Prabhaker

OSHO: What Does Enlightenment Feel Like

Every problem does not have a solution !

@Stoica Doru This is song from Indian movie 'Baahubali 2 The Conclusion' which has made up the top three films in North America on the box office weekend. The film has grossed around 10.1$ million in the first weekend.

Meditation minus Bliss is not true meditation‏ It is easy to meditate if you don’t want to be blissful — it is very easy to meditate. If you want just to be blissful and you don’t want to be in meditation, that too is easy. The rarest combination is meditation plus bliss. Meditation minus bliss is easy; bliss minus meditation is easy. But meditation minus bliss is not true meditation and bliss minus meditation is not true bliss either. They are true only when they are together. Many people have tried to meditate without bliss because it is simple, less complex. You have to take only one work upon yourself: that you have to still your mind. And you can force your mind to be stilled, but you will become sad, you will have a long face. That’s why your saints — so-called saints — look sad. Sadness has become a necessary quality for being a saint. They can’t laugh, they can’t dance, they can’t sing, they can’t love, they can’t rejoice. They talk about bliss but they only talk about it. You don’t see any bliss in their eyes, you don’t see any bliss in their milieu, you don’t see any bliss radiating from their inner center. They look sad, dull, dead, unintelligent, for the simple reason that they have chosen a shortcut and there is no shortcut. They have avoided the complexity of spiritual transformation. They have chosen meditation, they have forced their mind to be still. It is a negative state; their minds are only empty, not silent — forcibly made still. But it is not a natural growth of silence, it is not the flowering of silence. Their silence is like the cemetery, it is not the silence of a garden. The silence of the garden is full of music: the bees humming and the birds singing and a distant call of the cuckoo. They are all in it, essential parts of it. The garden has a very living silence, full of song and joy. The cemetery is also silent, but it is only the silence of death; because there is nobody, hence there is silence. You can meditate, force yourself to be silent, but you will miss God, you will miss nirvana. And you can also try to be blissful; that means you can pretend, you can practice, you can rehearse bliss. You can always try to be blissful, smiling, at least looking happy. Slowly slowly, it becomes so practiced… like Jimmy Carter. Now his smile is disappearing, but just remember two years before — you could have counted his teeth! You can practice it. I have heard that in the beginning days of his presidency his wife had to close his mouth in the night! I don’t know how far it is true, but it appears to be true — because if you practice the whole day, then in the night too your muscles become fixed. Even in sleep you will go on smiling. You can practice blissfulness too, but a practiced blissfulness is false. Anything practiced is false, remember it — never forget it. Things have to be spontaneous and natural, not practiced, not cultivated. Cultivated blissfulness is only a mask. You are smiling, but the smile is not in the heart. You are showing joy, but you are not joyous. Your heart is a desert; only on the face you have put plastic flowers. They may deceive others, but they can’t deceive you and they can’t deceive a master. Your smile, your joy, is formal — just good manners. This too has happened. There have been many saints, very blissful, always singing and dancing, but deep down just deserts. They both have chosen only the half, and the half-truth is far more untrue than any untruth. Truth has to be total, truth has to be whole. And the whole truth is: bliss PLUS meditation. It is difficult of course, arduous, to manage both. Why? — because they seem to be polar opposites. Meditation means silence and bliss means dance. Meditation means stillness and bliss means a song. Meditation means escaping from the world and bliss means sharing with the world. Meditation you can do in a Himalayan cave, but to be blissful you will have to come back to the world. Bliss needs to be shared; it exists only in sharing. It can’t exist when you are alone, it disappears. It is a communion. Meditation can exist in aloneness and bliss can exist in togetherness. But when both exist then you have to learn a totally new way of life. Source – Osho Book “Dhammapada, Vol 8″

