Osho : The Bhagwan Rajnish

OSHO
Never Born - Never Died
Only Visited this
Planet Earth between
December 11, 1931 - January 19, 1990

Osho is a visionary enlightened mystic of the new age. He spoke on a vast range of subjects including the talks of many mystics of the past and revived their teachings that are transcribed and published in over 650 books and are translated in many languages. He shared the essence of different meditation techniques and paths leading to inner transformation and developed His unique dynamic meditation methods that help the modern man unburden his anxieties and stress through a deep cleansing process in order to achieve a relaxed state of meditation and ultimately - Enlightenment. His basic message is the synthesis of the material and spiritual worlds, the culmination into Zorba the Buddha, a life full of YES and Celebration! Following are some of the highlights in a chronological manner.

December 11,1931: Osho is born in Kuchwada, a small village in the state of Madhya Pradesh, central India. He is the eldest of eleven children of a Jaina cloth merchant. Stories of His early years describe Him as independent and rebellious as a child, questioning all social, religious and philosophical beliefs. As a youth He experiments with meditation techniques.

March 21, 1953: Osho becomes enlightened at the age of twenty-one, while majoring in philosophy at D.N. Jain college in Jabalpur. In the East, enlightenment is described as a state of ultimate and total consciousness or awareness, as attained by Gautama Buddha, Socrates, and others. Western concepts of "enlightened" connoting "modern" and "the Enlightenment," indicating 18th century European intellectual ferment are only linguistically similar.

1956: Osho receives His M.A. from the University of Sagar with First Class Honors in Philosophy. He is the All-India Debating Champion and Gold Medal winner in His graduating class.

1957-1968: University Professor and Public Speaker.

1957: Osho is appointed as a professor at the Sanskrit College in Raipur.

1958: He is appointed Professor of Philosophy at the University of Jabalpur, where He taught until 1966. A powerful and passionate debater, He also travels widely in India, speaking to large audiences and challenging orthodox religious leaders in public debates.

Late 1960's: His Hindi talks become available in English translations.

1966: After nine years of teaching, He leaves the university to devote Himself entirely to the raising of human consciousness. on a regular basis, He begins to address gatherings 20,000 to 50,000 in the open-air maidans of India's major cities. Four times a year He conducts intense ten-day meditation camps.

1970: In July, 1970, He moves to Bombay, where He lives until 1974.

In 1970, the 14th of April, He introduces His revolutionary meditation technique, dynamic Meditation, which begins with a period of uninhibited movement and catharsis, followed by a period of silence and stillness. Since then this meditation technique has been used by psychotherapists, medical doctors, teachers and other professionals around the world.

Osho - at this time called Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh - begins to initiate seekers into Neo-Sannyas or discipleship, a path of commitment to self-exploration and meditation which does not involve renouncing the world or anything else. Osho's understanding of 'renunciation' is a radical departure from the traditional Eastern viewpoint. For Him it is not the material world that needs to be renounced but our past and the conditionings and belief systems that each generation imposes on the next. He continues to conduct meditation camps at Mount Abu in Rajasthan but stops accepting invitations to speak throughout the country. He devotes his energies entirely to the rapidly expanding group of sannyasins around Him.

At this time, the first Westerners begin to arrive and to be initiated into Neo-Sannyas. Among them are leading psychotherapists from the human potential movement in Europe and America, seeking the next step in their own inner growth. With Osho they experience new, original meditation techniques for contemporary man, synthesizing the wisdom of the East with the science of the West.

1974 - 1981: During these seven years He gives a 90 minutes discourse nearly every morning, alternating every month between Hindi and English. His discourses offer insights into all the major spiritual paths, including Yoga, Zen, Taoism, Tantra and Sufism. He also speaks on Gautam Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tzu, and other mystics. These discourses have been collected into over 300 volumes and translated into 20 languages.

In the evenings, during these years, He answers questions on personal matters such as love, jealousy, meditation. These 'darshans' are compiled in 64 darshan diaries of which 40 are published.

The commune that arose around Osho at this time offers a wide variety of therapy groups which combine Eastern meditation techniques with Western psychotherapy. Therapists from all over the world are attracted and by 1980 the international community gained a reputation as ' the world's finest growth and therapy center." One hundred thousand people pass through its gates each year.

1981: He develops a degenerative back condition. In March 1981, after giving daily discourses for nearly 15 years, Osho begins a three-year period of self-imposed public silence. In view of the possible need for emergency surgery, and on the recommendation of His personal doctors, He travels to the U.S.

This same year, His American disciples purchase a 64,000-acre ranch in Oregon and invite Him to visit. He eventually agrees to stay in the U.S. and allows an application for permanent residence to be filed on His behalf.

A model agricultural commune rises from the ruins of the central Oregonian high desert. Thousands of overgrazed and economically unviable acres are reclaimed. The city of Rajneeshpuram is incorporated and eventually provides services to 5,000 residents. Annual summer festivals are held which draw 15,000 visitors from all over the world. Very quickly, Rajneeshpuram becomes the largest and most controversial spiritual community ever pioneered in America.

Opposition to the commune and new city keeps pace with its success. Responding to the anti-cult fervor which pervades all levels of American society during the Reagan years, local, state and federal politicians make inflammatory speeches against the Rajneeshees. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), the Treasury Department, and the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Agency (ATF) are only a few of the agencies spending millions of dollars in taxpayers' money while harassing the commune with unwarranted and fruitless investigations. Similar costly campaigns are conducted in Oregon.

October 1984: Osho ends three and one half years of self-imposed silence, and begins speaking to small groups of people who gather at His residence.

July 1985: He resumes His public discourses each morning to thousands of seekers gathered in a two-acre meditation hall.

Sept. - Oct. 1985: The Oregon Commune is Destroyed.

September 14, 1985: Osho's personal secretary and several members of the commune's management suddenly leave, and a whole pattern of illegal acts they have committed - including poisoning, arson, wiretapping, and attempted murder - are exposed. Osho invites law enforcement officials to investigate Sheela's crimes. The authorities, however, see the investigation as a golden opportunity to destroy the commune entirely.

October 23, 1985: A U.S. federal grand jury in Portland secretly indicts Osho and 7 others on relatively minor charges of immigration fraud.

