OSHO: quotes on Samadhi

1. Patanjali says sleep is just next to samadhi. A good sleep, a deep sleep, and samadhi, are different only in one sense: samadhi has awareness, sleep has no awareness.
2. Patanjali says that sleep and samadhi, deep sleep and samadhi, are similar. Because in samadhi the individual disappears and in deep sleep also the individual disappears. In deep sleep you become part of the unconscious, collective unconscious. In samadhi also you become part of the collective superconsciousness.
3. In samadhi the ego is dropped. Now you don’t have any limitation, no definition, you are merged with the whole — but merged with the whole in a tremendous awareness. You are not asleep. Worries have disappeared, because worries exist only with the ego. So there are two ways to drop the worries — either become part of a group, or become part of the superconscious plane.
4. In deep lovemaking you can attain first glimpses of samadhi — or in music, or in dancing, or looking at the sunset, or just sitting silently not doing anything. But remember, whenever you are a doer you are missing, because the doer carries his ego. The doer is the ego. Whenever you are a non-doer there is a possibility you may fall into line with the whole, you may fall into harmony with the whole — what Buddha calls the way, the dhamma. You will become one with the dhamma, and suddenly a rush of bliss — it rains all around, your whole being becomes saturated with a new benediction that you have not known before.
5. In India we make a difference. When an ordinary man dies, it is death. When someone who has attained enlightenment dies, it is samadhi, it is not death. And the word “samadhi” is immensely significant. Samadhi means: one who has attained the ultimate harmony with existence.
6. In India many religions don’t cremate their saints; everybody else is cremated. But a few religions — for example, Kabir panthis — don’t cremate their saints because their bodies have been in contact with such a great soul that they have become living memories of something so great that to destroy them is not right. So their bodies have to be buried just as Christians and Mohammedans do: a samadhi, a grave, is made. It is not called a grave, it is called samadhi — the same word that is used for the ultimate state of consciousness. Because the man had attained samadhi, his grave is no ordinary grave; it is a symbol of samadhi, of the ultimate consciousness.
7. Sleep, according to Patanjali, is very close to samadhi. The only difference is that in samadhi your body is asleep but your consciousness is awake Now to me, both sleep and samadhi are the same My consciousness is awake twenty-four hours a day Whether my body is awake or asleep makes no difference to my consciousness.
8. Pragya is a by-product of samadhi, of enlightenment. Pragya means wisdom. Unless you become enlightened, you cannot have wisdom, you can have only knowledge. And pragya does not mean knowledge, it means wisdom. It is a by-product of samadhi, enlightenment.
9. Samadhi is just like the total opening of the lotus, and satori is the beginning of the opening of the petals. Satori is the beginning, samadhi is the climax.
10. Satori is half awake, half asleep. Samadhi is full awareness. But if you are half awake, it won’t take long for you to be fully awake. Just a little hit of the master’s staff on your head, and you will jump out of the bed.
11. Your glimpse of first enlightenment — in Japan they call it satori — is strong. It may be fragile, it may be new. It will be difficult to protect it, but it has a strength of its own. If you support it totally, it is going to take over your whole being. Satori is going to become samadhi. Satori is the first glimpse of samadhi, and samadhi is when your whole being is afire. You don’t have to remember, you are it. But this is possible only if you cultivate it in all your day-to-day affairs.
12. Samadhi one enters only once and then one never comes out of it. There is no way out. There is no exit, there is only entrance. I have entered Samadhi. Now wherever I am, whatsoever I am doing, it is all happening in Samadhi. Now there is no way to come out of it. Samadhi is not a state, is not a mood in which you go and then you can come out. Samadhi is your very being. Now where can I leave my being? It is my very nature. Now where can I leave my nature. I am it!
13. Meditation has two parts: the beginning and the end. The beginning is called dhyana and the end is called samadhi. Dhyana is the seed, samadhi is the flowering. Dhyana means becoming aware of all workings of your mind, all the layers of your mind — your memories, your desires, your thoughts, dreams — becoming aware of all that goes on inside you. Dhyana is awareness, and samadhi is when the awareness has become so deep, so profound, so total that it is like a fire and it consumes the whole mind and all its functionings. It consumes thoughts, desires, ambitions, hopes, dreams. It consumes the whole stuff the mind is full of.
14. Samadhi is the state when awareness is there, but there is nothing to be aware inside you; the witness is there, but there is nothing to be witnessed. Begin with dhyana, with meditation, and end in samadhi, in ecstasy, and you will know what God is. It is not a hypothesis, it is an experience. You have to LIVE it — that is the only way to know it.
15. The word samadhi means all problems are solved, all questions are dissolved. You have come to a space which knows no questions, no problems, which is eternally blissful. This is the place which can be called godliness, because you are one with the whole existence.
16. Samadhi means when sushupti, dreamless sleep, becomes alert, awake. When you are asleep as far as the body is concerned, you are asleep as far as the mind is concerned, because there is no disturbance of any dream, there is no tension in the body — but beyond the mind, the no-mind is fully alert. He knows that the mind is without any dreams, he sees it, it is without any dreams, he sees it the body is absolutely relaxed. And this seeing, this alertness, continues twenty-four hours. Then sushupti becomes samadhi.
17. It is just like clouds: clouds move. They can be so thick that you cannot see the sky hidden behind. The vast blueness of the sky is lost, you are covered with clouds. Then you go on watching: one cloud moves and another has not come into the vision yet — and suddenly a peek into the blueness of the vast sky. The same happens inside: you are the vast blueness of the sky, and thoughts are just like clouds hovering around you, filling you. But the gaps exist, the sky exists. To have a glimpse of the sky is SATORI, and to become the sky is SAMADHI. From satori to samadhi, the whole process is a deep insight into the mind, nothing else.