Watching is meditation. What you watch is irrelevant. You can watch the trees, you can watch the river, you can watch the clouds, you can watch children playing around. Watching is meditation. What you watch is not the point; the object is not the point. The quality of observation, the quality of being aware and alert - that's what meditation is. So perfectly good! Children are beautiful - pure energy dancing around, pure energy running around. Delight in it and watch it. I don't see why you are feeling yourself in trouble. The mind goes on creating trouble. Whatsoever you do, the mind goes on creating trouble. Now the mind says: Is this meditation at all? Remember one thing: meditation means awareness. Whatsoever you do with awareness is meditation. Action is not the question, but the quality that you bring to your action. Walking can be a meditation if you walk alertly. Sitting can be a meditation if you sit alertly. Listening to the birds can be a meditation if you listen with awareness. Just listening to the inner noise of your mind can be a meditation if you remain alert and watchful. The whole point is: one should not move in sleep. Then whatsoever you do is meditation - and don't be worried about it! The mind constantly creates some anxiety. Many times people come to me. They say they are feeling very good, very high - but is this real? Now the mind is creating a new trouble: Is this real? The mind has never asked this before. When you have a headache, do you ask: Is this real? You trust in misery too much. A headache is necessarily real, but if you go high and you feel a peak of bliss, the mind starts creating a subtle anxiety: Is this real? You may be in a delusion, hallucination, imagination. You may be seeing a dream. Or if you cannot find anything else, then: Osho must have hypnotized you. You must be in hypnosis. You cannot believe that you can be blissful, that you can be happy. Because of this tendency of the mind, the mind clings to the miserable. Mind is always seeking and searching for hell, because it can exist only in misery; in bliss it disappears. Only in misery does it have throbbing life; only in misery does its business go well. Whenever you are happy it is not needed; when you are blissful, who needs mind? - you have already gone beyond it. The mind feels left behind, neglected, it starts nagging you. It says: Where are you going? Are you hypnotized? What illusions are you seeing? These are all dreams! Because of this tendency, millions of people have come to a meditative point some time or other in their life but they miss the door. The door comes but they cannot believe in it. Meditation is as natural a phenomenon as love. It happens to everybody! It is part of your being, but you cannot believe in it. Even if it happens, you somehow overlook it. Or even if you feel that something is happening, you cannot say to others that something is happening because you are afraid others will think that you have gone mad. Your own mind goes on saying that this is not possible; this is too good to be true. So you forget about it. Remember again: in your childhood, or later on when you were young, there must have been a few moments. It is impossible that those moments were not there; they have been there in everybody's life. Just try to recollect again and you will remember there have been moments when something was opening, but you closed it, afraid. Sometimes, sitting on a silent night, looking at the stars - and something was going to happen and you shrank; apprehensive, frightened, you started doing something else. It was too good to be true. You missed an opportunity. Sometimes, in deep love, just sitting by the side of your beloved, something started happening; you were moving in some unknown direction. You became scared, you pulled yourself back to earth. Sometimes, for no reason at all, just swimming in the river, or running around in the hot sun, or just relaxing on the beach and listening to the wild roar of the ocean, something started happening inside you, some inner alchemical change, as if your body was creating LSD. Something inside... and you were moving in a totally unknown dimension - as if you had wings and you could fly. You became afraid, you started clinging to the earth. Many times in each person's life, such moments come; but those moments are not aggressive, they cannot force anything against you. If you are ready you can move, drift into them, slip into them, float with them, to the farthest end of existence. If you are afraid you cling to your shore, and you miss the boat. The boat cannot wait for you. So don't be disturbed by the mind. Watching children playing around is a beautiful meditation - because watching is meditation. But remember, don't think about it. If children are dancing, running around, playing, shrieking, jumping, jogging, don't start thinking - just watch. Watch without any thought. Be aware, but don't think. Remain alert - just seeing, a pure seeing, a clarity, but don't start thinking about it; otherwise you have already moved away. Watching children, you can remember your own child back home. Then you have missed, then you are not watching these children. Some memories are floating in your mind. A film starts moving; then you are in a daydream. Simply watch! (Osho in The Search #7)

