Бхагаван Раджниш (Ошо) - Послания любви. 365 писем Ошо

If not now – when will you understand?

And this is not being asked for the first time,

but many many times in many many lives

the same question has been raised –

and you have not yet answered !

Now, is it not time enough?

241. Love.

Mind is localization of consciousness,

and it can be localized in any part of the body.

Ordinarily we have localized it in the head,

but other cultures and other civilizations in the past

have tried other parts of the body also,

and on other planets

there are beings with other parts of their bodies

working as their minds.

But whatsoever the part chosen

localization of consciousness means its freezing,

and whenever it ceases to flow freely as is needed

it is no longer consciousness in its suchness .

Meditation means: consciousness in its suchness.

So let consciousness fill the whole body,

let it flow throughout the totality of your being

and you will have a feeling of aliveness

which is never known and felt

by localized consciousness.

Whenever there is localization of consciousness

the part in which the localization happens

becomes tense and diseased

and the remainder of the body becomes a dead weight.

But with meditative consciousness

or flowing consciousness

everything changes completely:

the whole body becomes alive, sensitive and aware

and consequently weightless.

Then there is no center at which

tensions can exist and accumulate:

they cannot exist without frozen blocks of consciousness.

The flowing, moving consciousness

washes them out constantly with every movement.

And when the whole body is alive

only then do you begin to feel

the cosmic consciousness all around you.

How can a frozen consciousness,

and that too surrounded by a dead body,

feel the cosmic?

242. Love.

Now man knows more about man than ever

and yet no problem is solved.

It seems that something is basically wrong

with our so-called knowledge itself.

This whole knowledge is derived from analysis,

and analysis is incapable of penetrating

the depths of consciousness.

The analytical method is all right for matter

or for things

because there is no inside to them ,

but consciousness is insideness ,

and to use the analytical method with consciousness

is to treat it as an object,

while it is not an object at all.

And it cannot be made an object;

its very nature is subjectivity,

its being is subjectivity,

so it must not be approached from outside

because then whatsoever is known about it is not about it.

Consciousness must be approached from inside –

and then the method is meditation and not analysis.

Meditation is synthetic:

it is concerned with the whole and not with the parts,

it is subjective and not objective,

it is irrational or super-rational and not rational,

it is religious or mystic and not scientific.

Authentic knowledge of consciousness

comes only through meditation and all else is

just superficial acquaintance

and basically erroneous

because the very source of it is fallacious and poisonous.

243. Love.

Life is a dream so enjoy it;

but do not ask for more because

then you only disturb the dream

and get nothing except a disturbed night.

Be a witness to the dreaming mind

and then there is transcendence :

then you go beyond dreaming and beyond mind itself.

And know well that there is an awakening

below the dreaming mind

which is nothing but just a disturbed dream.

One can get to this below-dreaming state of awakening

through asking for more, desiring more –

as ordinarily we all do.

In a dream Mulla Nasruddin saw himself

being counted out coins

and when there were nine silver pieces in his hand

the invisible donor stopped giving them.

Nasruddin shouted: I must have ten ! so loudly

that he woke himself up.

Finding that all the money had disappeared

he closed his eyes again and murmured,

All right, then, give them back –

I will take the nine.

There is also an awakening above the dreaming mind –

the real awakening

in comparison to which man ordinarily is asleep.

One can reach this awakening

through witnessing the dreaming mind –

and unless one reaches it one is not really alive.

244. Love.

The divine is that from which one cannot depart,

and that from which one can depart is not the divine.

So find that from which you have never departed

and cannot ever depart from –

and then laugh at the absurdity of the human mind

and its efforts!

Buddha is still laughing because of that.

Listen!

245. Love.

Why does man suffer?

Man suffers because of his craving,

craving to possess that which cannot be possessed,

and craving to keep things forever with himself

which are essentially impermanent.

And chief among these things is his own ego,

his own persona .

But all things are impermanent.

Except for change itself

everything changes.

Really nothing is

because everything is only a process,

so as soon as one tries to possess anything it slips away.

The possessor himself is slipping away constantly!

Then there is frustration

and then there is suffering.

Know this well,

realize this well and there will be no suffering

because then you have unearthed the root.

246. Love.

The self can never be free –

because the self itself is the bondage.

