Osho - Ek Omkar Satnam

Ek Omkar Satnam. . . .

He is one. He is omkar, the supreme truth. He is the creator, beyond fear, beyond rancour. His is the timeless form. Never born, self-creating. He is attained by the guru’s grace there is one reality, truth is only one: Ek Omkar Satnam. And, says Nanak, the name of this one is Omkar. All other names are given by man: Ram, Krishna, Allah. These are all symbols and all created by man. There is only one name that is not given by man and that is Omkar, and ‘Omkar’ means the sound of Aum. Why Omkar? — Because when words are lost and the mind becomes void, when the individual is immersed in the ocean, even then the strain of Omkar remains audible within him. It is not a manmade tune but the melody of existence. Omkar is the very being of existence; therefore, ‘Aum’ has no meaning. ‘Aum’ is not a word but a resonance that is unique, having no source, no creation by anyone. It is the resonance of the being of existence.

It is like a waterfall: you sit beside a waterfall and you hear its song but the sound is created by the water hitting against the rocks. Sit by a river and listen to its sound; it is caused by the river striking against the banks. We need to go deeper to understand things. Science tries to break down the whole of existence. What it first discovered was energy in the form of electricity, and then charged particles like the electron of which all of existence is made. Electricity is only a form of energy. If we ask a scientist what sound is made of, he will say that it is nothing but waves of electricity, waves of energy. So energy is at the root of everything. The sages say the same thing; they are in agreement with the scientists except for a slight difference of language. Sages have come to know that all existence is created out of sound, and sound is only an expression of energy. Existence, sound, energy — all are one. The approach of science is to analyse and break things down, to reach the conclusion.

The sage’s approach is absolutely different: through synthesis they have discovered the indivisibility of the self. The wind rises creating a murmur in the branches of the tree, a collision of air against the leaves. When the musician plays a chord on an instrument, the sound is produced by a blow. All sound is produced by an impact, and an impact requires two — the strings of the instrument and the fingers of the musician. Two are necessary to form any sound. But God’s name is beyond all separateness. His name is the resonance that remains when all dualities have faded and cease to exist. Within this indivisible whole you come across this resonance. When a person reaches the state of samadhi, Omkar resounds within him. He hears it resounding inside him and all around him; all creation seems to be vibrating with it. Nanak says: Omkar alone is God’s name. He refers to the name a great deal. Whenever Nanak speaks of His name — “His name is the path,” or “He who remembers his name attains” — he is referring to Omkar, because Omkar is the only name that is not given to Him by man, but is His very own. None of the names given by man can carry you very far. If they do go some distance towards Him, it is only because of some slight shadow of Omkar within them. The word ‘sat’ needs to be understood. In Sanskrit, there are two words: ‘sat’ means beingness, existence, and ‘satya’ means truth, validity.

There is a great difference between the two, though both contain the same original root. When Nanak says: Ek Omkar Satnam, both ‘sat’ and ‘satya’ are contained in his expression. The name of that supreme existence is as true as a mathematical formula and as real as any work of art; it is as beautiful as a dream and as correct as a scientific formula; it contains the emotions of the heart, and the knowledge and experience of the mind. Where the mind and the heart meet, religiousness begins. If the mind overpowers the heart, science is born. If the heart overpowers the head, the realm of art is entered: poetry, music, song, painting, sculpture. But if head and heart are united, you enter into Omkar.

Abridged from The True Name, courtesy: Osho International Foundation, www.osho.com

Anandmurti Gurumaa - Breathe Away Your Blues

You can harmonise and transcend your mental afflictions and modifications through yogic psychology, writes ANANDMURTI GURUMAA.

Depression is a common complaint among many people today. So, almost every other person tends to be on painkillers, tranquillisers, sedatives or other medication. Body and mind are connected. What bridges them is the breath. Now, when mind is in stress, sorrow, grief or fear, a corresponding effect is seen in the body — it starts to tremble. For example, when one hears the news of a relative’s demise, immediately the breath starts to become shallow and its pace starts to quicken — one is almost breathless with anxiety. Neurons from the spinal cord reach the brain and when fear and trauma occur, the entire body gets shaken up. The trembling in turn affects our breathing, making it erratic. The heart starts pounding and the pulse starts racing. Blood pressure escalates and most likely, a heart attack could ensue.

But there’s hope! This is where yoga comes to our aid, giving us a most simple yet powerful tool and technique to manage body and mind, no matter how challenging the situation. More than 2,500 years ago, Rishi Patanjali, in the Yoga Sutras, delineated how intricately body, mind and breath affect each other and how we can manage, harmonise and ultimately transcend our mental afflictions and modifications.

Life Is Precious

In a situation of intense fear, the quickest, safest, simplest way out is to just sit with spine erect and take a long, deep breath, slowly releasing it through the mouth. This should be done for a short time and then one can return to inhaling and exhaling through the nose.

This is the beauty of yoga psychology. No harmful medicines, no side effects, for the benefits of deep breathing are manifold. Now for those who never do any spiritual practice or meditate, they can easily get depressed, weep at the slightest mishap or come down with panic attacks. Then doctors prescribe sedatives — sleep the pain away! And slowly, the body becomes a toxic waste dump. Is precious life meant to be wasted like this?

Imagine — you have a lovely house, a Ferrari, a beachside bungalow, a flourishing business, a wonderful family and, yet, fear is gnawing away your insides. Another scenario — exam results are out and a disappointed student jumps to his death, simply because he has failed. What are the values we are giving our children? Should every child not be taught how to deal with fear and anxiety? Yoga science should definitely be part of the school syllabus and every child should be taught how to sit with spine erect and breathe correctly — equal inhalation, equal exhalation, slow, steady and deep.

It’s fine that prayers are done in the school assembly but in all honesty, does it help them to deal with and dispel their fear? Our society teaches the child to fear. Taunting parents, threatening teachers, peer pressure and constant comparison make life miserable for children who then resort to bribing teachers, cheating and copying, just for grades and percentages. Thus, we teach children to become dishonest, fearful and deceitful at a very tender age and then wonder why society is going down the drain. When a child is thus punished and tortured, fear remains in the subconscious mind all his life.

