This word ‘love’ has to be understood

     This word ‘love’ has to be understood. What do we mean by the word ‘love’? One thing we certainly all mean is that is has a pull in it, great energy. When you fall in love, it is not that you do something – you are pulled in. It has a magnetic force. You gravitate towards the object of your love, you gravitate almost helplessly, you gravitate even against your will. It has a pull, a magnetic field – that’s why we call it “falling in love.” Who wants to fall? But who can avoid it? When the energy calls you, suddenly you are you are no longer your old self. Something bigger than you is pulling you, something greater than you is invoking you. The challenge is such that one simply runs it headlong.

     So the first thing to understand is: love is a great energy pull. The second thing: whenever you fall in love, suddenly you are no longer ordinary – something miraculously changes in your consciousness. Love transforms you. Falling in love, a violent man becomes kind and tender. Murderer can become so compassionate, it is almost impossible to believe. Love is miraculous – it transforms baser metal into gold.

OSHO “The Beloved” volume one

May I know what faith is?

Faith is like eyes: you see yourself. Belief is like a lantern in a blind man’s hand: he cannot see, he cannot even use the lighted lantern. Even that lighted lantern will just be a burden to him, to be carried. And if the light goes off he will never become a aware of it. Belief is just believing what others say. It is not faith – faith is knowing, faith is existential – belief is intellectual.

Buddha says something, or I say something, you listen to me, it appeals to your intellect. It seems to be convincing to your reason and you start believing in it. Then it will be a lantern in a blind man’s hand. But if you listen to me, something  appeals to you and you  don’t stay with your intellectual understanding but try to make it your own experience…

If I talk about love, and listening to me you don’t cling to my words but you move into love, you take the risk of love, you move into the danger of love, then you will come to an understanding which will be like eyes. If you just listen to me, it is very cheap. Just listening to me you collect information and you can say, “Yes, I know much about love.” Your knowing will be a deception

OSHO “The Beloved” volume one

Love Is A Paradox

If you ask me, I'm both Hindu and Greek. If you ask me, I will say love is a paradox. It is very paradoxical phenomenon. Don't try to reduce to one pole; both polarities are needed. the other is needed, but in deep love the other disappears. If you watch two lovers, they are two and one together. That's the paradox of love and that's the beauty of it. They are two, yes, they are two; and yet they are not two, they are one. If this oneness has not happened then love is not possible. They may be doing something else i the name of love. If they are still two and not one also, then love has not happened. And if you are just alone and there's nobody else, then too love is not possible. Love is a paradoxical phenomenon. It needs two in the first place, and in the last place it needs two to exist as one. It is the greatest enigma -- it is the greatest puzzle.

If you have loved somebody, you will understand what I mean. You know the other is the other, and yet deep down you feel something has been bridged. It is as if  traveling in a sea you come across an island. It is separate from the continent, yes. But deep down, underneath the sea, the land is one. It is joined with the continent -- it is not really separate. It is separate yet not separate; that is what love is.

So if you ask me, I will say it is possible to love yourself, but you have to divide yourself into two. Then you will have to become the lover and the beloved both. And it is also possible to love somebody else, but then you have to become one. Love is something that happens between two persons, but when it happens they are no longer two, they become one.

OSHO "The Beloved" volume one

Just to be able to dance

Destination is fixed by the mind; direction is earned by living. Destination is logical: one wants to be a doctor, one wants to be an engineer, one want to be a scientist or one wants to be a politician, one want to be a rich man, a famous man -- these are destinations. Directions? - one simply lives the moment in deep trust that life will decide. One lives this moment totally that out of this totality the past dissolves and the future starts taking shape. But this shape is not given by you, this shape is earned by you.

Yes, direction comes out of living this moment. it is not something that you manage and plan. It happens, it is very subtle - and you will never be certain about it, you can only feel it. That's why i say it is more like a poetry not like a prose; more like love than logic; more like art than science. Vague...and that's its beauty -hesitant, as hesitant as a dew drop on a grass leaf - slipping, not knowing where, not knowing why; in the morning sun, just slipping on a leaf of grass.

Direction is very subtle, delicate, fragile. That's why everybody has chosen destination. Society tries to fix a destination for you. Parent, teacher, culture, religion, government: they all try to give you a fixed pattern of life. They don't want you to be free, left alone, moving into the unknown. But that's how they created boredom. If you know your future beforehand, it is already boring. If you know that you are going to be this, it is already boring.

OSHO "The Beloved" volume one

This Is The Novel Man

This is the novel man.