October 28, 1985: Without warrants, federal and local officials arrest at gun point Osho and others in Charlotte, North Carolina. While the others are released, He is held without bail for twelve days. A five-hour return plane trip to Oregon takes four days. En route, Osho is held incommunicado and forced to register under the pseudonym, David Washington, in the Oklahoma County jail. Subsequent events indicate that it is probable that He was poisoned with the heavy metal thallium while in that jail and the El Reno Federal Penitentiary.

November 1985: Emotions and publicity swell around Osho's immigration case. Fearing for His life and the well-being of sannyasins in volatile Oregon, attorneys agree to an Alford Plea on two out of 35 of the original charges against Him. According to the rules of the plea, the defendant maintains innocence while saying that the prosecution could have convicted him. Osho and His attorneys maintain His innocence in the court. He is fined $400,000 and is deported from America.

Among others, U.S. Attorney in Portland, Charles Turner, publicly concedes that the government was intent on destroying Rajneeshpuram.

December 1985: The Indian government attempts to isolate Him by canceling the visas issued to his personal household staff.

January-February 1986: He travels to Kathmandu, Nepal and speaks twice daily for the next two months. In February, the Nepalese government refuses visas for His visitors and closest attendants. He leaves Nepal and embarks on a world tour.

February-March 1986: At His first stop, Greece, he is granted a 30-day tourist visa. But after only 18 days, on March 5, Greek police forcibly break into the house where He is staying, arrest Him at gun point, and deport him. Greek media reports indicate government and church pressure provoked the police intervention.

During the following two weeks He visits or asks permission to visit 17 countries in Europe and the Americas. All of these countries either refuse to grant Him a visitor's visa or revoke His visa upon His arrival, and force Him to leave. Some refuse even landing permission for His plane.

March-June 1986: On March 19 He travels to Uruguay. On May 14th the government has scheduled a press conference to announce that He will be granted permanent residence in Uruguay. Uruguay's President Sanguinetti later admits that he received a telephone call from Washington, D.C. the night before the press conference. He is told that if Osho is allowed to stay in Uruguay, the six billion dollar debt Uruguay owes to the U.S. will be due immediately and no further loans will be granted. Osho is ordered to leave Uruguay on June 18th.

June-July 1986: During the next month He is deported from both Jamaica and Portugal. In all, 21 countries had denied Him entry or deported Him after arrival. On July 29,1986, He returns to Bombay, India.

January 1987: He returns to the ashram in Poona, India, which is renamed Rajneeshdham. The Indian government resumes its policy of denying visas to known friends of Osho.

July 1988: Osho begins, for the first time in 14 years, to personally lead the meditation at the end of each evening's discourse. He also introduces a revolutionary new meditation technique called The Mystic Rose.

January-February 1989: He stops using the name "Bhagwan," retaining only the name Rajneesh. However, His disciples ask to call Him 'Osho' and He accepts this form of address. Osho explains that His name is derived from William James' word 'oceanic' which means dissolving into the ocean. Oceanic describes the experience, He says, but what about the experiencer? For that we use the word 'Osho.' Later, He came to find out that 'Osho' has also been used historically in the Far East, meaning "The Blessed One, on Whom the Sky Showers Flowers."

March-June 1989: Osho is resting to recover from the effects of the poisoning, which by now are strongly influencing His health.

July 1989: His health is getting better and He makes two appearances for silent darshans during the Festival, now renamed Osho Full Moon Celebration.

August 1989: Osho begins to make daily appearances in Gautama the Buddha Auditorium for evening darshan. He sits in silence while music is played, explaining: "That which cannot be said has to be experienced. This is a great experience of getting into an inner, meditative space." He also inaugurates a special group of white-robed sannyasins called the "Osho White Robe Brotherhood." All sannyasins and non-sannyasins attending the evening darshans are asked to wear white robes. Osho has said that "There is a mystical gathering of energy in these robes; day by day, they gather more potential."

On the second weekend of every month, three-day meditation camps are held, using the unique meditation techniques devised by Osho. All participants are asked to wear maroon robes. In a further development, Osho suggests that sannyasins working in the ashram should also wear maroon, so in the day the commune is filled with maroon-robed people and in the evening with white-robed people.

September 1989: Osho drops the name "Rajneesh," signifying His complete discontinuity from the past. He is known simply as "Osho," and the ashram is renamed "Osho Commune International."

January 1990: During the second week in January, Osho's body becomes noticeably weaker. On January 18, He is so physically weak that He is unable to come to Gautama the Buddha Auditorium. On January 19, His pulse becomes irregular. When His doctor inquires whether they should prepare for cardiac resuscitation, Osho says, "No, just let me go. Existence decides its timing." He leaves His body at 5 p.m. At 7 p.m. His body is brought to Gautama the Buddha Auditorium for a celebration, and is then carried to the burning ghats for cremation. Two days later, His ashes are brought to Osho Commune International and placed in His samadhi in Chuang Tzu Auditorium. In the days that follow, thousands of sannyasins and lovers fly in from around the world to celebrate and absorb the atmosphere of love and meditation that is the fragrance of Osho.

Just before His departure from the body, Osho says: "Never speak of me in the past tense. My presence here will be many times greater without the burden of my tortured body. Remind my people that they will feel much more-they will know immediately." Osho also talks about how He wants the expansion of the work to continue. He says that now that he is leaving His body, many more people would come, many more people's interest would show, and His work would expand incredibly beyond our ideas. Then He says: "I leave you my dream."

In 1980, in answer to the question, "What happens when you leave your body?" Osho replies, "I will be dissolved in my people. Just as you can taste the sea from any place and it is salty, you will be able to taste any of my sannyasins and you will find the same taste: the taste of the Blessed One.... I am preparing my people to live joyously, ecstatically. So when I am not in my body, it won't make any difference to them. They will still live the same way - and maybe my death will bring them more intensity."

In 1989 He responded to a similar question from Italian TV, saying, "I believe and trust absolutely in existence. If there is any truth in what I am saying, it will survive. The people who remain interested in my work will be simply carrying the torch, but not imposing anything on anyone, either by sword or bread. I will remain a source of inspiration to my people and that is what most sannyasins will feel. I want them to grow on their own. Qualities like love, around which no church can be created, like awareness, qualities which are nobody's monopoly, like celebration, rejoicing, and maintaining childlike fresh eyes. I want people to know themselves not to be according to someone else, and the way is in."