Breathe Correctly

When medication as well as stress and depression affect breathing, making it shallow, the ratio of oxygen to carbon-dioxide goes haywire. Correspondingly, enough oxygen does not reach all the organs. Thus when the mind is disturbed, it leads to incorrect breathing, causing disease and ill-health. Unconsciously, unknowingly, one tenses the body and holds the breath in times of perceived stress. This leads to trembling and weakness in the limbs, in fact all over the body.

One has to be actually taught how to breathe correctly! During inhalation, the stomach should expand, protruding a bit due to the movement of the diaphragm whereas during exhalation, the stomach should move inwards. But most people do the opposite and this actually damages health if continued over a long period of time. The solar plexus is where we tend to hold our deepest emotions; therefore, it is important that the breath should flow smooth and easy in this region. Yogic breathing is full lung breathing, involving expansion of the chest as well as the stomach.

Now, if we have cultivated the practice of paying attention to the breath during any activity we perform, breathing starts becoming harmonious. We remain grounded in the present moment. And then, in times of crises, we remember that the breath is the tool which will stabilise both body and mind. So, breathe your depression away.

Osho - Honestly, Don’t Be Nice, Be Truthful

With the help of meditation, you can turn your communication with others into a communion, says OSHO.

We are taught that one has to be nice to one’s sister, to one’s brother. But this often means repressing our emotions, not
being honest with our emotions. Once you start meditating, all those emotions will bubble up and they will bubble up in your sibling also. So, you will have to pass through the period in your childhood that you missed. But there is nothing to be worried about. It is natural, because all that is repressed and inhibited will start being expressed. And as a result, you might lose communication. But, the truth is that it never existed in the first place.

Just being polite is not communication, because if you are repressing something, communication is superficial, just verbal. You are simply making empty gestures.
You can say hello to a person without saying hello. You can smile towards a person without smiling at all. You can talk and be pleasant, as one is expected to be, without being pleasant at all. This whole gesture may be a deep avoidance. Your politeness, your niceness,
your goodness, may be just an armour because you are afraid that if you become
true, the emotions that have been repressed will bubble up. And the other person is also trying to be nice. She is as afraid as you. So, it can appear that there is communication when there is none. If there were any communication, meditation would have made it a communion, something deeper than communication. But if it is not there, meditation
would make you aware of it.So, in effect, it is better because now you are becoming aware of a reality that you have avoided your whole life.

Brothers and sisters only appear to be nice to each other. Otherwise, they are enemies because they are the first competitors. In a house, when the first child is born, he is the whole and sole. Then comes the next child. He starts competing; competition is natural. This
child wants more attention and the first child feels offended by the presence of this child. Jealousies arise. When there are many children in a house, it is bound to be that one child will get more attention than others. There is going to be a hierarchy; that’s how the mind functions. The mother may love one child more, the other a little less. There are pets, because the mother is also human. You cannot expect her to love all absolutely equally; that is not possible. She may pretend. She pretends hard, but children are very perceptive. They can immediately see
that somebody is liked more, somebody is liked less and that this pretension is just bogus.

Then an inner conflict, fight, ambition arises.
Each child is different. Somebody is very talented, somebody is not. Somebody is physically more beautiful than the other. So, more problems arise. But, we are taught to be nice, never to be true. If children are taught to be true, they will fight it out and let differences drop. They will be angry, they will fight and say hard things to each other and then they will
be done with it, because children get rid of things very easily. They are very simple, but they are not allowed that simplicity. They are prohibited from being angry with each other: “She is your sister, he is your brother. How can you be angry?” 

Those angers, jealousies and a thousand and one wounds go on collecting. Later in your life, if you come across something like meditation, then they will all bubble up. So, this is a great opportunity. It looks difficult, but if you can face it, something of tremendous value will happen to you. Once you are at ease with your sister, something like a block will drop from your chest. That will help you to be more communicative with others. 

A Rose Is a Rose Is a Rose, courtesy: Osho International.

Osho - Go On, Risk It.

Jump into the unknown, for clinging to the known is like clinging to a corpse, says OSHO.

Clinging to the known is clinging to a corpse. It does not need courage to drop the clinging. In fact, it needs courage to go on clinging to a corpse. You just have to see....That which is familiar to you, which you have lived — what has it given? Where have you reached? Are you not still empty? Is there not immense discontent, a deep frustration and meaninglessness? Somehow you go on managing, hiding the truth and creating lies to remain engaged, involved. This is the question: to see with clarity that everything that you know is of the past, it is already gone. It is part of a graveyard. Do you want to be in a grave, or do you want to be alive? And this is not only the question today; it will be the same question tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow. It will be the same question at your last breath. Whatever you know, accumulate — information, knowledge, and experience — the moment you have explored them you are finished with them. Now carrying those empty words, that dead load, is crushing your life, burdening your life, preventing you from entering into a living, rejoicing being — which is awaiting you each moment. The man of understanding dies every moment to the past and is reborn again to the future. His present is always a transformation, a rebirth, a resurrection. It is not a question of courage at all that is the first thing to be understood.

It is a question of clarity, of being clear about what is what. And secondly, whenever there is really a question of courage, nobody can give it to you. It is not something that can be presented as a gift. It is something that you are born with, you just have not allowed it to grow, and you have not allowed it to assert itself, because the whole society is against it. Society does not want lions; it wants a crowd of sheep. Then it is easy to enslave people, exploit people, and do whatever you want to do with them. They don’t have a soul; they are almost robots. You order, and they will obey. They are not free individuals. No society wants you to be courageous. Every society wants you to be a coward, but nobody says it so sincerely; they have found beautiful words instead. They will not say, “Be cowardly,”because that will look offensive to the person and he will start thinking, “Why should I be cowardly?” — And a coward is not something respectable. No, they say, “Be cautious. Think twice before you leap. Remember your tradition, your religion is thousands of years old; it has wisdom. You are a newcomer; you cannot afford to disbelieve in it. There is no comparison. You have just come in, and your religion has been there for ten thousand years, accumulating more and more experience, knowledge. It is a Himalayan phenomenon. You are a small pebble. You cannot fight with tradition — that is fighting against yourself, it is self-destructive. You can only submit to tradition; that is wise, intelligent. To be with the crowd, you are protected, you are secure; you are assured that you will not go astray.”