OSHO: jealousy

1. Jealousy is comparison. And we have been taught to compare, we have been conditioned to compare, always compare. Somebody else has a better house, somebody else has a more beautiful body, somebody else has more money, somebody else has a more charismatic personality. Compare, go on comparing yourself with everybody else you pass by, and great jealousy will be the outcome; it is the by-product of the conditioning for comparison.
2. Comparison is a very foolish attitude, because each person is unique and incomparable. Once this understanding settles in you, jealousy disappears.
3. Whenever you have a sexual urge in your mind, a sexual happening in your being, whenever you feel sexually attracted and related to somebody, jealousy enters because you are not in love. If you are in love, jealousy never enters.
4. Sex creates jealousy but it is a secondary thing. So it is not a question of how to drop jealousy; you cannot drop it because you cannot drop sex. The question is how to transform sex into love, then jealousy disappears.
5. If jealousy is there, know well there is no love.
6. If you go on condemning, your condemnation shows that somewhere there is a wound, and you are feeling jealous — because without jealousy there can be no condemnation. You condemn people because somehow, somewhere, unconsciously you feel they are enjoying themselves and you have missed.
7. Heaven and hell are not realities but ways of living. You can live in jealousy — that’s how people live. You can live in competition, you can live in conflict, you can live in ambition. That’s how you have been brought up to live. This is the way to hell!
8. Awareness is the fire; love is the gold; jealousy, possessiveness, hatred, anger, lust, are the impurities.
9. What is envy? It is nothing but passive jealousy. Maybe jealousy is too strong a phenomenon; envy is a little passive. The difference may be of degrees, but it is not of quality, it is only of quantity. Envy can become jealousy at any moment; envy is just jealousy in progress. Mind has to drop all envies and jealousies.
10. Just think: you cannot find a single misery for which you are not responsible. It may be jealousy, it may be anger, it may be greed — but something in you must be the reason that is creating the misery.
11. When jealousy disappears, there is a deep friendliness towards all.
12. In pure awareness the mind cannot drag you down into the mud, into the gutter. In anger, in hatred, in jealousy, the mind is absolutely impotent in the face of awareness. And because the mind is absolutely impotent, your whole being is in a profound silence — the peace that passeth understanding.
13. You know your inside, and you know the others’ outside: that creates jealousy. They know your outside, and they know their inside: that creates jealousy. Nobody else knows your inside. There you know you are nothing, worthless. And the others on the outside look so smiling. Their smiles may be phony, but how can you know that they are phony? Maybe their hearts are also smiling. You know your smile is phony, because your heart is not smiling at all, it may be crying and weeping. You know your interiority, and only you know it, nobody else. And you know everybody’s exterior, and their exterior people have made beautiful. Exteriors are showpieces and they are very deceptive.
14. Because of jealousy you are in constant suffering; you become mean to others. And because of jealousy you start becoming phony, because you start pretending. You start pretending things that you don’t have, you start pretending things which you CAN’T have, which are not natural to you. You become more and more artificial. Imitating others, competing with others, what else can you do? If somebody has something and you don’t have it, and you don’t have a natural possibility of having it, the only way is to have some cheap substitute for it.
15. The jealous man lives in hell. Drop comparing and jealousy disappears, meanness disappears, phoniness disappears. But you can drop it only if you start growing your inner treasures; there is no other way.

OSHO on Suffering

1. You would like to live a life where there is no suffering, but that life is not possible if you continuously carry the ego with you. You cannot make a life around you so that suffering disappears. If you carry the ego, again and again you will bump into some reality which will hurt the unreal. Whenever there is an encounter between reality and unreality, the unreal causes suffering.
2. Use every opportunity in life for raising your intelligence, your consciousness. Ordinarily what we are doing is using every opportunity to create a hell for ourselves. Only you suffer, and because of your suffering, you make others suffer. And when so many people are living together, and if they all create suffering for each other, it goes on multiplying. That’s how the whole world has become a hell. It can be instantly changed. Just the basic thing has to be understood, that without intelligence there is no heaven.
3. If you really want to get rid of misery and suffering then you will have to understand — you don’t have a self. Then it will be not just a small relief but a tremendous relief. And if you don’t have a self, the need for the other disappears. It was the need of the unreal self to go on being nourished by the other. You don’t need the other. And listen carefully: when you don’t need the other, you can love. And that love will not bring misery. Going beyond needs, demands, desires, love becomes a very soft sharing, a great understanding. When you understand yourself, that very day you have understood the whole of humanity. Then nobody can make you miserable. You know that they are suffering from an unreal self, and they are throwing their misery on anybody who is close by. Your love will make you capable of helping the person you love to get rid of the self.
4. Opposites are complementaries. If you can suffer your suffering in totality, in great intensity, you will be surprised: Saul becomes Paul. You will not be able to believe it when it happens for the first time, that your own suffering absorbed willingly, welcomingly, becomes a great blessing. The same energy that becomes hate becomes love, the same energy that becomes pain becomes pleasure, the same energy that becomes suffering becomes bliss.
5. The moment you become identified with your suffering you want to discard it, you want to get rid of it, it is so painful. But if you are a witness then suffering loses all thorns, all stings. Then there is suffering, and you are a witness to it. You are just a mirror; it has nothing to do with you. Happiness comes and goes, unhappiness comes and goes, it is a passing show; you are just there, a mirror reflecting it. Life comes and goes, death comes and goes; the mirror is not affected by either. The mirror reflects but remains unaffected; the mirror is not imprinted by either.
6. Remember, one who enjoys more is bound to suffer more because he becomes very sensitive. But suffering is not bad. If you understand it rightly, suffering is a cleansing. If you understand it rightly, sadness has a depth to it which no happiness can ever have. A person who is simply happy is always superficial. A person who has not known sorrow and has not known sadness, has not known the depths. He has not touched the bottom of his being; he has remained just on the periphery. One has to move within these two banks. Within these two banks flows the river.
7. Each suffering should be started in celebration. Then you change the quality of suffering itself. Each suffering should be welcomed through celebration; then the suffering is no more suffering.
8. Suffering is there. It is part of life and part of growth; nothing is bad in it. Suffering becomes evil only when it is simply destructive and not creative at all; suffering becomes bad only when you suffer and nothing is gained out of it. But I am telling you the divine can be gained through suffering; then it becomes creative. Darkness is beautiful if the dawn is coming out of it soon; darkness is dangerous if it is endless, leads to no dawn, simply continues and continues and you go on moving in a rut, in a vicious circle. This is what is happening to you.

