Friday 1 March 2013

Whenever you feel a problem, look within your heart. If you are at ease, you are on the right path


BELOVED OSHO,
YOU ONCE TOLD ME TO OPEN ALL MY WINDOWS SO I COULD HAVE THE SUNRISE IN THE EAST, AND THE SUNSET IN THE WEST. I FEEL SO MANY POSSIBILITIES INSIDE ME THAT I OFTEN DON'T TAKE ENOUGH TIME TO EXPLORE THEM IN DEPTH; RATHER, I FEEL THAT BY SIMPLY TOUCHING ON THEM I KNOW THEM ALREADY SO WELL THAT I FEEL THE URGE TO MOVE ONTO THE NEXT ONE. IT SEEMS LIFE IS TOO SHORT, AND SO MUCH STILL NEEDS TO BE DISCOVERED AND DEVELOPED. AM I SUPERFICIAL AND TOO MUCH IN A HURRY? THE ONLY CONTINUITY IN MY LIFE IS YOU, AND I FEEL I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO TOUCH YOUR DEPTH. PLEASE, BELOVED MASTER, GIVE SOME GUIDANCE TO ME.

Indradhanu, everybody has to go according to his own heart feeling; if you feel at ease to ove from one thing to another, it is perfectly right for you. The whole question is that whatever you do should be a deep pleasure, without any tension. If you force yourself to explore any possibility more deeply, you may create tension in yourself. If it feels enough, that touching a certain possibility has given you enough juice to move on, then move on. Perhaps that is natural; to you that is your natural pace One should never go against one's nature. That is the only sin, according to me, to go against one's nature; and the only virtue is to go with your nature in total harmony. And never compare yourself with others; everybody is different, and everybody's liking is different. Once you start comparing, thinking that, "Somebody is going deeper into things, moving more slowly, and I am moving faster," then tension will arise in you: "Perhaps I am hurrying too much." All these tensions arise out of comparison. Remember one thing: You have to be in tune with your own nature, not in tune with anybody else. So always feel within yourself. If it is pleasant, do it. If it feels tense, forced, then it is not for you. Don't do it. Always go with the river of life. Never try to go against the current, and never try to go faster than the river. Just move in absolute relaxation, so that each moment you are at home, at ease, at peace with existence. The second thing you have to remember is that life is not short; life is eternal, so there is no question of any hurry. By hurrying you can only miss. In existence do you see any hurry? Seasons come in their time, flowers come in their time, trees are not running to grow fast because life is short. It seems as if the whole existence is aware of the eternity of life. We have been here always, and we will be here always -- of course not in the same forms, and not in the same bodies. Life goes on evolving,  reaching to higher stages. But there is no end anywhere, and there has been no beginning anywhere either. You exist between a beginningless life and an endless life. You are always in the middle of two eternities on both sides. Your conditioning has given you the idea of one life. The Christian idea, the Jewish idea, the Mohammedan idea -- which are all rooted in the Jewish conception that there is only one life -- has given the West a tremendous madness for speed. Everything has to be done in such a hurry that you cannot enjoy doing it, and you cannot do it in its entire perfection. You somehow manage to do it and rush to another thing. The Western man has been living under a very wrong conception: It has created so much tension in people's minds that they can never be at ease anywhere; they are always on the go, and they are always worried that one never knows when the end is coming. Before the end they want to do everything. But the result is just the opposite; they cannot even manage to do a few things gracefully, beautifully, perfectly. Their life is so much overshadowed by death that they cannot live joyously. Everything that brings joy seems to be a wastage of time. They cannot just sit silently for an hour, because their mind is saying to them, "Why are you wasting the hour? You could have done this, you could have done that." It is because of this conception of one life that the idea of meditation never arose in the West. Meditation needs a very relaxed mind, with no hurry, with no worry, with nowhere to go... just enjoying moment to moment,  whatever comes. In the East, meditation was bound to be discovered, just because of the idea of life's eternity -- you can relax. You can relax without any fear, you can enjoy and play your flute, you can dance and sing your song, you can enjoy the sunrise and the sunset. You can enjoy your whole life. Not only that, you can enjoy even dying, because death too is a great experience, perhaps the greatest experience in life. It is a crescendo. In the Western concept, death is the end of life. In the Eastern concept, death is only a beautiful incident in the long procession of life; there will be many, many deaths. Each death is a climax of your life, before another life begins -- another form, another label, another consciousness. You are not ending, you are simply changing the house. I am reminded of Mulla Nasruddin. A thief entered into his house; Mulla was sleeping, not really, just with closed eyes, in between opening them and seeing what the thief is doing. But he did not believe in interfering in people's work. The thief was not interfering with his sleep, why should he interfere