In so many ways you will be told a simple thing: Just be a coward; it pays to be cowardly. It is dangerous to be courageous, because it is going to bring you in conflict with all the vested interests — and you are a small human being. You cannot fight with the whole world. Everybody has courage, it is not a quality to be practiced; it is something that is part of your life, your very breathing. It is just that the society has created so many barriers against your natural growth that you have started thinking from where to get courage? From where to get intelligence? From where to get truth? You have to go nowhere. You contain in the seed form everything that you want to be. Realising this and seeing the other side....The people who live with the crowd — what is their gain? They lose everything. In fact, they don’t live at all; they only die. From their birth, they start dying, and go on dying till the last breath. Their whole life is a long series of deaths. Just look at the whole crowd of people. You can be with them, but the same is going to be your fate. It is so simple if you see it: the only way to live life is to live on your own. It is an individual phenomenon, it is independence, it is freedom. It is a constant unburdening of all that is dead, so that life can go on growing and is not crushed under the weight of the dead.

Abridged from Beyond Psychology, courtesy: Osho International Foundation, www.osho.com

Anandmurti Gurumaa - Physical Desire Demystified

Rise above sexual desires with spiritual practice and wisdom, says ANANDMURTI GURUMAA.

What is this body? What is physical attraction? If there was no skin covering this skeleton made of bones and muscles, there would be nothing more revolting, more repulsive than this body. The past impressions in the mind, that have come along since the previous animalistic lives, are responsible for the presence of carnal desires and physical attraction. Hence, whenever a sexual urge arises in your mind, at that very moment you should remember this wisdom, bring this dispassion and question the mind — the body you are lusting after, what is that body? Moreover, look at your own body and ask: what is this body? A boy said to his friend, “These days I get so many dreams of girls. I feel very ashamed in telling you any further.” His friend said,” If you like girls, what is the problem in that? You are young, handsome and earning a good salary. Your body is secreting sex hormones, so why should you feel guilty?” The boy felt reassured. His friend asked them,” Do you really like girls?” The boy replied, “Yes, but no one wants to be friends with me. I tried to befriend a girl, but she spurned my advances and it broke my heart.” His friend said,“Well,you should have something to attract a girl towards you. Then, let alone one, there will be a queue of girls after you.” The boy asked, “What should I do?” The friend said,” Come tomorrow morning and I will teach you yogasanas.” The boy wants to lure a girl and his friend is asking him to do yogasana. This is a modern school of learning how to attract a girl. The boy, who normally never got up before eight o’- clock, now got up at four in the morning and went to learn the asanas. He asked his friend, what would be the benefit of learning asanas?

The friend replied that there are numerous advantages, like asanas will give you a good physique, and by regularly doing asanas and pranayama, you will become energetic and your complexion will improve. Now, the boy was convinced and he started the practice with full enthusiasm. In this way, within two months the boy could do the asanas well. His body became flexible, all the toxins got released and his body was becoming healthier. And by doing pranayama, his mind was becoming healthier.

After five months, the boy said to his friend, “Ever since I have been doing asanas and pranayama, my mind has become peaceful and I no longer get sexual thoughts or dreams of girls.… All the hankering in my mind has gone away and I feel very light.” His friend replied,” Well, this is the whole point of doing this practice. The mind becomes peaceful and the attraction for the world disappears. And even if such an unattached person was to get married, then despite being in a sexual relationship, his mind will stay peaceful and he will remain unattached. Such a person will no longer be a slave to his body….” Earlier, this boy was running after girls and now there was no such attraction in his mind. You run after the world and the world eludes you.

No amount of slavery to your body is going to give you any lasting happiness. I reiterate that sex is not bad, but as per the customary traditions of ashram life, if you are desirous of having sex then you must lead a householder’s life. Don’t hesitate in doing so. On the other hand, if you want to rise above sexual desires without leading a married life, then there are only two ways to achieve this: spiritual practice and use of your wisdom, discriminative power. When one conscientiously follows yama, niyama and then masters yogasanas, the body gets purified. And when such an individual with a purified body does pranayama, his self-belief and mental strength increases. Mind becomes peaceful and the attraction for the world disappears.

Anandmurti Gurumaa - You Don’t Have To Be An Ascetic

There’s nothing wrong in opting to lead life as a householder, says  ANANDMURTI GURUMAA

Sexual desire emanating from kamavasana previous impressions in the mind, is energy and as is true for all energies, one can harness it beneficially or abuse it. Men and women who are desirous of fulfilling their sexual desires get married to have firsthand experience of sex. But the question arises: Do couples who have had a sexual relationship for 40-50 years, ever get the feeling that they have had enough of it, and do they rise above the need for sexual gratification?

They don’t. This is because for them sex is nothing but a medium of getting a release…. Now, if one perpetually indulges in this irresponsibly, without using one’s wisdom, then all that will happen is depletion of energy. Whenever certain hormonal changes occur in the body, they naturally lead to arising of sexual urges on either seeing or imagining an attractive man or woman. And whenever someone is sexually aroused, such a person will either suffer in trying to control it or will seek release.

If you keep getting sexually aroused, it reflects that for several, previous lifetimes, you have lived in excessive sexual indulgence, and all that has left such a deep impression on your mind that none of the words of wisdom have any effect on you. Thus you are unable to have any temperance on your urges. So, you need to honestly look at yourself and contemplate on this.

An easy solution for such individuals is to lead a householder’s life… otherwise, it will be akin to punishment because by trying to suppress the urges, they are not going to disappear, rather they will emerge in new and strange ways. So, if you want to lead a householder’s life with awareness and prudence, then know that sex can be used in three ways: for pleasure, procreation, and for spiritual evolution according to the path of tantra. But to use it for spiritual evolution, as per the tantra tradition, is possible only when you have an equally understanding and virtuous spouse, and not otherwise.

Practice of tantra is not a medium for satiating the desires of a lustful person! It is only for those who have successfully mastered the four limbs of yoga — yama, niyama, asana and pranayama — and in addition, strictly adhere to the other limbs of yoga.