Consciousness is a quality of your mind, but it is not your total mind. Your mind can be both conscious and unconscious, but when you transcend your mind, there is no unconsciousness and no corresponding consciousness. There is awareness. Awareness means that the total mind has become aware. Now the old mind is not there, but there is the quality of being conscious. Awareness has become the totality; the mind itself is now part of the awareness. We cannot say that the mind is aware; we can only meaningfully say that the mind is conscious. Awareness means transcendence of the mind, so it is not the mind that is aware. It is only through transcendence of the mind, through going beyond mind, that awareness becomes possible. Consciousness is a quality of the mind, awareness is the transcendence; it is going beyond the mind. Mind, as such, is the medium of duality, so consciousness can never transcend duality. It is always conscious of something, and there is always someone who is conscious. So consciousness is part and parcel of the mind, and mind, as such, is the source of all duality, of all divisions, whether they are between subject and object, activity or inactivity, consciousness or unconsciousness. Every type of duality is mental. Awareness is nondual, so awareness means the state of no mind. Witnessing is a state, and consciousness is a means toward witnessing. If you begin to be conscious, you achieve witnessing. If you begin to be conscious of your acts, conscious of your day-to-day happenings, conscious of everything that surrounds you, then you begin to witness. Witnessing comes as a consequence of consciousness. You cannot practice witnessing; you can only practice consciousness. Witnessing comes as a consequence, as a shadow, as a result, as a by-product. The more you become conscious, the more you go into witnessing, the more you come to be a witness. So consciousness is a method to achieve witnessing. And the second step is that witnessing will become a method to achieve awareness. So these are the three steps: consciousness, witnessing, awareness. But where we exist is the lowest rank: that is, in unconscious activity. Unconscious activity is the state of our minds. Through consciousness you can achieve witnessing, and through witnessing you can achieve awareness, and through awareness you can achieve “no achievement.” Through awareness you can achieve all that is already achieved. After awareness there is nothing; awareness is the end. If a man can die in the state of consciousness, for him death exists no more. In other words, if a man can manage to remain conscious at the time of death, he finds he never died at all: death appears just a delusion to him. Death proving to be a delusion does not mean, however, that death remains in some form as a delusion. Rather, when a person dies fully conscious, he finds there is no death at all. Then death becomes a falsehood.

@Mondsee LIFE is an opportunity. You can use it, you can misuse it, or you can simply waste it. It depends on you. Except you, nobody is going to be responsible. Responsibility is of the individual. Once you realize this then you start becoming alert, aware. Then you start living in a totally different way. Then, in fact, for the first time you become alive. Otherwise, people live in a sort of dream – half-asleep, half-awake… just somewhere in between consciousness and unconsciousness. That life is not really a life. You exist – but you don’t live. Existence is given to you. Existence is a gift. Life has to be earned. When existence turns upon itself, it becomes life. Existence has been given by the whole; you have not done anything for it. It is simply there, a given fact. When existence becomes life… the moment you start existing in a conscious way, immediately existence becomes life. Existence lived consciously is life. Life is a great challenge, an adventure into the unknown, an adventure into oneself, and adventure into that which is. If you live an unconscious life, if you simply exist, you will always remain afraid of death. Death will always be just somewhere near the comer, hanging around you. Only life goes beyond death. Existence comes, disappears. It is given to you, taken away. It is a wave in the ocean… arises, falls back, disappears. But life is eternal. Once you have it, you have it forever. Life knows no death. Life is not afraid of death. Once you know what life is, death disappears. If you are still afraid of death, know well – you have not known life yet. Death exists only in the ignorance – in the ignorance of what life is. One goes on living. One goes on moving from one moment to another, from one action to another, completely unaware what one is doing, why one is doing, why one is drifting from this point to that point. If you become a little meditative, many times in a day you will catch hold of yourself completely drifting unconscious. The whole effort of spirituality is to make you aware of your existence. Existence plus awareness is life eternal – what Jesus calls life in abundance, what Jesus calls the kingdom of god. That kingdom of god is within you. You have already the seed within you. You just have to allow it to sprout. You have to allow it to come in the sunlit world of the sky, to become free, to move in freedom, to move higher and higher, to touch the very infinity. It is possible to soar high – but the basic thing is awareness. -Osho From Nirvana: The Last Nightmare, Chapter 9

@CuteCornDog The world is just a mirror, and you are reflected in it. Each mind is living in its own world, it creates the world. So if everything looks negative and everything looks destructive and everything looks inimical, against you, it is because you do not have the positive center in you...If you are positive, then nothing is negative for you. If you are negative, then everything will be negative for you. You are the source of all that exists around you, you are the creator of your own world. Existence cannot be forced to go according to you, it flows in its own way. If you can flow with it, you will be positive. If you fight with it, you will become negative and the whole thing, the whole cosmos around you, will turn negative. It is just like a person who is trying to float upstream, then the stream is negative. If you are trying to float upstream in a river, then the river will seem negative and you will feel that the river is fighting you - that the river is pushing you downwards. The river is trying to move you downstream, not upstream, so it will seem as if the river is fighting you. The river is completely unaware of you, blissfully unaware. And it is good; otherwise the river will go to a madhouse. The river is not fighting with you, you are fighting with the river. You are trying to float upstream.

