“You say that in heaven there is eternal beauty. The eternal beauty is here and now, not in heaven.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
When the Shoe Fits
“You say that in heaven there is eternal beauty. The eternal beauty is here and now, not in heaven.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
When the Shoe Fits
“Don't say this is good and that is bad. Drop all discrimination. Accept everything as it is.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
Tantra: the Supreme Understanding (1984)
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
Tantra: the Supreme Understanding (1984)
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
The Art of Dying ( osho.com http://www.osho.com/online-library-allow-silences-joke-5f0b06d0-61e.aspx; retrieved August 2012), Chapter 6, 14. <br class="br">The Art of Dying
“When you are no more, only then for the first time will you be.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
Tantra: the Supreme Understanding (1984)
“The ordinary society is like a paperweight on you: it won't allow you to fly.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
Tantra: the Supreme Understanding (1984)
“You must have heard about the beautiful Sufi legend of Majnu and Laila.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
Sufis, The People of the Path, Vol. 1
Context: You must have heard about the beautiful Sufi legend of Majnu and Laila. It is not an ordinary love story. The word majnu means mad, mad for God. And laila is the symbol of God. Sufis think of God as the beloved; laila means the beloved. Everybody is a Majnu, and God is the beloved. And one has to open one’s heart, the eye of the heart.
“My whole teaching consists of two words, meditation and love.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
Come, Come, Yet Again Come
Context: My whole teaching consists of two words, meditation and love. Meditate so that you can feel immense silence, and love so that your life can become a song, a dance, a celebration. You will have to move between the two, and if you can move easily, if you can move without any effort, you have learned the greatest thing in life.
“I have withdrawn the red dress, the mala”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
The Last Testament, Vol. 3
Context: I have withdrawn the red dress, the mala, because thousands of people wanted to be sannyasins but just because of the clothes and the mala they felt difficulties in the world — their job, their family, their wife, their parents, their friends — and it was too much of a trouble. I have withdrawn everything. Now whatsoever remains is something inner which neither the wife can detect nor the father nor the job nor the friends.
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
When the Shoe Fits
Context: The longer a person has been dead the greater is the tradition … If Buddha is alive you can barely tolerate him. … You cannot believe this man has known the ultimate because he looks just like you … Hungry he needs food, sleepy he wants a bed, ill, he has to rest — just like you … That is why Jesus is worshipped now and yet he was crucified when he was alive. Alive, you crucify him; dead, you worship him.
“Look for the mysterious in life.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
My Way: The Way of the White Clouds (1995)
Context: Look for the mysterious in life. Wherever you look — in the white clouds, in the stars in the night, in the flowers, in a flowing river — wherever you look, look for the mystery. And whenever you find that a mystery is there, meditate on it. Meditation means: dissolve yourself before that mystery, annihilate yourself before that mystery, disperse yourself before that mystery. Be no more, and let the mystery be so total that you are absorbed in it. And suddenly a new door opens, a new perception is achieved.
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
Just Like That: Talks on Sufism (1993)
Context: Just a few days ago a man came to see me and he said, "I am a humble man. I am just like the dust on your feet. I have been trying for almost twenty years to achieve higher consciousness, but I have been a failure. Why can't I attain?" And on and on he went. Every sentence started with I. If the grammar allowed, every sentence would have ended with I. And if everything was allowed, every sentence would have consisted only of I's. "I etcetera, I etcetera, I etcetera," it went on and on. You are filled too much. There is no room, no space for God to enter in you. You are too crowded. A thousand I's milling inside — they don't leave any space for anything to enter in you.
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen
Context: Any mundane activity can become meditative. Digging a hole in the garden, planting new roses in the garden — you can do it with such tremendous love and compassion, you can do it with the hands of a buddha. There is no contradiction … I say unto you, your every act should be a ceremony. If you can bring your consciousness, your awareness, your intelligence to the act, if you can be spontaneous, then there is no need for any other religion: life itself will be the religion.