Now he knows no duality. He does not make any distinction between a sage and a fool. He makes no distinction between a man and the woman. All dualities have come to be united, all dualities have dissolved. Once you drop the words, dualities drop.

Language creates duality, language exist through duality. It cannot indicate the non-dual. If i say 'day', immediately i create night. If i say 'life', immediately I create death. If i say 'good', immediately bad is created. If i say 'no', just by the side of the no, yes is existing. Language can exist only through opposite.

That's why we see life as always divided -- God and Devil. Drop language, drop this linguistic pattern. Once language is no longer on your mind and you look directly into reality, day is night. Suddenly you will start laughing at why you missed it for so long! Day -- every day turns into night; night turns into day every morning, and you have been missing. Life is always turning into death, death always turns again into life, and you have been missing. They are not two, they are one whole. This is the non-dual, advait. This is the most essential religion.

Because his consciousness is no longer divided by language, he is no longer looking at the world through words. He looks insane: he is absorbed in his own being, he is lost in his own vision. And the vision is so vast, as if a thousand and one sun have risen together. It is so dazzling.

Lost in his own thoughts, he seems insane to the others.

He open his arms to welcome the world,

calling all the ferryboat tied to the coast of life.

And he goes on calling, "Come to me, come if you wish to meet the novel man," and the boat is ready. And his boat is not against life, it is tied to the coast of life. He is not negative. And he says, 'Come, and I can take you to the other shore. Come, and I can make you new. Come and I can take you into eternity."

OSHO "The Beloved" volume one

Simple words can overcome ignorance and disbelief

Simple words can overcome ignorance and disbelief:

Kali and Krishna are one.

Baul say, " we dont make any distinction between a Hindu and a Mohammedan and a Chritian...Kali and Krishna are one." They say, "We don't even make any distinction between male and female - Kali and Krishna are one, male and female are one.

That is one of their great insights: that if you really dance and sing in deep trust and love, you will come to feel that man and woman are not two things, are not two beings. Inside you, a new alchemy starts, and your inside man melts with the inside woman...and Kali and Krishna becomes one.

They sing:

As the man and the woman in me

unite in love,

the brilliace of beauty,

balance on the bi-petalled lotus

blooms in me,

dazzles my eyes.

They rays outshines the moon,

and the jewels

glowing on the hood of the snakes.

My skin and bones are turned into gold

when the inner man and woman meet,

My skin and bone are turned into gold,

when the inner man and the woman meet,

when Krishna and Kali become one.

My skin and bone are turned into gold,

I am the reservoir of love,

alive as the waves.

A single drop of water

has grown into a sea,

unnavigable.

OSHO "The Beloved" volume one

The novel man lives in eternity, the ordinary man lives in time

This word 'Kali' has to be understood. Kali is the mother of time. In Sanskrit time is called kala, and the mother of kala is Kali, mother of time. But the mother of time is beyond time. Time is born out of it, but the womb out of time which time is born is eternity. Eternity is the mother of time. time is just a reflection of the eternal. The Bauls worship Kali, the mother of time; they worship eternity. They seek and search eternity - not that which changes but that which remains always and always, that which is beyond all flux, permanent, unmoving. They seek that hub of existence. Symbolically it is called Kali.

This word 'kala' is very meaningful: one meaning is time, another meaning is death. It is beautiful because time is death. The moment you enter into time you are ready to die. With birth, death has entered into you. When the child is born, he has entered into the realm of death. The birthday is also the deathday. Now only one thing is certain: that he will have to die. Everything else is just uncertain; it may happen, it may not happen. But the moment the child is born, the moment the child has taken his first breath, one thing is absolutely certain - that he will die.

Entering into life is entering into death; entering into time is entering into death. time is death, hence the sanskrit word 'kala' is very beautiful. It means both time and death. Eternity is deathless. How to find eternity? what is the way? One has to understand the process of time.

The process of time is horizontal: one moment passes, then comes another moment. That passes, then another moment -- a procession of moments, a que of moments -- one passes, then another comes; another passes then another comes. It is horizontal.

Eternity is vertical; you go deep into the moment, not moving in a line but into depth. you drown yourself in the moment. If you stand on the bank, then the river goes on passing. Ordinarily we are standing on the bank of time. The river goes on moving; one moment, another moment, and another, and the sequence of moments continues. this is how we ordinarily live, this is how we live in time.