When one conscientiously follows yama, niyama and then masters yogasanas, the glands begin to function optimally and the body gets purified. And when such an individual with a purified body does pranayama, his self-belief and mental strength increases. If such a person with increased self-belief and mental strength leads a married life with an equally sensible and understanding partner, then even sex becomes a spiritual practice….

Animals are more sensible, as their sexual behaviour is as per the law of nature. When their mating period is over, they live like celibates. But the human mind is not tied down to nature’s law. A man can think about sex or take part in it whenever he wants. But the point to note is that if there is freedom, there is bondage too. Use your wisdom to understand your sexual energy. Ask yourself: the momentary pleasure obtained through sexual gratification, will it be binding or will it help in my liberation? Question your mind using your discriminative wisdom, for sex is nothing more than a momentary pleasure.

If someone says that he feels aroused only on seeing a particular woman and not all women — well, this is nothing but a delusion. The truth is, either sexual desire exists or it doesn’t! Saying that one gets aroused by a specific woman is in a way accusing the woman of being responsible for arousing sexual thoughts in the man — this is an irresponsible statement.

Osho - Being Friends

If you know the art of being friendly, you can share with as many people as possible, with as many animals as possible, with as many trees as possible, says Osho.

Gautama Buddha emphasises friendship very much. To translate his word for friendship — Maitri — is a little difficult because it has the quality of friendliness more than friendship. Friendship becomes a relationship, fixed; friendliness is more flowing, more fluid. Friendship is a relationship; friendliness is a state of your being. You are simply friendly; to whom, that is not the point. If you are standing by the side of a tree you are friendly to the tree, or if you are sitting on the rock, you are friendly to the rock. To human beings, to animals, to birds, you are simply friendly. It is not something static; it is a flow, changing moment to moment.

The Buddha says: To have friends in need is sweet.

Friendliness is one of the most significant qualities for the seeker to develop; In the Buddha’s vision, it is higher than so-called love. Your so-called love is tethered to your biology; friendliness is freedom from biology. The ordinary so-called love is the same in human beings as it is in animals, as it is in the trees.

Friendship is a higher phenomenon. It is pure love; it has nothing to do with your biology. Ordinary love — can be explained through biology, but friendship cannot be explained. It is a mystery. Friendship is like fragrance; it helps you to transcend your animality.

The Buddha praises friendship, friendliness, very highly. He has even chosen that when he comes back again, his name will be Maitreya — the friend. He must have loved the word very much. I don’t think he will come again or anybody ever comes again. God never makes the same mistake again, remember! Once is more than enough, twice will be too much. But he must have loved the word so much that he says, “Next time, if I am at all going to come, my name is going to be Maitreya, the friend.” The word contains his whole philosophy.

He says: ‘To have friends... is sweet.’ Why is it sweet? Because with friends, your relationship is not physiological, it is not even psychological; it is a spiritual communion. With friends you can sit in silence. When you are with your lover, you can’t sit in silence; silence looks awkward. The woman will think, ‘Why are you silent? Are you angry or something?’ And if she is silent, you will think something is wrong — she is sulking. Silence becomes heavy, a burden; it has to be removed. So people go on talking, whether it is needed or not.

You can share your happiness only with friends. Sharing is possible only when two hearts are open to each other; only in deep trust can you be open to the other. In fear you are closed, in doubt you are closed. You are on guard. You are afraid the other may be some danger to you, the other may do some harm. You are not vulnerable when you are in fear. Only with friends you can be vulnerable, open, available. Then sharing is possible. And sharing is one of the greatest spiritual qualities.

The miracle is that the more you share your bliss, the more you have it. The more you share, the more it comes to you. The more you share, the more you become aware of an inexhaustible source within yourself.

Happiness is great in itself, but to share it makes it immensely rich. If you are miserly about your happiness, you will kill it. To hoard your happiness is to destroy it; to spread it far and wide is to help it grow. If you know the art of being friendly, you can share with as many people as possible, with as many animals as possible, with as many trees as possible. You can go on sharing every moment of your life because you are always with someone. You can share it with the sun, with the moon, with the stars.

Distances don’t matter. You can share your bliss with a friend who is far away. In that moment of sharing, space disappears, time disappears. There is no time gap, no space gap. You are suddenly together. You can even share with friends who are no longer alive. In deep communion, they become available to you, nonphysically.

Excerpted from Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Courtesy Osho International Foundation, www.osho.com

Osho - ‘I say it’s all in the head, really’

Your hunger has nothing to do with your stomach. Like other urges, it is contained in the brain, says OSHO.

Scientific research has proved beyond doubt that sexuality has nothing to do with the genital organs. It’s triggered by the head; its centre is in the brain. Ivan Pavlov and B F Skinner’s work has been of tremendous value in this field. I don’t agree with their behavioral approach, but what they have researched can be used by mystics, seekers of truth, and explorers of the inner being in a very valuable way.

Brain Is The Centre

Skinner has found that in the brain lie the centers for food, sex, everything. You touch with an electrode the sex centre in the brain, and immediately you have an orgasm. A great joy arises in you as if you have made love to a woman. Skinner was experimenting with rats; he fixed an electrode in the sex centre in the brain of a rat and taught it how to push a button if it wanted an orgasm. He was surprised what the rat did; he had never thought that rats are so sexual. The rat completely forgot about food and everything else. Even if there was danger, even if a cat was brought, the rat was unafraid. Who cares? It went on pushing the button, continuously...six thousand times. Until the rat fell utterly exhausted, almost dead, it went on pushing, because with each push there was an orgasm. Now sooner or later this is going to happen to you too. It will be far easier, far more comfortable — because to have a woman or to have a man is such a conflict. You can just have a small, matchbox-sized computer in your pocket. Nobody will ever know what you are doing. You can go on moving your rosary and with the other hand, you can push the button, and people will think that you are feeling ecstatic because of the rosary & your face will glow.... But if it becomes possible, you will be in the same situation as the rat, you will die by pushing your button too much, you will forget everything else…. Your hunger has nothing to do with your stomach; that too is contained
in the brain. That’s why at the right time, looking at the clock, suddenly hunger strikes….

