Osho Day 2 – Love and Relationships

Day 3 Meditations on Anger

“Interlude”
http://www.sfago.com

This free meditation is available The Mentors Channel.  with free download of excerpts from his books.   These are my notes from the Series…

“In Osho’s words, Remember, we pour our energy into anger, then only does it become vital. It has no energy of its own; it depends on our cooperation. In watching, the cooperation is broken; you are no more supporting it. It will be there, for a few moments, a few minutes, and then it will be gone. Finding no roots in you, finding you unavailable, seeing that you are far away, a watcher on the hills, it will dissipate, it will disappear. And that disappearance is beautiful. That disappearance is a great experience.”

Intro

Osho: (Notes)

“If you try not to be angry, you will repress anger.  If you try to transcend anger, you will not repress anger.  On the contrary, you will have to understand anger, you will have to watch anger – watching is transcendence.  If you repress anger, the anger goes inward and you become more and more poisoned.  It is not good, not healthy.  It is going to drive you neurotic sooner or later and one day, the accumulated anger will explode and that will be far more dangerous because then it will be absolutely uncontrollable by you.  It is better to be expressed every day in small doses, homeopathic doses.  Once in awhile when you feel angry, be angry – that is far better than accumulating anger for a few years and then one day exploding – then it will be too much.  You will not even be able to be conscious of what you are doing – it will be absolutely mad.  You may do something tremendously harmful to yourself or somebody else.  You may murder or you may commit suicide.  Transcendence is a totally different process.  In transcendence, you don’t repress anger and you don’t express it either – the only two ways you know to deal with anger now.  The real way to deal with it is neither because if you express anger, you create anger in others and then it becomes a chain.  The other expresses it and you are again provoked and where is it going to end?  The more you express, the more it becomes a habit – the more you express it, the more you are practicing it.  It will be difficult for you to get out of it.  Out of fear, repression arose ….don’t express because it brings great misery to you, to others, and to no point.  It makes you ugly, it creates ugly situations in life, and then you have to pay for it and it slowly becomes such a habit that it becomes your second nature.  Out of the fear of expression, repression arose but if you repress, you are accumulating the poison and it is bound to explode.

The third approach, the approach of enlightened people of the world is neither to express or repress, but watch.  When anger arises, sit silently, let the anger surround you in your inner world, let the cloud surround you, be a silent watcher. See the anger.  Buddha said to his disciples, when anger arises, listen to it, listen to it’s message and remember again and again, tell yourself, keep alert, don’t fall asleep.  Keep alert that anger is surrounding you but you are not “It” – you are the watcher of “It” and that is the key.  Watching, you become separate from it and it cannot effect you.  And you become so detached from it, so aloof, cool and far from it, the distance is such that it doesn’t seem to matter at all.  In fact, you will start laughing at all of the ridiculous things you have been doing in the past because of anger.  It is not you.  It is not you – it is outside you. It is surrounding you but the moment you are dis-identifeid with it, you will not pour your energy into it.  If you pour your energy into it, it becomes wider.  It has no energy of it’s own – it depends on our cooperation.  In watching, the cooperation is broken – you are no longer supporting it.  It will be there for a few moments and then it will be gone.  Finding no roots in you, finding you unavailable, seeing that you are far away – a watcher on the hill, it will dissipate and that disappearance is beautiful.  That is a great experience, seeing the anger disappear.  Great serenity arises.  The silence that follows is You will be surprised that each time anger arises and you watch, you will fall into tranquility that you have not known before. You will fall into deep meditation.  When the anger disappears, you will see yourself so fresh, so young, so innocent as you have never known yourself.  Then you will be thankful, even to anger.  You will not be angry at it because it has given you a new beautiful space to live in.  A new, totally fresh experience.  You have used it.  You have made a stepping stone out of it.  This is the creative use of negative emotions.

 Free download from Osho…

“

Day 4 – The Art of Living in Balance

“Day’s End”
http://www.sfago.com
Sharon Abbott-Furze

This free meditation is available at The Mentors Channel.  with free download of excerpts from Osho’s books.   These are my notes from the Series…

“(Here is) one of the most fundamental misunderstandings down the ages: that you can leave pain and save pleasure, that you can avoid hell and have heaven, that you can avoid the negative and can have only the positive. This is a great fallacy. It is not possible in the very nature of things. The positive and negative are together, inevitably together, indivisibly together. They are two aspects of the same energy.”

“If you can love and if you can laugh, totally, wholeheartedly, your life will become such a bliss and a benediction, not only to yourself but to everyone else. You will be a blessing to the world.” ~Osho

Intro:

“Welcome back to Osho, a Course in Meditation, a 21-day workout for your consciousness.  This three week experiential course is designed to give you a taste of meditation as it is taught by the contemporary mystic, Osho.  In today’s program, Living in Balance, we will discover that the alive person is always moving in polarity.  Osha helps us to understand the importance of the interrelationship of polar opposites and how, in terms of the totality of our being, all aspects of good and bad ned to be accepted and embraced.  Osho comments on the art of balanced living.  Life may be an experience o extremes, but an attachment to the middle as a static state may  not be a good idea.  In the meditation that follow’s Osho’s talk, we’ll learn how to accept and relax with what we call negative and how paradoxically, our negative parts add to the taste and spice of life.”

 

Notes From Osho’s Talk

“Life consists of extremes.  Life is a tension between the opposites.  To be exactly in the middle forever means to be dead.  Only once in awhile you are in the middle in a passing phase.  It’s like walking on a tightrope – you can never be exactly in the middle for any length of time.  If you try ,you will fail.  To be in the middle isn’t a static state, it’s a dynamic phenomenon.  Balance is not a noun, it is a verb – balancing.

 

The tightrope walker continuously moves from the left to the right, right to the left.  When he moves he has moved to far to the left with fear  of calling, he immediately goes to the right.  Passing from the left to the right, there’s a moment in the middle and again when he has moved too much to the right, there is fear of falling.  He’s losing balance and he starts moving toward the left.  Passing from the left to the right, again he is in the middle for a moment.

 

Balancing is a dynamic process.   The only way to be in the middle is for a moment while moving from left to right – right to left.  Don’t choose either extreme.  Be available to the polarity – that’s the art and secret of balancing.  Be both utterly happy and utterly sad – both have their own beauties.  Our mind is a chooser  but remain choiceless and whatever happens, wherever you are, right or left, in the middle or not in the middle, enjoy the moment in it’s totality.  While happy, dance, sing, play music.  Be happy.  Sadness will com – it’s bound to happen, is inevitable, cannot be avoided.  If you try to avoid it, you will destroy the possibility of happiness.  There is no day without the night, no summer without winter.  Life without death.  Life brings great pain.  It also brings great pleasure,  two sides of the same coin.  If you lose one and you lose the other.  This is a fundamental misunderstanding  – that you can leave pain and save pleasure, that you can avoid hell and have heaven, that you can avoid the negative and have only the positive.  This is a great fallacy and isn’t  possible in the very nature of things.  The positive and negative are together, inevitably, indivisibly together, two aspects of the same energy.  Look for the beauty in sadness.  Meditate over it next time when you are sad.  Don’t fight it, accept it as a welcome guest and see deep into it with love.  Be a real host and you will be surprised beyond your comprehension and find that sadness has true beauty.  Sadness has depth.  Sadness has tears that go deeper than any laughter can ever go.  Sadness has a silence of it’s own, a melody which happiness can never have.  Live life in all possible ways.  Don’t choose one thing against the others and don’t try to be in the middle.

(Note to Self ) – Osho says, “Don’t try to balance yourself.  Balance is not something that can be cultivated by you.  Balance comes out of experience of all dimensions of life. ”

 

Reflection Questions:

1.  “How do you react when you hit a ‘bump in the road’ of life?”

2.  “Would your reactions be different if you accepted life in all its opposites?”

 

 

Osho’s Free Meditation Download

OSHO: A Course in Meditation

A 21 – Day Workout for your Consciousness Mentors Channel

Meditation for Today 

“Accept the Negative and the Positive”

“We have to learn to live with the negative parts of our being too; only then do we

become whole. Usually we all want to live only with the positive part. But both need to

be accepted. This is how life is – both together. In this meditation you practice

understanding and accepting all the aspects, good and bad, and allowing a harmony to

arise.

When you do this meditation in your own time, take 5 minutes for each of the three

steps just a few moments for each step.

Now close your eyes, and start by looking inside your body, your mind, your feelings: in this

moment where can you find the negative part? It is always there, so just find something

“negative,” however small it is. And when you find it, don’t do anything to get rid of it.

Maybe you are feeling restless: so be restless. Or maybe you are feeling cold: so shiver and

enjoy it. Or you are feeling hot: so perspire, and relax with that. Or you are unhappy about

something in your life: be unhappy, don’t make much fuss about it – just be unhappy. Or

there is a pain somewhere in the body: let it be there, relax with it. Whatever negative

parts you can find, for this moment: relax with them.

Now let those negative parts go, and still with eyes closed, start looking inside your body,

your mind, your feelings: in this moment where can you find the positive part? It is there,

the other side of the polarity, so find it, however small it is. And when you find it, don’t do

anything to make it bigger or to hold onto it. Just relax with it, the “positive.” OSHO: A Course in Meditation

A 21 – Day Workout for your Consciousness Mentors Channel

 Maybe it is the feeling of sitting here comfortably, so enjoy it. Or the fact that you can feel

this moment is just for you: relax with it. A certain memory arises of well-being, or a feeling

of lightness – enjoy it…and don’t make much fuss about it. Accept it in the same way as

you did the negative.

Now let the positive parts go also, and still with closed eyes, simply be – allowing the

harmony between your dark and light parts, allowing the contrasts, the polar opposites of

your being. Accepting the dark, accepting the light, understanding that because of the

contrasts life becomes a harmony. For these few moments, just be.

We’ve come to the end of today’s program. You can open your eyes again, and get ready

to enjoy the rest of your day with the understanding that balance is something that comes

out of the experience of all the dimensions of life.”

OSHO: A Course in Meditation

A 21 – Day Workout for your Consciousness Mentors Channel

This free meditation is available on The Mentors Channel.  with free download of excerpts from Osho’s books.   These are my notes from the Series…

Day 5 – Love and Meditation Should Go Hand in Hand

“Symphony”
http://www.sfago.com

“Now is the time to meditate. If love and meditation go together, you will have both wings, you will have a balance. Love and meditate, meditate and love, and slowly, slowly you will see a new harmony arising in you. Only that harmony will make you contented.”

Thought for the day

“I ground my love through daily meditation”

Daily Quote

“Be ordinary. Nothing is wrong with ordinariness, because in your very ordinariness you are extraordinary.” ~Osho

Intro

“Thanks for tuning into  to another day of Osho – A Course in Meditation, a 21-day workout for your consciousness.  This program  is designed to provide a taste of insights from Osho, as well as a selection of practical meditation techniques that you can incorporate into your daily life.  With each program, there is a suggested Osho title which can take you deeper into each particular subject.  Today’s except by Osho  presents one of his many insights into love – that love has no base unless it is centered in meditation.  And that we are looking for love from the other before we’ve learned to love ourselves.  In today’s meditation, we introduce a method called allowing the heart to open like a flower which can be repeated whenever your time allows.

My Notes From Osho’s Talk

The problem of love can be solved only when the problem of meditation has been solved – not before because it’s really two non-meditative persons who are creating the problem.  Two persons who are in confusion, who don’t know who they are  multiply the confusion of the other.  If meditation isn’t achieved, love remains a misery.  Once you’ve learned how to live alone and enjoy your simple existence for no reason at all, then it may be  possible to solve the more complicated problem of living with another person.  Only two meditators can live in love but it will be a state of love, not a state of relationship. You are a riddle and the other person gets into trouble because they will make you aware the problems within you.

The other is simply a mirror.  It’s difficult to see your own problems.  A relationship becomes a mirror and you can see yourself mirrored by the other.  Both are angry and feel the other is making them ugly – and blame the other because both feel they are really a beautiful person.  The lovers try to solve and don’t realize that nobody is making you look ugly  — you are ugly.  Sorry, but….that’s how it is.  Be grateful to the other for helping you see your face.  Don’t be angry and go deeper into yourself but go deeper into meditation.

When a person is in love, he forgets all about meditation.  When people come up missing, I know that love has happened to them.   They’ll come back only when love creates trouble and it’s impossible for them to solve it themselves and they  come for help.  When you’re in love, don’t forget meditation.  Love is not going to solve anything.  Love is going to show you who you are, where you are. It’s good that love makes you realize the  confusion and chaos within you.  That’s when  it’s time to meditate.  With love and meditation, you’ll have balance.