Friday, December 18, 2009

Some Fact About Sex

You are obsessed with sex because you don’t know any other sort of celebration. So the problem is not sex really; the problem is that you don’t know any other celebration. Nature allows you only one joy, and that is of sex. Nature allows you only one enjoyment, that is of sex. Nature allows you only one thrill, and that is of sex.
In the sexual act you have a certain thrill, a moment of forgetfulness, a moment of oblivion. You feel good — for a few seconds, only for a few seconds, you drop out of this routine world. Sex gives you a door to escape into some other world — which is non-tense; there is no worry; you are simply relaxed and melting. But have you observed? After each sexual act you feel frustrated.
Sex creates neurosis, it is neurotic, because it can never satisfy you. Now, go to the madhouses of the world and just watch the mad people, and you will always find that somewhere or other there is a sexual problem. That’s what Freud says, that ALL pathology is somehow connected with sex. Too much sex obsession becomes neurotic. If you live in the body, you are bound to become neurotic. You have to go a little deeper and higher than the body.
Whenever a person starts condemning sex, somewhere he must be carrying a jealousy. Buddha is not condemning. He is simply factual. He simply says whatsoever is the case. And he wants you to come out of it because your destiny is bigger, higher is the potentiality.
Animals have sex but no sexuality. Man has sex plus sexuality. Sex is physical, sexuality is mental — and when you talk, your talk can be sexual. Animals have sex; that’s a physiological act. They don’t talk, they don’t have any language; but man has language, and language is one of the most powerful instruments in the hands of man. You communicate through it, you relate through it. You seduce through words, you insult through words; you show your love through words, you show your hate through words. You repel or attract through your words.
In sex there may be relaxation. In sex there may be physiological health and hygiene. But there is no growth. You remain animal. With love you become human. With love you become upright. With love you stand erect on earth. With sex you are again animal, you are horizontal on the earth, just moving like other animals, crawling. With love you are erect, vertical.
Real awareness always leads you beyond sex, and celibacy happens on its own accord. Because to be in sex you have either to be identified with the male or identified with the female. A real celibate is one who has gone beyond, who is neither.
Repression can never bring freedom. Repression makes you a slave. Repress anything, and that will become your master. So the so-called celibates in the monasteries — the BRAHMACHARIS — they are continuously obsessed with sex. Their whole obsession is sex, their mind is completely sexual — it has to be so. Or, if you are mad, and you are REALLY against the body and you start destroying the body, the only thing that you can succeed in will be that you will become a eunuch.
Love goes beyond polarity, sex remains below polarity. Sex needs the opposite, love does not need the opposite. Hence, in sex there is always a subtle conflict, because with the opposite the harmony can never be total. For moments maybe… again the conflict comes in.
Love is unconditional, sex is conditional. In sex there is a give and take. In love, you simply pour. You don’t ask, there is no demand. Not that you don’t get — you get a thousandfold — but that is not asked for. That simply comes on its own accord: the whole existence showers back, echoes back.
Now, one thing to be remembered always: if you are not very alert you may go on believing that you are moving into tantra, and you may be simply rationalizing your sexuality — it may be nothing but sex, rationalized in the terminology of tantra. If you move into sex with awareness, it can turn into tantra. If you move into tantra with unawareness, it can fall and become ordinary sex. It has happened in India — because only India has tried it.
Sex energy is just at the source of the spine. If a child is taught from the very beginning to be against sex…. Sex is sin, and sex has to be destroyed, or at least controlled — never allowed to go too far, never allowed to be spontaneous; has to be put under many controls, laws, regulations. These laws, regulations, suppressions, they become the buffer: the kundabuffer is created. Then sex energy remains repressed at the source of the spine and does not rise in the spine. That’s what they say in the East: Once the sex energy rises in the spine, you start becoming very very happy. When the sex energy reaches to the seventh — SAHASRAR — you flower into a lotus bloom. Your life then is a deep ecstasy.
Awareness is the true path. Neither indulge nor renounce, but be aware. Do whatsoever you are doing — do it with full awareness. If you move into passion, move with awareness; and passion becomes prayer, and passion has a totally different quality to it. In the East we have called that quality tantra. The same sex is no longer sex — it is no longer sexual at all. Once you move into your passion with awareness, you have changed the very quality of it. It is no longer just physical, it is no longer just a physical release; it is a very deep experience of life. It is a tremendous experience of no-mind. It is a door towards the greatest space possible.
In deep orgasm, if you are aware, you will know for the first time what ecstasy is. Otherwise you have only heard the word; you have not known its meaning. Only in deep orgasm, if you are aware, if your flame of awareness is burning bright, will you be able to know that sex is not just sex. Sex is the outermost layer; deep inside is love; and even deeper is prayer; and deepest is God himself. Sex can become a cosmic experience; then it is tantra. Sex plus awareness… and something tremendous starts changing.
When sex becomes an obsession, it takes perverted forms