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
God is Dead, Now Zen is the Only Living Truth (1989) YouTube video of the lecture http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBEIeRSLb8k <br class="br">Context: It was good of Friedrich Nietzsche to declare God dead — I declare that he has never been born. It is a created fiction, an invention, not a discovery. Do you understand the difference between invention and discovery? A discovery is about truth, an invention is manufactured by you. It is man-manufactured fiction. Certainly it has given consolation, but consolation is not the right thing! Consolation is opium. It keeps you unaware of the reality, and life is flowing past you so quickly — seventy years will be gone soon. Anybody who gives you a belief system is your enemy, because the belief system becomes the barrier for your eyes, you cannot see the truth. The very desire to find the truth disappears. But in the beginning it is bitter if all your belief systems are taken away from you. The fear and anxiety which you have been suppressing for millennia, which is there, very alive, will surface immediately. No God can destroy it, only the search for truth and the experience of truth — not a belief — is capable of healing all your wounds, of making you a whole being. And the whole person is the holy person to me.
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
My Way: The Way of the White Clouds (1995)
Context: Find moments when you are not, and those will be the moments when you will be for the first time... really. So I am the white cloud, and the whole effort is to make you also white clouds drifting in the sky. Nowhere to go, coming from nowhere, just being there this very moment — perfect. I don't teach you any ideals, I don't teach you any oughts. I don't say to you be this, become that. My whole teaching is simply this: Whatsoever you are, accept it so totally that nothing is left to be achieved, and you will become a white cloud.
“One has to reach to the absolute state of awareness: that is Zen.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen (1982)
Context: One has to reach to the absolute state of awareness: that is Zen. You cannot do it every morning for a few minutes or for half an hour and then forget all about it. It has to become like your heartbeat. You have to sit in it, you have to walk in it. Yes, you have even to sleep in it.
“I have never been a celibate. If people believe so, that is their foolishness.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
The Last Testament : Interviews with the World Press (1986)
Context: I have never been a celibate. If people believe so, that is their foolishness. I have always loved women — and perhaps more women than anybody else. You can see my beard: it has become grey so quickly because I have lived so intensely that I have compressed almost two hundred years into fifty.
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
Sat Chit Anand
Context: Nobody can teach you love. Love you have to find yourself, within your being, by raising your consciousness to higher levels. And when love comes, there is no question of responsibility. You do things because you enjoy doing them for the person you love. You are not obliging the person, you are not even wanting anything in return, not even gratitude. On the contrary, you are grateful that the person has allowed you to do something for him. It was your joy, sheer joy. Love knows nothing of responsibility. It does many things, it is very creative; it shares all that it has, but it is not a responsibility, remember. Responsibility is an ugly word in comparison to love. Love is natural. Responsibility is created by the cunning priests, politicians who want to dominate you in the name of God, in the name of the nation, in the name of family, in the name of religion -- any fiction will do. But they don't talk about love. On the contrary, they are all against love, because love is unable to be controlled by them. A man of love acts out of his own heart, not according to any moral code. A man of love will not join the army because it is his responsibility to fight for his nation. A man of love will say there are no nations, and there is no question of any fight.
“Nature has come to a point where now, unless you take individual responsibility, you cannot grow.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram
Context: Nature has come to a point where now, unless you take individual responsibility, you cannot grow. More than this nature cannot do. It has done enough. It has given you life, it has given you opportunity; now how to use it, it has left up to you. Meditation is your freedom, not a biological necessity. You can learn in a certain period of time every day to strengthen meditation, to make it stronger — but carry the flavor of it the whole day.
“Remain in wonder if you want mysteries to open up for you.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement
The Book of Wisdom
Context: Remain in wonder if you want mysteries to open up for you. Mysteries never open up for those who go on questioning. Questioners sooner or later end up in a library. They end up with scriptures, because scriptures are full of answers. And answers are dangerous, they kill your wonder.