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

because it does not know yet that it has been cut off.

But his companion said:

Yes, it may be ignorant of the damage it has suffered,

but it will know in due time.

Hearing this the Sufi laughed and said:

Meanwhile you cannot reason with it.

This reverence is the state of man.

This ignorance is the state of man –

and meanwhile you cannot reason with him!

Or can you?

But this is irrelevant.

If you can reason with yourself that is more than enough!

302. Love.

In life everything is whole, and organically whole.

You cannot divide it

or take it in parts.

Love is like that

and meditation is also like that.

Even death is like that.

That is why I say:

Death is not dead but organically one with life.

You cannot die partially!

– either you die or you do not die.

Nor can you die gradually.

Please remember this always

when you are in meditation or in prayer or in worship.

A very valuable dachshund

owned by a wealthy woman was run over.

The policeman sent a man

to tell the woman of her misfortune.

But break the news gently, he said.

She thinks a lot of this dog.

The man rapped on the mansion door

and when the woman appeared, he said: Sorry, lady,

but part of your dog has been run over.

303. Love.

Artificial and outward discipline have no use –

the inner and natural discipline is enough.

But what is the inner discipline?

In one word: acceptance –

total acceptance.

And acceptance can be only total

because partial acceptance

is just a contradiction in terms.

If you live – live!

If you die – die!

If you suffer – suffer!

And then there is no problem

and no anxiety

and no anguish –

and what freedom !

A Zen master was once asked:

It is terribly hot, how shall we escape it?

Why not go, answered the master,

to the place where it is neither –

neither hot nor cold?

Where is that place?

And then the master laughed and said:

In summer we sweat and in winter we shiver .

304. Love.

How can a man learn to know himself? inquires Goethe,

and then answers:

Never by reflection but only by action.

John Burroughs doubts this.

He says:

Is not this a half-truth? –

because one can only learn his powers of action by action

and his powers of thought by thinking.

But I say that

man is always more than all his actions and

all his thoughts,

and unless that more is known no one knows himself.

That more can be known neither

by action nor by reflection

because they both belong to the periphery

and that more is eternally the center.

It can only be known through witnessing action

and thought both:

not by them but by witnessing them.

And witnessing is meditation.

305. Love.

There is no answer to man’s ultimate questions

because the questions are absurd,

and moreover there is no one to answer them.

Existence is silent and has always been so,

so do not ask

but be silent and live it and know it ,

because there is no knowing except living.

The search for answers is meaningless.

A patient in a mental hospital

placed his ear to the wall of his room, listening intently.

Quiet! he whispered to an orderly and pointed

to the wall.

The attendant pressed his ear against the wall, listened, and then

said: I don’t hear anything.

No, replied the patient.

It’s awful, it’s always been this way!

306. Love.

The mind lives in a logical somnambulism,

and it feeds on arguments and words.

You cannot come out of it gradually

or logically or rationally.

Rather, take the jump ,

illogical and irrational —

and the jump can be nothing else than that.

It cannot be calculated

or conceptualized or predetermined

because it is going into the unknown

and the unchartered

and the unpredictable,

and ultimately not only into the unknown

but into the unknowable also.

307. Love.

Meditation cannot be taught directly

because it is not a mechanical technique,

but a living art.

Dogo had a disciple called Soshin.

Soshin waited long with his master

to be taught the art of meditation.

He expected lessons the way a schoolboy

is taught at school,

but there no special lessons were forthcoming,

and this bewildered and disappointed the disciple.

One day he said to the master:

It is a long time since I came here

but not a word has been given to me

regarding the essence of meditation.

Dogo laughed at this heartily and said:

What are you saying, my boy?

Since your arrival I have continually

been giving you lessons on the matter!

At this the poor disciple was even more bewildered

and for some time he could not think what to say.

Then one day he gathered courage and asked again:

What kind of lesson could it have been, sir?

Dogo said:

When you bring me a cup of tea in the morning, I take it;

when you serve me a meal, I accept it

and when you bow to me I return it with a nod.

How else do you expect to be taught in meditation?

Soshin hung his head

and began to think about the

puzzling words of the master,

but at this the master said again:

If you want to see, see, right at once ,

because when you begin to think

you miss the point altogether.

308. Love.

Meditate, pray and wait.