Some Fact About Marriage

Only fools think in terms of legality; otherwise, love is enough. And I am not against marriage — I am for love. If love becomes your marriage, good; but don’t hope that marriage can bring love. That is not possible. Love can become a marriage. You have to work very consciously to transform your love into a marriage.
Marriage is a totally different phenomenon: it is the climax of love. Then it is good. I am not against marriage — I am for the REAL marriage. I am against the false, the pseudo, that exists. But it is an arrangement. It gives you a certain security, safety, occupation. It keeps you engaged. Otherwise, it gives you no enrichment, it gives you no nourishment.
Marriage has made love disappear badly, marriage has made love disappear from the earth. Because for other considerations marriage is arranged — money, finance, family, prestige, astrology — all absurd. They have nothing to do with the heart of the two persons who are going to be married. So marriage is almost always a failure; only in rare accidents it is not so — but they are accidents, exceptions. They cannot be counted. Marriage is always on the rocks, because it is for wrong reasons. Only love can become the foundation of a real marriage, there is no other way. Because there is no other way to find that your wave length is exactly the same as the other’s, that you vibrate in the same way as the other. There is no other way to find it out.
Be a little aware before you are trapped! Marriage is a trap: you will be trapped by the woman and the woman will be trapped by you. It is a mutual trap. And then legally you are allowed to torture each other forever.
The first thing is love: love deeply. If you have been with a person for a few years, in deep love, and you have experienced all the joys and all the miseries, and still you decide to be with the person, then marriage is okay. Because marriage is only a legal arrangement, it cannot make anything more beautiful than it is. It can only make it ugly, it cannot beautify it. Once it is settled legally, once you start taking each other for granted, things will start going down rather than rising high.
I have never said that love is destroyed by marriage. How can marriage destroy love? Yes, it is destroyed in marriage, but it is destroyed by you, not by marriage. It is destroyed by the partners. How can marriage destroy love? It is you who destroy it, because you don’t know what love is. You simply pretend to know, you simply hope that you know, you dream that you know, but you don’t know what love is. Love has to be learned; it is the greatest art there is.
Your marriage is a subtle politics of domination. Your fatherhood, motherhood, is a subtle politics.
Love marriage’ came into existence but is not going to survive, for the simple reason that love comes, happens, and one day suddenly goes. It was not in your hands to bring it; neither is it in your hands to keep it. The old marriage failed because the insistence was that you should love your wife, you should love your husband. It was a `should’. And you could not even conceive how you could love; at the most you could pretend, you could act. But love is not a pretension, is not an acting. You cannot do anything. You are absolutely powerless as far as love is concerned. The old marriage failed. The new marriage is failing because the new marriage is simply a reaction to the old marriage. It is not out of understanding, but only out of reaction, revolt — `love marriage.’
One should marry only when one is wise enough. Marriage is not for young people. For young people is to fool around. Marriage is for those who have experienced life in many ways, who have seen all the colors, the whole spectrum of it, and are now ready to settle.
I am all for love, because love fails. You will be surprised — I have my own logic. I am all for love, because love fails. I am not for marriage, because marriage succeeds; it gives you a permanent settlement. And that is the danger: you become satisfied with a toy, you become satisfied with something plastic, artificial, manmade.
But I am all for love, and I am against marriage, particularly the arranged kind, because the arranged marriage gives you satisfaction. And love? — love can never satisfy you. It gives you more and more thirst for a better and better love, it makes you more and more long for it, it gives you tremendous discontentment. And that discontent is the beginning of the search for God. When love fails many times, you start looking for a new kind of lover, a new kind of love, a new quality of love. That love affair is prayer, meditation, sannyas.
I am basically against marriage; obviously the question of divorce does not arise. I am against the accidental birth of people, because that is the basic cause for the earth being burdened with the retarded. I am in absolute agreement that love should be just play; the moment you start producing children it becomes business. And I cannot agree to produce this kind of humanity. I was teaching that whenever a couple… of course unmarried, because the law has nothing to do with your love. Love should be a freedom between two persons, and if from even one person love disappears they have to separate, as friends, with gratitude for all the beautiful moments they lived together. Loving affairs ending in the courts are absolutely ugly.
You have not looked at the poor woman for years, for the simple reason that marriage makes things so certain. Marriage makes things so dead and dull. Marriage takes all surprise and wonder away. Marriage makes you take your wife for granted, your husband for granted. What is the need to look at your wife? She will be there tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and forever. You look at people when you know you may not be able to look at them again. Marriage kills; it makes something tremendously beautiful very ugly.
I have never heard about any perfect marriage. They say perfect marriages are made in heaven. Nobody comes back from there so maybe it is true, but what kind of marriage will those perfect marriages be? There will be no tension, there will be no individuality in the man or in the woman. They will never collide, they will never fight. They will be too sweet to each other. And too much sweetness brings diabetes!
Marriage is an institution that teaches a man regularity, frugality, temperance, forbearance and many other splendid virtues he would not need had he stayed single.
Marriage itself never destroys anything. Marriage simply brings out whatsoever is hidden in you — it brings it out. If love is hidden behind you, inside you, marriage brings it out. If love was just a pretension, just a bait, then sooner or later it has to disappear. And then your reality, your ugly personality comes up. Marriage simply is an opportunity, so whatsoever you had to bring out will come out.I am not saying that love is destroyed by marriage. Love is destroyed by people who don’t know how to love. Love is destroyed because in the first place love is not. You have been living in a dream. Reality destroys that dream. Otherwise love is something eternal, part of eternity. If you grow, if you know the art, and you accept the realities of love-life, then it goes on growing every day. Marriage becomes a tremendous opportunity to grow into love.
Marriage exists as an institution of exploitation, it is not togetherness. That is why no happiness comes out of it as a flowering. It cannot. Out of the roots of exploitation how can ecstasy be born?
Marriage almost always never happens, because marriage means the celebration of togetherness. It is not a license. No registry office can give you marriage; no priest can give it to you as a gift. It is a tremendous revolution in the being, it is a great transformation in your very style of life, and it can happen only when you celebrate togetherness, when the other is no longer felt as the other, when you no longer feel yourself as I. When the two are not really two, a bridge has happened, they have become one in a certain sense. Physically they remain two, but as far as the innermost being is concerned, they have become one. They may be two poles of one existence but they are not two. A bridge exists. That bridge gives you glimpses of togetherness. It is one of the rarest things to come across a marriage. People live together because they cannot live alone. Remember this: because they cannot live alone, that is why they live together. To live alone is uncomfortable, to live alone is uneconomical, to live alone is difficult, that is why they live together. The reasons are negative.
Marriage is not a natural phenomenon. It is artificial, arbitrary. And when it disappears you cannot do anything to bring it back. You can pretend, but that pretension makes you a hypocrite. And your pretension cannot deceive the woman, because she has known your love and the pretension cannot become the substitute. The only way is to separate — in friendship, because you have given each other so much.
As I see it, out of a hundred marriages ninety-nine marriages are just licensed prostitution. They are not marriages. A marriage is only a real marriage when it grows out of love. Legal, illegal, does not matter. The real thing that matters is love. If love exists between two persons, it is blessed. If love does not exist between two persons, then all your laws put together cannot bridge them. Then they exist separate, then they exist apart, then they exist in conflict, then they exist always in war. And they create all kinds of trouble for each other. They are nasty to each other, nagging to each other, possessive of each other, violent, oppressive, dominating, dictatorial. In a better world, with a better humanity, things will be different. In a better world, the child born out of love will not be called bastard; the child only born out of license, law, will be called bastard.
Bring more understanding to it. You will not be able to separate easily because love is involved. Without love marriage is easy, divorce is easy. It does not matter either way; it is a simple, utilitarian arrangement. If things-are going well, good; otherwise, say ‘goodbye’. But when you are involved in each other it is not easy, it is difficult. A part of your being has become incorporated in his being, a part of his being has become incorporated in your being. You really don’t exist as two individuals any more — you exist as a couple. A couple does not mean two persons living together. A couple means: two persons plugged into each other — no more really two… trying to be separate and yet trying to be together. That is the difficulty: one wants to remain dependent and one wants to remain independent. One is asking for two polar opposites.
What do marriage vows show? They show that you may want to separate sometime in the future. If there is love between two people, the thought of taking vows never arises. This is only an indication of the absence of love. People do not marry out of love; they marry out of fear. If there is love on this earth, marriage will become redundant. When love is not, marriage is a must. We make arrangements for that which we cannot do. We make rules for that which we are not sure of.

