About Mahadevi

Mahadevi, the young, courageous, modern mystic emphasizes that enlightenment is a scientific fact and not mere “philosophy,” as is widely believed. Her approach to life is straightforward, bold, and uncompromising. This book is a compilation of unique psychological insights and personal guidance given by Mahadevi. Her enlightened, sharp vision explores in depth a wide range of psychological and spiritual subjects, and sheds new light on many of the personal and social problems in our society today.
Mahadevi answers an array of questions which arise in the course of our daily life. Her therapeutic meditations are enormously helpful in overcoming fear and other obstacles, and illuminate the way toward our own ultimate transformation - enlightenment

Sunday, 25 December 2011

Christmas with the Master



Question - Beloved Master, Why do I feel Sadness about Christmas When the whole message is rejoice and be merry?

Osho - Vachana, Christ's message IS rejoice and be merry. But that is not the message of Christianity. Christianity's message is: be sad, long faces, look miserable; the more miserable you look, the more saintly you are. Sometimes I really feel for poor Jesus. He has fallen in such wrong company, and I wonder how he is managing in paradise with all these Christian saints, so sad, so dull.
He was not a dull man, he was not a sad man -- he could not be. The word 'christ' is exactly synonymous with buddha. He was an enlightened person. He rejoiced in life, in the small things of life. He rejoiced in eating, drinking, friendship. He loved companionship, he loved the whole life.

But Christians down the ages have painted him as very sad. They have painted him always on the cross, as if for thirty-three years he was always on the cross. And my own understanding is that a man like Jesus will not die sad, even on the cross. He must have laughed before he died.

That's what al-Hillaj Mansoor did before he was killed by the fanatic Mohammedans, because he had declared: ANA'L HAQ -- I am God. Mohammedans could not tolerate it, just as Jews could not tolerate Jesus. They killed him -- but before they killed him, he looked at the sky and laughed loudly.

One hundred thousand people had gathered to see this ugly phenomenon, the murder of one of the greatest human beings who has ever walked on the earth. Somebody asked from the crowd, "al-Hillaj, why are you laughing? You are being killed!" And he was killed in the most cruel way, piece by piece. Jesus' crucifixion is nothing compared to Mansoor's: first his legs were cu off, then his hands were cut off, then his eyes were taken out, then his nose was cut off, then his tongue was cut off, then his head was cut off. They tortured him as much as was possible, but he laughed. Somebody asked, "Why are you laughing?"

Mansoor said, "I am laughing because the man you are killing is somebody else, I am not he. I am laughing at God too. What is happening? -- have these people gone mad? They are killing somebody else! Me you cannot kill; it is ridiculous, your whole effort is ridiculous. So let it be remembered, let it be on record that I laughed at your foolishness!"

And that's exactly what Jesus must have done, laughed. But Christians have tried their best to depict Jesus as sad. They have made a saint out of a real authentic human being; they have cut everything. The gospels are not true stories; much has been changed, much has been reduced, much has been added. They have become mere fictions.




Down the ages, Christians have been trying to paint Christ as more and more sad. Why? -- because all over the world religion has been dominated by a neurotic kind of people. It has been dominated by the people who are masochists, sadists. In the East too, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism -- they have all been dominated by the masochistic people, the people who enjoy torturing themselves, the people who are incapable of living life in its totality. The people who are too cowardly to live, escapists, have dominated religion up to now. These escapists have depicted Buddha as not laughing, Mahavira as not laughing.

And Christians actually say that Jesus never laughed in his life. Can you believe that? Jesus never laughed in life? -- and he enjoyed drinking and eating, he enjoyed gamblers and prostitutes, and he enjoyed all kinds of people, and he never laughed? Can you imagine that a man like Jesus, who was always feasting for hours with his friends, never laughed? It is inconceivable! How can you go on wining and dining without laughing? He must have joked, he must have told funny stories. They have been edited out. He was a very true man, and very courageous. He accepted Mary Magdalene, the famous prostitute of those days as his disciple. It needs courage, it needs guts. I cannot believe that he never laughed.

