Individuals Need No Commandments The Times of India, New Delhi - 27 th June, 2008
People have always thought of religion and morality as one. If you followed code of conduct, you were thought to be religious. That’s why, even today, when people join a certain religious group, they ask: “What are the commandments?”
Religious leaders have always issued commandments for their believers. And followers find it easier to follow, if they have commandments. Nobody wants to think for himself or pressurize his consciousness. Thus, most followers never really grow up, even though they grow old. One who’s interested in growing up will explore life in all its dimensions by himself, not accept commandment from anybody without examining it with total awareness.
When Osho was asked for commandments, he said: “You have asked for my Ten Commandments. It’s difficult because I’m against any kind of commandment. Yes, just for the fun of it:
Never obey anyone’s command unless it comes from within you also.
There is no god other than life itself.
Truth is within; don’t search elsewhere.
Love is prayer.
To become a nothingness is the door to truth. Nothingness itself is the means, the goal, the attainment.
Life is now and here.
Live wakefully.
Do not swim—float.
Die each moment so that you can be new each moment.
Don’t search. What is, is. Stop and see.”
Point #1 urges the individual to be an individual, not a blind follower. This world is already full of millions of blind followers who are always fighting and killing to defend their beliefs. They function like an unconscious crowd, not individuals. An individual s one who follows his inner light, and doesn’t go about extinguishing that of his fellow men. He has dignity for himself and reverence for others.
Osho says: “In dictionaries, ‘personality’ and ‘individuality’ are synonyms. Not in life. Personality is a pretension. Individuality is truth. Why do we want many people to pay attention to us? To create personality. The more personality you create around yourself, the lower the possibility of knowing your individuality. Personality is a showpiece. It can deceive others but not you, not for long at least. The day you can enjoy your individuality, you are free—from dependence on others. If you ask for their attention, you have to pay for it. It is bondage. The more you ask people to be attentive, the more you become a thing, a commodity.”
Observing Fear, Observing Love The Times of India (What's Hot) - 20 th June, 2008
The celebrated poet Tulsidas wrote in the Ramayana: Bhaya binu hoi na preeti (‘Love doesn’t happen without fear’). You may have heard many people declare that they fear none but God. This fear of god seems to be a universal phenomenon. Priests of all religions are aware of it and exploit this fully. They create fear in people’s hearts by reiterating that god is watching. God is projected as the big brother or the disciplinarian father. Thus, the fear of god makes deep inroads into the human psyche and ultimately it isn’t fear of god but FEAR itself that starts ruling us. It becomes our consciousness.
Some years ago, if I saw a friend lost in thought, I’d say, with a sense of urgency: “They are looking for you.” Most of them would look afraid and ask: “Who? Who is looking for me?”
Any such statement can create fear in ordinary people, because they are already afraid. People also experience such feelings when they suddenly find somebody such feelings when they suddenly find somebody observing them. The feelings of such people can be manipulated. Clever people do that.
However, people who are deep into meditation and grounded don’t get disturbed. They know how to use this observation positively. Osho explains: “To imagine that god is observing you is an ancient method. It alters life altogether. Once this idea gets rooted deep—that god is watching you—subtle changes happen. Suddenly there are some things you can’t do. They look absurd if god is watching. It is a technique to create a new situation in your being. After seven days of practicing it, you walk differently, with more grace. There’s new awareness within you. You feel as if you’re becoming a pillar of light. Your speech becomes more significant, more poetic. Because when god watches, everything becomes an offering, worthy of the divine.”
When Osho speaks of god, he speaks of the entire intelligence of the universe, of godliness: “If you ask where god is, you ask the wrong question. You should ask: ‘Where is god not?'”
Negative and positive must be understood deeply. Love is positive, fear negative. They cannot co-exist. Osho says: “Fear is just the opposite if love, not hate. Hate is just love, upside down. You cannot fear god if you understood god. God is his universe. God is in the flowers, grass, stars, you…
All existence is made of the stuff called godliness. God is not a person, so how can you fear him? If you follow a religious life our of fear, it’s the life of a slave, not a free man.”
If you start our in fear, you cannot end in freedom; you will end in slavery. All that you do out of fear is wrong and false and superficial.
Neo Yoga for Modern Man The Times of India (What's Hot) - 13th June, 2008
There are two types of anger: Positive (against someone else), which become sadistic (you start torturing the other) and negative (upon yourself). Which becomes masochistic (you start torturing yourself).