Some Facts About Love

When knowledge exists not, there is love. Knowledge is against love. Knowledgeable people cannot love… and people who can love are never knowledgeable. Love makes you wise, but never knowledgeable. Knowledge makes you cunning and clever, but never loving.
The known is the mind, the unknown is God. And Jesus says: God is love. Love comes through the unknown, with the unknown, as part of the unknown. To move into the unknown one needs courage, tremendous courage. To cling to the known there is no need to have any courage: any coward can do it, cowards only do that.
To transcend contradictions is to transcend mind, and to transcend mind is to know what love is. Whatsoever you have known up to now as love has nothing to do with love. It is a misuse of the word. `Love’ has been very much misused. There are only a few words which have been misused like `love’. `God’ is another, `peace’ is another. But `love’ is at the top of the list. Everybody talks about love and nobody knows what it is. People sing about it, people write poetry about it, and they don’t know what love is.
Love knows no object, love is not addressed. Love is only of God. When you love your woman, if you really love her, you will see the woman has disappeared and god is standing there. If you love the tree, you will suddenly see the tree has disappeared and God is very green in it, blooming. Love is only of God. Love is never of the part, love is only of the whole. Love is almost synonymous with prayer.
Love yourself so that you can love others.
People escape to the Himalayas: they are escaping from love, not from the world. They are afraid of love, and their fear has some reason behind it. Whenever you are in love, you are in a turmoil. Whenever there is love there is difficulty; whenever there is love there is conflict; whenever there is love there is hell. Says Jean-Paul Sartre, “The other is hell.” So whenever there is love the other enters your life, and suddenly there is conflict, collision, struggle to dominate each other, to possess each other, to master each other. And the misery arises. Lovers are rarely happy. I am not saying that non-lovers are happy; non-lovers may not be happy, but they are never so unhappy as the lovers.
Either move through love, and you will attain to God, or move through God, and you will attain to love. They come together; it is one package. The hen and the egg are not separate — the egg is nothing but a way for the hen to produce more hens, and the hen is nothing but a way for the egg to produce more eggs. They are not separate. The egg is the hen unmanifest, and the hen is the egg manifest. They are two ends of one thing, of one phenomenon. So are God and love.
Love is possible only if there is no possessiveness and no jealousy. That means love has attained to renunciation. You love the person but you renounce possessiveness; you love the person but you renounce jealousy; you love the person but you don’t want to make a slave out of him or out of her; you love the person but you respect his or her freedom; you love the person but your love does not become an imprisonment. You love, and yet you remain unattached. You love, you love tremendously, but still you don’t cling: that is renunciation.
If your love is so great that it can contain renunciation, only then is it love.
This whole existence is in love: these trees are moving tremendously in love; these stars, these rivers rushing towards the ocean, are rushing towards a love-affair where they can meet and merge. Watch, and you will find everywhere the shadow of love, the thrill, the excitement, the ecstasy of love. Whatsoever the form, if you look deeply, you will always find something throbbing at the center which cannot be anything other than love.