Then there is another way - take a jump into the river, drown int the moment, the herenow. then suddenly, time stops. then you are moving in an altogether different dimension; the vertical dimentsion is eternity. That is the meaning of Jesus' cross.

The cross is a time symbol. It is made of two lines: one vertical, one horizontal. On the horizontal line are hands of Christ and on the vertical line is his whole being. Hands are symbolic of action: doing, having. Having is in time -- being is in eternity. So whatsoever you do is in time, whatsoever is your nature is in eternity. Change from having, doing, towards, being. This moment, the turning can happen. This very moment, if you forget past and future, then time stops. Then nothing is moves, then everything is absolutely silent and you start drowning in the herenow. That 'now' is eternity.

Kali is a symbol of now. of the eternal, of the absolutely real. To live moment to moment and not to bother about the past and the future is a way towards becoming the novel man.

OSHO "The Beloved" volume one

The Man Who Has Understood The Futility Of Things Becomes Religious

     The Baul Say, "The man who has understood the futility of things becomes religious." If you are running after having, you will become a manipulator: constantly in conflict with others, constantly trying to crush others by any way and any means, trying to reach to the top. You will lose all spontiniety.

     The man of being, the novel man, is spontaneous. He lives in the moment, he lives herenow. He knows no other way to live, he is unpredictable. You can predict a man of competition because the mind of a competitor runs like a mathematical formula. It has a logical syllogism in it. But the mind of one who has is moving inwards, the man of being is almost dissolving. The mind of an inward traveler is dissolving, you cannot predict him. He has no mathematical formula about him -- he simply lives in the moment, he responds to the moment.

     Now let me tell you one thing: the man of having is very clear. The man of having has a destination, very clear-cut. If he wants to become the president of the United States or a premier of India, he has a clear cut destination.

     What about the man of being? -- he has a direction but he has no destination. He has very subtle direction, but no destination. He has a quality: he has a light inside, and wherever he moves that light falls on his path. He has eyes to see, a direction, but no destination. He is enjoying and he is moving but his movement is not prefabricated. He has no plan. He is like the river, not like a railway train, not running in a fixed pattern. His life will be zigzag. Sometimes he will be moving towards the south. He cannot be very consistent because consistency is part of the logical mind, it is not part of the being. He will be found many times to be inconsistent, even contradictory; but those contradictions are just on the surface. If you look deep you will find a subtle direction there.

     But to know the man of being you need very deep eyes, penetrating eyes. To know the man of having, nothing is needed -- just a little mind will do, a mediocre mind will do -- because the man of having is also of  the category of a mediocre minds. But when you move into the inner world, all surfaces are lost and the depth is infinite.

     the Baul calls this spontaneous man, shaj manush -- the novel man -- he's the new man. He is the man as everyone should be. Unless you become the novel man, you will miss -- you will miss the treasures, blessings, benedictions which were showering all around you, but you were blind and you could not see it.

I have heard:

     Mulla Nasruddn was in love with a woman.

       "Look darling." he said to her. "here is a diamond engagement ring for you."

       "Oh. its beautiful!" she claimed." But honey, the diamond has a flaw in it."

       "You should not notice that," said the Mulla. "Why, you are in love and you know what they say           'love is blind.'"

"Blind, yes," she said, "but not stone blind."

     Even in love you continue to remain the man of the outside. Even in love you continue to think in     terms of money, prestige, power. even in love you do not allow the unpredictable to assert, you do not allow your innermost being to have its say. Even then you remain a manipulator.

     Our minds are always interested in the very ordinary. It has to be so, because mind is outward oriented. the very orientation is towards the without. That's how Jesus was not understood: he was a Baul, the novel man. If he had been born in Bengal, the land of the Bauls, he would have been understood better. They would have not crucified him. For centuries they have known mad people of God. They would have understood his language.

OSHO "The Beloved" volume one

My Skin And Bone Are turned To Gold

     You can live your life in two ways. Either you can become a man of being or you can become a man of having. Either you can have yourself or you can have many worldly things instead. Either you can possess many things and be possessed by them, or you can possess yourself and be not possessed by anything.

     The man of having has a totally different direction. that's what Bauls call 'the worldly man'. He thinks in terms of money, in terms of commodities, in terms of bank balances; he thinks in terms of thing. And he thinks that the more he has, the more he is. Th one of the most fundamental fallacies.

     You can have the world and remain a beggar. You can have all that the world can give and yet remain empty.

    The great Alexander died. He is the very symbol of the worldly man. He wanted to conquer the whole world. And he had done it., almost. But before he died, he told his generals, " Then let both my hands hang out of the coffin."