Only Awareness Helps

Now, destroying your body is not going to help…. Only one thing can help — awareness. Awareness is not a part of the brain. It is behind the brain and is capable of seeing the brain. Interestingly, whatsoever modern psychological methods have been able to discover was discovered thousands of years ago by the mystics in the east. Buddha was perfectly aware of the brain centers, so was Patanjali. And the only way is to find something which is beyond the brain and move to that point and remain there. There lies your mastery; from there on, you are the charioteer; the reigns of all the horses are in your hands & they are beautiful. Senses are not ugly — nothing is ugly. Even sex has its own beauty, sacredness and holiness. But, if you are centered in that which is beyond, in your consciousness, then everything has a different meaning and a different context....

The upanishads say: ‘Annam Brahmn — food is God’. The man who had said this must have tasted God in food. And the tantrics have been saying it for centuries that sex has the greatest potential to realise samadhi. It is the closest point — sexual orgasm is the closest to spiritual orgasm, hence, you can learn much from it. In sexual orgasm, time disappears, ego disappears, mind disappears, and for a moment, the whole world stops. The same happens in spiritual orgasm, though on a far bigger scale. The sexual is momentary and the spiritual is eternal, but the sexual gives ou a glimpse of the spiritual.

The Dhammapada: The Way Of The Buddha, courtesy:Osho International Foundation,www.osho.com 

Osho - Be Natural, That’s The Best Way

Forcing yourself to behave unnaturally is a crime, says OSHO.

Seeker: I don’t feel like indulging in physical intimacy; I love meditation and dancing much more, although it is difficult to accept this. Is something wrong with me?

Osho: Nothing is wrong with you. Repression of sex is evil, but if sex is not a natural desire in you, to force it will be a repression. There are people who are forcing their natural desire for sex in trying to be celibate; they are going against their nature. And if you don’t have any inclination towards sex, forcing it will be going against your nature; it will be the same kind of crime.

A sanyasin needs to be natural. You have to listen to your own body, your own instincts, your own intuition, and follow it. You are not to do anything against your nature. If you like to be alone, and enjoy meditating...that’s what everybody else is trying, but first they are trying to get finished with sex so that they can enjoy being alone. You are in a better position; you don’t have to pass through hell. You have already passed through it somehow; perhaps in your past life. You are out of hell; now don’t try to get into the dark tunnel again.

Even the people to whom I say, “Don’t repress sex,” are not being told to remain always sexual. In fact, repression of sex keeps you always sexual. Once you have lived it totally, you are finished with it. And the sooner you are finished the better, because then you can sit silently without being bothered by the need of anybody else as a companion. You are enough unto yourself, and that is the most important thing for a meditator — the enoughness of aloneness.

But I can understand your problem. Here you must be seeing everybody bringing problems about sex, about their fights. Somebody is completely satisfied; that is his boredom. Somebody is not satisfied; he wants more satisfaction; that is his problem. Somebody is not feeling boredom; that is his problem. Listening to all these problems, naturally anybody will get worried: ‘What is my problem?’ If you don’t have any problem, it certainly means something is wrong with you.

Nothing is wrong with you. Just enjoy being yourself, your meditation, your silence, and let these people pass through their darkness. One day they will all come out of the tunnel; then you can greet them. But, just seeing that everybody is in the tunnel, fighting, shouting...and you are sitting outside the tunnel in the light, in silence; don’t be worried that something seems to be wrong with you too.

All meditators are in the tunnel. Nobody is meditating...but they have all come here to meditate; only I am meditating. Let them play whatever style they want; you simply don’t get distracted from your meditation. You are perfectly right. And all these people are trying to reach to your position. You don’t have to descend into their troubles, into their problems.

You are blessed. It rarely happens, what is happening to you. It happens only because of your past life; there is no other explanation. In your past life you must have been meditating; you must have been with a master; you must have come to a point where sex became meaningless, where the need of the other drops, when you became enough unto yourself and your loneliness changed into aloneness; hence in this life you are carrying all that you have achieved in your past life.

It is because of such experiences that all three eastern religions accepted the idea of reincarnation. Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism have a very logical scientific explanation: that you are carrying a quality that you achieved in your past life. Nothing is lost. Once you have achieved it, it goes on with your consciousness into new lives, into new bodies.

Freedom From The Past, courtesy: Osho International Foundation, www.osho.com

above the attachment to this body.

Anandmurti Gurumaa - Biology Of Physical Attraction

Be balanced and rise above attachment to the body, writes ANANDMURTI GURUMAA.

All our rishis and sages have sanctioned the natural attraction that a man feels for a woman and vice versa. And this is evident in the depiction of the intimate postures in temples like Khajuraho. Even the temples of Ajanta and Ellora depict Shiva and Parvati in sexual communion, but we don’t regard those as obscene or unbefitting.

Temples Of Khajuraho

The temples of Khajuraho are very ancient and were built by Chandela kings. But the caves of Ajanta and Ellora are said to have been built by Buddha’s disciples. How can a male and female disciple of Buddha be shown in intimate postures? The answer to this is that the male disciple was being regarded as Shiva and the female as Parvati and their communion was being depicted as a natural occurrence. This entire world is a product of the natural mating of a male and female. You were born as a result of your parents’ sexual interaction, so how can that be profane? It is certainly not unsanctified, but if sex becomes an obsession for a man or a woman, if the mind continually thinks about sex, then Shankracharya labels that as a grave disease….

What is this body? It is nothing but a bag of bones full of all kinds of repulsive stuff. And you leave remembrance of the Lord in lust for this body? The precious time wasted for getting a moment’s sexual gratification can be utilised in contemplation, meditation and remembrance of the Lord.

It is not that Shankracharya is asking men and women to hate each other or that they shouldn’t get attracted to each other, but what he is advocating is to have a balance and don’t be obsessed with sex. He doesn’t condemn physical attraction, rather he asks us to rise above the attachment to this body. Those couples who have sex in full awareness, they rise way above the binding of lust, like Shiva-Parvati. Just as fire flares up when fuel is poured into it, likewise, sexual gratification further strengthens the desire for sex. And when the body starts to age and cannot keep up with the mental desire for sex, it leads to frustration.