Others avoid going to love because they feel his meditation will be disturbed and that is wrong too.   Meditation will show you where the problems are.  Without love, you will be unconscious of your problems but that does not mean you have no problems.   If there is no mirror, it doesn’t mean that you have no face.

Love and meditation go hand-in-hand.  That is one of the most essential messages that I would like to say – love and meditation should go hand-in-hand.  Meditate and love and slowly you will see a new harmony arise in you that will bring contentment.

Reflection Questions:

1.  “Are you able to sit quietly with your beloved and meditate?”

2.  “How, in your estimation, has/will meditation change your love relationship?”

Osho’s Free Meditation Download

OSHO: A Course in Meditation

A 21 – Day Workout for your Consciousness Mentors Channel

Meditation for Today

“Allowing the Heart to Open Like a Flower”

This meditation uses our breathing … which is happening all the time even though for

the most part we are not aware of it.

Take a moment now and loosen your clothing, especially around the stomach so that

this area can move more freely.

“Sometimes the heart full of love is there … but it is like a bud, not like a flower, the

petals are closed. This bud can become a flower.” Osho

It should be noted here that there is a heart muscle and there is a heart center –

sometimes called a Heart Chakra or Heart Center, located between the breasts. In this

meditation we are dealing with the Heart Center. If you like you can imagine your heart

center as a flower of your choice.

This is a small and simple breathing technique to help the heart center to flower.

The Method

Sit in a relaxed position while keeping your spine straight. Take a moment and become

aware of your breathing … not to change it, but to become more aware it, of HOW it is

happening. Is it deep, or is it shallow? Is it happening on its own…? Or do you observe

that you make an effort to breathe in or to breathe out? Do you feel more comfortable

on the inhalation or on the exhalation?

We are going to breathe in a particular way, first I will explain how it works.

First of all exhale till ALL the air is out of the lungs; now pull in your stomach, and use

that action to push out any remaining air.

When you feel all the air is out, pause and let your lungs remain empty for as long as

possible. (No need to be afraid, because whenever necessary the air will come rushing

back in by itself.) When the air comes rushing back in, it will open the petals of the

heart center. This is one of the most significant devices to open the heart.

So get ready now: Exhale deeply, pull in your stomach, and throw ALL the air out of

your lungs.

When you feel all the air is out, keep it out as long as you can… let it remain out as

long as possible. … And when the air comes rushing back in, feel it opening the petals

of the heart.  Do this once more:  Exhale deeply, pull in your stomach, and throw ALL

the air out of your lungs.

When you feel all the air is out, keep it out as long as you can … let it remain out as

long as possible.

And when the air comes rushing back in, feel it opening the petals of the heart.

This simple technique can also be used whenever you want to change your mood –

maybe you’re feeling jealous, or annoyed with something at work, or upset by

something someone has said to you. Just take a few moments and do this simple

technique of throwing all the air out of your lungs … and with it, all the negativity you

are feeling. Throw it out. And when the air comes rushing back in, allow the petals of

your heart to open.

A 21 – Day Workout for your Consciousness Mentors Channel

Copyright © 2014 OSHO International Foundation, http://www.osho.com/copyrights

OSHO is a registered trademark of OSHO International Foundation, http://www.osho.com/trademarks

 

This free meditation is available at The Mentors Channel.  with free download of excerpts from Osho’s books.   These are my notes from the Series…

 

Day 6 – Living Dangerously

“The Fair”
http://www.sfago.com
Sharon Abbott-Furze

“Play should remain your life, your center of life. Work should be as a means towards play. Work in the office and work in the factory and work in the shop, but just to have time, opportunity, to play… Play means doing something for its own sake. To live dangerously means to live life as if each moment is its own end.”

Today’s Thought

“There is always enough time to play”

Today’s Quote

“When the seed becomes a sprout it is going into something unknown. When the sprout starts growing flowers it is again a movement into the unknown. And when the fragrance leaves the flowers — again, a quantum leap into the unknown. Life needs courage at each step.” ~Osho

Intro

Welcome back to Osha, a Course in Meditation”, a 21-day workout for your consciousness.  Today’s program, Living Dangerously invites us to step outside the comfort zone of the familiar, the safe and secure.  In his talk today, Osho responds to the question. What does it mean to live dangerously.  He helps us to understand why we are looking for outside thrills in our lives, explaining how these thrills give us at least a momentary feeling of really being alive.  The meditation for today is about taking the risk of dropping our armor, our protection, our security.  Daring to drop that armor at will makes it possible for us, whenever we want to, to meet people in a new, more intimate, less formal way.

 My Notes From Osho’s Talk

“We  need to live dangerously.  To live dangerously means to live.  If you don’t live dangerously, you don’t live.”  Real living is living in danger.  Living never flowers in security, only in insecurity.  If you live securely, you become stagnant and your energy is no longer moving.  One does not  know how to go into the unknown and wonder why take the risk.  The known is more secure.    You are bored and miserable, but comfortable because the feeling is  familiar.  At least it is known.  Unknown creates a trembling in you.  The very idea of the unknown and you start feeling unsafe.

There are only two types of people in the world, those who want to live comfortably, seeking death, who want a comfortable grave.  And there are people who want to live, choose to live dangerously because life thrives only with risk. Have you ever climbed a mountain?  The higher you climb, the fresher, the younger you feel.  The bigger the danger, the more alive – when you are hanging between life and death.  No dust from the past, desire for the future  The present is very sharp, is enough, the here and now.  Surfing, skiing, gliding, wherever there is a risk to lose life, there is tremendous joy.  Because the very risk of losing life makes you tremendously alive.  People are addicted to dangerous sports, reaching higher.  When you go further away from the settled and rooted life, you become part of the animal world and each moment, the security, the bank balance, the wife, husband, family, society, church, respectability fall away, further and further away.  You become alone.  This is why people like sports but that  is not real danger because you can become very skilled and then there is only physical risk – only the body is involved.  When I say live dangerously, I mean not only body, but psychological and  spiritual risk.  When I say live dangerously, I mean don’t live the life of ordinary respectability.  A mayor in a town, member of corporation –  this is not life.  When everything is going perfectly well, you are dying.  You can miss your whole life for ordinary mundane things.

To be spiritual means to understand that these small things should not be given too much importance.  I’m not saying that they’re meaningless.  Money is needed but money is not the goal and cannot be the goal.  A house is certainly needed.  I am not an ascetic and I’m not asking you to skip to the Himalayas.  People say they are stuck, wonder what to do.  They think by repeating a mantra that they will come to a life.  It is not that easy.  They need to change their whole life

Love but don’t let your love degrade into marriage.  Work but don’t let work become your only life.  Play should remain your life, your center of life.  Work should be as a means to play.  Work in the office, factory or shop, but just to have time to play.  Don’t let your life be reduced to a working routine because the goal of life is play.  Play means doing something for it’s own sake.

To live dangerously mans to live life as if each moment is it’s own end, each moment has it’s own intrinsic value and you are not afraid.  You are not hiding against death – in fact, you encounter death.  You enjoy those moments of encountering death, physically, psychologically and spiritually, when you come into contact with death, where it becomes almost a reality.  That is living dangerously.

Love brings you face-to-face with death, meditation brings you face-to-face with death, but remember one thing, never forget the art of risking.  Never.  Never.  Always remain capable of risking and whenever you can find an opportunity to risk, don’t miss it and you will never be a loser.  Risk is the only guarantee to be truly alive.

Reflection Questions

1.  “Has work or play been the center of your life so far?’

2.  “What could you do to increase your spontaneity and play time?”

Osho’s Free Download

OSHO: A Course in Meditation

A 21 – Day Workout for your Consciousness Mentors Channel

Meditation for Today

“Dissolving the Armor”

“This meditation is about dissolving a layer of protection, a certain type of invisible

“armor” with which we have learned to face the world, creating our “risk-free” zone.

One of the ways we protect ourselves from situations or people that feel threatening is

to create a kind of armor around ourselves, a “protective shield” that helps us feel less

vulnerable, more safe and secure. It’s easy to see this in others – we even have a

common expression to describe it; for example when a person who is normally shy and

timid starts to speak up, we say, “she’s coming out of her shell.”

Sometimes this armor can be useful – even necessary. But the problem is that it often

becomes a habit, a pattern, almost like a second skin that keeps us from feeling fully

alive, spontaneous, playful, confident in ourselves and of who we are. But this shield

has been with us for so long we don’t know how to get out of it – and we should in fact

be able to take it off as easily as we put it on.

A woman came to Osho with just this difficulty, and this is what he said:

“You carry an armor around you. It is just an armor – it is not clinging to you, you

are clinging to it. So when you become aware of it you can simply drop it. The armor

is dead: if you don’t carry it, it will disappear.” He went on to suggest ways to start

becoming more aware of this armor, using a meditation technique that brings

awareness to where the armor is expressed in the body.

There are three parts to this meditation.

The Method

While walking or sitting:

Walking or sitting, exhale deeply. The emphasis should be on exhalation, not on

inhalation. So exhale deeply – throw out as much air as you can throw. Exhale through

the mouth, but do it slowly so it takes time. The longer it takes the better, because

then it goes deeper. When all the air inside the body is thrown out, then the body

inhales; don’t you inhale. The exhalation should be slow and deep and the inhalation

should be fast. This will change the armor near the chest.

While walking, running or walking briskly:

Start a little running, jogging, or walking at a brisk pace. And now, while your legs are

in movement, just visualize that a load is disappearing from the legs, as if it is falling off

them. When our freedom has been restricted too much, our legs carry the armor. So

start running, jogging, walking, or even unstructured dancing, and with the legs in

movement feel that armor around them falling off. And again, as in the first step, put

more attention on the exhalation of your breath.

Once you regain your legs and their fluidity you will have a tremendous energy flow.

Before going to bed:

When you are ready to go to sleep at night, take off your clothes and while taking them

off, simply imagine that you are not only taking off your clothes, you are taking off your

armor too. Actually do it. Take it off and have another good deep exhalation while letting that

armor dissolve.

A 21 – Day Workout for your Consciousness Mentors Channel

Copyright © 2014 OSHO International Foundation, http://www.osho.com/copyrights

OSHO is a registered trademark of OSHO International Foundation, http://www.osho.com/trademarks

 

 

This free meditation is available  at The Mentors Channel.  with free download of excerpts from Osho’s books.   These are my notes from the Series…

Day 7 –Watching the Mind

“Paradise Lane”
http://www.sfago.com

“Mind exists with your cooperation or your conflict…When you fight with the mind, you are giving energy to it…So whether you cooperate or you conflict, in both the cases the mind becomes stronger and stronger. Just watch. Just be a witness. And, by and by, you will see gaps arising.”

Today’s Thought:

“I am willing to be a witness to my mind, without judgment”

 Today’s Quote:

“This is the only distinction between the dream and the real: reality allows you to doubt, and the dream does not allow you to doubt…. To me, the capacity to doubt is one of the greatest blessings to humanity. ” ~Osho

Intro:

“Hello again from Osho, a Course in Meditation – a 21-day workout for your consciousness.  The essence of all meditation is to watch, observe, witness, be mindful.  What stops us from being able to access that natural state of being, which is why we need methods, is our complete and automatic immersion in the process of our thoughts and feelings, collectively called the mind.  We seem to have lost the “Off” switch for our mind and so the process of thinking is a relentless companion.  Even when our body is tired, our thoughts will keep us sleepless.  interestingly, Osho includes the emotions along with the thoughts in what is collectively called the mind.  We will probably all agree that this thinking and feeling machine can drive us crazy and that it would be just great if we knew how to turn it off at will and have some peace and quiet when thinking isn’t actually needed.  Osho has spoken a lot about the mind and the people around him have ask him lots of questions related to it.  Today, Osho responds to the query about whether the mind can simply commit suicide.  The questioner is clearly hoping there is some shortcut to be found for silencing the mind.  We’ll first listen to the beautiful explanation Osho gives about mind and meditations.  During the practical meditations which follow, one suggestion is to embrace our thought process and enjoy the mind rather than fighting with it.  And the other gives an immediate stop method that creates distance between us and our thinking.

My Notes From Osho’s

Can the mind commit suicide?  No because whatever the mind does, strengthens it.   Any doing that mind does, makes it stronger.  So suicide is impossible.  Mind doing something means mind continuing itself so the mind cannot do it.  Mind cannot commit suicide but suicide can happen.  it happens by watching the mind.  The watcher is separate, deeper, higher than the mind.  The watcher is always hidden behind the mind.  A thought passes, a feeling arises.  Who is watching this?  Not the mind itself because the mind is nothing but the process of thought and feeling.  The mind is just the traffic of thinking.