with his profession? Let him do it. The thief was a little concerned that this man seemed to be strange. As he was carrying everything out of the house, sometimes something fell from his hands and there was noise, but Mulla remained completely asleep. A suspicion arose in the thief's mind that this type of sleep is possible only if a man is awake: "What a strange man that he does not say anything; I'm just emptying his whole house!." All the furniture went out, all the pillows went out, everything that was in the house went out. And when the thief was collecting everything, binding them to carry home, he suddenly felt, "Somebody is following me." He looked back, it was the same man who was asleep. He said, "Why are you following me?" Mulla said, "No, I'm not following you; we are changing the house. You have taken everything. Now what am I going to do in this house? So I am also coming." This at-easeness is the Eastern  way; even with death the East has followed the idea... just changing the house. The thief was worried; he said, "Forgive me, take your things." Mulla said, "No, there is no need. I was thinking myself to change the house; it is almost in ruins. You can't have a worse house than this, and anyway I am a very lazy man. I need somebody to take care of me, and when you have taken everything, why leave me alone?" The thief became afraid that... he had been stealing his whole life. He had never come across such a man. He said, "You can take your things."
Mulla said, "No, there is not going to be any change. You will have to carry the things, otherwise I am going to the police station. I am behaving like a gentleman, I am not calling you a thief, but just a man who is helping me to change the house." There is no hurry, so your idea of a short life is a dangerous idea. That's why even though the East is very poor, there is no despair, there is no anguish. The West is rich, but the richness has not brought anything to its spirituality, or its growth; on the contrary, the West is very tense. It should be more relaxed, it has all the comforts of life. But the basic problem is that deep down the West knows that life is such a short thing; we are standing in a queue, and every moment we are coming closer to death. Since we were born, we started the journey towards the graveyard. Every moment life is being cut --becoming shorter and  shorter. This creates a tension, an anguish, an anxiety. All the comforts, all the luxuries, all the riches become meaningless, because you cannot take them away with you. You will have to go into death alone. 
The East is relaxed. First, it does not give death any importance; it is just a change of form. Second, because it is so relaxed, you become aware of your inner riches, which will be going with you -- even beyond life. Death cannot take them away. Death can take everything that is outside you and, if you have not grown your inner being, naturally there will be fear that you cannot save anything from death; it will take everything that you have. But if you have grown your inner being, if you have found peace, blissfulness, silence, joy, which are not dependent on anything outside, if you have found your garden of being and seen the flowers of your own consciousness, the question of fearing death does not arise at all. Indradhanu, again I say to you, remember only one thing: You are an immortal being. Right now, it is not your experience; right now, if you love me, if you have any trust in me, you can accept it as a hypothesis -- not as a belief, but a hypothesis to experiment with.
I never want anybody to accept anything from me as a belief, but only as a hypothesis. Because I know the truth of it, I need not enforce belief and faith on you. Knowing the truth I can say to you, "It is just for experiment, a temporary hypothesis," because I am absolutely certain that if your experiment, your  hypothesis will change into your own knowing -- not in a belief, not in a faith, but in a certainty. And only certainties can save you. Beliefs are boats made of paper. One should not think that one can cross the ocean of existence on a boat made of paper. You need a certainty... not a belief, but a truth that is experienced by yourself. Not somebody else's truth, but your own. Then it is a joy to go into the unknown, uncharted ocean; it is a tremendous excitement and ecstasy. But always keep in tune with your own nature. Some trees grow slowly, some trees grow fast; there is nothing special in growing fast or in growing slowly. One thing is similar to both trees -- they are both following their natures. It is only man who looks all around, starts comparing, and gets into unnecessary anxieties.
Whenever you feel a problem, look within your heart. If you are at ease, you are on the right path. Your heart is the criterion. If it is disturbed, that means you have to change the path; something has gone wrong, you have gone astray. The heart is your guide. When it is completely in harmony with nature, there is a beautiful dance and a music in your heart. When you go away from nature the music becomes just noise, the dance becomes disturbed. These are the signs and the language of the heart to make you aware whether you are going right or wrong. You don't need any guidance from anybody. Your guide is within yourself.

Osho: The Golden Future




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