste. 

Move as if all eternity is available to you – in fact, it is available to you. We are here from the beginning, and we are going to be here to the very end, if there is a beginning and there is an end. In fact, there is no beginning and no end. We have always been here, and we will be here always. Forms go on changing, but not the substance; garments go on changing, but not the soul.

Tension means hurry, fear, doubt. Tension means a constant effort to protect, to be secure, to be safe. 

Tension means preparing for the tomorrow now, or for the afterlife – afraid tomorrow you will not be able to face the reality, so be prepared. 

Tension means the past that you have not lived really but only somehow bypassed; it hangs, it is a hangover, it surrounds you. […]

You will have to relax from the circumference. The first step in relaxing is the body. 

Remember as many times as possible to look in the body, whether you are carrying some tension in the body somewhere – at the neck, in the head, in the legs. Relax it consciously. 

Just go to that part of the body, and persuade that part, say to it lovingly "Relax!"

And you will be surprised that if you approach any part of your body, it listens, it follows you – it is your body! 

With closed eyes, go inside the body from the toe to the head searching for any place where there is a tension. And then talk to that part as you talk to a friend; let there be a dialogue between you and your body. 

Tell it to relax, and tell it, "There is nothing to fear. Don't be afraid. I am here to take care – you can relax." Slowly slowly, you will learn the knack of it. Then the body becomes relaxed.

Then take another step, a little deeper; tell the mind to relax. And if the body listens, mind also listens, but you cannot start with the mind – you have to start from the beginning. 

You cannot start from the middle. Many people start with the mind, and they fail; they fail because they start from a wrong place. 

Everything should be done in the right order. If you become capable of relaxing the body voluntarily, then you will be able to help your mind relax voluntarily. 

Mind is a more complex phenomenon. Once you have become confident that the body listens to you, you will have a new trust in yourself. Now even the mind can listen to you. 

It will take a little longer with the mind, but it happens. 

When the mind is relaxed, then start relaxing your heart, the world of your feelings, emotions – which is even more complex, more subtle. 

But now you will be moving with trust, with great trust in yourself. Now you will know it is possible. If it is possible with the body and possible with the mind, it is possible with the heart too. 

And then only, when you have gone through these three steps, can you take the fourth. 

Now you can go to the innermost core of your being, which is beyond body, mind, heart: the very center of your existence. 

And you will be able to relax it too. 

And that relaxation certainly brings the greatest joy possible, the ultimate in ecstasy, acceptance. You will be full of bliss and rejoicing. Your life will have the quality of dance to it.”

OSHO
The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 1, Chapter 8

“ A man is born gentle and weak;
at his death he is hard and stiff.
All things, including the grass and trees,
are soft and pliable in life;
dry and brittle in death.
Stiffness is thus a companion of death;
flexibility a companion of life.
An army that cannot yield
will be defeated.
A tree that cannot bend
will crack in the wind.
The hard and stiff will be broken;
the soft and supple will prevail.”
LAO TZU
76TH VERSE - TAO TE CHING

“ Simplicity
Patience
Compassion
These 3 are your Greatest treasures. “
LAO TZU

Live in the moment

Live in the moment……

“ Your mind is flooded: first, with outward reactions and reflections which are natural; second, by subconscious thoughts which have been produced by the society; and third, by instinctive nature which has been suppressed totally. These three constantly flood the mind. And because of these you are constantly wavering – constantly wavering and trembling. You cannot even sleep. 

Dreams will continue; that means mind will continue wavering. Twenty-four hours a day, the mind is just a mad thing going round and round and round.

In this state of affairs, how can you be still? How can you attain the posture, the non-wavering mind? How can you achieve it? And when the rishi says that non-wavering knowing is the posture – the right posture – he means that unless these layers are broken and the contents released, you will never be in a state of pure knowing. The mind will not be cleansed; you will not attain the purity of perception. So what to do? What to do to achieve this non-wavering knowing?

Three things: one, whenever you are living moment-to-moment, don’t allow your subconscious to interfere constantly. Sometimes, just drop the subconscious and live in the moment. It is not needed…”
~OSHO~ :
The Ultimate Alchemy, Vol 1. Talks on the Atma Pooja Upanishad. CHAPTER 5. A STILL MIND: THE DOOR TO THE DIVINE.