I can rather believe a very fictitious story about Zarathustra -- that the first thing he did when he was born was to laugh loudly. That I can believe, but I can't believe this story about Jesus, that he never laughed. It looks impossible. A child... just the first thing he did was a belly laughter. But I can believe it. It has a certain beauty about it, a certain significance. It simply says that Zarathustra was born wise, he was born enlightened, that's all. Whether he laughed or not, that is not the question.

And it doesn't seem too difficult: if children can cry, why can't they laugh? Doctors say that children cry just to clear their throat, so that they can breathe easily. But that can be done in a far better way by a belly laughter. And now there are doctors who say that if we take enough care children don't cry; on the contrary, they smile. That's a good beginning. Soon Zarathustras will be coming.

But up to now doctors have been very Christian. The first thing they do is they hang the child upside down and hit him on the buttocks. Do you expect a child to laugh? This is a great welcome to the world, putting the child upside down, giving him a hit -- a good beginning, because his whole life he is going to get hit in the pants, again and again. And hanging upside down, how can he laugh? No wonder he cries!

Now there are a few doctors working in a different direction. They bring the child in a more natural way out of the mother's womb; they don't cut the umbilical cord immediately because that creates crying, that is violence. They leave the child on the mother's belly with the umbilical cord intact. They give a good bath to the child, a hot bath, they put the child into a hot tub of exactly the same temperature as it was in the mother's womb.

In the mother's womb the child is floating in water. The water has the same contents as sea water, salty. In the same salty chemical solution, of the same temperature, the child is put in the tub. He starts smiling. It is a real beautiful reception. And not with glaring tube lights... that hurts the eyes of the child. In fact, so many people are wearing glasses only because of the foolishness of the doctors. The child has lived for nine months in the mother's womb in darkness, utter darkness. Then suddenly so much light... it hurts his delicate eyes. You have destroyed something delicate in his eyes. The child should be received in a very dim light, and the light should be increased slowly slowly, so his eyes become accustomed to the light. Naturally the child smiles at the beautiful welcome.

I can believe Zarathustra loudly laughing, but I can't believe Jesus not laughing at all. He lived thirty-three years and did not laugh? -- that can only be possible if he was absolutely perverted, absolutely pathological, ill. Something must have been wrong if he didn't laugh. But nothing is wrong with him; something is wrong with the followers. They depict their saints, their messiahs, their prophets, as very serious, somber, sad, just to show that they are above the world, that they are beyond, that they are not worldly people. Laughter seems shallow, seems unspiritual.

That's why, Vachana -- because you have been brought up as a Christian. Although the message of Christmas is rejoice and be merry, still there is a sadness, because the whole of Christianity teaches you to be sad. It is not a life-affirming religion, it is life-negative. It is much more life-negative than Hinduism, much more life-negative than Judaism. It has no sense of humor at all. And a religion without a sense of humor is ill, pathological. It needs psychological treatment.

Peter, standing in the crowd, looked up at Jesus on the cross. As he watched, he distinctly saw Jesus motioning him forward.
"Pssst, hey Peter, come here," said the Lord.
As Peter moved forward, two Roman guards blocked his way and beat him till he fell to the ground.
A few moments later, Peter, bruised and bleeding, looked up and saw Jesus again motioning him forward.
"Pssst, hey Peter, come here!"
Looking around, Peter noticed that the crowd was gone and so were the Roman soldiers. He moved closer to Jesus, "Yes, Lord, what is it? What is it you want?"
"Hey Peter," said Jesus. "Guess what? I can see your house from here!"

Source - Osho Book "Dhammapada, Vol8"

Monday, 19 December 2011

Mahadevi's Birthday 20th Dec.



For beloved Mahadevi

It would be easier if we could take it from inside
And stick it on paper.
Its hard to say what one feels,
And its even harder to take what you give.

You give so much and my hands are small,
Your eyes are open and my mind is busy.
But still something does reach me,
And it feels playful,
Tears fill my eyes.

Your beauty has no limit,
Your arms are open,
And still You welcome us like we are Gods.
That cuts somewhere deep.
You give so much,
And I have nothing to give.