However, man suffers the most from the agony of sexual desires — wealth, fame, greed are dwarfed in comparison to the pain of sexual desires. Even someone like Vishwamitra, who had renounced everything — his family, his kingdom, and all the trappings of wealth — and had gone to the forest to perform austere spiritual practices, got enamoured by the beautiful nymph (apsara). When the beautiful damsel appeared before him whilst he was meditating, he forgot meditation, all the codes of conduct and got so charmed by her that he married her. However, the truth is that this is not only the story of Vishwamitra, rather this pertains to everyone.

 Natural Phenomenon

I reiterate that sexual urge is a natural phenomenon. But the point is that you don’t follow natural laws, do you? You eat when hungry — nothing wrong in that. But what if you constantly think about food, then it becomes a disease. Likewise, sexual interaction between a man and a woman is appropriate when it happens once in a while at the right time, but if one is perpetually thinking about sex, then that is a malaise.

Don’t be obsessed with sex. Be balanced and rise above the attachment to this body.

Osho - Be Ageless

If mirrors disappear, and nobody talks about how old you are, and there is no calendar and no way to measure time, you will remain young, says OSHO.

If you look within, can you feel the age? How old are you? If you close your eyes and look within, the emptiness within seems to be ageless, without age. Are you a child? Are you young? Are you old? The inner space seems to be nontemporal. It is. That’s why you become old through other’s eyes. You become old because of the mirror. If mirrors disappear and nobody talks about your age, and there is no calendar and no way to measure time, you will remain young longer. In the ancient times, people stayed younger for a longer period of time. It is said that they lived for hundreds of years; sometimes even three, four, five hundred years. Now these things look like stories, myths, and fictions. They are not fictions.

They must have lived, but they had nothing to measure time; no mirrors; nobody talked about age; nobody knew when he was born and nobody knew his birthday. They couldn’t count beyond the ten fingers. And nobody ever asked: How old are you? People simply lived not knowing how old they were. And they lived for long. It has happened many times. Just a few days ago, I was reading about a Dutch man. A few years back, he reached 165 years. And he was working at that age, doing everything normally. He lived in a distant village. Then some newspaper got the news; his name was published, his picture, and then people started coming to see him. Then doctors became concerned and they also came to study him. They killed him within two years, because with everybody coming and asking him how old he was, suddenly for the first time, that poor old man became aware that he was 165, which was unbelievable. He had never bothered. He had simply lived, not conscious of time. When you are conscious of time, you are in the grip of death. When you are not conscious of time, death simply cannot enter. It enters through time — death is time. And life is eternal, timeless. You are life, not death. What did the doctors do to that poor old man? They suggested to him: Now you don’t work, you rest, because if you rest, you can live even longer; you may live two centuries, and that will be a phenomenon for medical science! So they helped him to rest. They put him on a bed and they started giving him injections and vitamins. He was dead within two years — he had become so conscious and worried. If you are too concerned with the body, you become the body. If you go on looking in the mirror, you become the body. That’s why women age faster than men. And the miracle is, they live longer than men, but they age faster. On an average, all over the world, they live four years longer than men. However, they lose their beauty and their youth quickly.

The mirror kills them, continuously meditating on the body. Meditate on the inner being, not on the body. Find a mirror that reflects you, not the body. That mirror which reflects you is meditation. The more you meditate, the more ageless you become. Never in the history of man, has he been as helpless before death as he is now; that too with so much progress in medical science. Why such a helplessness? Because you are not in contact with the eternal; your roots are not in the eternal. You have lived a temporal life, and death is the end of time. Not you. If you have lived in time, with time, only with temporal goals, then death is a problem. But if you have lived deeper within yourself, in the remoter mountains where Kakua moved, inside where nobody can visit you, totally alone — then death is not a problem. Because, you know the deathless — it is hidden there. On the surface is time, at the centre is eternity. Remember, eternity is not a long, long time — no. Eternity is no time at all. Eternity means ‘no time’. In the past, only a few people had to wait for death, those who were sentenced to die. They had to wait in the prisons for a few days, just waiting — it was terrible agony. But now, everybody.... even those who are retired, are sentenced to death. They have nothing else to do, just wait. Any moment death will come. Medical science has only increased the agony by prolonging you. They go on giving you injections and vitamins. For what? To wait a little longer? They go on pushing you back in the queue, but you are in the queue. What difference does it make when one has lost everything? And just waiting to die. Never before! That’s why I say that man is so helpless before death. In the east, when death started approaching, people became very happy. Death was a door, it was not the end. Death was a meeting with the Unknown.

Returning to Source, Courtesy Osho International Foundation, www.osho.com

Osho - Celebrate Life Even sadness is beautiful

You can even celebrate misery; it is all in the attitude. For example: you are sad — don’t get identified with sadness. Become a witness and enjoy the moment of sadness, because sadness has its own beauties. You have never watched. You get so identified that you never penetrate the beauties of a sad moment. If you watch, you will be surprised at what treasures you have been missing. Look — when you are happy you are never so deep as when you are sad. Sadness has a depth to it; happiness has shallowness about it. Go and watch happy people. The so-called happy people, the playboys and playgirls — in clubs, hotels, and theatres— are always smiling and bubbling with happiness. You will always find them shallow, superficial. They don’t have any depth. Happiness is like waves just on the surface; you live a shallow life. But sadness has a depth to it. When you are sad it is not like waves on the surface, it is like the very depth of the Pacific Ocean: miles and miles to it. Move into the depth, watch it. Happiness is noisy; sadness has a silence to it.

Happiness may be like the day, sadness is like the night. Happiness may be like the light, sadness is like darkness. Light comes and goes; darkness remains — it is eternal. Light happens sometimes; darkness is always there. If you move into sadness all these things will be felt. Suddenly you will become aware that sadness is there like an object, you are watching and witnessing, and suddenly you start feeling happy. Such a beautiful sadness — a flower of darkness, a flower of eternal depth. Like an abyss without any bottom, so silent, so musical; there is no noise at all, no disturbance. One can go on falling and falling into it endlessly, and one can come out of it absolutely rejuvenated. It is a rest. It depends on the attitude. When you become sad, you think that something bad has happened to you. It is an interpretation, and then you start trying to escape from it. You want to go to somebody: to a party, to the club, or switch on the TV or the radio — something so that you can forget. This is a wrong attitude that sadness is wrong. Nothing is wrong with it. It is another polarity in life. Happiness is one pole, sadness is another. A life only of blissfulness will have extension, but will not have depth. A life of only sadness will have depth, but will not have extension.