Some Fact About Life

People come to me and they ask, ‘What is the meaning of life’ As if meaning is there somewhere sold in the market. As if meaning is a commodity. Meaning has to be CREATED. There is no meaning in life. Meaning is not a given thing, it has to be created. It has to become your inner work. Then there is meaning — and there IS GREAT meaning. Love and meditate and you will attain to meaning. And you will attain to life, and abundant life.
This is the way to be ready: exert yourself sincerely — not seriously but sincerely. There are people who are always doing things halfheartedly; lukewarm is their life. They never achieve anything because they are always holding back. They never move into anything totally, intensely. They are always standing on the bank and thinking of the farther shore. Or even if sometimes they try, they are riding on two horses; in case the one fails, the other will always be there. They are riding in two boats. Their life is so divided that whatsoever they do they always do with a dividedness. And any flowering of consciousness is possible only when there is an organic unity in you.
The religious person is ordinary, very ordinary. He lives a very simple, unpretentious life with no claim to extra-ordinariness. But that’s what makes him extraordinary.
Life should be lived naturally, life should be lived according to the laws of nature — not according to the laws of Manu, not according to the ascetics, not according to the saints, but according to the Dhamma. Ais dhammo sanantano, Buddha says: This is the eternal law. We have to find the eternal law in things, how the whole universe runs in a harmony, how there is such tremendous order. It is not a chaos, it is a cosmos. Man has also to become a cosmos, and it is possible only through love.
I agree with the Zen people: the small things of life have to be transformed by your inner transformation. This I call the religious quality; everything becomes sacred. Taking a bath, making love, eating food, going to sleep — everything becomes sacred, because wherever you look is God and whatsoever you do you do WITH God.
It is said the first thing that Zarathustra did in his life was to laugh the moment he was born. Now children are not supposed to laugh when they are born, they are supposed to cry! Zarathustra laughed, and that laughter remained like an undercurrent his whole life. He is the most life-affirmative Buddha ever. He loved life so deeply that for him there was no God other than life.
LIFE is basically insecure. That’s its intrinsic quality; it cannot be changed. Death is secure, absolutely secure. The moment you choose security, unknowingly you have chosen death. The moment you choose life, unawares you have chosen insecurity.
The American way of life depends on ambition, and my new man has to be utterly ambitionless. America’s whole approach is: things should be bettered, everything should be made better. It does not matter where it is going to lead, but things have to be better, better and better. They are obsessed with the idea of bettering things. You have to have more speed, better machines, better technology, better railroads, better roads — everything better! Of course, in the same way, you need a better man. It fits with the whole American style of life.
The new man will have a totally different vision of life. He will live in a more loving way, because to him love is richness. He will know that money cannot buy love or joy. He will know that money is utilitarian; it is not the goal of life.
This is the way people are — just living in a thick cloud of unconsciousness. Their life is not that of light but of darkness, and out of this darkness, confusion, smoke, what can you expect? They are bound to do something foolish, something wrong.
Man goes on arguing about great things, but goes on living in a totally different way. His thoughts are very great; his life is very.immature. In fact, he creates all those great thoughts to cover up his immaturity.
My approach is totally different. I declare to you that you are perfectly right, that nothing is wrong with you, that you are not to follow somebody else, that you are not to imitate anybody else, that you have to love yourself, trust yourself, that you have to live a life of freedom, a life of rebellion, a life of exploration.
My own experience is this: that life has to be used in its totality, in all its dimensions. Yes, even the darker ones, they have their own share to contribute to the richness of life. Whenever you make a division that “this is good and this is bad,” that “this should be and this should not be,” you are creating trouble for yourself. Life is one organic unity. When it is night, sleep; when it is day, wake up. Don’t hanker for the night in the day; don’t hanker for the day in the night.
Individuality makes your life significant. It makes your life a beautiful song, but the song is no more yours, the song is God’s. Individuality is divine. You are simply a hollow bamboo: you become a flute on the lips of God or on the lips of the whole existence. Then whatsoever the whole wants, you allow it; you remain in a let-go.
Life is insecurity and nothing is wrong in it. In fact, life cannot be otherwise. Death is secure, life is insecure. Marriage is secure, love is insecure. Marriage is dead, love is alive. The more alive you are the more your life remains in insecurity, because the livelier person will be exploring the unknown, he will be adventurous. It is life’s nature, its law, its very intrinsic soul. But the priest has exploited it. He has given you consolations, securities, insurances, not only for this life but for future lives too. He says, “Don’t be worried. If you follow a certain code of conduct, if you cultivate a certain character, if you follow the commandments given in the scriptures, then you need not be afraid. Then God is going to reward you. You will be punished only if you go against the convention, against the tradition.”
I am not teaching you a religion which is life-negative. I am teaching a religion which is absolutely life-affirmative. Life is God.

Some Fact About Relationships

ove is never a relationship, and relationship is never love. Love relates, but it is not a relationship. Relationship is a dead thing, a closed thing. Love is a flowing.
Relationship may be just out of fear, may not have anything to do with love. Relationship may be just a kind of security — financial or something else. The relationship is needed only because love is not there. Relationship is a substitute. Become alert! Relationship destroys love, destroys the very possibility of its birth.
For attachment you need not be aware and alert. There is no need. Even animals can be attached very easily, rather, more easily. A dog is more attached to his master than any man can be. The dog is completely unconscious so attachment happens. That is why in the countries where human relationship has become poor, such as in the West, man goes on seeking relationship with animals, with dogs, with other animals, because the human relationship is no longer there. Human society is disappearing and every man feels isolated, alienated, alone. The crowd is there but you are not related to it. You are alone in the crowd and this aloneness scares. One becomes afraid and fearful.
Two individuals relating remain individuals; two individuals getting into a relationship lose their individuality. They become a couple, and to be a couple is an ugly thing. That means you have lost your freedom, you are no more yourself; the other is also no more himself or herself. Both have lost their freedom and nobody has gained anything out of it.
Our relationship with persons is also as it is with things. A husband behaves towards his wife as if she is a thing: he possesses her. The wife possesses the husband just like a thing. If we behaved with the other as if they were persons then we would not try to possess them, because only things can be possessed.
For attachment you need not be aware and alert. There is no need. Even animals can be attached very easily, rather, more easily. A dog is more attached to his master than any man can be. The dog is completely unconscious so attachment happens. That is why in the countries where human relationship has become poor, such as in the West, man goes on seeking relationship with animals, with dogs, with other animals, because the human relationship is no longer there. Human society is disappearing and every man feels isolated, alienated, alone. The crowd is there but you are not related to it. You are alone in the crowd and this aloneness scares. One becomes afraid and fearful.
If you behave as if everything is a thing, then you are the center and things are just to be used. The relationship becomes utilitarian. Things have no value in themselves — the value is that you can use them, they exist for you. You can be related to your house — the house exists for you. It is a utility. The car exists for you, but the wife doesn’t exist for you and the husband doesn’t exist for you. The husband exists for himself and the wife exists for herself. A person exists for himself; that is what being a person means. And if you allow the person to be a person and don’t reduce him to being a thing, you will by and by start feeling him. Otherwise you cannot feel. Your relationship will remain conceptual, intellectual, mind to mind, head to head — but not heart to heart.
When you are in love, then you start showing your real face. Love is a mirror. The other starts functioning a mirror. Every relationship becomes a mirror. Alone, you don’t experience your own smell — you cannot; one becomes immune to it. You have lived with it so long, how can you smell it? It is only with the other that you start feeling that he stinks and he starts feeling that you stink. And the fight starts
When one becomes too fed up with ordinary relationships with people one starts imagining a relationship with God; that is the longing for the divine. Now God is a little better in the sense that you can never be disappointed because you will never meet him; for the simple reason that there is going to be no honeymoon, the honeymoon can never be over; for the simple reason that there is going to be no living together with God, you can go on hoping. Now you are alone: it is a monologue, it is not a dialogue.
Relationship originates in misery, relating originates in bliss.
When you enter into a love relationship with a Master — that’s what entering into a Buddhafield is — you start losing your old identity, your definition becomes blurred. It was arbitrary anyway — it starts melting; your limits start merging with the unlimited. You are no more somebody; you start becoming a nobody, a nothingness.