“ The most characteristic feature of a modern man is the absence of unity in him and, further,
the absence in him of even traces of those properties which he most likes to ascribe to himself,
that is, 'lucid consciousness,' 'free will,' a 'permanent ego or I,' and the 'ability to do.'
It may surprise you if I say that the chief feature of a modern man's being ,
which explains everything else that is lacking in him ,
is , SLEEP. “
G. I. Gurdjieff

Osho's perspectives on milk

Osho's perspectives on milk

May 8, 2013 at 9:40am

It is rare to find a spiritual teacher wise and bold enough to challenge our fond assumptions about the goodness of milk. Osho rises to the occasion and shares from the heart...

Osho - When you are eating delicious food, with spices and all kinds of things, made to be tasty, perfumed, you are losing something that you don't know. You are destroying your taste buds. They are not meant for such strong things; they are very small, and very delicate.

I discovered the real taste of things only when I started following Devaraj's recipes. He has changed my dining room into a hospital. But I love it. Now you can put me into any hospital and they will not be able to do any harm to me.

Three vegetables, almost the same; four slices of bread just toasted and without any butter; and a cup of Indian sauce, chutney -- that's all. But in my whole life I have never been so satisfied with my food as I am now. In India there are thousands of kinds of food Perhaps there is no other country which has so many different varieties of food: each province has its own varieties. I have moved all over India, and I have eaten all kinds of foods. Every state has its own tremendous findings -- perhaps it has taken thousands of years for them to develop certain delicacies -- but all their food, howsoever tasty, is not good, healthwise.

My weight was good so I used to look very healthy. But I discovered it only late, that just to look healthy s not health. Now I am healthy -- but my mother comes, and she says every time she comes.... I remind her, "You have told this to me every time you have come:'What have you done to your health?"' and she thinks that I am wearing this long and loose robe just to deceive her.
I say, "I am not trying to deceive."

She says, "But I can see your hands on the video. You may be able to deceive others but you cannot deceive me. I have seen you from your very child]hood, and you had such a beautiful body." And I can see tears coming into her eyes looking at my food. And don't allow her... because she has been trying persistently for years to bring something, just a little.

I say, "No, nothing doing. My doctor does not allow it. I can take only what he prescribes, I cannot take anything else." But again and again -- and I know why, because she saw me in 1960 when I was one hundred and ninety pounds, and I had a body.... Just yesterday I was talking of Mahavira; I could have competed with Mahavira without any difficulty.

Actually, people used to say that my body... because I used to sit almost half-naked. Just a small wraparound lungi, even in winter, in the coldest places, even in New Delhi. My host in New Delhi used to say, "You are the only person I have seen in New Delhi who is sitting in just a wraparound lungi, with half the body naked and the fan on full. How do you manage it?"

People used to say that my body looked as if cut out of marble. It used to look like that because I was exercising so much: eight miles in the morning I was going for a walk, eight miles in the evening -- at least for twenty years, sixteen miles per day. If you add it all up I think it will come to nearabout three times around the earth or more.

I have hated milk from my very childhood, but because everybody loved my body, and my family insisted that without milk you cannot remain the way you are, I had been drinking milk against my will. That is the only thing in my life that I have done against my will. And the only way I could manage it was to stop breathing and take the whole glass in a single gulp so that I didn't smell it, because I can't stand it. I have tried all kinds of milks, but I can't stand the smell.

My feeling has been always -- and I told my family" -- Jainas should stop using all milk products because milk is just like meat. It is not vegetarian, it is animal food; and it has a double violence in it. From where does the milk come? It is the mother's mechanism, biological mechanism, that transforms her blood into milk. You are really drinking white blood."

My grandmother used to close her ears, "Don't say such words because then I will not be able to drink it. I will remember'white blood.' Never do such things to an old woman like me."

Now, Jainas cannot live without milk because that is their only vital food ingredient; otherwise, everything is just vegetable. So they eat all kinds of milk products -- butter, ghee, curd -- and all kinds of sweets made of milk. But I had a strong feeling from the very beginning that this was just blood. That's why it increases your blood so quickly, and that's why the child needs only milk; that's enough, that is all his food. The mother's milk provides the child all necessary food; nothing else is needed -- and those are the days of its growth. So milk is a whole food.