Osho points out that when anger turns upon oneself, it is more harmful. It’s better to turn the anger outwards, then it can be thrown even on a pillow. But if it turns inwards, you cannot throw it. If you want to shout, you can. But if you want to shout inside. How can you? So the shout remains unexpressed and resonates in your being.
Osho illustrates: “A politician had ulcers but doctors failed to find any physical cause. A psychoanalyst suggested that he beat his pillow. The man laughed it off. He was anti Richard Nixon, and said: ‘Actually, I want to kill Richard Nixon, so a pillow won’t do!’ The psychoanalyst asked him to go into a forest and chop wood for light and fire. Mean while, the politician had forgotten the psychoanalyst and his suggestion. He chopped and chopped… After some weeks, when he returned, his doctor was surprised—the ulcers had vanished!” This man wanted to kill Nixon but the energy in him wasn’t so focused. It mattered whether he killed Nixon or a tree!
People suffer because they are angry but cannot throw their anger out. They go on swallowing it, stomaching it… And then it causes malaises such as ulcers!
Osho suggests some cathartic meditations that are very therapeutic. Thousands have benefited from dynamic meditation. Their energy gets unblocked. And it’s not a slow process like ancient yoga, which takes years to purify oneself. This is neo yoga. Osho feels that ancient yoga must update itself to be useful to modern man.
Osho says: “The more you train your body and control it, the more repressive you can become! When yoga first developed, people were simple. They had nothing repress, so the system worked well. Yoga is 5,000 years old; now the world has changed. Man’s mind and body have changed. The system must evolve with man. It must include cathartic methods to discipline but not repress. That’s the perfect combination. Dynamic meditaton is cathartic—you become empty, and then control yourself. When control happens in emptiness, it is tremendously beautiful. If you have the whole marketplace inside you and then try to control it, you become imprisoned. Your control burdens your being. Then, instead of letting you fly, it roots you deeper and deeper still. So every yoga practitioner in the modern world must also work on catharsis. Both should go together.”
The Secret – Most Teaching of Zen The Times of India (What's Hot) - 6th June, 2008
Whatever you do, even if it is virtuous, if the goodness is based on ego, you cannot win, for you have the very seed of defeat in you. You have to first let go of your ego...
In his discourse on ‘The Discipline of Transcendence’, Osho says: “Life can be lived in two ways—that of the soldier or the sanyasi. You can fight with life or relax with life. You can try to conquer life or live in a deep let-go. The soldier’s path is wrong because it’s impossible to conquer life; a part cannot conquer the whole. Frustration and failure is certain. You can play with the idea but it is doomed to fail. In the end, the soldier will be defeated by life, destroyed.”
Life destroys nobody but if you fight it, you’ll be destroyed by your own violence. Life isn’t against you. It is your mother. You are a ray of its light, a wave of its ocean. You are organic to it, not separate. But if you fight your own energy source, you will be destroyed. And the more you feel you’re losing the battle, the harder you will fight. But the harder you fight, the more frustrated you will become.
The moment you decide to cooperate, you become a sanyasi, who has no concept of separation from the whole, has no private goal, simply moves with life in total trust… If you can’t trust life, who will you trust? If you cannot allow life to flow through you, you will miss this tremendous opportunity to be alive. Then you’ll get worried, and misery will be the natural outcome.
To understand that conflict is not the way to be happy is the greatest understanding. Cooperation is the key, not conflict. Trust is the key, not doubt. Love is the way, not violence. Get this and get transformed!
Osho asks: “Who are you? Why should the whole accommodate you? You are just a wave on the ocean but you are trying to make the ocean accommodate you. Foolish! There is no need for the whole to accommodate you. It isn’t possible. You can go on thinking about it but you will fail. Ego always fails because it asks for the impossible. Napoleons, Hitlers, Alexanders—ask them. In the end, they were great failures. You can accumulate wealth and power but you will be failure. Ego will never win.”
Mulla Nasrudin invented a story for his grandson: “There was this worm who was an early riser. He woke up early in the morning, thinking that religious and moral teachers have always said that early rising is beautiful. But he was caught by an early rising bird, who believed in the same precepts!” The child got excited and asked: "But what happened to the other worm? The one that was lazy and slept late?" Mulla said: "A child found him asleep and killed him." The child was confused. He asked: “But what’s the motto of this story?” Mulla said: “That you cannot win!”
Whatever you do, even if it is virtuous, if the goodness is based on ego, you cannot win, for you have the very seed of defeat in you. It will poison everything you do. Poor or rich, religious or atheist, moral or immoral, criminal or saint—it matters not. What matters is that you let go of the ego. Only then will your victory is absolute. This is Zen’s secret-most teaching.