   Just to escape from one suffering you create another; then to escape from another, another. And this goes on and on and all those sufferings which you have not lived are waiting for you. You have escaped but you escape from one suffering to another, because a mind which was creating a suffering will create another. So you can escape from this suffering to that, but suffering will be there because your mind is the creative force.Accept the suffering and pass through it; don’t escape. This is a totally different dimension to work in. Suffering is there: encounter it, go through it. Fear will be there, accept it. You will tremble, so tremble. Why create a facade that you don’t tremble, that you are not afraid? If you are a coward, accept it.

OSHO QUOTES ON DEATH

1. This life is going to end in a few days, or in a few years. It is not something to cling to. Each moment death is coming closer; before death grabs you, you have to figure out something which is eternal, which is immortal.
2. It seems obvious that death is the end of life; that is not true. Death is only a beginning of a new life — a refreshment, a rejuvenation. The old body is tired. You need more experiences to become mature. You have to move through many other forms of life, and there are millions of forms of life.
3. Death can be sweet if you move from one body, one existence, one form, with pure awareness into another and higher. Then it is sweet, really sweet.
4. When you encounter death, when you see it face to face, when you don’t avoid, when you don’t dodge, when you don’t escape, when you don’t create a cloud around you, when you face it, encounter it, the fact of death, suddenly you become aware that death is life. The deeper you move into death, the deeper you move in life because, Heraclitus says, the opposites meet and mingle, they are one.
5. Death makes one understand fear, but it is not the death of somebody else, it is your own death, and that too with the condition that you are conscious.
6. All the riches that you have can be lost, can be stolen, will be lost — one day death will come and will take everything away. When somebody has come to that inner diamond that is one’s own being, death cannot take it away. Death is irrelevant to it. It cannot be stolen, it cannot be lost. Then one has become iswara, then one has become a holy lord. Then one has become bhagavan.
7. Death is the point at which knowledge fails, and when knowledge fails, mind fails. And when mind fails, there is a possibility of truth penetrating you. But people don’t know. When somebody dies you don’t know what to do, you are very embarrassed. When somebody dies it is a great moment to meditate. I always think that each city needs a Death Center. When somebody is dying and his death is very, very imminent he should be moved to the Death Center. It should be a small temple where people who can go deep in meditation should sit around him, should help him to die, and should participate in his being when he disappears into nothing.
8. If you are identified with anything, you will suffer death.
9. Life has to be a joy, a dance, a celebration. And when death comes, it has to be welcomed with silence, with serenity — wholeheartedly, not holding anything back. This is a way to kill death itself.
10. Buddhists call these three ‘the messengers of God’: old age, sickness, death — three messengers of God. Why? — because only through these experiences in life do you become aware of death. And if you become aware of death and you start learning how to go into it, how to welcome it, how to receive it, you are released from the bondage, from the wheel of life and death.
11. Whenever you feel death close by, go into it through the door of love, through the door of meditation, through the door of a man dying. And if some day you are dying — and the day is going to come one day — receive it in joy, benediction. And if you can receive death in joy and benediction, you will attain to the greatest peak, because death is the crescendo of life. Hidden in it is the greatest orgasm, because hidden in it is the greatest freedom.
12. The basic fear is the fear of death. All other fears are just reflections of the basic fear. All other fears can be reduced to one fear: the fear of death, the fear that, “One day I may have to disappear, one day I may have to die. I am, and the day is coming when I will not be” — that frightens, that is the fear.
13. Life and death are not two separate phenomena; they are two faces of the same coin, two aspects of the same coin. If you penetrate deeply you will see that life is death and death is life. The moment you are born, you have started dying. And if this is so, then when you die you will start living again. If death is implied in life, then life will be implied in death. They belong to each other, they are complementary.
14. If you are trying to escape from death, remember, you will be escaping from life also; that’s why you look so dead. This is the paradox: escape death and you remain dead; face, encounter death and you become alive. At the moment when you face death so deeply, so intensely, that you start feeling that you are dying — not only around, but within also, you feel and touch death — the crisis comes. That is the cross of Jesus, the crisis of dying. At that moment, from one world you die — the world of the horizontal, the world of the mind — and you resurrect into another world.
15. Life and death are one — one phenomenon, one energy. Life is the manifestation of that energy, and death is again relaxation. Life is coming to a form, and death is moving again into the formless. The end and the beginning meet. Life is not separate from death, death is not separate from life — they meet and mingle. Even to say they meet is not right because the mind immediately brings: “If there is a meeting then there must be two.” It is not a meeting, it is one phenomenon.
16. If you have lived joyously, you will be ready to welcome death too — invite her for a dance! Death is powerful only over people who have never lived, who don’t have the courage to relax peacefully in moments of death without any fear — because no accident, no disease, nothing can make even a dent in your consciousness; you are always intact.
17. Death brings to the surface your essential personality.
18. At the time of death, the most important subject in the minds of people who are not conscious is going to be sex — because sex and death are two sides of the same coin.
19. The bardo is suggestions to the dying person: “Now be silent. Leave this life consciously. Rather than death taking it away from you, relax your hold; don’t be defeated by death, don’t struggle. Just drop all your attachment. This world is finished for you, and this life is finished for you. There is no point in holding on to it; in holding on to it you will be fighting with death. You cannot win, and a very significant possibility will be missed.