How can I say thank you for such a big thing,
Such small words.
You are the moon, the stars, the sun,
And the wind.
You are the ocean and the sand.
You are everything and nothing.

By Ma Sundara Nataraj

Sunday, 11 December 2011

Osho's Birthday


Tonight we will celebrate Osho's Birthday with Gourishankar meditation.
.Enjoy.

Thursday, 8 December 2011

Mystery School

Osho on Work of Mystery School

Question - Beloved Osho, Could you please explain exactly what the work of the Mystery School is?

Osho - My beloved ones... You are blessed to be here today, because we are starting a new series of talks between the master and the disciple. It is not only a birth of a new book, it is also a declaration of a new phase.

Today, this moment: 7:00 pm, Saturday, the sixteenth of August of the year 1986 – one day this moment will be remembered as a historical moment, and you are blessed because you are participating in it. You are creating it; without you it cannot happen.

Books can be written, can be dictated to a machine, but what I am going to start is totally different. It is an UPANISHAD. Long forgotten, one of the most beautiful words in any language, a very living word, ‘upanishad’ means sitting at the feet of the master. It says nothing more: just to be in the presence of the master, just to allow him to take you in, in his own light, in his own blissfulness, in his own world. And that’s exactly the work of a mystery school.

The master has got it. The disciple also has got it, but the master knows and the disciple is fast asleep. The whole work of a mystery school is in how to bring consciousness to the disciple, how to wake him up, how to allow him to be himself, because the whole world is trying to make him somebody else. There, nobody is interested in you, in your potential, in your reality, in your being. Everybody has his own vested interest, even those who love you. Don’t be angry at them; they are as much victims as you are. They are as unconscious as you are. They think what they are doing is love; what they are really doing is destructive. And love can never be destructive.

Either love is or is not. But love brings with it all possibilities of creativity, all dimensions of creativity. It brings with it freedom, and the greatest freedom in the world is that a person should be allowed to be himself. But neither the parents nor the neighbors nor the educational system nor the church nor the political leadership – nobody wants you to be yourself because that is the most dangerous thing for them.

People who are themselves cannot be enslaved. They have tasted freedom, you cannot drag them back into slavery. So it is better not to allow them to taste freedom, their own being, their potential, their possibility, their future, their genius. Their whole life they will grope in darkness, asking for guidance from other blind people, asking for answers from those who know nothing about existence, who know nothing about themselves. But they are pretenders – they are called leaders, preachers, saints, mahatmas. They themselves don’t know who they are.


But there are these cunning people all around, exploiting the simple, the innocent, poisoning their minds with beliefs of which they themselves are not certain. The function of a mystery school is that the master – speaking or in silence, looking at you or making a gesture, or just sitting with closed eyes – manages to create a certain field of energy. And if you are receptive, if you are available, if you are ready to go on the journey of the unknown, something clicks and you are no more the old person.

You have seen something which before you had only heard about – and hearing about it does not create conviction but creates doubt. Because it is so mysterious... it is not logical, it is not rational, it is not intellectual. But once you have seen it, once you have been showered by the energy of the master, a new being is born. Your old life is finished.

There is a beautiful story.... A great king, Prasenjita, had come to see Gautam Buddha. And while they were conversing, just in the middle an old Buddhist sannyasin – he must have been seventyfive years old – came to touch the feet of Gautam Buddha. He said, ”Please forgive me. I should not interrupt the dialogue that is going on between you two, but my time... I have to reach the other village before sunset. If I don’t start now I will not be able to reach there.”

The Buddhist monks don’t travel at night. ”And I could not go without touching your feet because one knows nothing about tomorrow; whether I will be able again to touch your feet or not is uncertain. This may be the last time. So please, you both forgive me. I will not delay your conversation.”

Gautam Buddha said, ”Just one question: How old are you?” Strange... out of context.
And the man said, ”I am not very old – just four years.”