Ordinarily people don’t fall from awakening, but the possibility remains: one can fall. From enlightenment there is no possibility of falling back, because you are no longer there to fall back. but ... The sin is not in occurrence of violence. The sin is in the act of committing violence. The occurrence of violence is impossible, but the act of violence is possible. Violence is not there, but the desire for violence, the motivation for violence, the violent state of mind is there. One who has a desire for violence, one who takes an interest in violence, one who takes credit for violence, his taking pleasure in violence, his mental belief that violence is possible - all of this is evil, sinful. When social systems change, many things suddenly become absurd and obsolete. There was a time when if a woman was not kidnapped by some man it was thought no one loved her, that she was an ugly and unwanted woman. In those days kidnapping was a way of honoring women. Of course, that time is past, and we are in different times. But even today if inside a university campus a young woman is never brushed against by a young man while passing in the corridors, she feels rejected and miserable; there is no end to her unhappiness. And watch a woman carefully who complains that she is being jostled by men around her, and you will notice how really happy she feels about this business. A woman wants that some man should really think of kidnapping her, that he should love her so much he feels compelled to steal her instead of begging for her. It is a cowardly and dead society when life’s light is dimmed; it loses zest and vitality. Like a weakling it runs away from challenges and dangers and plays safe. In a heroic age, a brave world, when life, bursting with energy, full of fire and radiance, invites challenges and stakes everything to meet them. In such society it will be an insult to womanhood if someone does not kidnap a woman he loves but instead sends supplications to her parents and maneuvers for her hand in marriage. And the woman concerned would say , ”If you don’t have the courage to steal me it is better you had not thought of me.

Then don't begin with the mind. You can start with the physical body, become aware of each and every action of physical body. If you are fully aware of the activities of the physical body you will begin to feel the movements of the second (etheric or emotional) body. When you begin to be aware of the processes of the physical body you will begin to understand the movements of love, anger and hatred within you; you will become aware of their presence. Until you grasp the movements of these emotions that rise from the second body, all you can do is repress them.

Medicine alone is not enough, meditation is also necessary.

@Mastral OSHO: Everyday Meditation

@CuteCornDog Man is a disease. Diseases come to man, but man himself is also a disease. This is his problem, and too, this is his uniqueness. This is his good fortune, and also his misfortune. No other animal on earth is such a problem, an anxiety, a tension, a disease, an illness, in the way man is. And this condition itself has given man all growth, all evolution, because 'disease' means that one cannot he happy with where one is; one cannot accept what one is. This disease itself has become man's dynamism, his restlessness, but at the same time it is his misfortune also, because he is agitated, unhappy, and he is suffering Two methods have been tried to understand and cure the disease called man. One is medicine, the other is meditation. Both these are treatments for the same disease. It will be good to understand here that medicine considers each disease in man separately — an approach of analysis of the part. Meditation considers man himself as a disease; meditation considers the very personality of man as the disease. Medicine considers that diseases come to man and then they go — that they are something alien to man. But slowly this difference has diminished and medical science too has started saying, "Do not treat the disease, treat the patient." Medicine catches the diseases in man very superficially. Meditation gets hold of man from deep within. In other words it can be said that medicine tries to bring about the health of a person from the outside; meditation tries to keep the inner being of a person healthy. Neither can the science of meditation be complete without medicine, nor can the science of medicine be complete without meditation, since man is both body and soul.