Who is watching when you see an angry thought has arisen?  Who are you?  The mind is like a printed book on white clean paper, words appear.  The empty paper is the container and the printed words are the content.  Consciousness is like empty paper..  Mind is like printed paper.  What exists as an object inside you, whatever you can see and observe, is the mind.  The observer is not the mind.   So if you can observe without condemning, creating conflict with the mind, without following it, without going against it, if you can simply be there, indifferent to it, suicide happens.  When the watcher arrives, the witness is there and the mind simply disappears.

Mind with cooperation or conflict – both are ways of cooperating.  When you fight with the mind, you are giving energy to it.  In your fight, you have accepted the power of the mind on your being.  So whether you are in conflict or cooperate, the mind becomes stronger and stronger.  Just watch, be a witness, and by and eventually you will see gaps arise.  A thought passes and there is an interval before another thought arises.  In that interval is peace, love, all that you have been seeking, and never finding.   In that gap, you are no more an ego.  In that gap, you are not defined, confined, imprisoned. you are one with existence.  Your boundaries are no more there, you melt into existence and it melts into you – you start overlapping.  If you keep watching and don’t bet attached to the gaps, they are tremendously beautiful, they are immensely blissful, and it is natural to get attached to them.  If desire arises to have more and more, then your watcher has disappeared.  The gaps will again disappear and the mind traffic will again be there.

The first thing is to become  an indifferent watcher and the second is to remember that when beautiful gaps arise, don’t get attached to them, asking for them, hoping they happen more often.  Watch them and keep your indifference alive and eventually the traffic simply disappears with the road.  They both disappear and there is tremendous emptiness – the mind has ceased.  This is suicide but mind has not committed it – it can’t.  You can help it happen.  You can hinder it or help it, it depends on you – not your mind.  So meditation is allowing the mind to have it’s own way and not interfering in any way, just remaining watchful, witnessing it.  It silences, becomes still.  One day, it is gone and you are left alone.  That aloneness is your reality.  And in that aloneness, nothing is excluded, everything is included.

Today’s Reflection Questions:

1.  “Have you experienced ‘the gaps’ in meditation?”

2.  “Are you willing to release control of the mind and observe what happens?”

Today’s Free Download from Osho

OSHO: A Course in Meditation

A 21 – Day Workout for your Consciousness Mentors Channel

Meditation for Today

“Creating a Gap from the Mind”

So, “mind doing something means that mind continues itself.” Doing something mental

isn’t going to help. But in today’s meditations we give you two other options which are

of help in loosening that involuntary stronghold of our overburdened thinking. We think

“it” has “us” in its grip, while it’s actually “we” who are holding on to “it” so tightly. Let’s

play with loosening that grip….

The first technique is a “STOP Exercise” – it is effective because you do it with the

body, not with the mind. And it hardly takes any time.

Do this at least 6 times a day, more is fine but not less. The most important thing is: it

has to be done suddenly.

While walking on a quiet street, or doing anything in your home, in your garden, or out

in nature, or in whatever activity this can work for you, suddenly remember yourself,

and STOP – stop completely, no movement – and just be present to whatever is

happening. Then start moving again.

“If you just become present suddenly, the whole energy changes. The continuity that

was going on in the mind stops, and it is so sudden that the mind cannot create a new

thought so immediately. It takes time; and the mind cannot work without time, so

when you do it suddenly – in that stopping suddenly the mind stops, and for a single

moment there is a clearing. All thoughts disappear; there is emptiness, and in that

emptiness there is an opening.”

You may have had that experience when there is a sudden, unexpected, loud

thunder-clap in the sky. Start watching those gaps, those clearings, openings.

And when you stop, don’t prolong it – because after half a minute the mind will come

back and destroy it.

So when you do your STOPs, do them for less than 30 seconds. This is one way to

create a distance, a gap, from the mind.

The second technique, one you can practice whenever you remember during the day, is

a method called “Enjoy the Mind.” This is another way of strengthening that “watcher”

that is separate from and beyond the mind, the thoughts and feelings.

Enjoy the Mind. Don’t try to stop your thinking. It is a very natural part of you; you will

go crazy if you try to stop it. It will be like a tree trying to stop its leaves; the tree will

go mad.

And just not stopping it will not be enough; the second step is to enjoy it, to play with

it! Playing with it, enjoying it, welcoming it, you will start becoming more alert about it,

more aware of it, without any effort, very indirectly. When you are trying to become

aware, then the mind distracts you and you become angry with it – and again the

conflict and friction start that strengthen the mind.

So this second method is to start enjoying the thought process. Just see the nuances of

thoughts, the turns they take, how one thing leads to another, how they get hooked

into each other. It is really a miracle to watch! Just a small thought can take you to the

farthest end.

Enjoy it, let it be a game; play it deliberately and you will be surprised: sometimes just

enjoying it, you will find beautiful pauses. Suddenly you will find that, for instance, a

dog is barking and nothing is arising in your mind, no chain of thinking starts. The dog

goes on barking and you go on listening and no thought arises. Small gaps will arise…

they come on their own, and when they come, they are beautiful. In those small gaps

you will start watching the watcher – and it will be natural. Again thoughts will start and

you will enjoy that. Go on easily, take it easy.

And now, for a moment: if you are not already standing, stand up… and STOP! Stop

completely, no movement – and just be present to whatever is happening.

Very good – that gave you a taste of Osho’s STOP exercise. And your homework for

today’s segment: we suggest you do this at least five more times before we resume our

course tomorrow. Plus: whenever you remember – enjoy watching the mind.

OSHO: A Course in Meditation

A 21 – Day Workout for your Consciousness Mentors Channel

Copyright © 2014 OSHO International Foundation, http://www.osho.com/copyrights

OSHO is a registered trademark of OSHO International Foundation, http://www.osho.com/trademarks

 

 

This free meditation is available  at The Mentors Channel.  with free download of excerpts from Osho’s books.   These are my notes from the Series…

“The Potter”
http://www.sfago.com
Sharon Abbott-Furze

Day 8 – It takes Intelligence to be Happy

“”Intelligence is something that comes from your very center. It wells up in you, and with it many things start growing in you. You become happy, you become creative, you become rebellious, you become adventurous, you start loving insecurity, you start moving into the unknown. You start living dangerously, because that is the only way to live.

Just by walking into the unknown you create the path. The path is not already there; just by walking, you create it. Intelligence gives you the courage to be alone, and intelligence gives you the vision to be creative. A great urge, a great hunger arises to be creative. And only then, as a consequence, you can be happy, you can be blissful.”

Today’s Thought:

“Today I call on my intelligence to create something wonderful”

Today’s Quote:

“Meditation is fire – it burns your thoughts, your desires, your memories; it burns the past and the future. It burns your mind and the ego. It takes away all that you think that you are. It is a death and a rebirth, a crucifixion and a resurrection. You are born anew. You lose your old identity totally, and you attain to a new vision of life.” ~Osho

Intro:

“Welcome back to today’s session of   Osho, A Course in Meditation, A 21-day workout for your consciousness.  Today’s program is entitled, It Needs Intelligence to be Happy.  When we get interested in meditation, the first impulse is for some peace, or for that elusive state of well-being called happiness, qualities that in our hectic and busy lives, are not usually at the front but seem to be lacking or taking a back seat to hurry, worry, or just for lack of a better phrase, the grind.  Deep down, everyone wants to be happy and luckily, our inner intelligence will keep looking for it as it can sense it is part of our birthright.  In his talk, Osho will address happiness and misery and the question of why is it so difficult to be happy.  His response may surprise you as he turns the conventional wisdom about happiness on it’s head.  As is often the case, Osho comes in to this from an unexpected point of view.  The meditation that follows is a simple technique which will allow you to follow that natural quality of happiness as you go about your day.  Enjoy our inner journey on today’s program.

My Notes from Osho’s Talk:

Misery has many things to give which happiness cannot give.  On the contrary, happiness takes away many things from us in fact, happiness takes all that you have ever had, all that you have ever been.  Happiness destroys you.  Misery nurses your ego and happiness is basically a state of egolessness.  That is the problem, that’s why people find it very difficult to be happy.  If this is understood, things become very clear.

Misery makes you special, happiness is a universal phenomenon. There is nothing special about it.  Trees and animals are happy – everything is happy except man.  Misery makes man very special, extraordinary.  When you are ill, depressed, in misery, friends come to visit you, to console.  When you are happy, the same friends become jealous of you.  When you are really happy, you  find the whole world has turned against you.  Nobody likes a happy person because the happy person hurts the other’s ego.  Others don’t like your happiness when they are in darkness, misery and hell, how dare you be happy.

Misery has certain fundamental things.  Misery gives you respect -people feel more friendly towards you, more sympathetic.  You will have more friends if you are miserable in this very strange world.  Something is fundamentally wrong with it.  The happy person should have more friends but people become jealous and feel cheated.  You have something that they don’t.   So we have learned to repress happiness and to express misery.

You have to learn how to be happy and  learn to respect happy people,  pay more attention to happy people.  This is a great service to humanity.  Don’t sympathize too much with misery – help if you can but don’t give worth to misery.  We have to learn a totally new language if humanity is to change.  We have to learn the language of health, wholeness and happiness.  It is difficult because our investments are great.

“Misery needs no talents, anybody can afford it.  Happiness needs talents, genius, creativity.  Only creative people are happy.  Let this sink deep into your heart.  Happiness is a byproduct of creativity.  Create something and you will be happy.  Write a poem, sing a song, dance a dance, and see that you start being happy.  You need intelligence to be happy. The intelligent person is rebellious, intelligence is rebellious and without it there can be no happiness.  Meditation is a device to release your intelligence.  The more meditative you become, the more intelligent you become – not intellectuality which is part of stupidity.  Intelligence has nothing to do with the head – it’s something that comes from your very center.  It wells up in you and with it, many things start growing in you, happiness, creativity, you feel adventurous, you start loving insecurity, you start moving into the unknown.  You start living dangerously because that is the only way to live – to decide to live your life intelligently – not be just an imitator, choosing to live within your own being, not directed or commanded from without.”  Risk all to be myself, not part of a mob psychology.  Walk alone, find my own path,  make my own path, with truth,  Just by walking into the unknown you have cleared a path that was not there before.  You created. Intelligence gives you the courage to be alone and intelligence gives you the vision to be creative.  A great urge, hunger to be creative arises and the consequence is happiness and bliss.

Reflection Questions:

1. “In what way do you best use your intelligence in life?”

2. “How has meditation expanded your unique intelligence?”

Free Meditation Download from Osho

This free meditation is available  at The Mentors Channel.  with free download of excerpts from Osho’s books.   These are my notes from the Series…

“Rhythm and Blues”
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Day 9 The Integration of Body, Mind and Soul Through Meditation

Drop old ideas of meditations, that just sitting underneath a tree with a yoga posture is meditation. That is only one of the ways, and may be suitable for a few people but is not suitable for all…Running can be a meditation – jogging, dancing, swimming, anything can be a meditation.

Today’s Thought:

“Each day new activities become my meditation”

Today’s Quote:

“Learn the art of celebrating yourself – for no reason, for no cause. Just to be is enough, more than enough. To be part of the whole is such a great metamorphosis that you cannot resist – you have to dance, you have to sing, you have to express your joy, your blissfulness.” ~Osho

Intro:

“Welcome back to our program, Osho A Course in Meditation, a 21-day workout for your consciousness designed to give you a taste of meditation.  In addition to his many books, all transcribed from his talks, Osho is known for his revolutionary active meditations.  Just sitting quietly can be very difficult for people who live in a complicated, hectic and stressful environment, as most of us do.  First, we need to get rid of the accumulated tensions of the body and mind., otherwise, those thoughts and tensions will clamor for our attention just as soon as we try to sit.  Today, we’ll find out that running, swimming and dancing can each be a meditation.  If we approach these activities with awareness and do them totally, they naturally bring a unity of body, mind and conciousness and that’s what meditation is really all about.  Following the talk, you will be given a specific meditation that can give you a first-hand taste of this experience.  That concludes today;s program on body, mind and soul.