King Prasenjita could not believe it – a seventy-five year old man cannot be four years old! He might be seventy, he might be eighty, there is no problem. It is difficult to judge; different people grow old at a different pace. But four years is too much! In four years nobody can grow to be seventy-five years old.
Buddha said, ”Go with my blessings.”

Prasenjita said, ”You have created a problem for me by asking an unnecessary question. Do you think this man is four years old?” Buddha said, ”Now I will explain it to you. It was not unnecessary, it was not without a proper context. It was for you that I was asking him – really I was creating a question in you – because you were talking nonsense. You were asking stupid questions. I wanted some relevant question to come out of you. ”Now, this is relevant. Yes, he is four years old because our way of counting the age is from the day a person allows the master, allows his total being to be transformed, not holding back anything. His seventy-one years were simply a wastage; he has lived only four years. And I think you will understand that your sixty years have been sheer wastage unless you are reborn. And there is only one way to be reborn, and that is to come in contact, in deep communion with someone who has arrived. Then the real life begins.”

A mystery school teaches how to live. Its whole science is the art of living. Naturally it includes many things, because life is multi-dimensional. But you must understand the first step: being totally receptive, open. People are like closed houses – you cannot find even a single window open, no fresh breeze passes through those houses. Roses are standing outside but cannot release their fragrance into the house.

The sun comes every day, knocks on the doors, and goes back; the doors are absolutely deaf. They are not available for fresh air, they are not available for fresh rays, they are not available for fresh perfumes, they are not available for anything. They are not houses, they are graves. An upanishad contains in itself the whole philosophy of a school of mystery. THE UPANISHADS don’t belong to Hindus; they don’t belong to any other religion either. THE UPANISHADS are the outpourings of absolutely individual realized beings to the disciples.

There are four steps to be understood. First, the student: he comes to a master but never reaches to a master; he reaches only to a teacher. It may be the same man, but the student is not there to be transformed, to be reborn. He is there to learn a little more knowledge. He wants to become a little more knowledgeable. He has questions but those questions are just intellectual, they are not existential. They are not his life concern, it is not a question of life and death. This type of person may go from one master to another master collecting words, theories, systems, philosophies. He may become very proficient, he may become a great pundit, but he knows nothing.

This is something to be understood. There is a knowledge: you can have as much as you want. yet you will remain ignorant. And there is an ignorance which is really innocence: you do not know anything, but still you have come to the place where everything is known. So there is a knowledge which is ignorant, and an ignorance which is wisdom. The student is interested in knowledge.

But sometimes it happens: you may come to a master as a student, just out of curiosity, and you may be caught in his charisma, you may be caught by his eyes, you may be caught by his heartbeat. You had come as a student but you are turning to the second stage – you are becoming a disciple. The student unnecessarily goes from one place to another place, from one scripture to another scripture. He collects much, but it is all garbage.

Once he comes out of the cocoon of studentship and becomes a disciple, then the wandering stops; then he is getting in tune with the master. He is being transformed without his knowing. He will know it only later on, that things are changing. The same situations that he had faced in the past he faces now with a totally different response. Doubts are disappearing, rationality seems to be a child’s game. Life is much more, so much more that it cannot be contained in words. As he becomes a disciple he starts hearing something which is not said – between the words... between the sentences... in the pauses when the master suddenly stops... but the communication continues.

A disciple is a great improvement upon the student. In the past, in the days of THE UPANISHADS, those mystery schools that existed in India were called gurukula. A significant word – it means ‘the family of the master’. It is not an ordinary school, a college or a university. It is not a question of just learning; it is a question of being in love. You are not supposed to be in love with your university teacher.

But in a gurukula where THE UPANISHADS flowered, it was a family of love. The question of learning was secondary, the question of being was important. How much you know is not the point; how much you are is the point. And the master is not interested in feeding your bio-computer, the mind. He is not going to increase your memory because that is of no use. That can be done by a machine, and the machine can do it better than you. I have heard about a computer. The computer was fed with all kinds of astrological knowledge. And the scientist who worked for years on the computer, filling it with all possible knowledge of astrology, naturally wanted to ask the first question himself. And he wanted to ask a question which was really difficult. Apparently it was a simple question: he asked the computer, ”Now you are ready. Can you tell me where my father is?”