OSHO: FEAR AND DEATH

Beloved Osho,
Again I feel this fear inside me: the fear of connecting with you really deeply; the fear of falling apart, and then not being able to function anymore in this world; the fear of being helpless and absolutely vulnerable.
What to do?

iren, fear arises in many situations. Deep down it is always there, but not active. It is inactive, so that you don’t become aware of it. But fear is the very foundation of unconscious life. All your actions arise out of it. You want money, you want power, you want prestige. What are all your ambitions, except to cover up your deep hidden fear? Perhaps money may be a security, perhaps power may make you more protected, secure, safe. Your respectability, in society, your religion, God... all these are by-products of fear.

Why do you believe in God? You have not seen him, you don’t have any evidence that any such thing exists anywhere. But you know that without God you will not be able to repress your fear. Your fear needs God. It is a fear-oriented hypothesis.

Your fear needs a father figure to protect you in dangerous situations, to help you when you need the help, to become a light in your darkness, to support you when you feel you are falling into an abysmal abyss. God is your concentrated fear.

And there are lesser gods. Money is a lesser god – more visible, hence more people cling to money. But they don’t want to take any chances, so they go on donating to the church, just to keep a bank balance in God’s bank. And they go on clinging to the money, because in life it seems money gives a certain security. At least tomorrow is certain. You will have food, you will have the house, you will have your wife, you will have your husband, you will have your children.

Our whole life seems to be circling around the centre of fear. It is present 24 hours, but we become aware of it only in certain situations: either you start feeling the presence of death, perhaps you have seen somebody dying, perhaps you have seen somebody very old on the road and it has reminded you about the next step... That fellow is going to step in a grave soon, but how far are you? You are also in the same queue. Maybe a little longer distance, but sooner or later – and the queue is becoming shorter every moment. You are coming to the window.

Anything may trigger the idea of death in you – just a dry leaf falling from the tree is enough to remind you of death. Just a few days before it was so green and so young, so beautiful. It used to dance in the morning sun. What has happened?

A dying leaf falling from the tree was the cause of Lao Tzu’s enlightenment. Because seeing the dry leaf falling, he accepted his death so totally that there was no question of any fear. If this is how life functions, then there is no question of fear. Have you ever thought about it – that death is the only certainty in life?

Love can also make you aware of fear, because love is also a kind of death. Your ego has to die, only then is love possible. It is a very partial death, but still something close to death. hence people talk about love, but are very afraid of love. They talk about love because they feel very lonely. That loneliness creates fear.

Man is really in great trouble. The old proverb is right which says, “Life is not just a bed of roses.” It is not. Such great dilemmas! Loneliness creates fear. Out of that fear you want to be in love, to be intimate with someone so that your loneliness disappears. But as you come closer to somebody... Again, another fear – that you may be lost.

So man is split. Half of him wants to love, half of him pulls back – don’t go any further, you are too close, there is danger. Your fear is, Niren, that if you come in deeper communion with me, you will fall apart. Naturally, no one wants to fall apart. And a great fear arises.

But there is a strong magnetic pull also, because deep down you know that whatever can fall apart is not you. And whatever can fall apart is going to fall apart sooner or later. How long can you hold it? It is not your authentic reality. It is just all false personality, which needs continuous holding. Not even for a moment can you leave it alone, otherwise it will fall apart.

You are saying, Niren, you are afraid that you will fall apart. And I guarantee: you will fall apart! So what is the fear? Do it once – once and for all! Then there will be no fear. Fall apart and let us see what falls apart. Not your legs, not your hands nor your eyes... Nothing that is really yours is going to fall apart, only your false notions about you. Your personality, your ego, your knowledgeability, these are the things which are going to fall apart. But they are not worth holding.

Once they are gone you will have a far more beautiful space available to you. Don’t cling to the things which don’t have any authentic reality. And the authentic reality need not be supported by you. It is there, it is not going to fall apart. Only the false can disappear, only your shadow – not you.

But why should you be afraid if your shadow disappears? Your shadow is not you. Your shadow has nothing to do with you. It has no reality, it has no existence, it has no meaning in your life. But you have become identified too much with your shadows. I have read Aesop’s Fables more deeply than the greatest holy scriptures of the world, because Aesop’s Fables have more significance and more meaning and tremendous psychological truths, which your holy scriptures are completely missing.

