:: OSHO SPEAKS ::

BEING IS YOU

To discover your being is the beginning of life. Then each moment is a new discovery and each moment brings a new joy. A new mystery opens its doors, a new love starts growing in you, a new compassion arises in you.

Read on as Osho shares His insight on the true celebration of life.

Life must be a seeking -- not a desire, but a search; not an ambition to become this, to become that, a president of a country or a prime minister of a country, but a search to find out "Who am I?"

It is very strange that people who don't know who they are, are trying to become somebody. They don't even know who they are right now! They are unacquainted with their being -- but they have a goal of becoming.

Becoming is the disease of the soul.

Being is you.

And to discover your being is the beginning of life. Then each moment is a new discovery, each moment brings a new joy; a new mystery opens its doors, a new love starts growing in you, a new compassion that you have never felt before, a new sensitivity about beauty, about goodness.

You become so sensitive that even the smallest blade of grass takes on an immense importance for you. Your sensitivity makes it clear to you that this small blade of grass is as important to existence as the biggest star; without this blade of grass, existence would be less than it is. And this small blade of grass is unique, it is irreplaceable, it has its own individuality.

And this sensitivity will create new friendships for you -- friendships with trees, with birds, with animals, with mountains, with rivers, with oceans, with stars. Life becomes richer as love grows, as friendliness grows.

In the life of St. Francis, there is a beautiful incident. He is dying, and he has always traveled on a donkey from place to place sharing his experiences. All his disciples are gathered to listen to his last words.

The last words of a man are always the most significant that he has ever uttered because they contain the whole experience of his life.

But what the disciples heard, they could not believe....

St. Francis did not address the disciples; he addressed the donkey. He said, "Brother, I am immensely indebted to you. You have been carrying me from one place to another place with never a complaint, never grumbling. Before I leave this world, all that I want is forgiveness from you; I have not been humane to you."

These were the last words of St. Francis. A tremendous sensitivity to say to the donkey, "Brother donkey" and ask to be forgiven.

As you become more sensitive, life becomes bigger. It is not a small pond, it becomes oceanic. It is not confined to you and your wife and your children -- it is not confined at all. This whole existence becomes your family, and unless the whole existence is your family you have not known what life is -- because no man is an island, we are all connected.

We are a vast continent, joined in millions of ways.

And if our hearts are not full of love for the whole, in the same proportion our life is cut short.

Meditation will bring you sensitivity, a great sense of belonging to the world. It is our world -- the stars are ours, and we are not foreigners here. We belong intrinsically to existence. We are part of it, we are heart of it.

Secondly, meditation will bring you a great silence -- because all rubbish knowledge is gone. Thoughts that are part of the knowledge are gone too... an immense silence, and you are surprised:

This silence is the only music there is.

All music is an effort to bring this silence somehow into manifestation.

The seers of the ancient East have been very emphatic about the point that all the great arts -- music, poetry, dance, painting, sculpture -- are all born out of meditation. They are an effort to in some way bring the unknowable into the world of the known for those who are not ready for the pilgrimage -- just gifts for those who are not ready to go on the pilgrimage. Perhaps a song may trigger a desire to go in search of the source, perhaps a statue.

The next time you enter a temple of Gautam Buddha or Mahavira just sit silently, watch the statue. Because the statue has been made in such a way, in such proportions that if you watch it you will fall silent. It is a statue of meditation; it is not concerned with Gautam Buddha or Mahavira.

That's why all those statues look alike -- Mahavira, Gautam Buddha, Neminatha, Adinatha.... Twenty-four tirthankaras of Jainas... in the same temple you will find twenty-four statues all alike, exactly alike.

In my childhood I used to ask my father, "Can you explain to me how it is possible that twenty-four persons are exactly alike? -- the same size, the same nose, the same face, the same body...."

And he used to say, "I don't know. I am always puzzled myself that there is not a bit of difference. And it is almost unheard of -- there are not even two persons in the whole world who are alike, what to say about twenty-four?"

But as my meditation blossomed I found the answer -- not from anybody else, I found the answer: that these statues have nothing to do with the people. These statues have something to do with what was happening inside those twenty-four people, and that was exactly the same.

And we have not bothered about the outside; we have insisted that only the inner should be paid attention to. The outer is unimportant. Somebody is young, somebody is old, somebody is black, somebody is white, somebody is man, somebody is woman -- it does not matter; what matters is that inside there is an ocean of silence. In that oceanic state, the body takes a certain posture.

You have observed it yourself, but you have not been alert. When you are angry, have you observed? -- your body takes a certain posture. In anger you cannot keep your hands open; in anger -- the fist. In anger you cannot smile -- or can you?

With a certain emotion, the body has to follow a certain posture.

Just small things are deeply related inside.

So those statues are made in such a way that if you simply sit silently and watch, and then close your eyes, a negative shadow image enters into your body and you start feeling something you have not felt before.

Those statues and temples were not built for worshipping; they were built for experiencing. They are scientific laboratories. They have nothing to do with religion. A certain secret science has been used for centuries so the coming generations could come in contact with the experiences of the older generations -- not through books, not through words, but through something which goes deeper -- through silence, through meditation, through peace.

As your silence grows; your friendliness, your love grows; your life becomes a moment-to-moment dance, a joy, a celebration.

Do you hear the firecrackers outside? Have you ever thought about why, all over the world, in every culture, in every society, there are a few days in the year for celebration? These few days for celebration are just a compensation -- because these societies have taken away all celebration of your life, and if nothing is given to you in compensation your life can become a danger to the culture.

Every culture has to give some compensation to you so that you don't feel completely lost in misery, in sadness. But these compensations are false.

These firecrackers outside and these lights outside cannot make you rejoice. They are only for children; for you they are just a nuisance. But in your inner world there can be a continuity of lights, songs, joys.

Always remember that society compensates you when it feels that the repressed may explode into a dangerous situation if it is not compensated. The society finds some way of allowing you to let out the repressed. But this is not true celebration, and it cannot be true.

True celebration should come from your life, in your life.

Beyond Enlightenment

# 28