The computer said, ”It is better if you don’t know.”
He said, ”What? Why should it be better if I don’t know?”
The computer said, ”Don’t insist... but if you want to know, it is not my problem. Your father has gone fishing.”
The man said, ”Nonsense. My father has been dead for three years. So my whole work is wasted!”

And the computer laughed. It said, ”Don’t be sad, your work is not lost. The man who died three years ago was not your father. Go and ask your mother! Your father has gone fishing, he must be coming back. He is your neighbor.”

But even a computer can do things which the human memory cannot do. A single computer can contain a whole library. There is no need for you to read; you can just ask the computer and it will give the answer. And it is only very rarely that things will go wrong, if the electricity goes off or the battery runs down.

The master is not interested in making you into a computer. His interest is in making you a light unto yourself, an authentic being, an immortal being – not just knowledge, not what others have said, but your experience. As the disciple comes closer and closer to the master, there comes another point of transformation – the disciple becomes, at a point, a devotee. There is a beauty in all these steps. To become a disciple was a great revolution, but nothing compared with becoming a devotee.

At what point does the disciple turn and become a devotee? He is so much nourished by the energy of the master, by his light, by his love, by his laughter, just by his sheer presence – and he cannot give anything in return. There is nothing that he can give in return. A moment comes when he starts feeling so immensely grateful that he simply bows down his head to the feet of the master. He has nothing else to give except himself. From that moment, he is almost a part of the master. He is in a deep synchronicity with the heart of the master. This is gratitude, gratefulness. And the fourth stage is that he becomes one with the master.

There is a story about Rinzai. He was living with his master for almost twenty years, and one day he came and sat in the seat of the master. The master came; he looked at Rinzai sitting in his seat. He simply went and sat where Rinzai used to sit. Nothing was said, but everything was understood. Everybody was puzzled – “what is happening?”

Finally Rinzai said to the master, ”Are you not offended? Have I insulted you? Have I shown ungratefulness in any way?” Rinzai laughed. He said, ”Now you have become a master. You have come home; from the student to disciplehood, from disciplehood to devotion, and from devotion to mastery. I am immensely pleased that now you can share my work. I need not come every day now; I know somebody else is there with the same aura, with the same perfume.”In fact, you have been very lazy. This should have happened three months before; you cannot deceive me. For three months I have been feeling that this man is unnecessarily holding my feet. He can sit on the seat, and for a change I can hold his feet. It took three months for you to gather courage.”

Rinzai said, ”My God, I was thinking nobody knew about it, that it was just inside me. And you are giving me the exact date of when it started. Yes, it has been three months. I have been lazy and I have not been courageous enough. I was always thinking that this is not right, it doesn’t look right.”

The master said, ”If you had waited one day more I was going to hit you on your head. Three months is enough time to decide, and you were not deciding... and existence has decided.”

An upanishad is a mystery school. And we are entering into an upanishad today. I was a teacher in the university. I left the university for the simple reason that it stops at the first step. No university requires you to become a disciple; the question of being a devotee or a master simply does not arise. And there are temples which, without making you a student or a disciple, simply enforce devotion on you – which is going to be false, without roots. And there are devotees in churches all over the world, in synagogues, in temples: not knowing anything about disciplehood, they have become disciples, they have become devotees.

A mystery school is a very systematic encounter with the miraculous. And the miraculous is all around you, within and without both. Just a system is needed. The master simply provides a system to enter slowly into deeper waters, and ultimately to enter a stage where you disappear into the ocean; you become the ocean itself.