 My Notes From Osho’s Talk:

Modern physics has made one of the greatest discoveries ever and that it is that matter is energy.  That is the greatest contribution of Albert Einstein to humanity.  It has been discovered that the observed, the object is energy.  The  subject, the observer is energy.  Down through the ages, at least for 5000 years, it has been known that it’s energy.  Your body is energy, your mind is energy, your soul is energy.  If these three energies function in harmony, you are healthy and whole. If these energies don’t function in harmony, you are ill, unhealthy.  You are not whole.  We want to help so that your body, mind and consciousness all can dance in one rhythm in togetherness, in deep harmony, not in conflict but in cooperation.

People are living in chaos.  Their bodies say one thing – want to go in one direction and the mind is completely oblivious of the body because we have been taught that we are not the body, have been told that the body is our enemy, that we have to fight with it, destroy it, that the body is sin.  You don’t experience your body in a rhythmic dance with yourself.  I insist on dancing and music because it is only in dancing that you’ll feel that your mind, body and you are functioning together. The joy is infinite when they function together, great richness.

You have to learn how to play the three energies in an orchestra.  Many times, runners have felt a tremendous experience of meditation and wer surprised because they werent’ looking for it.  More and more, running is becoming a new kind of meditation.  Have you experienced your body running and functioning beautifully, the fresh air and the new world born out of the darkness of the night, everything singing all around and you were feeling so alive.  A moment comes when the runner disappears – there is only running.  The body, mind and soul are functioning together.  Suddenly, an inner orgasm is released.

My own observation is that the runner can meditate  – jogging, swimming, all these things can be transformed into meditation.  Drop all ideas of meditation as sitting under a tree with yoga posture.  That is only one of the ways and may be suitable for a few people but not for all.  It is not meditation for a child – it is torture.  For a young, vibrant,  alive man, it is repression, not meditation.  Maybe for an old man who has lived, whose energies are declining – it may be meditation.  People are different.  Running can be a meditation, jogging, dancing, swimming  anything can be a meditation.

My definition is whenever your body, mind and soul are functioning together in rhythm, it is meditation.  Do it as a meditation, then it is tremendously beautiful.  My effort is to make meditation available to everyone who wants to meditate.  Meditations should be done according to your type.  If you need rest, then rest should be meditation.  Sitting silently doing nothing, spring comes, grass grows – that can be meditation.  We have to find as many dimensions to meditation as there are people in the world.  The pattern doesn’t have to be rigid because no two individuals are alike – pattern needs to be very liquid.  In the past, the practice was that the individual had to fit with the pattern.  The practice must fit with the individual.  My respect for the individual is absolute but the basic fundamental is that whatsoever the meditation – it has to fill this requirement, that the body, mind and consciousness should all function in unity.

Reflection Questions:

1.  “What activity do you take part in that you can do without thinking?”

2.  “Rethinking that activity as your personal meditation, can you do more of it?”

Osho’s Free Meditation Download

This free meditation is available  at The Mentors Channel.  with free download of excerpts from Osho’s books.   These are my notes from the Series…

Blissful Me
http://www.sfago.com

Day 10 How To Slow Down

“Women can wait, and they can wait infinitely, their patience is infinite. It has to be so, because a child has to be carried for nine months. And look at a mother, a woman who is just about to be a mother: she becomes more beautiful, she attains a different type of grace, an aura surrounds her. Now she is blooming, soon she will flower.” ~Osho

Intro

“Welcome back to our program, Osho, a Course in Meditation, a 21-Day workout for your consciousness.  Technology is meant to help make our lives easier.  It’s supposed to free us and help us do the things we want to do.  But in reality, for many of us, is that our life today is more chaotic than ever before.  We are busy round the clock, it seems, whether we are checking texts, reading emails, looking at blogs, posts, preoccupied with news headlines from morning to night, preoccupation is the rule-of-thumb.  Compared to people who lived at the time of Buddha, or even just 100 years ago, our life is a whirlwind.  We are racing and on the run all the time, 24/7.  Today’s program of meditation is about learning the art of slowing down.  How to slow down.  Osho explains why meditation is a great help in slowing down.  He also addresses our conditioning and fears related to relaxing, and our fear to be called lazy.  He highlites that in fact we can only live one moment at a time.  He explain that life happens only in the here and now and that being in this moment means there is no where to go and nothing to achieve.  It slows us down, knowing that each moment, in fact, will take us where we’re going.  Today’s meditation entitled surround yourself with a climate of joy will help us change the focus which is mainly to the outside world to our inner world, creating our own space of joy, even while in the chaos of the outer world.

My Notes From Osho’s Talk

Life is not going anywhere.  There is no destination.  Life is nonpurposeful – it simply is.  Unless you understand this, you cannot slow down.  Slowing down is not a question of how, technique, methods.  We reduce every thing into a “how”. There is a great how-to-ism in the world and every person, particularly the modern contemporary mind has become a how to- how to do this, do that, grow rich, be successful, influence people and make friends, how to meditate and even how to love.  The day is not far away when some stupid guy is going to ask how to breathe.  It is not a question of how to.  DOn’t reduce life into technology.  Life reduced into technology loses all flavor of joy.  I have come across a book, the name of the book is hilarious  – “You Must Relax”.  Try to relax and you will find that you feel more tense than ever.  Try harder and you will feel more and more tense.  Relaxation is not a consequence, a result, of some activity.  It is the glow of understanding.  Live in the moment for the joy of living it and then each moment has the quality of an orgasm.  Yes, it is orgasmic.  You are here to enjoy life to it’s fullest and the only way to live , love, enjoy, is to forget the future.  It exists not.  Life is a pilgrimage to nowhere – from nowhere to nowhere and between these two “nowheres” is the “now heres”.  It is not a question of following a technique to slow down because if your basic approach towards life remains goal oriented, you may try to slow down and you may even succeed but then you have started another tension in your life.  You have to remain on guard, hold yourself continuously so that you remain slow – how can you slow down.  If you slow down, you will b e a failure, never able to succeed, lost, anonymous, you will not be able to leave your signature in the world.  Who will you be if you slow down?  No one else is slowing down.  It is almost as if you are in an olympic race and ask me how to slow down – if you slow down, you drop out and you are no longer in the Olympic race.  This whole life has been turned into an Olympic race – everyone racing and has to race to the optimum because it is a questions of life and death.  We are living in a world where everyone is your enemy because with whomsoever you are in competition, you are an enemy.  Meditation is not something that can grow in any size.  It needs a basic understanding.  The change has to be very fundamental with nw soil to grow.  A meditator naturally slows down with no effort.  A practiced thing is never true, artificial, arbitrary, acting, not truth.  And only truth liberates.  This is the only moment that is, this is the only reality and the only reality that has been and will always be.  Change your basic philosophy of achieving.  Relax into your being.  Don’t have any ideals, don’t try to make something out of yourself.  You are perfect as you are, with all of your imperfections, you are perfect.  If you are imperfect, you are perfectly imperfect but perfection is there.

Reflection Questions:

1.  “Are you comfortable with being and not doing”

2.  “How can you slow down your pace of life?”

Free Meditation Download from Osho

Meditation for Today

“Surround Yourself with a Climate of Joy”

Today’s meditation supports this quality Osho mentioned of “Living in the

moment for the sheer joy of living it.” If this method suits you, then practice it

for a few minutes each night over a period of three weeks, also carrying it

loosely with you during the day. Later on you can drop the nightly practice and

by and by the method will dissolve as its learnings become integrated into your

life.

The Method

For the first week:

Lying down or sitting on your bed, switch the light off and be in

darkness.

Remember any beautiful moment that you have experienced in the past

– just choose your favorite. It may be very ordinary, because sometimes

extraordinary things happen in very ordinary situations.

Sitting still, doing nothing, the rain falling on the roof…the smell, the

sound…you are surrounded – and something clicks: you are in a sacred

moment. Or one day walking along the road, suddenly the sunlight falls

on you from behind the trees…and click: something opens; for a

moment you are transported into another world.

Close your eyes and relive that moment. Go into the details – the

sounds…the smells…the very texture of the moment…a bird is singing, a

dog is barking…the wind is blowing, the sounds. Go into all the

experiences, from all the sides; multidimensional, from all the senses.

Once you have chosen your beautiful moment, continue the meditation

for seven nights.

You will find that every night you are moving into deeper details –

things that you may even have missed in the real moment but that your

mind has recorded. You may feel subtle nuances which you were not aware you had experienced.

You may come to recognize that they were there but you had missed

them in that moment. The mind records it all; it is a very reliable

servant, tremendously capable.

By the seventh day you will be able to see your beautiful moment so

clearly, you will feel you have never seen any moment as clearly as this.

For the second week:

Continue as before, and add one more thing: Feel the space of that

moment around you…feel the climate is surrounding you from all sides –

up to three feet around you. Feel an aura of that moment surrounding

you. By the fourteenth day you may be able to be in a totally different

world; although you are conscious that beyond those three feet, a

different time and a different dimension are present.

For the third week:

Add one more thing: Live the moment, be surrounded by it, and now

create an imaginary anti-space. For example you are feeling very good;

for three feet you are surrounded by that goodness, that joyful space.

Now think of a situation, for instance:

Somebody insults you – but the insult comes only up to the limit; there

is a fence, and the insult cannot enter you. It comes like an arrow…and

falls there. Or remember some sad moment…you are hurt – but that

hurt comes up to the glass wall that is surrounding you, and falls there.

It never reaches you.

If the first two weeks have gone right, by the third week you will be

able to see that everything comes up to that three-foot limit and nothing

penetrates you.

And from the fourth week onward:

Now continue to keep that aura with you; going to the marketplace,

talking to people, continuously have it in mind. And you will be thrilled;

you will move in the world having your own world, a private world,

continuously with you that will make you capable of living in the present

– calm, quiet, centered.

Carry that aura for a few days, a few months. When you see that now it

is no longer needed, you can drop it. Once you know how to be

herenow, once you have enjoyed the beauty of it, the tremendous bliss

of it, you can drop the aura of it.

Copyright © 2014 OSHO International Foundation, http://www.osho.com/copyrights

OSHO is a registered trademark of OSHO International Foundation, http://www.osho.com/trademarks

This free meditation is available  at The Mentors Channel.  with free download of excerpts from Osho’s books.   These are my notes from the Series…

Creativity in motion!
http://www.sfago.com

Day 11 – Everyone Is Creative

“Creativity has nothing to do with any activity in particular – with painting, poetry, dancing, singing. It has nothing to do with anything in particular. Anything can be creative – you bring that quality to the activity. Activity itself is neither creative nor uncreative. You can paint in an uncreative way; you can sing in an uncreative way. You can clean the floor in a creative way; you can cook in a creative way. Creativity is the quality that you bring to the activity you are doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach – how you look at things

Whatsoever you do, if you do it joyfully, if you do it lovingly, if your act of doing it is not purely economical, then it is creative. If you have something growing out of it within you, if it gives you growth, it is spiritual, it is creative, it is divine. Love what you do. Be meditative while you are doing it, whatsoever it is – irrelevant of the fact of what it is.”

“Creativity is the highest flowering of meditation and as a quality and an attitude it is first and foremost an inner expression. With this understanding we open the possibilities for a thousand and one things. . Love what you do. Be meditative while you are doing it, whatsoever it is – irrelevant of the fact of what it is.

Today’s Thought:

“As I go through the day, I allow my creativity to spring forth”

 Today’s Quote:

“A creative act enhances the beauty of the world. It gives something to the world, it never takes anything from it.” ~Osho

Intro:

Welcome back to our program, Osho, A Course in Meditation.  This 21-day workout for your consciousness is designed to give you a taste of mediation as it is taught by the contemporary mystic, Osho.  Running like a thread through all aspects of Osho’s talks and mediations is a vision that encompasses both the timeless wisdom of all ages past, and the highest potential of today’s and tomorrow’s science and technology.  Today’s program shows us the joy of creativity as we learn to listen and say yes to the inner self.  In his talk, Osho challenges our limiting ideas of creativity as we discover that creativity in itself has nothing to do with any particular activities per se – it is not just for poets, artists, painters and writers.  Creativity is the highest flowering of meditation and is a quality and an attitude,  first and foremost an inner expression.  With this understanding, we open the possibilities for a thousand and one things.  In the meditation that follows, From Gibberish to Silence, we get a chance to practice with one of the most scientific ways to clean our minds which promises to leave our mind more pure and fresh.”