     They said, "We have never heard...it is not traditionally done. And why do you want to do such an absurd thing?"

     Alexander said, "It is not absurd. It has a certain relevance in my life. I want people to see that I am going with empty hands. So let both my hands hang out of the coffin, so everybody can see that even Alexander is going with empty hands. I came with empty hands, I am going with empty hands, and the whole life has been a watage."

     He must have been very perceptive, because many more die still clinging, still not aware that their hearts are still empty, still not aware that they have wasted their whole lives, that it has been just a nightmare.

     The man of having still continues to accumulate more and more. What he accumulate is not the point; his emphasis is on accumulation. His soul exist in accumulations.

     What he accumulates is not important. He may accumulate money, he may accumulate knowledge, he may accumulate ego or he may accumulate humility. He may accumulate things of this world, or he may start accumulating virtues, things of the other world, but he accumulates. He exists through things.

     He feels good when he has much, when he feels his hands are full, at least apparently full. He feels good, he feels he is achieving, he is being successful. This is"the old man"-- terminology of the Bauls, this is the old man. It has always existed. this rotten man, this is the diseased man.

     It is a sort of illness, this very idea of having too many things, wasting your time and energy and not knowing  at all who you are. the Baul call that direction noble in which you start thinking in terms of a  certain inner solidity, of a certain inner consciousness, of a certain rootedness, centering, of a certain realization of who you are.

OSHO "The Beloved" volume one.

Subtle Music In Your Soul

     Only one who,lives life truly, one day comes to the point where a new desire for life beyond arises. see the difference between the two. You can be afraid of death; then your desire will be false. If you have lived life and loved life, and loved it so much that you would like to know the unknown life also -- it is not out of fear of death, it is out of love for life -- then you start recognizing immediately whenever you come across an enlightened person. It is impossible to miss. You will recognize it immediately. This recognition needs no knowledge. It will simply happen.

     How do you recognize when a beautiful woman passes by? Have you any criterion? But if you have desire, suddenly you recognize that the woman is beautiful. If somebody asks you and tries to force you to confess to exactly what beauty is, you will be in trouble. You will not be able to define. Nobody has yet been able to define. Centuries and centuries of philosophers have been working on it, trying to define what beauty is and ultimately they decide it is undefinable. But still you feel beauty. If you talk to a small child whose desire has not yet ripened and you say, "This woman is beautiful," he will look at you surprised, shrug his shoulders and go on his way -- "Gone mad. All women are alike." for a small child, it makes no difference. He cannot see why one woman should be thought beautiful and another not.

     In fact, he knows only one woman who is beautiful: she is his mother -- and that too, for some other reasons, not for beauty. She is his nourishment, his life, so she is beautiful. But one day when his desire arises and his love ripens, he will start looking with different eyes. Then all women are not alike. Then certainly there are women who are beautiful; then certainly men who are tremendously appealing and magnetic. But one day again, when one becomes very alert, understanding, again all men and women. Then again the beauty and ugliness does not matter. Then again duality is transcended.

OSHO "The Beloved" volume one

Reality is; it knows no becoming, it is being

     Reality is; it knows no becoming, it is being. It knows no future; it is already here, you have just to see it -- and once you ca see it, all worry, all anxiety disappears. Then you stop  trying, pulling yourself up by your shoestrings. Then you simply relax. Then, there is no tenon. then rather, you start delighting, you start being blissful as you are.

.....

     It is very difficult to drop tomorrow's dream because then suddenly you become aware of the misery that is here today. But remember, the misery is created by yesterday's dream. It has nothing to do with today. Yesterday's dream has created the misery today; tomorrow's dream will create misery again. So when you drop tomorrow's dream, you will not suddenly become happy, because yesterday's dream will still linger on.  you have sown the seeds -- who is going to cut the crop? But half is done when  you drop tomorrow's dream. Yesterday's dream, its frustration, has to be passed through, that's what in India  we call tapas, austerity. "Yesterday's dream was my dream. I have sown it. so i have to go through the suffering. I have to pass through the frustration. I accept it; it is my own doing. Nobody else is responsible, but now I am not going to sow any more seeds."

     First drop tomorrow's dream. then by and by yesterdays dream and its hang-ups and hangovers disappear. Then a man becomes aware. When your eyes are not full of dreams, your eyes are full of awareness.