Source - Osho Book "The Osho Upanishad"

Sunday, 4 December 2011

Aloneness and Loneliness



"Aloneness and loneliness are two completely different states. In the spiritual sense, aloneness is togetherness with the whole universe. It is not frightening, but utterly joyful and blissful. T is a state of contentment, without any outer cause. Though you are alone, your spirit dances with existence.
Aloneness is meditation and a highly spiritual state, because in aloneness you merge into everything. Once you attain to spiritual aloneness you will be alone wherever you are, even in a crowd. You will be nothing and also in everything.
However, loneliness is the opposite state to aloneness. In loneliness you miss something or somebody. It is scary and depressive. These feelings arise because you are unconsciously facing your own Self
     When nobody is around, you unconsciously sense the echo of your own self. The quieter your surroundings are, the louder and clearer the echo becomes. When you get scared, you pay more attention to it and as you become more attentive, it becomes even clearer and louder. You become so alert and attentive that you can hear your heartbeat as loud as a drum. This way it becomes a vicious circle!"




"We may rationalise the fear of loneliness and think it has various reason - for instance, in early childhood we were left alone too often - but such reason are only partial; eventually all fear have only one source: the fear of death.
    Fear of loneliness arises because, we don't want to face ourselves and see the fact that death is coming closer every moment. And therefore we like distracting company, but everybody in our company has a similar problem and just pretends to be happy and to like socialising.
    When people celebrate their birthday, they throw a party and get drunk. Mostly they cannot even enjoy their own party. Unconsciously they try to forget that they are one year closer to their death and one more year of their life is lost. O they unconsciously celebrate their victory of surviving another year. These feelings are in the unconscious mind, so if you point it out to them they will think you are mad."


Excerpts from the book "From Fear to Enlightenment" by Mahadevi


 

Tuesday, 29 November 2011

Jealousy and meditation


Question – You speak a lot about the ugliness of jealousy. yes, it is quite ugly, but any suggestions to us sufferers of the disease who aren’t enlightened on how to diminish it?
Osho – First, diminishing it is not going to help. You can diminish it to such proportions that it will almost become invisible, but that is not going to help. Diminishing simply means that you are throwing it into the unconscious and it goes into your basement of being more and more deeply. It becomes invisible. You may not be able to see it, but it will go on working from the back, it will go on pulling your strings from the back. It will become more subtle. Please don’t try to diminish it.
The first thing to remember: rather than diminish it, magnify it so you can see the whole of it. That is the whole process of all the groups going on around here — Gestalt, Encounter, Psychodrama. The whole process is that whatsoever the problem is, please don’t diminish it but magnify it. Bring it totally as it is — even exaggerate it so that you can see every detail of it.
Down the centuries in the past, jealousy, anger, sadness, this and that, all have been repressed. The effort was to diminish it. No, a seed is a diminished tree, but a seed is tremendously powerful. A seed can at any time again produce a tree. The right situation, the right season… and the tree will again sprout. You can diminish your jealousy, it can become just a seed, and you will not be able to see it the tree has disappeared, but it is there.
Diminishing is not the right process. That’s what you have been doing, that’s what you have done to your life: you have diminished everything. And one thing more. When you diminish jealousy, your love will be diminished alongside, because your love and jealousy are so much entangled with each other. If you diminish your sadness, your happiness will be diminished, because your happiness and sadness are so much together. If you diminish your hate, your love will disappear — that’s what has happened. You have been taught not to hate and the total result is that you have become incapable of love.
No, please don’t diminish anything. That is not the way. Rather, magnify, exaggerate, bring it to its total blossoming and then see it — every detail of it, every minute detail of it. In that very awareness, in that very seeing, you will become capable of transcending it and then there will be no need to do anything about it.
The second thing: you say ‘You speak a lot about the ugliness of jealousy. Yes, it is ugly…’. No, you don’t know. You are simply repeating what I have been saying. If you know it is quite ugly, in that very knowing it will disappear. You don’t know. You have listened to me, you have listened to Jesus, you have listened to Buddha and you have gathered opinions. You don’t know. It is not your own feel that jealousy is ugly. If it is your own feel, why should you carry it? It is not an easy thing, it takes a lot of investment. To be jealous is a very difficult thing: it needs a lot of effort on your part, a lot of involvement. It is so destructive of your own self that if it is ugly and you have known the ugliness of it, you cannot carry it for a single moment. But listening to me you become knowledgeable.
I have heard… ‘You can’t come in here’ the worried mother warned ‘my son is sick.’
‘I want to catch your son’s measles’ the man said ‘because if I kissed the nurse she’d get it. She would kiss the doctor and he’d get it. The doctor would kiss my wife and she’d get it. My wife would kiss the landlord and that’s the guy I’m after.’
It is a great investment, a great effort and a very complex phenomenon. And finally, it may destroy. It may not destroy others — it certainly destroys you; it is suicidal. Not only that it is ugly, it is poisonous; it is suicidal, it is killing yourself every day, slowly, slowly.
See the fact of it. Don’t just become knowledgeable. What I say will not become an experience for you unless YOU experience it. And what is the way to experience it? The way is to bring it in front of you. It is hiding behind you. Don’t just become knowledgeable. What I say will not become an experience for you unless YOU experience it. And what is the way to experience it? The way is to bring it in front of you. It is hiding behind you.
Don’t repress it, express it. Sit in your room, close the doors, bring your jealousy into focus. Watch it, see it, let it take as strong a flame as possible. Let it become a strong flame, burn into it and see what it is. And don’t from the very beginning say that this is ugly, because that very idea that this is ugly will repress it, will not allow it total expression. No opinions! Just try to see the existential effect of what jealousy is, the existential fact.
No interpretations, no ideologies! Forget Buddhas and work, forget me. Just let the jealousy be there. Look into it, look deeply into it and so do with anger, so do with sadness, hatred, possessiveness. And by and by you will see that just by seeing through things you start getting a transcendental feeling that you are Just a witness; the identity is broken. The identity is broken only when you encounter something within you.
Source – Osho Book “Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1″