Some Fact About Jealousy

If your love stinks, then try to find out what exactly it is that stinks. It is not love, it is something else. Love itself has a fragrance; it can’t stink, it is a lotus flower. Something else must be in it — jealousy, possessiveness.
If it is jealousy, then I would only suggest one thing: be more watchful of your jealousy. When it arises next time, rather than becoming mad, close your doors, sit silently, sit in meditation, watch your jealousy. See exactly what it is. It will surround you like smoke, dirty smoke. It will suffocate you. You would like to go out and do something. But don’t do anything; just be in a state of non-doing, because anything done in a moment of jealousy is going to be destructive. Just watch. And I am not saying repress it, because that is again doing something.
Whenever it possesses you, meditate over it. Slowly slowly, the meditation will create the distance between you and the jealousy. And the greater the distance, the less jealousy will arise. And one day, when there is no jealousy, your love releases such a fragrance that no flower can compete with it. All flowers are poor compared to the flowering of love. But your love is crippled because of jealousy and possessiveness and anger.
Once man becomes aware of this phenomenon, that love is inexhaustible, that there is no scarcity, jealousy will disappear. Jealousy is part of the economy of scarcity.
The whole life is celebrating, millions of happinesses happening all over the universe, but if you have an attitude of jealousy, you will be miserable, you will be in a constant hell. And you will be in a hell precisely because all over there is heaven. You will create a hell for you – a private hell — because whole existence is celebrating.
Zarathustra is immensely in love with life and all that life provides. He is the only mystic with immense affirmation of life. There is no place for renouncing anything — life is a gift of existence. Learn to enjoy it! Relish in it! Dance with the trees, and dance with the stars. Love without jealousy. Live without competition. Accept everybody without judgment. And then there is no need for any God. And there is no need for any paradise.
People come to me and they say they would like to be happy, but they cannot drop their jealousy. If you can’t drop your jealousy, love will never grow — the weeds of jealousy will destroy the rose of love. And when love does not grow, you will not be happy. Because who can be happy without love growing? Unless that rose blooms in you, unless that fragrance is released, you cannot be happy.
We bring our children from the very beginning with it — jealousy, envy. We make them fight, struggle. Our whole idea of life is based on survival of the fittest, and the fittest means the strongest, the most cunning. So whatsoever the means, nobody cares about the means. You have to achieve some end, you have to prove your mettle. You have to show to the world that you are not an ordinary person.
Remember the real problem is not anger. The real problem is unawareness. So next time be more aware. Whether it is anger, hatred, jealousy, possessiveness, a thousand and one things are there… but the real disease is one — unawareness. These are all facets of the same thing. So if you try to change that — these problems — you will never be able to cope, because they are millions.
These problems — jealousy, possessiveness — are not really problems but symptoms, symptoms that you don’t yet know what love is. We take it for granted that we know what love is, and then the problem of jealousy arises. That is not right. The problem is arising because love is not yet there; it simply shows that love has not yet arrived, it simply shows the absence of love. So you cannot solve it.
My approach is: don’t be bothered about jealousy, otherwise you will be getting into such a trap that you will never be able to get out of. Forget about it! It is symptomatic, it is simply indicative. It is good that it indicates something; it is a signal that love has not yet happened. It is good! Learn something from it, take note of it and start moving into love. Enjoy love more and there will be less jealousy. Delight in love more and there will be still less jealousy. Let your love become a totality, a madness. Let it have an intensity, and in that intensity jealousy will be burned out. A real lover has never known what jealousy is.
Put more energy into love. Rather than putting energy into analysing jealousy and fighting with it, put more energy into love. Otherwise you will be distracted: you will start following jealousy, and that is a desert. You will never come to its end.
Competition and jealousy is the root cause of all misery. There is no good competition — all competition is bad.
When you become aware, you suddenly become aware that love cannot exist with jealousy — it is not possible. When love is there jealousy cannot exist. If jealousy exists then love cannot exist — they never go together. But whatsoever is called love is ninety-nine percent jealousy, possessiveness… more of an effort to dominate or sometimes even to be dominated — an effort to be dominated — but that’s not much difference. That too is a subtle trick of the same game. When love is there, there is no question of domination. Then it is not politics, and one is not ambitious.
So become very alert. Your alertness will destroy many things in you. All that is destructive will be destroyed: jealousy, possessiveness, anger — they will be destroyed. And when all these negative qualities are no more there, something blooms in you that you are not yet alert about… a totally new flower.
Remember, jealousy can be dropped. In fact why people don’t drop it is a miracle because they don’t get anything out of it except misery! Unless people are masochists there seems to be no reason why they continue with jealousy.
Drop the jealousy rather than dropping love. The fear comes because of jealousy. The fear comes because of the ego — the other may reject you: then drop the ego! Rather than throwing the bathwater, you are keeping the bathwater and throwing the baby! Drop ego, drop jealousy, and take the risk. Life is a risk — that’s why it is so beautiful, of value, because it is a risk. It is an adventure. Good!