On the one hand I had a strong hatred for milk because it is non-vegetarian; secondly, you are depriving the child of the cow or the buffalo. That milk is not for you. The cow has her own kids, and the milk has come to her breasts for those kids, not for you.

You will be surprised that in a country like India which pretends to be non-violent, they kill the cow's kids because the cow will give milk first to the kids; otherwise she will try and kick you and your bucket and.... Naturally the mother wants her child to be taken care of first. Who are you? Sitting on a small stool with a bucket and trying to milk the cow -- who are you? And the milk is not meant for you.

The cow has no way to know that you have purchased her. She does not understand money and t purchasing or anything, but she understands one thing, that her own child is standing there deprived. So what do the Indians do? -- they kill the child, stuff it, and keep the dead stuffed child close to the cow's breasts so she goes on believing that the kid is there. The kid is dead, it is stuffed -- all his bones and everything have been taken out -- just to deceive the cow.

And these people believe that they are religious people, non-violent, believing in truth. They are even deceiving a poor cow. And the cow they call "mother cow"; in India the cow is worshipped like a mother. But what strange people: you worship your mother and you kill your brother? And particularly if the child is a male child, then certainly he has to be killed. If it is a female child then she is going to become a cow, so somehow she has to be preserved, but a male child can be killed. But if the cow is your mother, then the bull is bound to be your father, and you are committing patricide! -- killing bulls. And the purpose of this is just to deceive their "mother," whom they worship, for whom they create great political movements. They create riots if somebody kills a cow and continually they are asking the government to stop cow slaughter absolutely.

And what they go on doing is so ugly you cannot believe it. When I saw it for the first time in Calcutta, it was the worst thing I had ever seen. Hindus who call the cow the mother, and who are ready to be killed or to kill anybody to save the mother, do something which everybody in the world has to understand to appreciate how people can be hypocrites. They push a bamboo stick into the cow's vagina when they are milking her. Pushing this bamboo stick in her vagina forces her to give more milk, almost double the quantity. These people call the cow mother and are fighting for her so that cow slaughter should be stopped -- and this is what they are doing to their mother: pushing a bamboo in her vagina just to get the double quantity of milk.

When first I saw it with my own eyes, it became even difficult for me to drink milk with open eyes. But Devaraj has been of great help. He has dropped all milk products -- milk, butter, ghee, everything -- from my food, and I feel really clean. Of course, I have lost weight, but what purpose is weight? I don't look cut out of marble but there is no need to look cut out of marble -- there are enough marble statues.

For the first time in my life I am feeling at ease with food. In India it was impossible because everybody was harassing me: "If you drop milk then there is nothing in the food. If you drop curd then there is nothing in the food. If you don't take butter then you will lose weight." But that weight was causing me all kinds of difficulties. Right now all of my difficulties have disappeared.

My breathing is no longer a trouble, and as my weight has been coming down my back has been getting better. Strangely, since the weight has come below one hundred and thirty pounds, my back is absolutely right. There is no strain at all; otherwise once in a while I used to feel the strain in a certain position. Now in no position am I feeling the strain.

And in my eating the same food every day my taste buds have discovered their sensitivity. I am tasting more than I have ever tasted, although there is nothing much to taste; but whatsoever there is, is immensely gratifying. I would like you to understand it -- that all spices are deceivers. They are strong enough to force the buds to feel their presence, but the stronger the spices, the duller become your taste buds. When there are no spices, then your taste buds come to their natural sensitivity.

Now, these are two different things: having something delicious because it is in the food, and enjoying something delicious because your taste buds are more alive and more sensitive. The second should be the case. That is why it is so difficult for anybody to understand what I can be excited about. I am excited about my taste buds, not the food. Food has lost meaning; a new meaning has arisen. And I feel that this should be the approach, the right approach. Then just boiled vegetables are so delicious, just bread without butter is so sweet, that one cannot imagine; one can only experience it.

Source - Osho Book "From Personality to Individuality"

~~~

NOTE: One of the most popular misconceptions of modern times is that cow's milk and all its derivatives like curd, cheese, ghee etc are good for us. To learn more about the effects of cow's milk on the human body I recommend the book "Milk: A Silent Killer" by N.K. Sharma or "Diet for a New America" by John Robbins. (John Robbins was heir to the billion dollar Baskin Robbins ice-cream empire, but turned it all down to tell us about the dangers of consuming dairy and animal products, an amazing book)