This is the meaning of the penetrating saying of Jesus:

He that saveth his life shall lose it

and he that loseth his life shall know life abundant.

Or that of Lao Tzu in Tao-te-Ching :

He who humbles himself shall be saved,

he who bends shall be made straight,

and he who empties himself shall be filled.

One is not to make the self free;

rather on the contrary, one has to be free from the self .

The self is nothing but the husk of the seed.

Do not cling to it.

Sings Wu Ming Fu:

The seed that has to grow must lose itself as a seed,

and they that creep may be transformed

through the chrysalis to wings.

Wilt thou then, O mortal, cling to husks

which wrongly seem to you to be the self?

247. Love.

The gates of the temple are wide open

and it is only after thousands of years

that such opportunity comes to this earth.

Know well that they will not remain open forever.

The opportunity can be lost very easily,

and you are still wavering,

and you are still hesitating –

to enter or not to enter,

to be or not to be.

I know that the challenge is great, but I know also

that your being is completely ready to take the jump.

Hence my insistent call for you to come and enter.

And this is not for the first time that I have called you,

nor the first life;

I know you, Bhakti, through so many births!

And soon you will also remember many things.

But not before the jump .

Only your superficial persona is resisting, not you –

and it is expected to resist always

because the moment one takes the plunge

into the unknown

it has to die naturally.

So please do not identify yourself with it;

be a witness to it, and you will be in the jump.

It is time now to die to the old ego

and be reborn to the supreme self!

248. Love.

Logic is not all;

nor is consistency;

because even madness has its own methods,

rationalizations and inner consistencies.

A madman was throwing handfuls

of crumbs around his house.

What are you doing? someone asked him.

Keeping the elephants away, he answered.

But there are no elephants in these parts,

said the inquirer.

That’s right – my method is effective, isn’t it?

declared the madman.

249. Love.

Total acceptance of existence is impossible for the mind

because the mind exists as denial.

It exists with the no ,

and with a total yes it dies.

So it continues to find reasons to say no

even if there are no reasons.

Walking with a disciple one day

Mulla Nasruddin saw for the first time in his life

a beautiful lakeland scene.

What a delight! he exclaimed. But if only,

if only…

If only what, master? asked the disciple.

If only they had not put water in it! said the Mulla.

250. Love.

Meditation is like the sea:

receiving the dirty river and yet remaining pure.

You need not be purified before it,

but you will come out of it purified.

Meditation is unconditional,

purity is not a prerequisite but a consequence.

251. Love.

Be as if dead,

and then dualisms will not contaminate you

and you will reach the state

of the non-arising of thought.

The brightness of self-nature will appear in full –

and when this happens you are no more.

This disappearance is the appearance of the divine,

so please – disappear !

252. Love.

Existence exists in order to exist –

and likewise life.

There is no meaning to it beyond itself

so never posit any meaning,

otherwise you will feel its meaninglessness.

It is not meaningless and it cannot be so

because there is no meaning in it all!

The very search for meaning is mean and ugly

because it comes from the utilitarian mind of man.

Existence simply is

and likewise life:

there is no purpose in it

and there is no end to it.

Feel it here and now!

Please do not practice it

because that is the way of the utilitarian mind.

Be playful

and only then will you know the playfulness

of the universe.

And to know that is to be religious.

253. Love.

Do not continue moving in the old rut –

and the way out is just by your hand.

The mind is the past, the dead past;

one has to break it somewhere and jump out of it

The mind is the prison, the slavery.

Be free of it.

And the moment is ripe.

Of course I know that you are still not clearly aware of it

but you are not unaware either.

Gather courage and jump into the unknown .

Just one step is enough

because the next follows it automatically.

But do not go on thinking and thinking and thinking.

Thinking promises to lead you somewhere

but the promise remains always a promise,

because thinking is just impotent

as far as life is concerned.

So please, be existential.

Do not hesitate.

And you have nothing to lose – because you

have nothing!

Realize this and be nothing – no-one .

254. Love.

Life is movement,

process,

fluidity;

but ideas become fixed,

so they become also anti-life.

They become dead blocks.

Do not remain with them.

Move .

And do not fear inconsistency

because life is not a syllogism,

life is not a theory

but a mystery.

Someone asked Mulla Nasruddin: How old are you, Mulla?

Forty.

But you said the same last time I asked you, five years ago!