Some Fact About Happiness

This relaxation is the space in which happiness grows, and again I repeat: for no reason at all. It is not that you are happy because of something. You are simply happy. Happiness is your nature.
Unhappiness is something nurtured, you have learned it. Every credit goes to you for all your misery, but for happiness, you cannot have any credit. It is natural. You were born happy. You were happy in your mother’s womb….
Don’t choose. Accept life as it is in its totality. You must look at the total: life and death together, love and hate together, happiness/unhappiness together, agony/ecstasy together. If you look at them together, then what is there to choose? If you see they are one, then from where can choice enter? If you see agony is nothing but ecstasy, ecstasy nothing but agony; if you can see happiness is nothing but unhappiness; love is nothing but hate, hate is nothing but love — then where to choose? how to choose? Then choice drops.
Remember this. This is the difference between happiness and bliss. Your happiness is caused. Sometimes a friend has come and you are happy. How long are you going to be happy with the friend? A few moments — and then you will be happy when he leaves. What type of happiness is this? It is caused, and the cause disappears. Sooner or later you become fed up and it disappears. Bliss is a happiness uncaused. Simply as you are, you are happy. There is nothing to say about why you are happy.
Look at the whole thing. You never think why you are miserable — you are simply miserable. Whenever you are happy you start looking, “Why am I happy?” Misery seems to be natural; happiness seems to be something unnatural happening sometimes. Misery is your state and happiness is your hankering. An enlightened person is simply happy, just as you are simply miserable. Simply happy! and is never miserable. Even sometimes when the shoe pinches, he simply puts it right. It is not misery, it is simply physical pain — a discomfort, but not misery. He simply puts the feet right; he changes the shoes, or he walks without the shoe. Discomfort can happen to an enlightened man, but never misery — because how can misery happen? When there is no cause for his blissfulness misery is impossible. you caused, you cannot destroy it. Uncaused, how can you take it away? Uncaused, there is no opposite to it. This is ANANDA.
Bliss is not the same. It is uncaused. It is not a tension and release, is not concerned with tension and release at all — it is simply the happiness that comes when you feel good with existence, when you feel you accept. When you feel that you accept, you suddenly feel the whole existence accepts you. Then you can bless the whole, and the whole blesses you. It is uncaused. It cannot be taken away. You cannot make me miserable. You can at the most make me uncomfortable, that’s all.
Just look: happiness, unhappiness, sadness, joy, they come and go, they are beggars around you. The witnessing remains the very center, uncaused, unchanging, one. Seek that within you and then everything becomes clear. When you are clear within, everything is transparent. The truth is everywhere around you, only you have to become one.
Once you know the inner riches, then there is nothing which is comparable from the outside world. Once you know the inner bliss, then enjoyment is foolish, then all that goes on in the name of entertainment is foolish, stupid. It just falls down once you know the inner ecstasy. Then all that is known as happiness, joy, is nothing but deception. But not before — unless you have known the inner happiness you cannot say that, and if you say that then you will be in a greater deception.
Happiness needs no cause. It is your simple nature, you are intrinsically happy. No cause, no purpose, no goal is needed. Life is in itself enough. It needs nothing else to complete it. It is complete! It is entire! It is already what it has to be. So there is no purpose in existence and no goal in existence. Existence is a sheer dance.
There is no reason at all to be miserable. In fact, misery should be very exceptional; happiness should be simply natural. You should not ask anybody, “Why are you looking happy?” But this is the situation. If you are looking happy and smiling and enjoying yourself, everybody will look, stare at you, as if something has gone wrong: What has happened to this poor fellow? Why is he smiling and enjoying? — there seems to be no reason.
All unhappy individuals resemble each other; only happy individuals have a uniqueness. Happiness, growing towards blissfulness, makes you unique in a world which is full of misery.
A healthy psychology is not ambitious — you are happy as you are, so there is no need for you to become a president of the country. Then will you be happy? No president is happy, because happiness has nothing to do with your post, with your money, with your power. It has something to do with your inner change, inner transformation.
Never forget that money can’t buy happiness.
Each act: if you are compassionate to someone, you feel a joy of being compassionate — that is its reward. If you are angry at someone, you are first burning inside yourself. Even before you have acted on your anger, you have suffered the punishment. In my vision every action has its intrinsic reward or punishment. So a man of intelligence soon starts finding what are the acts which bring you happiness, joy, blissfulness, and what are the actions which create misery, suffering. There is no need to wait for the last judgement day, there is no need to wait after death — you will be thrown into hell or into heaven. Each moment completes itself.
That is the simple secret of happiness. Whatever you are doing, don’t let past move your mind; don’t let future disturb you. Because the past is no more, and the future is not yet. To live in the memories, to live in the imagination, is to live in the non-existential. And when you are living in the non-existential, you are missing that which is existential. Naturally you will be miserable, because you will miss your whole life.
I don’t believe in nationalism, and I don’t believe in any religion. I believe in the individual and his happiness.
The real is beyond happiness and unhappiness. It is neither tense nor relaxed, it is neither dark nor light; it is beyond. When all duality has ceased then you are blissful. Hindus have called that ananda — it means ‘beyond the two’. You cannot say a sage is happy. He is not happy because happiness has to be followed by unhappiness. You cannot say a sage is unhappy. A sage is blissful, he has passed the duality. Now there are no hills and no valleys; he moves on the ground, he moves on one level. There are no ups and downs because ‘up’ and ‘down’ exist as a duality.
You may be seeking happiness, but not truth. Happiness happens when truth is achieved. But if you are seeking happiness you cannot achieve truth, because happiness is a byproduct; you cannot achieve it directly, there is no way to it — it comes via truth. If you reach the true, happiness will happen; it is a shadow, it comes with the truth. But if you seek happiness, then happiness is not possible and truth is missed.
Whenever you feel happy, you were not looking for it. That is the first basic thing about happiness: it happened when you were looking for something else. For example, you have heard the story of Archimedes: he was in search of a scientific truth. He worked, experimented, thought, pondered over it many days and nights. He forgot himself. Then suddenly, when he was in his bath one day, lying down in his tub, it happened, it bubbled up — he realized. He was naked, but he forgot that he was naked. When you are happy you forget yourself; if you cannot forget yourself you are not happy. Happiness means you are no longer there; it happens only when you are not.
Remember moments of happiness: you were not there. It may have happened in a deep love, it may have happened in a discovery, or it may have happened just when you were playing cards, but you became so lost… suddenly the upsurge!
Be happy when alone. Let happiness be your quality. And when you move from aloneness into involvement, into communication, relationship, carry that quality of happiness which was in loneliness — carry that.
The more you ask for happiness, the more you will be in suffering. The suffering is a shadow. The greater the desire for happiness, the greater will be the shadow. Ask for happiness and you will never get it. You will only suffer frustration. Why? Because there is only one way to be happy, and that is to be happy here, now. Happiness is not a result. It is a way of life. Happiness is not the end result of desire. It is an attitude, not a desire. You can be happy here and now if you know how to be, but you will never be happy if you don’t know how to be and you go on desiring it. Happiness is an art. It is a way of life.
Why is man unhappy? No animal is so unhappy, no bird is so unhappy, no fish is so unhappy as man. Why is man so unhappy? Because man desires happiness, and the birds are happy right now; the trees are happy right now. Man desires happiness; he is never happy here and now. He always desires happiness and goes on missing it. Happiness is here. It is happening all around you. Allow it to enter within. Be part of existence. Don’t move into the future. Existence never moves into the future; only mind does. This is what I call meditation: to be here, to not move into the future. Be nonambitious, kill all desire for life, don’t desire happiness and then you will be happy and no one can destroy your happiness. Then it will be impossible for you to be unhappy. And then you will be deathless and eternal life will have happened to you. In fact, it has already happened but you are not aware of it. Then you will be fulfilled. Nonambitious, you will be fulfilled.