A life of both sadness and blissfulness is multidimensional; it moves in all dimensions together. Watch Buddha’s statue — blissful, but still sad. The very word ‘sad’ gives you wrong connotations — that something is wrong. This is your interpretation. To me, life in its totality is good. And when you understand life in its totality, only then can you celebrate; otherwise not. Celebration means: whatsoever happens is irrelevant — I will celebrate. Celebration is unconditional; I celebrate life. It brings unhappiness — good, I celebrate it. It brings happiness — good, I celebrate it. Celebration is my attitude, unconditional to what life brings.

The Alchemy of Yoga, Talk #10, courtesy: Osho International Foundation, www.osho.com

Anandmurti Gurumaa - Who or What is God

It is not about finding the “Answers” to your “Question”, it is about reaching to the state where one has no more “Question”.

This is an interesting question because more than half of the humanity is a believer in God, and every religion has its own definition which is quite different from the definition given by the other religion. This earth is having more than 350 religions, so we can say there are more than 350 kinds of God. And in this whole jamboree of so many plural Gods, one is seemingly so different from the one. It really confuses the mind. Then sometimes one tends to say that there isn’t any God and it’s just the fabrication of the human mind. Some sociologists come out with their own definitions that God is an idea which has been concocted by the priests and by the politicians for selfish interests. For some ulterior motive, God has been created, because God is never going to come up and say ‘I am God’. I’m saying this because God in most of the religions is seen as a person, as a gracious, superman, who sits on his golden thrown. And on whim creates the world and on whim destroys the world. Most of the religions tend to accept this notion of God. So they have their own one kind of idol or an image of God and then they have their own set of rituals, which they believe in with die-hard conviction.

The most important thing which is to be understood is that mind which is already over loaded with information about Gods. It seems so unreal to experience or to know really what God is. And truly speaking, most of the beautiful things in our life and in this world are beyond the category of defining in words like the scent of the best perfume - someone may ask you to describe. You may fill up volumes but in the end you would say please take a whiff from the bottle and that’s the only way to know the smell, the fragrance. 

These are very small things and yet the things which we have been experiencing since day one in this physical body, we find it difficult to describe because all words have limitations. So have the mind and the things which are beyond the mind that words cannot express.

The moment we say, who is God, & so many answers are given, readymade answers, by the scriptures, by the books, by the rabbis, by the priests. And yet the human mind is still hankering for what it really means. I would say this is something which cannot be explained by any enlightened master (living or not living). It is something which one has to delve within and know it what it is. For example, pain is something which you know. What if someone asks you to measure pain, in inches or centimeters? You can’t measure it in inches. We say I have a deep pain, but if someone asks how deep? 100 feet, 500 feet? You say you know what pain is when you experience it.

Similarly, one thing which I can definitely say is that God is not a person; God is not a supreme human being or like a human being sitting somewhere up there on his golden thrown. God is beyond the limitations of the body, of the mind. 

God is a reality; and reality is something which can be much closer to the phenomenon or the relativity of how we perceive things. What we are seeing in this world is so different from what it really is. Similarly, when I say God is reality, this reality is the essence. And the essence is of the truth and truth over here is not that truth which we use in our day-to-day life. When I say truth, it means existence.

So, if I have to put this in words, then I say God is the existential truth which can be known only by experience. And this experience will only happen to those who have a scientific aptitude and work like an explorer, who explores the depth and the breadth of the mind and explores these layers of mind. One ends up with that oceanic feeling of consciousness. 

Initially, it is sleeping and slowly it begins to rise and in those moments of gaps which come in between of the waves of the mind, these waves of the consciousness, something peeps up and that gives the first glimpse of what truth is or what God is but that definitely is not a form. It is not imaginative. It is as much real as you or I. We can deny the existence of everything but we can never deny the existence of our own self. So we need to know what this self is. We need to understand not just by mind, not just by words, not just by scriptures but with experience. And this experience comes from meditation.

Why are we in this world & with what purpose?

We are here because we are here! There can’t be any cause and there can’t be any purpose. Because all purposes are very calculative, selfish modes of the mind and when this selfishness creeps in, it is not higher thinking. Just look at the world around you, so beautiful, beauty in abundance; it is so luminous, so colorful, & full of rainbows. It is just like a dance of a dancer, not of that dancer who is a professional because a professional dancer wants fee. It is more like a dance of a child who is just jumping around and if you ask a child what’s the purpose of your jumping? What’s the purpose of your dancing? He’ll just give a very awkward look and would like to ask you, can’t you see that I’m dancing because I’m enjoying dancing.

So, this life is here and this world is here because it is the dance of the divine, without any purpose, without any ulterior motive. The scriptures provide us with many fascinating answers that God was alone and was lonely and he said okay let me do something. He got so bored of his loneliness, he created this world. So he created first Adam, and then out of Adam came Eve and so on.

Most of the religions say so and they always say there is a purpose of our coming here. For example, they’ll say the purpose is to know who our creator is. I find this strange. Imagine, first the creator creates us, & then he separates us from himself and now wants us to go back to him. I say, why start this in the first place? Rather I would say that there isn’t any purpose.

We can say life is because life should be like this. In these very moments of beauty, of grandeur, of purity we are able to experience all this, then we will never ask this question, why? We never ask any one why you are happy. If someone is happy, you just join him. But if someone is sad, then you ask him, why are you unhappy? I believe those who have experienced beauty and truth never ask the purpose of life. They are already enjoying it, celebrating life.

Those who are sad have loads of unfulfilled desires always ask why I am here. Have you ever met anyone who is happy & who would say why I am happy? People always say why they are sad but never why they are happy. This life, this world is a celebration, a celebration of happiness. It is a sheer irony that out of all the animals, only human beings are the most sorrowful. See the birds, they are always chirping and dancing and fluffing around. See the peacocks, the cows, see the whole animal world. 