One of the parables in Aesop is: a fox gets up early in the morning as the sun is rising. She comes out of the cave looking for some breakfast. But then as she comes out, she looks at her shadow. In the early morning sun the shadow is very long. She says, “My God! I am this big! Even a camel will not be enough for breakfast.” She starts searching for a camel – it will be even better if she can get an elephant.

But time passes and she does not come across any elephant, any camel, and it is getting hot, and in fact the time for breakfast has passed. It is time for lunch and she is feeling really hungry. The sun has come just above her head. She looks another time at her shadow. It has shrunken completely, it is just under her. She says, “My God, I have never thought that hunger can do that much. I have shrunken. I used to be so long – just in the morning – so huge and just missing one breakfast... Now even if I can get a rat, that will do – even for lunch.”

Just a small parable written for children, but if even an old man can understand it... It has a tremendous psychological truth. We are all living identified with our shadows and the fear that the shadow may disappear. It is better not to come too close to someone who can make your shadow disappear, who can make you aware of what is false in you and what is not false; because the moment you become aware about the false, it falls apart.

But my suggestion to you, Niren, is: rather than trembling your whole life about the false, being afraid about its death, it is better once and for all to get it finished.

Why are you so afraid that you cannot function anymore in the world if you come closer to me? All these people are closer to me and they are all functioning perfectly well, better than anybody else. And then you ask me, “What to do?” First thing, just fall apart. Come closer, become good for nothing, and just see how existence takes care of you. A little trust.

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So whenever fear comes to you, don't suppress it, don't repress it, don't avoid it, don't get occupied in something so that you can forget about it.

No! When fear comes, watch it.

Be face to face with it.

Encounter it.

Look deep into it.

Gaze into the valley of fear.

Of course you will perspire, and you will tremble, and it will be like a death, and you will have to live it many times. But by and by, the more your eyes become clear, the more your awareness becomes alert, the more your focus is there on the fear, the fear will disappear like a mist. And once fear disappears, sometimes, even for only a moment, suddenly you are deathless.

There is no death.

Death is the greatest illusion there is, the greatest myth -- a lie.

For even a single moment, if you can see that you are deathless.

Then no meditation is needed.

Then live that experience, then act out of that experience, and the doors of eternal life are open for you.

Much is being missed because of fear.

We are too attached to the body and we go on creating more and more fear because of that attachment.

The body is going to die, the body is part of death, the body is death -- but you are beyond the body.

You are not the body; you are the bodiless.

Remember it.

Realize it.

Awaken yourself to this truth -- that you are beyond the body. You are the witness, the seer.

Then death disappears and fear disappears, and there arises the tremendously glorious life -- what Jesus calls 'life abundant,' or 'the kingdom of God.'

The kingdom of God is within you.

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Love dispels fear just as light dispels darkness. If even for a moment you have been in love with someone, fear disappears and thinking stops. With fear thinking continues. The more you are afraid, the more you have to think.

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When you are alone you are afraid. Remember, the fear does not come from ghosts. When you are alone the fear comes from your aloneness. But we go on hiding that cause, because to see that cause is to be transformed by seeing it. When you are moving in a forest alone you are not really afraid of ghosts or thieves or robbers, because they are more in the crowd. What would they be doing in the forest? - all their victims are available here.
When you are alone in the room and it is dark, you are not afraid of ghosts; ghosts are just projections. You are really afraid of your aloneness - that is the ghost. Suddenly you have to face yourself, suddenly you have to see your utter emptiness and aloneness and no way to relate. You have been shouting and shouting and nobody hears. You have been groping in the dark and you never come across a hand to hold you. You have been in this cold aloneness - nobody hugs you, nobody is there to hug you. Nobody is there to warm you.
This is the fear, the anguish of man. If love is not possible then one is alone. Hence love has to be made possible, it has to be created - even if it is pseudo, it has to be created. One has to go on loving, because otherwise it will be impossible to live.
And whenever a society comes across the fact that love is false, then two things become possible: either people start committing suicide, or people start becoming sannyasins. And both are the same. Suicide is an ordinary effort just to destroy yourself: if you are not there then nobody will be alone. But that doesn't work; you are soon in another body. That has never worked.
Sannyas is the ultimate suicide. If one is alone, then one is alone. It has to be accepted, it has not to be avoided: if one is alone, so what? If that is the fact, then that is the fact - then one has to go into it. Sannyas means encountering one's aloneness, going into it. Going into it in spite of all the fear. Dying into it. If death happens through it, it is okay, but one is not going to shirk from the truth. If aloneness is truth, then one accepts and goes into it. That's the meaning of sannyas. And one really commits suicide. One disappears.

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If you have fear, you have fear- why make a problem out of it? You know that you have fear, just as you have two hands. Fear is there: accept it, note it. What will happen? Suddenly you will feel it has disappeared. And this is the inner alchemy -- a problem disappears if you accept it, and a problem grows more and more complex if you create any conflict with it. It is there and nothing can be done about it. And when I say nothing can be done about it, don't think that I am talking about pessimism to you, in fact I am giving you the key to solve it.

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If a child is afraid in the dark, we say, "Don't be afraid, be brave." Why? The child is innocent- naturally he feels fear in the dark. You force him: "Be brave." So he also forces, then he becomes tense. Then he endures the darkness but now tense; now, his whole being is ready to tremble and he suppresses it. This suppressed trembling will follow him his whole life. It was good to tremble in the darkness, nothing was wrong. It was good to cry and run, nothing was wrong. The child would have come out of darkness more experienced, more knowing. And he would have realized, if he passed through darkness trembling and crying and weeping, that there was nothing to fear. Suppressed, you never experience the thing in its totality, you never gain anything out of it. Wisdom comes through suffering and wisdom comes through acceptance. Whatsoever the case, be at ease with it.