You want somebody should come to you and love you. YOU CAN WAIT FOREVER BECAUSE THE OTHER IS ALSO AFRAID. And people who are afraid they become afraid of one thing absolutely, and that is the fear of being rejected. IF I GO AND KNOCK AT YOUR DOOR, THE POSSIBILITY IS YOU MAY REJECT. That rejection will become a wound, so it is better not to go. It is better to remain alone. It is better to move on your own, not to get involved with the other -- because the other can reject. The moment you approach and take initiative towards love, the first fear comes whether the other will accept you or reject. The possibility is there he may reject, or she may reject. THAT'S WHY WOMEN NEVER TAKE A STEP, THEY ARE MORE FEARFUL. They always wait for the man -- he should come. They always keep the possibility of rejecting or accepting with themselves. They never give the possibility to the other -- because they are more afraid than men. THEN MANY WOMEN SIMPLY WAIT FOR THEIR WHOLE LIFE. Nobody comes to knock at their door -- because a person who is afraid becomes, in a certain way, so closed that he puts people off. Just reaching nearer, and the afraid person throws such vibrations all around that anybody who is coming closer is put off. The fearful person starts moving; even in the movements... THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO SIMPLY PUT OFF ANYBODY; anybody who comes closer, they become afraid. And fear is energy just like love, a negative energy. A man who is feeling love bubbles up with a positive energy. When you come closer, as if a magnet is attracting you -- you would like to be with this person. If fear is your problem, then think about your personality, watch it. You must have closed your doors for love, that's all. OPEN THOSE DOORS! OF COURSE THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF BEING REJECTED. But why be afraid? The other can only say no. FIFTY PERCENT POSSIBILITY OF NO IS THERE, but just because of fifty percent possibility of no, you choose a hundred percent life of no love. The possibility is there, but why worry? There are so many people. IF ONE SAYS NO, DON'T TAKE IT AS A HURT, don't take it as a wound. Simply take it -- it didn't happen. Simply take it -- the other person didn't feel like moving with you. YOU DIDN'T SUIT TO EACH OTHER. You are different types. HE HAS NOT SAID NO TO YOU REALLY; IT IS NOT PERSONAL. You didn't fit; move ahead! AND IT IS GOOD BECAUSE THE PERSON HAS SAID NO, because if you don't fit with a person and the person says yes, then you will be in real trouble. You don't know: the other has saved you a whole life of trouble! Thank him or her and move ahead -- because ALL CANNOT SUIT TO ALL. Don't be afraid of making errors, because if you are afraid of making errors you will not move at all, and you will miss the whole life. IT IS BETTER TO ERR THAN NOT TO DO. It is better to be rejected than simply remaining with yourself, afraid, and not taking any initiative -- BECAUSE THE REJECTION BRINGS THE POSSIBILITY OF ACCEPTANCE; it is the other side of acceptance. IF SOMEBODY REJECTS, SOMEBODY WILL ACCEPT -- ONE HAS TO GO ON MOVING AND FINDING THE RIGHT PERSON. When right persons meet, something clicks. They are made for each other. They fit together. Not that there will not be conflicts, not that there will not be moments of anger and fight, no. IF LOVE IS ALIVE, THERE WILL BE CONFLICT ALSO. Sometimes there will be moments of anger also. That simply shows that love is an alive phenomenon. Sometimes sadness... because wherever happiness exists, sadness is bound to be there. DON'T BE AFRAID OF LOVE. There is only one thing one should be afraid of, and that is fear. Be afraid of fear and never be afraid of anything else, because FEAR CRIPPLES. It is poisonous, it is suicidal. Move! Jump out of it! Do whatsoever you would like, but don't get settled with the fear because that is a negative situation.... So please don't get obsessed with fear. JUST JUMP OUT OF IT AND TAKE A MOVE TOWARDS LOVE. And don't wait because nobody is interested in you; if you are waiting, you can go on waiting. LOVE SHOULD BE A PASSION: IT SHOULD BE PASSIONATE, ALIVE, VITAL. Only then you attract somebody to fall towards you. Dead, who bothers with you? Dead, people would like to get rid of you. Dead, you become a boring phenomenon, a boredom. All around you, you carry such dirt of boredom, that anybody who comes across you will feel that it is a misfortune. BE LOVING, VITAL, UNAFRAID... AND MOVE! Life has much to give to you if you are unafraid.