They are all happy, they have there innocence and somewhere their ignorance is working in their favor. They are calmer, quieter and peaceful; a human being is not. Human beings are not happy because they ask too many questions. A day when all these questions simply drop and we drop all the facades, we drop all of these blindfolds, and then we’ll open up for the first time & see this world. Then we never ask this question.

Here I would quote Rabindranath Tagore who said: “Why shouldn’t I be here?”

Osho - Free Your Children Of Inhibitions

OSHO tells us how best to introduce children to the world of sex, so that they can rise above it & transform

The first step to free the world from sexuality is to allow children to remain nude, as much as possible, in the home. As far as it is feasible, it is advisable to allow children, both boys & girls, to play in the nude, so that they become totally acquainted with each other’s bodies. Then, later, there will be no necessity for them to snuggle up to each other in the streets. There will be no need to print nude pictures in books. They will be so familiar with each other’s bodies, that no kind of perverted attraction will be possible in the future. But the way of the world is just the opposite. The people who have covered & concealed the body have unwittingly created so great an attraction for it that, although it has overtaken our minds, we still haven’t felt the full impact. But the disease is already there, and it is increasing. The existence of the disease can be observed in the bulk of obscene literature now being published.

Sex is natural, but sexuality is the product of anti-sex teachings. If these teachings are followed, if the advice given in these unscientific sermons is taken, the soul of man will be totally filled with sexuality. If man understands sex properly, he can rise above it. He should rise above it; it is necessary that he rises above it. All our efforts to date have borne wrong results because we have not befriended sex but have declared war on it; we have used suppression and lack of understanding as ways of dealing with sex problems. The deeper a man’s understanding, the higher he can rise above sex; the less his understanding, the greater his attempts to suppress sex will be. And the results of repression are never fruitful, never pleasing, and never healthy.

Sex is man’s most vibrant energy, but it should not be an end unto itself: sex should lead man to his soul. The goal is from “Lust to Light”. To attain to celibacy, sex must be understood. To know sex is to be free of it, to transcend it; but even after a lifetime of sexual experience, man is not able to detect that intercourse gives him a fleeting experience of samadhi, a peek into super consciousness. That is the great pull of sex; that is the great allure of sex: it is the magnetic attraction of the Supreme. You have to know and to meditate upon this momentary glimpse; you have to focus on it with awareness.

One friend wrote to say that he found my topic very embarrassing. Further, he advised me that such things should not be discussed in public.
 I replied, if a mother is sensible, she will relate her experiences of sex to her daughter in time, before she goes astray.... If a father is sensitive, he must freely discuss the subject with his son and daughter — to warn them against the common pitfalls and to save their lives from possible perversion in the future. But the irony of the situation is that neither the father nor the mother has any deep, conscious experience in the matter. They themselves haven’t risen above the level of physical sex, and so they fear their children may become entangled at the same level as well. But, I ask you, did anybody guide you? You have entangled yourself. And your children will also entangle themselves. And it will be repeated in the second and third generations and so forth. But isn’t it possible if your children are spoken to, if they are taught, if they are allowed to think freely for themselves, that they may save themselves from dissipating their energy? They may conserve their energy. And they may transform it.Osho - Free Your Children Of Inhibitions

Anandmurti Gurumaa - Unite Your Inner Energies

Complete celibacy happens when the inner Shiva & Shakti unite, writes ANANDMURTI GURUMAA.

Krishna says that one who is not dependent on anyone, whose mind is free from all cravings and aversions, when such a person interacts through his sense organs, and then despite enjoying the sensory objects, he attains inner bliss. This is completely different to the one who has forcibly suppressed his sense organs and whose mind is full of attachment, his intellect will be deluded and will remain so. Krishna says that the grace of Self-realization purifies the intellect and destroys all suffering and leads to inner bliss. This bliss is not dependent on the external world. See, if any man wants to get sexual pleasure from a woman, he will have to please her. But the one whose kundalini has been awakened and who has obtained inner bliss, why would he need anyone? The Chinese mention yin and yang energies which refer to the female and male energy present in the body. By performing practices to awaken the chakras and kundalini, union occurs between yin and yang and it is this union that leads to orgasmic experiences. Then there is no need for any other male or female body, the inner male and female energies unite. The female energy is Prakriti (nature) and the male energy is Shivatattva.

The union between Shiva and Shakti within our body leads to the arising of greatest possible bliss. The female energy is in the Mooladhara Chakra and the male energy is in the Sahasrara. Shiva will not come down to Shakti in the mooladhara chakra, rather the female energy has to rise up to the sahasrara. The one whose kundalini has been awakened and Shiva and Shakti have united, he becomes the supreme bliss. Now for such a yogi, will there be any attraction left for the lump of clay, which is the body? And it is from here that complete celibacy blossoms. Celibacy is not forcible repression of sense organs nor is it running away from the world to live in seclusion. Complete celibacy happens when the inner Shiva and Shakti unite.… A disciple told his master that he was getting sexual thoughts on seeing a woman who resided in the same ashram. He asked his master as to what should he do. The master replied that he should go to the woman and honestly tell her that he was getting those thoughts on seeing her. She should also know. The disciple protested, “Master! How is this possible? ”The master replied, “Just as you came and told me, go and tell her in the same way.” If you go and confess this to the other person, then will the stream of sexual thoughts still arise in your mind? See, it is nothing; all you need to do is be aware. For example, if someone is getting hiccups, you divert his attention suddenly, hiccups will stop.

Tulsidas’s wife had used the same ploy. Tulsidas had been so overcome by lust that in the middle of the night and heavy rain, he sat on a floating dead body, crossed the river and used a snake as a rope to climb up to his wife’s room. And his wife’s statement shamed him when she said, “If you had loved Lord Ram this much, you would have been liberated by now.” On listening to his wife’s words, Tulsidas’s sexual desire evaporated forever. Let me reiterate, there is nothing wrong or bad in this world. The sexual urge arising in your body and mind has also been given to you by nature, you have not created it. This too is an energy which should be utilized with proper understanding. One can become a great yogi, if one knows how to utilize this energy.