Be A Freedom Fighter! The Times of India (What's Hot), 14th August, 2009
Man inherently possesses freedom…But where does it emerge from?
From our identity. But do you know who you really are?
Man is essentially about freedom, the ultimate value. A human being has freedom of action. Actions are intrinsically tied to intention. And so absolute freedom refers to choice. Whether one likes it or not, one must work out his values and make choices. This is why Osho says: “Man is condemned to make choices. In his book, The Invitation, he says, our responsibility is not separate from our freedom. Once we drop our responsibility on somebody else’s shoulders, we reduce ourselves into a non-entity. Of course, now nobody will blame us if something goes wrong, but in that case one loses one’s soul.”
Today, the modern man is placed in a strange environment. Nothing is certain any more. A great paralysis is happening. This paralysis can either kill humanity, cautions Osho, or it can become a transforming quantum leap. The modern man is for the first time becoming a man. The individual is being born; hence the modern man is very neurotic. It’s a good indication—it is a great revolution that the collective human consciousness is going through.
What is neurosis? Neurosis is an indefinite state of mind, undecided and indecisive. Whether to be this, or to be that? All outer definitions have disappeared, all props have been taken away. Your identity is very fragile; everybody knows it.
Osho draws our attention to the fact that, in the past, it was easy to answer “Who am I?” A Hindu, a Christian, a Muslim, an Indian, a Chinese, a Tibetan—things were clear. People knew who they were. Now it is not. All those labels have disappeared. Everyone must define himself. Earlier, others (parents, teachers, priests, politicians) did the work of defining you. They were the infallible authorities. You could be dependent easily; you did not need to think about, meditate over things. Everything was chewed for you by others and spoon-fed to you.
Now man is becoming an adult, mature. You have to work out your own identity. It is not so easy—only very intelligent people will be able to avoid neurosis. Utter intelligence will be needed to avoid neurosis. Great silence, a great capacity to go out of the mind and its traps, that will be needed in the future. And it will be so, more and more.”
Be Open And Express Your Feelings The Times of India, New Delhi, 18th August, 2009
According to Osho, for a strong relationship, a couple must be open in expressing feelings. They must be with the facts and not live in projected idealistic imaginations, says Swami Satya Vedant.
Essentially, all relationships are based on energy – the human loving caring energy. Relationships based on such positive energy show a state of consciousness which reflects intimacy in various aspects of togetherness, such as physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. The loving couple/partners experience intimate relationship which blends the energy in a harmonious way so that love flows between them freely and naturally.
When couple/partners are in a negative, poor relationship involved in an ongoing state of arguments, fights, quarrels there is a distinct sign – energy not blending and flowing freely. The friction is not only painful but also psychologically damaging. Also, couple\partners often fail to realize that intimacy between a male and a female is about more than having a sexual relationship. It is a common fact that when intimate contact exists only on a physical plane it tends to bring frustration as the physical body changes and the earlier attraction begins to fade.
In any kind of failure in a relationship, the way to heal oneself and find a positive break in one’s life, Osho recommends: Be open and express how you feel, be with the facts and not live in projected idealistic imaginations. Accept whatever that is, the acceptance is total. Buddha calls it tathata. The sky exists in a state of tathata, suchness.
Osho explains a technique:
“So meditate on the sky, and whenever you have time just lie down on the ground, look at the sky. Let that be your contemplation. If you want to pray, pray to the sky. If you want to meditate, meditate on the sky…sometimes with open eyes, sometimes with closed eyes, because the sky is within too. As it is big without, within it is the same.
We are just standing on the threshold of the inner sky and the outer sky, and they are exactly proportionate. As the outside sky is infinite, so is the inner sky.
We are just standing on the threshold. Either way you can be dissolved; or these are the two ways to dissolve.