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Question - Beloved Osho, How best to deal with fear? It affects me variously... From a vague uneasiness or knotted stomach to a dizzying panic, as if the world is ending. Where does it come from? Where does it go?
Osho - It is the same question that I was just answering. All your fears are by-products of identification. You love a woman and with the love, in the same parcel comes fear: she may leave you -- she has already left somebody and come with you. There is a precedent; perhaps she will do the same to you. There is fear, you feel knots in the stomach. You are too much attached.

You cannot get a simple fact: you have come alone in the world; you have been here yesterday also, without this woman, perfectly well, without any knots in the stomach. And tomorrow if this woman goes... what is the need of the knots? You know how to be without her, and you will be able to be without her.

The fear that things may change tomorrow... Somebody may die, you may go bankrupt, your job may be taken away. There are a thousand and one things which may change. You are burdened with fears and fears, and none of them are valid -- because yesterday also you were full of all these fears, unnecessarily. Things may have changed, but you are still alive. And man has an immense capacity to adjust himself in any situation.

They say that only man and cockroaches have this immense capacity of adjustment. That's why wherever you find man you will find cockroaches, and wherever you find cockroaches you will find man. They go together, they have a similarity. Even in faraway places like the North Pole or the South Pole... When man traveled to those places he suddenly found that he had brought cockroaches with him, and they were perfectly healthy and living and reproducing.

If you just look around the earth you can see -- man lives in thousands of different climates, geographical situations, political situations, sociological situations, religious situations, but he manages to live. And he has lived for centuries... things go on changing, he goes on adjusting himself.

There is nothing to fear. Even if the world ends, so what? You will be ending with it. Do you think you will be standing on an island and the whole world will end, leaving you alone? Don't be worried. At least you will have a few cockroaches with you!

What is the problem if the world ends? It has been asked to me many times. But what is the problem? -- if it ends, it ends. It does not create any problem because we will not be here; we will be ending with it, and there will be no one to worry about. It will be really the greatest freedom from fear.

The world ending means every problem ending, every disturbance ending, every knot in your stomach ending. I don't see the problem. But I know that everybody is full of fear.

But the question is the same: the fear is part of the mind. The mind is a coward, and has to be a coward because it doesn't have any substance -- it is empty and hollow, and it is afraid of everything. And basically it is afraid that one day you may become aware. That will be really the end of the world!

Not the end of the world but your becoming aware, your coming to a state of meditation where mind has to disappear -- that is its basic fear. Because of that fear it keeps people away from meditation, makes them enemies of people like me who are trying to spread something of meditation, some way of awareness and witnessing. They become antagonistic to me -- not without any reason; their fear is well-founded.

They may not be aware of it, but their mind is really afraid to come close to anything that can create more awareness. That will be the beginning of the end of the mind. That will be the death of the mind.

But for you there is no fear. The death of the mind will be your rebirth, your beginning to really live. You should be happy, you should rejoice in the death of the mind, because nothing can be a greater freedom. Nothing else can give you wings to fly into the sky; nothing else can make the whole sky yours.

Mind is a prison. Awareness is getting out of the prison -- or realizing it has never been in the prison; it was just thinking that it was in the prison. All fears disappear.

I am also living in the same world, but I have never felt for a single moment any fear because nothing can be taken away from me. I can be killed -- but I will be seeing it happening, so what is being killed is not me, is not my awareness.

The greatest discovery in life, the most precious treasure, is of awareness. Without it you are bound to be in darkness, full of fears. And you will go on creating new fears -- there is no end to it. You will live in fear, you will die in fear, and you will never be able to taste something of freedom. And it was all the time your potential; any moment you could have claimed it, but you never claimed it. It is your responsibility.

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Fear is natural; guilt is a creation of the priests. Guilt is man-made. Fear is in-built, and it is very essential. Without fear you will not be able to survive at all. Fear is normal. It is because of fear that you will not put your hand in the fire. If the child has no fear there is no possibility that he will ever survive. His fear is a life-protective measure.

Fear is intelligence – so when you see a snake crossing the path, you jump out of the way. It is not cowardly, it is simply intelligent. But there are two possibilities. Fear can become abnormal, it can become pathological.

Fear can become abnormal, then it is pathology. And because of this possibility, priests have used it, politicians have used it. All kinds of oppressors have used it. They make it pathological, and then it becomes very simple to exploit you. The priest makes you afraid of hell. Just look in the scriptures -- with what joy they depict all the tortures, with really great relish.

The priests became aware very early that the fear instinct in man can be exploited. He can be made so much afraid that he will fall at the feet of the priests and will tell them, "Save us! Only you can save us." And out of fear people have been following the priests, and all kinds of stupidities, superstitions.

It is fear that creates guilt – but not fear itself. Fear creates guilt via the priests and politicians. The priests and the politicians create in you pathology, a trembling. And, naturally, man is so delicate and so fragile, he becomes afraid.

Man can be forced to do anything – just to save himself. And because the pathology that the priests have created in you is unnatural, your nature rebels against it, and once in a while you do something which goes against it – you do something natural – then guilt arises.