My Notes From Osho’s Talk

“Creativity has nothing to do with any activity in particular, with painting, poetry, dancing, singing.  Anything can be creative.  You bring that quality to the activity.  The activity is neither creative or noncreative.  You can paint in a noncreative way.  Yu can sing in an uncreative way.  You can clean the floor in a creative way, you can cook creatively. Creativity is the quality that you bring tot he activity that you are doing.  It is an attitude, an inner approach, how you look at things.  So don’t confine creativity to anything in particular.  Man is creative and even if he walks, no matter what he does, you can see creativity, even if he sits silently and does nothing.  Even nondoing can be a creative act. Once you understand that it is you, the person, who is creative or uncreative, this problem disappears.  Everyone cannot be a painter and there is no need for that.  It would be difficult to live if everyone were the same, a dancer…  Everyone can be creative by doing it joyfully, lovingly, if your act of doing it is not purely economical, it is creative.  If you have something growing within you, if it gives you growth, it is spiritual, creative, divine.  Love what you do.  Be meditative while you are doing – whatsoever you do.  Creativity means loving, celebrating, enjoying as God’s gift.  Maybe no one will know about so if you are looking for fame and become famous, then you miss, then , in fact you are not creative but a Politician.  If fame happens, good.  If it does not happen, good.  The consideration should be that you are enjoying what you are doing.  If your act is a love affair, then it is creative.  Small things become great with the touch of love and delight.  The though has been that “I am not creative”.  This has been taught to everyone.  VEry few people are accepted as creative, one in a million.  This is foolish.  Every human being is a born creator.  Watch children and you will see- they are all creative but we destroy their creativity, we distract them, we make them more economical, ambitious.  When we become ambitious, creativity disappears because an ambitious man cannot be creative because he cannot love creativity for it’s own sake.  We destroy creativity.  No one is born uncreative but we make 99% of people uncreative.  Just throwing responsibility on society is not going to help.  Take your life in your own hands.  Drop wrong conditioning, wrong hypnotic autosuggestions given to you in your childhood.  A creative person is brought into the world to enhance the beauty of the world, a song here, a painting there.  He makes the world dance better, enjoy better, to love better, to meditate better.  When he leaves this world, he leaves a better world behind him.  He may be known or not, that is not the point.  He leaves the world a better world, tremendously fulfilled that his life has been of some intrinsic value.  If you can smile whole heartedly, hold someone’s hand and smile, it is a great creative act.  Just embrace someone to your heart and you are creative.  Look with loving eyes at someone, a loving look can change the whole world of a person  You are not heare accidentally.  You are heare meaningful.  There is a purpose for you.  The whole plans to do something through you.”

Reflection Questions:

1.  “Think of 3 areas of life in which you are creative?”

2.  “In what ways has meditation increased your level of creativity?”

Today’s Free Meditation Download from Osho

Meditation for Today

“From Gibberish to Silence”

Today’s meditation “From Gibberish to Silence” will leave the mind more pure

and fresh, it is one of the most scientific ways to clean our minds.

Forgetting about good old fashioned manners, “Imagine saying everything that

you ever wanted to say and have not been able to say because of civilization,

education, culture, society and conditioning.  And then saying it in any language

that you have heard but you don’t know! For example, if you have heard Chinese

but don’t know Chinese, say it in Chinese!   And the same goes for any language

which you may have heard but you do not know.

So, shouting, laughing, crying, making noise, making gestures. Simply allow

whatever comes to your mind without bothering about its rationality,

reasonability, meaning or significance, just the way the birds are doing.

Saying anything that is moving in your mind, all kinds of rubbish – just

throwing it out.  Do it totally, with great enthusiasm and sincerity.

The Method

Each stage lasting 5 minutes.

The first Stage:

Gibberish. Make nonsense sounds and speak any language you don’t know.

You have total freedom to shout, scream, and express your feelings.

The second stage:

Laughing. Laugh totally, for no reason at all.

The third stage:

Cry and weep without any reason, to your heart’s content.

The last stage:

Lie down – be still and silent as if you are dead, only the breathing comes and

goes.

Copyright © 2014 OSHO International Foundation, http://www.osho.com/copyrights

OSHO is a registered trademark of OSHO International Foundation, http://www.osho.com/trademarks

This free meditation is available  at The Mentors Channel.  with free download of excerpts from Osho’s books.   These are my notes from the Series…

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Day 12 – Intuition, Tuition From Within

“People are taught to ignore their instincts rather than to understand and use them as a foundation for individual growth and development. In the process they undermine the very roots of the innate wisdom that is meant to flower into intuition. In today’s OSHO Talk we come to realize that thinking is in no way capable of triggering intuition, which can only blossom like a flower from our innermost core. Osho says that intellect is very, very limited and that intuition is infinite.

You can always go into your intuition energy and you will always find right advice. That is what, in the East, they have always been calling the Inner Guru, your Inner Master.

Once your intuition has started functioning, you need not go and ask any outer guru for any advice. Intuition is in tune with oneself, totally in tune with oneself. And out of that tuning, solutions arise from nowhere.

You can always go into your intuition energy and you will always find right advice. That is what, in the East, they have always been calling the Inner Guru, your Inner Master. Once your intuition has started functioning, you need not go and ask any outer guru for any advice. Intuition is in tune with oneself, totally in tune with oneself. And out of that tuning, solutions arise from nowhere.”

Today’s Thought

“I pay more attention to my intuition and follow its advice”

Today’s Quote:

“Once you start living the life of truth, authenticity, of your original face, all troubles by and by disappear because your inner conflict drops and you are no longer divided. Your voice has a unity then, your whole being becomes an orchestra.” ~Osho

Intro:

“Welcome back to our program, Osho, A Course in Meditation, a 21-Day workout for your consciousness.  Just as the body has it’s own wisdom called instinct, our soul has it’s own wisdom called intuition.  The mind, however, is a borrowed thing and has nothing like instinct or intuition going for it.  Having tremendous power over us because it is all that we know, the mind is just a computer which collects all kinds of information.  All people have a natural capacity for intuition but often, condition and formal education work against it.  People are taught to ignore their instincts rather than to understand and use them as a foundation for individual growth and development.  In the process, they undermine the innate roots of wisdom that is meant to flower into intuition.  In today’s Osho talk, we come to realize that thinking is in no way capable of triggering intuition which can only blossom like a flower from our innermost core.  Osho says that intellect is very very limited and that intuition is infinite.  In the meditation that follows, it is good to remember that intuition always comes from the belly.  Whenever you feel something coming to you, like a hunch, it is always coming exactly from the belly.  Your belly will be affected  immediately.  Today’s meditation will strengthen the belly as we move inside the place 2 inches below the navel, sometimes called the hara, the chi and sometimes referred to the Tan T’ien.”

My Notes from Today’s Osho Talk

“There is a phenomenon called intuition of which we have become almost unaware.  We do not know that anything like intuition exists.  In tuition is a totally different kind of phenomenon than reason.  Reason is a process to reach a conclusion.  Intuition jumps – a quantum leap.  It knows no process.  It simply reaches the conclusion without any process.  There have been many mathematicians who could do any kind of mathematical problem without going into ti’s process, their functioning was intuitive.  People have always wondered how they do it.  Even a computer will take at least a few minutes to do it but these people don’t even take a moment – instantly.  So now in mathematics, intuition is a recognized fact.  When reason fails, intuition can work and all of the great scientists are aware that their discoveries were not made by reason but by intuition.  Madame Curie was working for 3 years on a certain problem, trying to solve it and every direction failed.  One night when she went to sleep, she  decided it was three wasted years and she was going to drop it, went to sleep and in the night she got up in her sleep, went to a table and wrote the answers.  In the morning, she could not remember doing it but found it in the morning.   She looked more closely and it was her handwriting and the dream surfaced as if she had had a dream in the night that she was sitting at the table and writing.  She had come to the conclusion from some other door than reason.  It was intuition but first the reason had to be adjusted.  Intuition works only when reason is adjusted.  Intuition has no process – it simply jumps from the problem to the conclusion.  It is a shortcut, a flash.  We have corrupted intuition.  Man’s intuition is almost completely corrupted, but women’s intuition is not corrupted as much.  That is why women have hunches – a fragment of intuition.  A woman cannot say how she knows – just a hunch, just a feeling in the gut but that too is very corrupted.  When you have dropped the idea of intuition because you have been taught  that reason is the only door to any conclusion, when you have dropped this fixation, intuition starts flowering.  Then it is not just a flash, it is a constant source and you can always to into intuition energy and you will always find correct advice.  Once your intuition has started functioning, you don’t need to ask your outer guru for any advice.  Intuition is in tune with oneself, totally in tune.  Out of that tuning, solutions arise from nowhere.

Reflection Questions:

1.  “How do you know when your intuition is giving you a solution?”

2.  “How often do you follow your intuition?”

Today’s Free Meditation Download from Osho

Meditation for Today

“Hara Breathing”

This meditation will allow us to concentrate our energy on the Hara, also

referred to as the Tan T’ien, some two inches or five centimeters below the

navel. This is the center from where one enters life and it is the center from

where one dies and goes out of life. The Hara is the contact center between

the body and the soul. If you feel a sort of wavering left and right and you

don’t know where your center is that simply shows that you are no longer in

contact with your Hara. So, you have to create that contact. You ought to do

this meditation twice a day: in the evening when you go to sleep and the first

thing in the morning for a duration of ten to fifteen minutes.

Step one:

Locate the Hara: Lie down on the bed and put both your hands two inches or

five centimeters below the navel, and press a little.

Step two:

Deep breath: start breathing, deep breathing. You will feel that center coming

up and down with the breathing. Feel your whole energy there as if you are

shrinking and shrinking and shrinking, and you are just existing there as a

small center; very concentrated energy.

Step three:

Center while you sleep. Fall asleep doing it, that will be helpful; then the whole

night that centering persists. Again and again the unconscious goes and

centers there; so the whole night without you knowing you will be coming in

many ways in deep contact with the center.

Step four:

Reconnect with the Hara. In the morning, the moment you feel that sleep has

gone, don’t open your eyes first. Again, put your hands there, push a little,

start breathing and, again, feel the Hara. Do this for 10 to 15 minutes and then

get up. Do this every night and every morning. Within three months you will

start feeling centered and the base for a strong intuition will have been

established.

Osho says: “It is very essential to have a centering otherwise one

feels fragmentary; then one is not together, one is just like a jigsaw, all

fragments and not a gestalt, not a whole. It is a bad shape, because without a

center a man can drag but cannot love. Without a center you can go on doing

routine things in your life, but you can never be creative. You will live the

minimum; the maximum will not be possible for you. Only by centering does

one live at the maximum, at the zenith, at the peak, at the climax. And that is

the only living, a real life.”

Copyright © 2014 OSHO International Foundation, http://www.osho.com/copyrights

OSHO is a registered trademark of OSHO International Foundation, http://www.osho.com/trademarks

This free meditation is available  at The Mentors Channel.  with free download of excerpts from Osho’s books.   These are my notes from the Series…

Paisley
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Day 13 – Meditation and Conditioning

“From the first moment you were born, conditioning started. By the time you became alert, a little aware, it had already reached to the deepest core of your being. Unless you penetrate yourself to this deepest core that was not conditioned at all, that was before conditioning started, unless you become that silent and that innocent, you will never know who you are.

Once you start dropping (past) conditions, you will become aware of your wings. And those wings can take you to the ultimate reality: the flight of the alone to the alone. But there you can go only as an innocent being – unconditioned, utterly dis-identified from the past. Meditation is the way to release conditioning from the past.

Once you start dropping (past) conditions, you will become aware of your wings. And those wings can take you to the ultimate reality: the flight of the alone to the alone. But there you can go only as an innocent being – unconditioned, utterly dis-identified from the past. Meditation is the way to release conditioning from the past.”

Today’s Thought:

“I have the power to create new, positive beliefs about myself”

Today’s Quote:

“Society cannot tolerate individuality, because individuality will not follow like a sheep. The sheep are always in the crowd because it feels more protected, secure. Only lions move alone — and every one of you is born a lion, but the society goes on conditioning you, programming your mind to be a sheep.” ~Osho

Intro:

Welcome back to our program, Osho, A Course in Meditation, a 21-day workout for your consciousness.  In today’s program, we explore the question of conditioning and the role it plays in our lives as to who we think we are.  Osho often talks about the importance of dropping the past and by this, he does not mean w ned to drop the factual history of what has happened in our lives.  Rather, he is talking about the imprints that the past has made on our consciousness, the programming, if you will that all of us have been subjected to.  This programming or conditioning starts almost from the moment we are born.  It comes from our parents, friend and teachers, the very society in which we live.  Our ideas about good and bad, proper and improper, true and false, important and unimportant – all of these things are part of our conditioning.  In the talk that follows, Osho challenges us to start becoming aware of our conditioning, to understand it, to begin to be able to see  it in action as we respond to people and situations around us and finally to be abl to free ourselves from it, to stop being what Osho calls a humanoid conditioned by our past and to begin the journey of discovery of the innocence and silence we are all born with.  What Zen people call the original face.  Close your eyes now, if you can, and listen to Osho speaking.  The talk will be followed by a meditation experiment you can try in the coming days.