You have started taking for granted all the things life has given to you, there are people who live in far more miserable conditions than you. There are children who live without mother, without family, without home, they are not as unhappy as you. Be grateful for all those things which life has given to you, celebrate, rejoice, pray to God and give thanks for all that you have, don't complain. God has given you this life, it is valuable if you how to live, this tremendously valuable gift, and you cannot even appreciate it. You cannot welcome it, you cannot feel any gratitude for it. On the contrary, you are complaining and complaining and complaining. Your heart is full of grudges, not gratitude.

@Lorcan The only way is to cleanse people’s unconscious with meditation, fill their inner being with light. It is only meditation that gives you a clean heart, which cannot be corrupted. Then power can never be misused, then power can be a blessing — it is going to be creative. Then you are going to do something to make life more lovable, more livable; to make existence a little more beautiful. Power in the hands of a man like Gautam Buddha will not corrupt; on the contrary, it will help humanity raise its consciousness.

@Lorcan Everyone thinks as if he is the center and he has to worry about the whole world, and change the whole world, transform the whole world, create a utopia. All that you can do is just change yourself. You cannot change the world. You can create more mischief trying to change it; you can create more chaos; you can harm; and you can puzzle. Already the world is too puzzled. You can puzzle it more and confuse it more. Buddhas never die, enlightened persons never die, because their light becomes a chain reaction. And unenlightened persons never live, because they cannot create any chain, they don't have any light to share, no flame to kindle someone else's flame. Please be concerned with yourself only. Be selfish, I say, because that is the only way you will become selfless, that is the only way you can become a help and a blessing to the world. Don't be worried about it; that is not your concern. The greater your worries are, the greater you think your responsibilities are. And the greater your responsibilities, the more you feel yourself as being great. Get out of this madness of helping others. Just help yourself. That's all that can be done. And then many things happen... but they happen as a consequence. Once you become a source of light, things start happening. Many will share it, man will be enlightened through it, many will attain life, more life, abundant life through it. But don't think about it. You cannot do anything about it consciously. Only one thing can be done and that is: you can become conscious. Then everything follows.

Don't change the world, change yourself, grow into a meditator. You are only 15. When you are young, it is the easiest thing possible. It looks very difficult because you have not tried it yet. Give it a try. Why are you worried about the rest of the world? Let the world worry about itself. And you are not worried about what will happen to the rest of the world if you remain ignorant.... If you are ignorant, what happens to the rest of the world? You create misery. Not that you knowingly do it, you are misery -- so whatsoever you do, you sow seeds of misery all around. Please leave the world to itself. You can do only one thing, and that is, you can achieve inner silence, inner bliss, inner light. If you achieve this, you have helped the world very much. Just by changing one ignorant spot into an enlightened flame, just by changing one person from darkness into light, you have changed a part of the world. And this changed part will have its own chain reactions. Buddha is not dead. Jesus is not dead. They cannot be dead because there is a chain reaction -- from one lamp, from one flame, another flame takes over. And a successor is created, and they go on living. But if your light is not there, if your lamp is without a flame, you cannot help anyone. The first basic thing is that you must attain your inner flame. Then others can share. Then you can kindle others' light also. Then it becomes a succession. If you become enlightened, whatsoever you do -- or you need not do anything -- just your being, your presence will help others to flower, to be happy, to be blissful. But that should not be your concern. The first thing is how to be enlightened.

No, it was a long and difficult journey. I suffered during transition for years.

i live that way, that's the way I live in a relaxed state. I have done weight training. When i transformed from a weight trainer to a meditator , i know what changes happened in me.

In zazen, Zen training, the tanden (or hara) is the source and foundation of deep meditation. Weightlifters don't breathe from tanden throughout the day (not talking about during exercise), neither are able to keep their body (and lower belly) as relaxed as a meditator throughout the day. Those who breathe from tanden live in a relaxed state, they are always peaceful. The problem you are describing is not possible when breathing is natural, from tanden (or hara). Before I learned about meditation , I have done weight training.

There are yogi who can live without food for long durations. India's man who lives on sunshine https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/may/18/prahlad-jani-india-sunshine

This is luxury for many people, there are yogis and saints living in remote places, they can survive on anything, while maintaining their health. The way I live, I can survive on this for years, without any health complications.