Guilt means you have an unnatural idea in your mind about how life should be, what should be done, and then one day you find yourself following nature and you do the natural thing. You go against the ideology. Because you go against the ideology, guilt arises, you are ashamed. You feel yourself very inferior, unworthy.

OSHO : MARRIAGE AND LOVE

1. 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.' You don't know what love is. You simply see some beautiful face, you see some beautiful body and you think, "My God, I am in love!" This love is not going to last, because after two days, seeing the same face for twenty-four hours a day, you will get bored. The same body... you have explored the whole topography; now there is nothing to explore. Exploring the same geography again and again, you feel like an idiot. What is the point? This love affair, this love marriage is failing, it has already failed. The reason is that you don't know how to wait so that love can happen.
   
2. 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. Ordinarily, people destroy their love. They do EVERYTHING to destroy it and then they suffer. And they go on saying, "What went wrong?" They destroy -- they do everything to destroy it.
   
   There is a tremendous desire and longing for love, but love needs great awareness. Only then can it reach its highest climax -- and that highest climax IS marriage. It has nothing to do with law. It is a merging of two hearts into totality. It is the functioning of two persons in synchronicity -- that is marriage.
   But people try love and because they are unconscious...their longing is good, but their love is full of jealousy, full of possessiveness, full of anger, full of nastiness. Soon they destroy it. Hence for centuries they have depended on marriage. Better to start by marriage so that the law can protect you from destroying it. The society, the government, the court, the policeman, the priest, they will all force you to live in the institution of marriage, and you will be just a slave. If marriage is an institution, you are going to be a slave in it. Only slaves want to live in institutions.
   
   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.
   
3. India missed with arranged marriage; the West is missing with free love.
   India missed love because parents were too calculating and cunning. They would not allow falling in love: that is dangerous, nobody knows where it will lead. They were too clever, and through cleverness India missed all possibility of love.
   In the West they are too rebellious, too young; not clever -- too young, too childish. They have made sex a free thing, available everywhere: no need to go so deep to discover love, enjoy sex and be finished.
   
   Through sex, the West is missing: through marriage, the East has missed. But if you are alert you need not be Eastern, you need not be Western. Love is neither Eastern nor Western. Go on discovering love within you. And if you love, sooner or later the person will happen to you, because a loving heart, sooner or later, comes to a loving heart -- it always happens. You will find the right person. But if you are jealous you will not find, if you are simply for sex you will not find, if you live only for security you will not find.
   
4. Love, and love as deeply as possible. And if love itself becomes the marriage, that is another thing, altogether different. If love itself becomes such an intimacy that it is unbreakable, that is another thing, that is not a legal sanction.
   Legal sanctions are needed only because you are afraid. You know that your love is not enough; you need the legal support for it. You know perfectly well that you can escape or the woman can escape, hence you need the policeman to keep you together. But this is ugly, to need a policeman to keep you together. That's what marriage is!
   
5. Love affairs have been failing, and parents feel very happy. People come to me and they say, "Look, in the West love affairs have been failing. Then why are you against marriage?" they ask me. Love affairs are failing because first the marriage was arranged by the astrologer, then it was arranged by the parents, and now it is being arranged by biology, by instinct. You suddenly feel that you like a woman, but you don't know how long this is going to last and you are not even aware why you like her. You are not even alert to what it is in you that likes her. Maybe it is just her hairstyle. Now, are you going to get married to a hairstyle? You can get married, but tomorrow morning when you see her hair disheveled you will be at a loss: "Is this the same woman I fell in love with?" How long can you be interested in the hairstyle? Soon you will get fed up. The same hairstyle again and again -- the whole day, twenty-four hours a day...!
   
   People are falling in love because a certain man has a certain type of nose. People are falling in love with fragments! Nobody is bothered about the totality of the person -- and it is a vast thing. The nose does not count for much -- after two days you won't look at it at all. Or the color, or the shape, or the proportion of the body -- all these things are very minor. The real thing is the total functioning of the person, and that can be experienced only when you live together.

Greatest Fear of All

by Osho

The greatest fear in the world is of the opinions of others. And the moment you are unafraid of the crowd you are no longer a sheep, you become a lion. A great roar arises in your heart, the roar of freedom.

Buddha has actually called it the lion's roar. When a man reaches an absolutely silent state he roars like a lion. For the first time he knows what freedom is because now there is no fear of anybody's opinion. What people say does not matter. Whether they call you a saint or a sinner is immaterial; your whole and sole judge is God. And by 'God' a person is not meant at all, God simply means the whole universe.

It is not a question of having to face a person; you have to face the trees, the rivers, the mountains, the stars -- the whole universe. And this is our universe, we are part of it. There is no need to be afraid of it, there is no need to hide anything from it. In fact, even if you try you cannot hide. The whole knows it already, the whole knows more about you than you know.

And the second point is even more significant; the second is, God has already judged. It is not something that is going to happen in the future, it has already happened: he has judged. So even the fear of that judgment withers away. It is not a question of some Judgment Day at the end. You need not tremble. The judgment day happened on the first day; the moment he created you he already judged you. He knows you, you are his creation. If something goes wrong with you he is responsible, not you. If you go astray he is responsible, not you. How can you be responsible? -- you are not your own creation. If you paint and something goes wrong you cannot say that the painting is the cause of it -- the painter is the cause.

So there is no need to be afraid of the crowd or of some imaginary god at the end of the world asking you what you have done and what you have not done. He has already judged -- that is really significant -- it has already happened so you are free. And the moment one knows that one is totally free to be oneself, life starts having a dynamic quality to it.