My Notes From Osho’s Talk

The most difficult thing in life is to drop the past because it means to drop the identity, the personality.  It is to drop yourself.  You are nothing but your past, nothing but your conditioning and conditioning ahs gone very deep.  You have been conditioned from the first moment you were born.  By the time you become alert and aware, it has already reached to the deepest core of your being.  Unless you become as silent and innocent as before the conditioning all started, you will never know who you really are.  Meditation penetrates to that core.  Zen call it knowing the original face.  This conditioning has to be understood first because of it you have lost something essential, natural and spontaneous in you.  You are no longer a human being, only appear to be so.  You have become a humanoid, incapable of knowing himself, who has no idea of who he is.  All of his ideas about himself are borrowed, given to him by other humanoids.  The humanoid is incapable of mobilizing his own intentions – he has no more capacity to be. He is a dependent one who has lost his freedom.  This, in essence, is his psychopathology and all humanity today is psychopathological.  The people who look normal to you are not normal at all.  This has become a mad house but because everyone everywhere is just like you, you think you are normal and they are normal.  It’s very rare that a normal person happens in this world – it doesn’t allow the normal to happen.  The humanoid is one who cannot will for himself, is always looking for authorities, always need someone to tell him what to do.  You were born to see the truth.  You were capable – each child is – capable to will but we hinder him.  Parents are our teachers and they don’t allow us to will.  Teachers are hired – the whole education system serves the past, does not serve you, from kindergarten to college, all the teachers and professors are in the service of the past.  They are for the past, not for you – but to condition you.  And the priests and politicians are there to condition you. Nobody wants you to be a free man, everyone wants you to be a slave because the more you’re a slave, the more easily you can be exploited and if you follow the leaders the leaders, you  have been promised all kinds of carrots, rewards, here and hereafter too.  You have to be courageous enough to drop the conditioning.  Great courage will be needed and once you drop your conditioning, you will become aware of your wings and they can take you to the ultimate reality, but you can only go there as an innocent unconditioned being, totally disidentified with the past.  That will be the first act of freedom in your life and the first step is half the journey.  The rest of the journey is very easy – it comes on it’s own.

Reflection Questions:

1.  “How did your parents describe you as a young child?”

2.  “Is this statement still valid and has it ever held you back?”

Today’s Free Meditation Download from Osho

Meditation for Today

”Throwing Things Out”

Whenever you feel that the mind is not tranquil – tense, worried,

chattering, anxious, constantly dreaming – do one thing…

The Method

Exhale deeply. Always start by exhaling. Exhale deeply; as much as you

can, throw the air out. Throwing out the air, the mood will be thrown

out too because breathing is everything.

Expel the breath as far as possible. Pull the belly in and retain for a few

seconds; don’t inhale. Let the air be out, and don’t inhale for a few

seconds. Then allow the body to inhale. Inhale deeply – as much as you

can. Again stop for a few seconds. The gap should be the same as when

breathing out – if you held it for three seconds, hold the breath in for

three seconds. Throw it out and hold for three seconds; take it in and

hold for three seconds. But the breath has to be thrown out completely.

Exhale totally and inhale totally, and make a rhythm. Hold, then breathe

in; hold, then breathe out. Hold, in; hold, out. Immediately you will feel

a change coming into your whole being. The mood has gone; a new

climate has entered you.

Copyright © 2014 OSHO International Foundation, http://www.osho.com/copyrights

OSHO is a registered trademark of OSHO International Foundation, http://www.osho.com/trademarks

This free meditation is available  at The Mentors Channel.  with free download of excerpts from Osho’s books.   These are my notes from the Series…

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Day 14 – How To Stop Judging People

“Whenever you judge, it does not apply to the person at all, it can apply only to the act. And that act too is taken out of context because you don’t know his whole life. It is as if you tear a page from a novel and you read it and you judge the novel by it. It is not right; it is out of context. The whole novel may be a totally different thing. You may have taken a negative part, an ugly part.

Your judgment shows something about you, nothing about the person you have judged, because his history remains unavailable to you, his being remains unavailable to you. All contexts are lost, there is just a momentary flash – and your interpretation will be your interpretation. It will show something about you. Seeing this, judging disappears.

Your judgment shows something about you, nothing about the person you have judged, because his history remains unavailable to you, his being remains unavailable to you. All contexts are lost, there is just a momentary flash – and your interpretation will be your interpretation. It will show something about you. Seeing this, judging disappears.”

Today’s Thought:

“Today I become a witness, and judge nothing that occurs”

Today’s Quote:

“Whenever there is no conflict between you and the whole, not even a rumor of conflict, you are healthy. To be whole is to be healthy. To be whole is to be holy. And what is the way to be holy, healthy, whole? Your heart should beat in the same rhythm as the heart of the whole. It is a great cosmic dance. It is a great harmony.” ~Osho

Intro:

“Welcome back to our program, Osho, A Course in Meditation, a 21-day workout for your consciousness.  Today’s Osho talk helps us understand there is really no need for us to stop or drop judging people.  Most important is how and why you judge.  In the present moment, like a mirror, if you are there, just facing something, it is witnessing, a passive awareness where no judgement is possible because judging can exist only against past experiences and past evaluations.  By definition, it stems from one’s beliefs, ideologies and concepts.  Thinking is possible only if the past is there, brought into the present.  It is an active state in which you are doing something.  We are well to remember that witnessing as a passive awareness does not mean judgement.   You are not to judge if this is good or this is bad because the moment you judge, you lose the witness.  If you say this is bad, you are already identified.  If you say this good, you have already slipped out of witnessing and you have become a judge.  Also, keep in mind that not only is every word a judgement, but language itself is burdened with judgement and can never be impartial because the moment we use a word, we have judged and created a barrier to an open mind.  In the meditation today that follows with a simple breathing technique, you’ll discover how to make judgements disappear.”

My Notes From Osho’s Talk

“How to drop judging people?  There is no need to stop or drop judging people – you have to understand how and why you judge.  You can judge only the behavior because only the behavior is a label.  You cannot judge the person because the person is a mystery.  You can judge the act but cannot judge the being.  An act is irrelevant and it would not be right to judge a man because of an action.  Sometimes a man is smiling.  The act is on the face and deep inside, he may be sad.  In fact, he may be smiling because he doesn’t want to bring his sadness to everyone – that seems embarrassing. Maybe he is crying deep down.  So the first thing to understand is that you can only look at the behavior and that doesn’t mean much.  All that is really significant is the person behind and your judgements are going to be wrong. People judge you by your acts and you feel you have been judged wrongly because you don’t judge yourself for your acts but by your being.  Judgements are unjust.  You feel it because your Being is a phenomenon and the act is so tiny and small that it does not define.  It might be a momentary thing.  Maybe you said something to someone and he became angry but maybe that is just a momentary reflex.  He may be a very loving person.  If you judge by his anger, you misjudge him.  You will always think he is an angry man and avoid him.  You have missed an opportunity.  Never judge anyone by his action.  Judge ye not.  Become more aware of Being.  Every Being inside his own soul is so private that there is no way to penetrate it.  Even when you love, your core remains private.  That is man’s dignity.  The soul can never be public, some part of it will always remain a mystery.  From the outside, it is always a wrong judgement. Seeing and understanding again and again, you need not drop judgment, it drops on it’s own.  Watch and see that when you are judging, you are doing something foolish.  It does not apply to a person at all.  It can only apply to the act and the act is also taken from whole life.  It’s as if you tear a page from a novel and you read it and judge the novel by that page. It’s not right, it’s out of context.  The whole novel maybe a totally different thing.  You may have taken a negative ugly part.   You don’t know anyone’s life it in it’s totality.  The prior context is there.  You say the man for just a single instance and you judge him.  That’s not right.  That is just stupid.  It will have no relevance to the man himself.  Your judgement says more about you than about the man.  Judge ye not so that ye may not be judged.  That’s what Jesus says.  Your judgement says everything about you and nothing about the one you’re judging.  His Being is unavailable to you.  Your interpretation will be your interpretation and show something about you.  Seeing this, judging disappears.

Today’s Reflection Questions:

1.  “In what ways do you judge others and/or yourself?”

2.  “Where did your opinions come from and are they still valid?”

Today’s Free Meditation Download from Osho

(14)_How_to_Drop_Judging_People_(The_Meditation)

This free meditation is available  at The Mentors Channel.  with free download of excerpts from Osho’s books.   These are my notes from the Series…

“Interlude”
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Day 15 The Art of Listening

“Today begins our last week of meditating together. We trust the first 14 days have brought more joy and peace to your life. Your willingness to establish a daily meditationpractice will continue to reward you with gifts beyond your imagination.

Whether listening to (this message), or listening to a flute player, or listening to the birds in the morning, or sitting by the side of the waterfall and listening to it, the same experience can happen. It happens not from what you listen to, it happens because you listen. Just listening gives you total silence; in deep listening you disappear. The whole art is how to listen.

Once you know how to listen, in deep receptivity, sensitivity, you are not there. The listener is not there, only listening. And when the listener is not there, there is no ego: there is no one who listens, only listening. And then it penetrates to the very core of your being.

Today’s Thought

“I take time to listen carefully to everyone and everything”

Today’s Quote

“There is no need to create cathedrals and great temples — those who have eyes will find this vast starry sky, this beautiful earth, the greatest temple. This whole existence is a holy place.” ~Osho

Intro

“Welcome back to our program, Osho, A Course in Meditation, a 21-day workout for your consciousness.  Today, we live in a world where most of us are overwhelming  by a constant cacophony of sound, essentially, noise pollution.  Often these sounds are so pervasive that we no longer notice them be it from traffic to canned music in the elevator.  Osho often speaks of listening as opposed to simply hearing. The latter, he points out, is biological and passive while real listening requires presence and awareness.  Today'[s program, The Art of Listening, will explore this audible dimension of meditation.  Osho will speak about the art of listening and the practical meditation will use sound as a way to become more aware.”

My Notes From Osho’s Talk

“The object is irrelevant, ony the subjectivity is relevant.  Whether listening to me, or listening to a flute player, or listening to the birds in the morning, or sitting beside a waterfall, the same experience can happen.  It happens not by what you listen to, it happens because you listen.  Just listening gives you total silence.  In deep listening, you disappear.  The whole art is how to listen.  Once you know how to listen in deep receptivity, sensitivity, you are not there.  The listener is not there, only listening.  And when the listener is not there, there is no echo, there is no one who listens.   Only listening and then it penetrates to the very core of your being.  If you listen to me with your mind, you will miss.  If you listen to the waterfall without mind, you will get.  It is not a question of listening to me, it is a question concerned with you, the listener.  What I am saying it irrelevant, who is saying it is irrelevant.  Are you surrounded by deep silence, have you become nonexistent in that moment?  Do you suddenly find that you’re not, that you’re a deep emptiness throbbing with life, full but empty?  Tremendous sense but not a single ripple of thought.  Only then you are you taken to a plane where truth can penetrate you.  So try to be a listener, just hearing is not enough.  Listening will need great discipline, the greatest discipline there is.  If you can listen, you are already delivered because in that listening, suddenly you find yourself.  This looks like a paradox.  You disappear and in that disappearance, you find yourself.  You are empty and in that emptiness arises a fulfilment.  There is understanding and the love flows like breathing – it goes in it goes out, then you are with the existence that surrounds you.  Then the part is no more part and separate, it is the whole.  You fall in line with the whole, you are no more out of step, harmony has arisen, celestial music, the music of the stars.  Then suddenly you are open from every dimension, God flows in you but the whole thing is, how to be so receptive and silent.  Just sit and listen to the breeze passing through the pines.  The whole depends on your listening, the quality of your listening, not what you listen to.

Reflection Questions

1.  “How does it make you feel when you know someone is not listening to you?”

2.  “Do you consider yourself a good (present) listener?”