Wednesday, 16 November 2011

Children & Parenthood




"If you are a parent you will need this much courage -- not to interfere. Open doors of unknown directions to the child so he can explore. He does not know what he has in him, nobody knows. He has to grope in the dark. Don't make him afraid of darkness, don't make him afraid of failure, don't make him afraid of the unknown. Give him support. When he is going on an unknown journey, send him with all your support, with all your love, with all your blessings. Don't let him be affected by your fears. You may have fears, but keep them to yourself. Don't unload those fears on the child because that will be interfering.
After seven years, the next circle of seven years, from seven to fourteen, is a new addition to life: the child's first stirring of sexual energies. But they are only a kind of rehearsal. To be a parent is a difficult job, so unless you are ready to take that difficult job, don't become a parent. People simply go on becoming fathers and mothers not knowing what they are doing. You are bringing a life into existence; all the care in the world will be needed. Now when the child starts playing his sexual rehearsals, that is the time when parents interfere the most, because they have been interfered with. All that they know is what has been done to them, so they simply go on doing that to their children.
Societies don't allow sexual rehearsal, at least have not allowed it up to this century -- only within the last two, three decades, and that too only in very advanced countries. Now children are having co-education. But in a country like India, even now co-education starts only at the university level. The seven-year-old boy and the seven-year-old girl cannot be in the same boarding school. And this is the time for them -- without any risk, without the girl getting pregnant, without any problems arising for their families -- this is the time when they should be allowed all playfulness. Yes, it will have a sexual color to it, but it is rehearsal; it is not the real drama. And if you don't allow them even the rehearsal and then suddenly one day the curtain opens, and the real drama starts .... And those people don't know what is going on; even a prompter is not there to tell them what to do. You have messed up their life completely.
Those seven years, the second circle in life, is significant as a rehearsal. They will meet, mix, play, become acquainted. And that will help humanity to drop almost ninety percent of perversions. If the children from seven to fourteen are allowed to be together; to swim together, to be naked before each other, ninety percent of perversions and ninety percent of pornography will simply disappear. Who will bother about it? When a boy has known so many girls naked, what interest can a magazine like PLAYBOY have for him? When a girl has seen so many boys naked, I don't see that there is any possibility of curiosity about the other; it will simply disappear. They will grow together naturally, not as two different species of animals.
Right now that's how they grow: two different species of animals. They don't belong to one mankind; they are kept separate. A thousand and one barriers are created between them so they cannot have any rehearsal of their sexual life which is going to come. Because this rehearsal is missing, that's why in people's actual sex life foreplay is missing; and foreplay is so important -- far more important than actual sexual contact, because actual sexual contact lasts only for seconds. It is not nourishment. It simply leaves you in a limbo. You were hoping for so much, and nothing comes out of it. In Hindi we have a proverb: kheela pahad nikli chuhia. `You dug out the whole mountain and you found one rat.' After all the effort -- going to the movies and going to the disco and going to the restaurant, and talking all kinds on nonsense which neither you want nor the other wants to do, but both are talking -- digging the mountain, and in the end, just a rat! Nothing is so frustrating as sex."