Do not will anything,

for in you there is strength

greater than any strength of your own.

But it works only when your will is at rest .

309. Love.

Be free at the center;

let the center relax and die:

be only a circumference –

and this is the only renunciation I know.

No man is free until he is free at the center.

When he lets go then he is really free –

and then life is not anguish

and then life is not agony

because no hell can exist without the self, the center.

310. Love.

Do you hear me?

Do you see me?

I stand at the door and knock,

and I knock because of a promise made

in another life and another age.

311. Love.

Be in the crowd as if you are alone

and vice versa.

Receive a guest with the same attitude

you have when alone,

and when alone

maintain the same attitude you have in receiving guests.

In this way the drop drops into the ocean .

On retiring, sleep as if you have entered your last sleep,

and upon awakening be reborn again.

In this way the ocean drops into the drop .

312. Love.

Emptiness is not really emptiness:

rather, it is the all.

It is not negative:

rather, it is positivity itself.

It is out of it that everything is born

and to it everything returns.

It is the source and ground of all existence.

So whenever I say emptiness

I never mean just emptiness!

To me emptiness is not the absence of anything

but the presence of emptiness itself .

And now you can understand it

because you yourself are in it,

and it is in you.

Once a student asked Joshu: Sir, you teach that

we must empty our minds,

but I have nothing in my mind;

now what shall I do?

The old master laughed and said:

Throw it out!

But I have nothing. How can I throw it out?

If you can’t throw it out, carry it out!

Drive it out!

Empty it out!

But don’t stand there in front of me with nothing

in your mind!

313. Love.

Come here whenever it is possible.

You will always be welcomed.

And stay with me a little longer,

and let me help.

It will be difficult for you

because you will have to let go of yourself completely.

But it is not impossible –

and for you especially

because I have seen in you the great potential

that is awaiting its opportunity.

With you much that is impossible is possible.

There is a seed which is longing to explode.

Its very longing is the source of your search,

its longing is the tension that you are today

and its longing will be the freedom

that you will be tomorrow.

The essence is there and

the existence will follow if you so wish.

Please follow its call to the conclusion .

Go on doing meditation.

Do not seek results,

they will come by themselves when the time is ripe.

And the time is ripe

but you still are not.

Let meditation ripen you.

314. Love.

Life is non-fragmentary,

but mind makes it appear fragmentary;

and this fragmentation creates all the problems.

Beware of fragments

and always look beyond them

and below them

and through them –

then you will be able to see the ocean

in spite of all the waves.

The waves are in the ocean

but the waves are not the ocean.

The ocean can be without the waves

but the waves cannot be without the ocean.

315. Love.

Mind means duality

and meditation, oneness.

In Zen they call it – The One Sword .

Kusunoki Masashige came to a Zen monastery

when he was about to meet the oncoming army

of Ashikaga Takanji, and asked the master:

When a man is at the parting of the ways

between life and death, how should he behave?

The master answered: Cut off your dualism

and let the one sword stand serenely by itself

against the sky!

316. Love.

The real thing is

not to fight with your thoughts or desires or instincts

because that is negative

and the negative cannot help.

The real thing is

to grow in awareness, in meditation,

because then one wins without any fight whatsoever.

And to win through conflict is not a real victory

because that which has been suppressed

will have to be suppressed again and again.

Through conflict there is no end to conflict

and through fight only more fight is born.

But there is a victory

without any conflict, fight or suppression.

That victory comes through positive growth in awareness.

Do not fight with yourself

but grow in awareness and understanding and silence,

and all that is negative and diseased

will have withered away by itself.

Suzuki tells a story:

Chi Hsing Tzu was raising a fighting cock for his lord.

Ten days passed and the lord asked:

Is he ready? Chi answered:

No sir, he is not ready.

He is still vain and flushed with rage.

Another ten days passed and the prince asked

about the cock.

Chi said: Not yet, sir.

He is on the alert whenever he sees the shadow

of another cock

or hears its crowing.

Still another ten days passed

and when the inquiry came from the prince, Chi replied:

Not quite yet, sir.

His sense of fighting is still smoldering within him

ready to be awakened.

When another ten days elapsed

Chi replied in response to the inquiry:

He is almost ready.

Even when he hears another crowing he shows

no excitement.

He has now become positive.

He has grown in subtle inner awareness.