Free Meditation Download from Osho

Copyright © 2014 OSHO International Foundation, http://www.osho.com/copyrights

OSHO is a registered trademark of OSHO International Foundation, http://www.osho.com/trademarks

This free meditation is available  at The Mentors Channel.  with free download of excerpts from Osho’s books.   These are my notes from the Series…

“Desert Passion”
http://www.sfago.com
Sharon Abbott-Furze

Day 16  – Relaxation Through Awareness

“If you become capable of relaxing the body voluntarily, then you will be able to help your mind relax voluntarily. Mind is a more complex phenomenon. Once you have become confident that the body listens to you, you will have a new trust in yourself. Now even the mind can listen to you. It will take a little longer with the mind, but it happens.

Relax the circumference of your being – relax your body, relax your behavior, relax your acts. Walk in a relaxed way, eat in a relaxed way, talk, listen in a relaxed way. Slow down every process. Don’t be in a hurry and don’t be in haste. Move as if all eternity is available to you”

Today’s Thought

“As I release any tension in my body, my mind follows”

Today’s Quote

“We are given only one moment at a time, so to live rightly one needs only to know how to live rightly in the moment. One need not worry about the whole of life. If you can take care of the present moment you have taken care of your whole life; then everything will fall into line by itself. ” ~Osho

Intro

“Welcome back to our program, Osho, A Course in Meditation, a 21-day workout for your consciousness.  One of the key words in Osho’s proposal is understanding.  While we try to relax ourselves by watching TV, having a drink, or going on a vacation, in today’s excerpt, Osho helps us understand how we crate our tensions and anxieties.  Why don’t we have control over our own bodies and why can’t we just relax without all of the other externals?  Osho takes us step-by-step through an understanding of how relaxation works from the outside in.  The meditation for today shows us how to give up control, the main reason of tension, and how to let go.  And, as always, there will be a downloadable PDF with instructions so that you can always experiment with this meditation whenever you’d like.

My Notes From Osho’s Talk

“Will you say something more about relaxation.  I am aware of a tension deep at the core of me and suspect that I have probably never been totally relaxed.”

Total relaxation is the ultimate.  You cannot be totally relaxed right now.  At the innermost core, a tension will persist but start relaxing from the circumference.  That’s where we are and we can only start from where we are.  Relax the circumference of your being, relax, walk, eat, talk, listen in a relaxed way.  Slow down every process, don’t be in a hurry and don’t be in a haste.  Move as if the whole of eternity is available to you – in fact there is no beginning and no end. We have always been here and always will be.  Forms change but not the substance.  Garments change but not the soul.  Tension means hurry, fears, doubt.  Tension means a constant first, to protect, to be secure, to be safe.  Tension means preparing for the tomorrow now, or for the afterlife, afraid that tomorrow you may not be able to face the reality – so be prepared.  Tension means a past that you have somehow not lived but only bypassed.  It is a hangover surrounding you.  Remember one very fundamental thing about life, any experience that has not been lived will hang around you, will persist saying finish me, live me, complete me.

You will have to relax from the circumference.  The first thing to relax is the body.  Remember as many times as possible to look in the body.  Are you carrying tension somewhere in the body?  In the Neck, head, legs?  Relax it consciously.  Go to that part of the body and persuade that part, say to it lovingly…. relax.  You will be surprised that if you approach the body lovingly, it follows you.  It is your body.  With closed eyes, go inside the body from the toes to the head searching for any place where there is tension and then talk to that part as you talk to a friend.  Have a dialogue between you and your body, say, don’t be afraid, I’m taking care.  You can relax.  You will learn the knack and the body will then become relaxed.  Then tell the mind to relax and if the body listens, the mind also listens but you cannot start with the mind start from the beginning, not the middle.  Many people start with the mind and fail because they start in the wrong place.  Everything has to be done in the right order.  If you become capable of relaxing the body voluntarily, you will be able to help your mind relax voluntarily.  The mind is a more complex phenomenon.  Once you find that your body listens to you, you will have more trust in you and then the mind can listen to you.  It will take a little longer with the mind but it happens.  When the mind starts relaxing, relax your heart , your feelings, emotions which are even more complex, more subtle but then you will be moving with trust, great trust in yourself because you know what is possible.  If it is possible with the body and mind, then it is possible with heart too and then only when you have gone through these steps, you can take the fourth.  Now you can go to the innermost core of your being which is beyond your body, mind and heart, the very center of your existence, and you will be able to relax it too and that relaxation certainly brings the greatest joy possible, the ultimate acceptance.  You will be full of bliss and rejoicing.  Your life will have the quality of dance to it. ”

Reflection Questions

1.  “When and where are you the most relaxed?”

2.  “How do you know?”

Free Meditation Download from Osho

“Meditation for Today

“The Art of Let-Go”

The Method

This meditation is best done at night

The first step:

Lying down on your bed… before sleep comes, start watching.

With your eyes closed move your awareness to the soles of the feet and slowly

start to scan your body for any tension. When you feel tension pause and wait

for the body and the breath to release that tension and let go.

Continue scanning the body moving up from the feet to the thighs and then to

the buttocks letting go of any tension.

Then move your awareness to the belly and relax the belly as you move up to

the chest and shoulders relax the chest and shoulders.

Now relax the neck. Move your awareness now to the muscles in the face and

the jaw and relax.

The second step:

Make sure that when you come to a place of tension in the body stay there

until you feel the body move into a let go.

The third step:

Now move your awareness to the hands. The hands are connected with your

mind. Look for any tension in the hands and as the tension in the hands

releases the mind releases. Now feel the weight of the hands, the weight of

each finger….

The fourth step:

When the body is relaxed the mind is relaxed, the body is but an extension of

the mind.

In this understanding of the body-mind dynamic is the key to relaxation, to let

go

Copyright © 2014 OSHO International Foundation, http://www.osho.com/copyrights

OSHO is a registered trademarkofOSHO International Foundation, http://www.osho.com/trademarks

This free meditation is available  at The Mentors Channel.  with free download of excerpts from Osho’s books.   These are my notes from the Series…

http://www.sfago.com

Day 17 – Accepting Every Part of Me

“The moment you judge a part of yourself, you are dividing yourself into two. You are a whole. All these tricks you have learned about division have to be dropped. You have learned to divide yourself into the godly part and the devilish part, the good and the bad, the high and the low. Drop all divisions. That’s what acceptance means. Acceptance means there is no question of condemnation and whatever is the case, you accept it. Suddenly, there comes a transformation in your being.

When I say accept, I say accept all and drop all the compartments. Become one and everything is good. Anger also has its part to play and hate is needed too. In fact, whatever you have, everything is needed – maybe in a different arrangement, that’s all. But nothing is to be denied or rejected…”

Today’s Thought

“As I am willing to accept all of me, I am more willing to accept more of you.”

Today’s Quote

“Trust does not mean that everything will be all right. Trust means everything is already all right. Trust knows no future; trust knows only the present. The moment you think of the future, it is already distrust.” ~Osho

Intro

“Welcome back to our program, Osho, A Course in Meditation, a 21-day workout for your consciousness.  Have you ever wondered why so much of humanity is acting schizophrenic – saying one thing and meaning another?  Or doing another?  Today’s program is about the disservice we all do to yourselves when we condemn and divide ourselves.  Osho points out that we can accept all our parts, the good and bad, the light and dar, the high and the low, in fact, it is most healthy to do so – we cannot have one without the other.  In the meditation that follows, we’ll learn to look at objects with a different quality and a never before seen totality. ”

My Notes From Today’s Osho Talk

“You say – Can you tell me about acceptance and how to learn to accept because I feel a part in me that doesn’t want to accept.  I would like to know that part of me that is so stupid.  Is there a way to make that more clear to myself?”

“The first thing is to understand what acceptance means.  Can you tell me how to learn to accept because I feel a part in me that doesn’t want to accept.”  Accept that part also.  A part in you goes on rejecting – accept that rejecting part also.   Don’t try to reject that part – accept it.  That is what total acceptance is.  You have to accept that which rejects.  And you would like to know who is that part that is so stupid.  The moment you call it stupid, you have rejected it.  Why do you call it stupid?  It is your part.  Why are you dividing yourself?  You are a whole.  All of these tricks of division that you have learned have to be dropped.

You have learned to divide yourself into the godly part and the devilish part, the good and the bad, the high and the low. Drop all divisions – that is what acceptance means.  If you have something, you have something, why call it stupid.  In calling it stupid, you have rejected it.  Acceptance means no condemnation.  Whatsoever is the case, you accept it and suddenly there comes a transformation in your being.  Don’t call names.  Don’t divide yourself because this is how the ego exists.  The ego is always intelligence, understanding and it rejects.  The ego teaches you to reject the body because the body is material and you are spiritual.  The body teaches you to reject this and that.  All of this has been done for centuries.  Religious people have been doing this and have made the whole humanity schizophrenic, divided everyone into parts.  You have compartments in you – this is good and that is bad, love is good, hate is bad, compassion is good and anger is bad.  I say accept all, drop all of the compartments and you become one.  Everything is good.  Anger also has it’s part to play and hate is also needed.  In fact, whatever you have, everything is needed, maybe in a different arrangement but accept it all.  Don’t call anything stupid in yourself.  You ask if there is a way to make that part more clear to yourself.  Why?  Can’t you accept something hidden within you?  Dark within you?  Day and night, somethings are in the light and some things in the dark.  It has to be so.  Otherwise you will be on the surface with no depth.  Depth is darkness.  If you want to bring the roots to the surface, the tree will die because roots exist only in deep darkness.  There is no need to bring them up.  You need a dark part as much as you ned a light part.  Don’t say any of your parts are stupid.  Don’t fight – allow things.   That is acceptance, letting go.  You live as if you are completely retired.  You live, you do, but you do things naturally and spontaneously.  They happen..   You feel like doing, you do, you don’t feel like doing, you don’t do.  You fall into line with nature and you become more and more natural.”

Reflection Questions

1.  “What part of yourself have you not yet accepted?”

2.  “What do you feel would happen if you simply accepted all parts of you?”

Free Meditation Download from Osho

Copyright © 2014 OSHO International Foundation, www.osho.com/copyrights

OSHO is a registered trademark of OSHO International Foundation, www.osho.com/trademarks

This free meditation is available  at The Mentors Channel.  with free download of excerpts from Osho’s books.   These are my notes from the Series…

“Moonlit”
http://www.sfago.com
Sharon Abbott-Furze

Day 18 – Sex, Love and Meditation

“Man has three layers: the body, the mind and the soul. So whatsoever you do, you can do in three ways. Either it can be just from the body, or it can be from the mind, or it can be from the soul. Whatsoever you do, any act of yours, can have three qualities. Sex is love through the body; romantic love is sex through the mind; compassion is through the soul. But the energy is the same. Moving in a deeper way, its quality changes, but the energy is the same. Sexuality is possible without any understanding, without any meditation.

Love is possible only with understanding. Compassion is possible only with understanding and meditation, understanding and awareness. Not only do you understand and respect the other person, but you have come to your deepest core of being. Seeing your own deepest core, you have become capable of seeing the deepest core in the other also. Now the other does not exist as a body or a mind; the other exists as a soul. And souls are not separate. Your soul and my soul are one.”

Today’s Thought

“I live life through my mind, body and soul.”

Today’s Quote

“Whenever you understand that you have missed life, the first principle to be brought back is innocence. Drop your knowledge, forget your scriptures, forget your religions, your theologies, your philosophies. Be born again, become innocent — and it is in your hands.” ~Osho

Intro:

“”Welcome back to our program, Osho, A Course in Meditation, a 21-day workout for your consciousness.  Osho says that sexuality as a simple biological phenomenon should not be given so much importance and it’s only significance as an energy is that it can be transformed into higher planes so that it can become more and more spiritual and the way to make it more spiritual, he says, is to make it a less serious affair.  Sex is a subtle subject.  The word, itself, is very loaded.  In point of fact, it is one of the most loaded words in existence.  Grateful towards it, sex should be respected because everything is going to happen out of it.  Sex carries the whole blueprint of your destiny.  Unless you become attuned to something beyond mind, sex is going to remain there in one form or another.  And if it’s going to remain there, it is better that it remain natural and biological because perverted sex is getting you into a worse condition.  Lust is the lowest form of sex energy and love the highest form.  Unless your lust becomes love, you will be missing your goal.  Sex is beautiful.  Sex in itself is a natural rhythmic phenomenon.  Life itself exists through sex.  Sex is it’s medium.  If you understand and love life, you will know sex is sacred, holy, then you live it, then you delight in it.  Then, as naturally as it comes, it goes on it’s own accord.”