OSHO "The Beloved" volume one

A Gap Of A Million Miles

A life lived through the mind is a life of dreams…

How to stop the projector? Be herenow. Don’t Try in any way to become somebody else; accept that which you are. Drop all ideas of improvement. Drop all ideas of bettering yourself. Drop all ideas of achieving something; there is nothing to be achieved. Empty handed we come, empty-handed we go, and in the meanwhile, empty-handed we remain. And if you think your hands are full then you are befooling yourself, then you are taking dreams as reality. Your hands may be full of dreams.

OSHO The Beloved volume one

A Man Of Understanding is True

     A man of understanding is true. Even if he says, "I don't know." his ignorance is more valuable than the knowledge of the mind because at least his ignorance, his acceptance of ignorance, is closer to truth. At least he is not trying to pretend, he is not a hypocrite.

     Watch, and you will that all your answers come from your memory. Then try to find out a way where memory does not function and pure conciseness functions. That is what understanding is.

I have heard:

     A doctor stepped into the patient's room. Five minutes later he came out and asked for a corkscrew, then he went back to his patient. In another five minutes he was out again and demanded a chisel and a hammer.

     The distraught husband cpouldn't stand it any longer. he pleaded, "For heaven's sake, doctor, what is wrong with my wife?"

    "I don't know yet." the doctor repleied. "I can't get my bag opened."

     Even sometimes when you say, "I don't know," it may not necessarily be coming out of understanding. it may be simply that you can't open your bag. It may be you cannot open your memories, or you are not able to find something in your memory -- you need time. You say, "I don't know - you say. "Give me time, let me think about it." What will you do by thinking? If you know, you know; if you don't know, you don't know. What are you going to think about? But you say, "Give me time, i will think about it."

     What are you saying? you are saying, "Give me a little time; I will have to go in the basement of my mind and search. And there is such a rubbish accumulated through the years that it is difficult to find, but i will try."

     Meditate and become free from this basement. I is not that the basement is not useful, it can be used, but it should not become a substitute for your understanding. A man of understanding looks into things directly. His insight is direct, but he can use all his accumulation to help the insight  to reach you. He can use all his accumulation to make everything he is trying to convey to you is clear, but that which he is trying to convey is his own. Words may be borrowed, language may be borrowed -- has to be borrowed -- concepts may be borrowed but not what he is trying to convey to you. The container will come from the memory but the contents will come from his insight.

OSHO "The Beloved" volume one

Thinking Is Borrowed

     Thinking is borrowed. All your thoughts are given to you by other. Watch -- can you find a single thouth that is yours, authentically yours, that you have given birth to? They are all borrowed. The source may be known or not known, but they are all borrowed. The mind functions like a computer, but before the computer can give you answers you have to feed it. You have to supply all the information, then it will give you the answer. that is what the mind has been doing.

     Mind is a biocomuter. You go on collecting data, knowledge, information, and then when a certain question arises, your mind supplies the answer out of that collection. It is not a real response, it is just out of the dead past.

     What is understanding? -- understanding is pure intelligence. the pure intelligence is originally yours, you are born with it. Nobody can give you intelligence. Knowledge can be given to you, not intelligence. Intelligence is your own sharpened being. Through deep meditation one sharpens one being; through meditation one drops borrowed thoughts, reclaim one's own being, reclaims one's originality, reclaims one's childhood, innocence, freshness. Out of that freshness, when you act, you act out of understanding. And then the response is total, herenow, and the response is because of the challenge, not because of the past.

OSHO "The Beloved" part one

Thinking Is The Absence Of Understanding

     Thinking is the absence of understanding. you think because you do not understand. When you understanding arises, thinking disappears. It is like a blind man groping his way: when eyes are there you don't grope for the way, you see it. Understanding is like eyes: you see it, you don't grope. thinking is groping. Not knowing what is what, you go on thinking, guessing. thinking cannot give you the right answer because thinking can only be repeat which is known. Thinking has no vision for the unknown. 

     Have you ever tried thinking about the unknown? How will you think? You can think only that which you know; it is repetitive. You can go on thinking it again and again, you can make new combinations of old thoughts but nothing really is new. Understanding is fresh, new. Understanding is fresh, new. It has nothing to do with the past. Understanding is here, now. It is an insight into reality.

Osho "The Beloved" volume one

In the Arms of The Moon

Love happens only when you are not there. Love happens only when you are surrendered to existence. then there is a great orgasmic experience. then you reach to the very peak of your being and you look at existence from the topmost peak of the Himalayas,  you look from the Gourishankar. Then a totally different vison arises and the vision transform your life.

Osho "The Beloved" volume one