Fear creates fetters, freedom gives you wings.

FREEDOM GIVES YOU WINGS

I have been a misfit my whole life -- in my family, in my religion, in my country -- and I have enjoyed it all the way, because to be a misfit is to be an individual.

To fit with the existing established order is to lose your individuality. And that's your whole world.

The moment you compromise and lose your individuality, you have lost everything. You have committed suicide. The people who fit in the world are people who have destroyed themselves.

Certainly it needs courage, a tremendously strong sense for freedom; otherwise, you cannot stand alone against the whole world. But to stand against the whole world is the beginning of such a great joy, rejoicing and blessing, that those who have never been misfits cannot understand it.

All the great names in the history of man were just misfits in their society. All the people who have contributed to the happiness of man and the beauty of the earth have been misfits. To be a misfit is a tremendously valuable quality.

Never compromise on any point. The very compromise is the beginning of your destruction.

I do not mean that you have to be stubborn; if you see something is right, go along with it. But the moment you realize that something is not right, then even if the whole world feels it is right, it is not right for you. And then stick to your position -- that will give you stamina, strength, a certain integrity.

And to be a misfit does not mean to be an egoist. If you are an egoist, sooner or later you will compromise. When you find any group of people, any society, any country, which helps you to be more egoistic, you will immediately fit with that society. The real misfit is a humble man, that's why nobody can absorb him. He is free because he is free of the ego.

My understanding is that only people of intelligence, individuality, are rejected. The people who are obedient, who have no individuality, no freedom of expression, never say no to anything, are always ready to say yes, even against their wills -- these are the people who gain much respectability in the world. They become presidents, they become prime ministers, they are honored in every possible way, for the simple reason that they committed suicide. They are no longer living, they are simply fossilized. How can you fit living people into a certain pattern? Every individual is unique -- why should he fit into another's mold?

The whole misery of the world can be explained very simply: everybody has been cut, molded, arranged by others without their even bothering to find out what he was supposed to be by nature. They don't give a chance to existence. From the very moment the child is born, they start spoiling him -- with all good intentions, of course. No parent does it consciously, but he was conditioned in the same way. He repeats the same with his children; he knows nothing else.

The disobedient child is continuously condemned. The obedient child is, on the other hand, continuously praised. But have you heard of any obedient child having become world-famous in any dimension of creativity? Have you heard of any obedient child who has attained the Nobel prize for anything -- literature, peace, science? The obedient child becomes just the common crowd.

I have lived continuously as a misfit everywhere, and I have enjoyed it, every inch of it, every drop of it. It is such a beautiful journey, to be just yourself.

FREEDOM FROM, FREEDOM FOR

Never think in terms of being free from; always think in terms of being free for. And the difference is vast, tremendously vast. Don't think in terms of from -- think for. Be free for God, be free for truth, but don't think that you want to be free from the crowd, free from the church, free from this and that. You may be able to go far away one day, but you will never be free, never. It is going to be some sort of suppression.

Why are you so afraid of the crowd? ... If the pull is there, then your fear simply shows your pull, your attraction. Wherever you go you will remain dominated by the crowd.

What I am saying is, just look at the facts of it -- that there is no need to think in terms of the crowd. Just think in terms of your being. It can be dropped right now. You cannot be free if you struggle. You can drop it because there is no point in struggling.

The crowd is not the problem -- you are the problem. The crowd is not pulling you -- you are being pulled, not by somebody else but by your own unconscious conditioning. Always remember not to throw the responsibility somewhere on somebody else, because then you will never be free of it. Deep down it is your responsibility. Why should one be so much against the crowd? Poor crowd! Why should you be so much against it? Why do you carry such a wound?

The crowd cannot do anything unless you cooperate. So the question is of your cooperation. You can drop the cooperation just now, just like that. If you put any effort into it, then you will be in trouble. So do it instantly. It is just on the spur of the moment, of spontaneous understanding, if you can see the point that if you fight, you will be fighting a losing battle. In the very fighting you are emphasizing the crowd.

That's what has happened to millions of people. Somebody wants to escape from women -- in India they have done that for centuries. Then they become more and more engrossed in it. They want to get rid of sex, and their whole mind then becomes sexual; they think only of sex and nothing else. They fast, and they will not go to sleep; they will do this and that pranayama and yoga and a thousand and one things -- all nonsense. The more they fight with sex the more they are enforcing it, the more they are concentrating on it. It becomes so significant, out of all proportion.

That is what has happened to Christian monasteries. They became so repressed, just afraid. The same can happen to you if you become afraid too much of the crowd. The crowd cannot do anything unless you cooperate, so it is a question of your alertness. Don't cooperate!

This is my observation: that whatsoever happens to you, you are responsible. Nobody else is doing it to you. You wanted it to be done, so it has been done. Somebody exploits you because you wanted to be exploited. Somebody has put you into a prison because you wanted to be imprisoned. There must have been a certain search for it. Maybe you used to call it security. Your names may have been different, your labels may have been different, but you were hankering to be imprisoned because in a prison one is safe and there is no insecurity.

But don't fight with the prison walls. Look inside. Find that hankering for security, and how the crowd can manipulate you. You must be asking for something from the crowd -- recognition, honor, respect, respectability. If you ask them, you have to repay them. Then the crowd says, "Okay, we give you respect, and you give us your freedom." It is a simple bargain. But the crowd has never done anything to you -- it is basically you. So get out of your own way!