"Make love only when you are ready to be in a meditative space. And create a meditative atmosphere while you are making love. You should treat the place as sacred. Creating life... what can be more sacred? Do it as beautifully, as aesthetically, as joyously as possible. There should be no hurry. And if the two lovers meet in such an atmosphere outside, and such a silent space within, they will attract a soul, the highest available. You give birth to a child according to your state of love. If every parent is disappointed, he should think about it, that this is the child they deserved. They never created a possibility for a higher and more evolved soul to enter into the womb -- because the male sperm and the female egg only create an opportunity for a soul to enter. They create the opportunity for a body, so some soul can become embodied. But you will attract only that kind of person which your sexual activity makes possible.
If the world is full of idiots and mediocre people, you are responsible; I mean, parents are responsible. They never thought about it, their children are accidental. There cannot be a bigger crime than to create a life accidentally. Prepare for it. And the most essential thing is to understand the orgasmic moment: thoughtless, timeless, mindless, just a pure awareness. In that pure awareness you can attract a Gautam Buddha. The way you are making love, it is strange that more Adolf Hitlers, Mussolinis, Stalins, Nadirshahs, Tamerlanes, Genghis Khans, are not attracted. You attract only mediocre people. You don't attract the lowest either, because for the lowest your love has to be almost a rape. For the highest, your love has to be a meditation.
The child's life begins from the moment the soul enters into the womb. If it has come into a meditative space, it is possible to have a child without conditioning him. In fact, a child who is born out of meditation cannot be conditioned; he will rebel against it. Only mediocre people can be conditioned. And a couple who is capable of meditativeness while making love is no ordinary couple. They will be respectful to the child. The child is a guest from the unknown, and you have to be respectful to the guest. 
Parents who are not respectful to their children are bound to destroy their lives. Your respect, your love, your gratitude that, "You have chosen us as your parents," will be responded to with deeper respect, more gratitude, more love. And when you love a person, you cannot condition him. When you love a person, you give him freedom, you give him protection. When you love a person you would not like him to be just a carbon copy of yourself, you would like him to be a unique individual. And to make him unique you will arrange all the conditions, all the challenges which provoke his potential.
You will not burden him with knowledgeability, because you would like him to know the truth himself. Any borrowed truth is a lie. Unless it is experienced by you, it is never the truth. You will help the child to experience more and more things. You will not tell him lies, that there is a God. It is a lie, because you have not seen God. Your parents lied to you, and you are repeating it in your turn to your child. Your parents conditioned you, and what is your life? -- a long misery from cradle to grave. Do you want your child's life also to be just a misery, full of suffering, anxiety, despair?"

"If we were loving our children, there could not have been so many wars in the world. Who is the parent who will send his children to war? If we were loving our children the world could not have become so ugly. If we were loving our children, I go as far as to say, we would not have given birth to children... because which loving parent will be ready to give birth to their children in this ugly and dirty world? They will excuse themselves, saying, "How to bring our children into such a world? Tomorrow, when we face them, we will feel so ashamed in front of them that we gave birth to them in this world. How to send them out into this ugly world full of immorality and darkness?" Parents would have refused to give birth to children if they had love in their hearts."


All quotes from Osho, 

Wednesday, 13 April 2011

OMIC UK has moved

Yes we have moved...

We found our first choice of blogging site was a little restrictive and also the fact that this is OMIC UK and that was a French blog site played a large part... but we dont want to talk about that too much ;-)