My Notes From Osho’s Talk

Man has three layers, the body, the mind and the soul.  Whatsoever you do, you can do in three ways.  It can be just from the body or it can be from the mind or the soul.  Sex is love through the body.  Romantic love is sex through the mind.  Compassion is through the soul but the energy is the same, moving in a deeper way, it’s quality changes the the energy is the same.  If you live your love life only through the body, you live a very poor love life because you live very superficially. Sex just from the body isn’t even sex, it is just a physical release of energy.  Maybe it helps you become a little less tense but for you are losing tremendously valuable energy.  if it can become love, you won’t lose it.  In the same act, you will gain.  On the physical level, there is only lust.  Sex is only a loss of energy, the body accumulates too much energy, you throw it out and you are relieved of energy.  A sort of rest comes because the restless energy is gone but you are poorer and more empty than before.  Again and again when this happens, then your whole life becomes routine of collecting energy and then throwing it away.  Eat, breath, rest, collect energy, and then you worry about what to do with it.  Then you throw it.  This is meaningless so sex becomes very meaningless.  The person who has had only sex of the body and doesn’t know the deeper meaning of love, sex is mechanical.  His sex is just a repetition of the same act again and again.  This is what is happening the int he west.  People go beyond sex, not towards love, not towards compassion because that comes from within.  People are going at sex in an absurd way – they are obsessed with it.  They are searching for something else and they think sex is the answer.  That’s why drugs have become so important.  Sex is the oldest drug.  The natural LSD.  The natural drug is no more appealing, they have had enough so chemicals .  In the west, it is now impossible to keep people from drugs unless sex starts becoming deeper and transformed into love, people will helplessly go towards drug.  They progress beyond the drug of sex and want something more because it is not meaningful and fulfilling.  People have sex only on the superficial level because they never go into the mystery of it.  At the most, people know what they think about romantic love.  That is not love – that is repressed sex.  When you don’t have the possibility of making a sexual contact, that repressed energy becomes romance.  When sex moves from the genitals to the head, it becomes romance.  Romantic love is not really love, it is pseudo.  It is the same sex but the opportunity was not there.  In the past, people lived very much in romantic love because society created so many obstacles.    Sex was so difficult that people had to repress it and that repressed energy started moving into heads, poetry, painting, romance and beautiful dreams.  In the west, it has disappeared because sex is available.  There has bene great revolution, dropped the barriers and inhibitions and repression upon sex energy.  There is no problem about it.  It’s so available, more than you need, that a problem has been created.  In the west, no romantic poetry is being written.  Sex is so easily available in the market that no one represses it.  Romantic love is the other side of physical sex, the repressed side.  It is not love.  Both are ill, sexuality and quality.  When body and mind meet, there is healthy love.  In sexuality, only body is there, in romantic love, only head is there.  Both are partial.  In love, body and mind meet, you become a unit.  You love the person and sex comes just as part of it.  You love the person so much, your energies meet so deeply with the other, the experience is so deep that it fulfills you.  Love comes as a center to it.  Love is the center – sex becomes the peripheral.  Sometimes you would like to meet on the physical plane also but there is no hankering for it, it is not an obsession.  It is just a settling of energy.  The basic thing is deep, the periphery is good.  Without the center, it becomes just sexuality.  Without the periphery, if it is only in the center, it becomes romantic love.  When the center and periphery come together, it is a completion of body and mind.  It is not only that you desire the other’s body, but you desire the other’s being.  Then there is love.  Love is healthy.  Sexuality and romantic love are unhealthy.   Otherwise sex is a neurosis because there is a division in you.  Love is a harmony.  It is not only the body of the other, but the very being, the very presence that is loved.  You don’t use the other person as a means for release, you love the person.  He/she is not a means but an end unto himself.  Love is healthy. There is another depth still left which I call compassion.  When body, mind and soul meet, then you have become a great unit, you have become trinity.  All that is within you from the most superficial to the deepest part is meeting.  Your soul is part of your love.  Of course compassion is possible only through deep meditation.  Sexuality is possible without any understanding or meditation.  Love is possible only with understanding.  Compassion is possible only with understanding and meditation and awareness.  Not only do you understand and respect the other person but you have come to your deepest core of being. Seeing your own deepest core, you have become capable of seeing the deepest core in the other too.  Now the other doesn’t exist as a body or mind but as a soul.   Souls are not separate – your soul and my soul are one.  The third I call holy because it consists of the whole.  That is possible only if you make individual efforts. Meditation will lead you to compassion, if you meditate, compassion will automatically arise.

Reflection Questions

1.  “On which layer, body, mind or soul, do you most live?”

2.  “What would it take for you to bring your soul into every activity of your life?”

Free Meditation Download from Osho

Meditation for Today

“Transforming Sexual Energy”

Each thing has its own right time. Each thing has to be done in its moment.

While young, don’t be afraid of love. If you are afraid of love while young, in

old age you will become obsessed; and then it will be difficult to move deeply

in love, and the mind will be obsessed.

Whatsoever you go on seeking in the mechanical ways of sexuality is not the

search for beauty.

Sex is chemical; it releases certain hormones in your body. It gives you a

certain illusory euphoria. It gives you a few moments when you feel at the top

of the world.

If you remain confined to sex, then you will simply waste your energy. By and

by, the energy will ooze out of you, and you will remain just a dead shell.

The Method

One small technique will be of tremendous help. Whenever you feel sex desire

arising, there are three possibilities: one, indulge in it – ordinary, everybody is

doing that; second: repress it, force it down so it goes beyond your

consciousness into the darkness of the unconscious, throw it into the basement

of your life. That’s what your so-called extraordinary people are doing –

mahatmas, saints, monks. But both are against nature. Both are against the

inner science of transformation.

The third – a very rare minority ever tries it – is when the sex desire arises,

close your eyes. It is a very valuable moment: desire arising is energy arising.

It is like the sun rising in the morning. Close your eyes; this is the moment to

be meditative. Move downwards to the sex center where you are feeling the

thrill the vibration, the kick.

Move there and just be a silent onlooker. Witness it, don’t condemn it. The

moment you condemn you have gone far away from it. And don’t enjoy it,

because the moment you enjoy you are unconscious. Just be alert, watchful,

like a lamp burning in a dark night. You just take your consciousness there,

unflickering, unwavering. You see what is happening at the sex center. What is

this energy?

Just watch the fact that an energy is arising near the sex center. There is a

thrill – watch it. And watching it, you will feel a totally new quality of energy.

Watching it, you will see it is rising upwards. It is finding a path inside you.

And the moment it starts rising upwards you will feel a coolness falling on you,

a silence surrounding you, a grace, a beatitude, a benediction, a blessing all

around you

It is no longer like a thorn, painful. It no longer hurts; it is very soothing, like a

balm. And the more you remain aware, the higher it will go. If it can come up

to the heart, which is not very difficult – difficult, but not very difficult… If you

remain alert you will see it has come to the heart. When it comes to the heart

you will know for the first time what love is.

Copyright © 2014 OSHO International Foundation, www.osho.com/copyrights

OSHO is a registered trademark of OSHO International Foundation, www.osho.com/trademarks

This free meditation is available  at The Mentors Channel.  with free download of excerpts from Osho’s books.   These are my notes from the Series…

“Peter”
http://www.sfago.com

Day 19 -Living in Joy

“Joy is not happiness, because happiness is always mixed with unhappiness. Joy is forever, happiness is momentary. Happiness is caused by the outside, hence can be taken away from the outside. Joy arises within; it has nothing to do with the outside. It is not caused by others. It is not caused at all, it is the spontaneous flow of your own energy.

Live in joy… Live in your own innermost nature, with absolute acceptance of whosoever you are. Live in joy, in love… One who lives in joy naturally lives in love. Love is the fragrance of the flower of joy.

Today’s Thought

“I awaken in joy and go to sleep in peace”

Today’s Quote

“Life is more beautiful with a little madness in it. So never be absolutely wise. A little foolishness gives salt to wisdom. A little foolishness gives humor, humbleness. A really wise person is also a fool.” ~Osho

Intro

“”Welcome back to our program, Osho, A Course in Meditation, a 21-day workout for your consciousness.  The pursuit of happiness is a basic right as set out in the Constitution of the United State.  It says that the pursuit of happiness is man’s birthright.  If the pursuit of  happiness is man’s right, then what about unhappiness?  It begs the question, whose birthright is unhappiness?  If you ask for happiness, you have ask for unhappiness at the same time.  Whether you know it or not does not matter – it remains the other side of the coin.  Osho speaks of a different dimension, a spiritual dimension of happiness which he calls joy.  Joy is not dependent on what is going on outside but remains an inner quality to be discovered.  After today’s meditation by Osho, we will experiment with a technique to consciously give space to joy, to reconnect with our inherent capacity of experiencing joy.”

My Notes From Today’s Osho Talk

“Joy is not happiness because happiness is always mixed with unhappiness.  It is never found in purity.  It is always polluted.  It is always alongside or behind misery, just as the day is followed by night, happiness is followed by unhappiness.  Then what is joy?  Joy is a state of transcendence.  One is neither  happy nor unhappy, but utterly peaceful, in absolute equilibrium, silent and alive.  His silence is a song and his song is nothing but his silence.  Joy is forever. Happiness is momentary.  Happiness is caused from the outside and can be taken away from the outside.  You have to depend on others and any dependence is ugly, a bondage.  Joy arises within.  It has nothing to do with or caused by others, not caused at all.  It is the spontaneous flow of your own energy.  If your energy is stagnant, there is no joy.  If your energy becomes a flow, movement, a river, then there is joy. For no other reason except that you are more flowing, alive, a song is born in your heart.  It is a surprise when it arises because you cannot find a cause for it.  It is the most mysterious experience in life.  Something uncaused, something beyond the laws of cause and effect.  It need not be caused because it is your intrinsic nature – you are born with it.  It is something inborn, it is you in your totality, flowing.  When you are flowing, you are flowing toward the ocean.  That is the joy of the rivers – moving towards the ocean to meet the ultimate beloved.  When your life is a stagnant pool, you are simply dying, not moving, no ocean, no hope.  But when you are flowing, the ocean is coming closer every moment and the closer, the more dance, the more ecstasy.  Live in joy.  Live in your innermost nature with absolute acceptance of who you are.  Don’t try to manipulate yourself according to others’ ideas.  Just be yourself, your authentic nature and joy is bound to arise.  It wells up within you.  Live in joy, in love.  One who lives in joy naturally lives in love.  Love is the fragrance of the flower of joy.

”

Reflection Questions

1.  “Do you awaken every morning in gratitude and joy?”

2.  “Are you willing to take responsibility for your own joy?”

Free Meditation Download from Osho

Meditation for Today

“Make Room for Joy”

To know oneself is very elementary. It is not difficult, it can’t be difficult; you

have just to unlearn some things. You need not learn anything to know who

you are,

you have only to unlearn a few things.

First, you have to unlearn being concerned with things.

Second, you have to unlearn being concerned with thoughts.

The third thing happens of its own accord — witnessing.

The Method

The key is: one, you start watching things. Sitting silently, look at a tree and

just be watchful. Don’t think about it. Don’t say, “What kind of tree is this?” Don’t

say whether it is beautiful or ugly. Don’t say it is “green” or “dry.” Don’t make any

thoughts ripple around it; just go on looking at the tree.

You can do it anywhere, watching anything. Just remember one thing: when a

thought comes, put it aside, shove it aside. Again go on looking at the object.

In the beginning it will be difficult but, after a period, intervals start happening:

there will be no thoughts. You will find great joy arising out of that simple

experience.

Nothing has happened, it is just that thoughts are not there. The tree is there,

you are there, and between the two there is space. The space is not cluttered with

thoughts.  Suddenly there is great joy for no visible reason, for no reason at all. You have

learned the first secret.

This then has to be used in a subtler way. Things are gross; that’s why I say

start with a thing. You can sit in your room, you can go on looking at a photograph –

– the only thing to remember is not to think about it. Just look without thinking.

Slowly, slowly it happens. Look at the table without thinking and by and by the table is

there, you are there, and there is no thought between you two. And suddenly — joy.

Joy is a function of thoughtlessness. Joy is already there; it is repressed behind

so many thoughts. When thoughts are not there, it surfaces.

Start with the gross. Then, when you have become attuned and you have

started to feel moments when thoughts disappear and only things are there, start

doing the second thing.

Now close your eyes and look at any thought that comes by — without thinking

about the thought. Some face arises on the screen of your mind or a cloud

moves, or anything — just look at it without thinking.  This will be a little harder

than the first because things are gross; thoughts are very subtle. But if the first has

happened, the second will happen; only time will be needed. Go on looking at the

thought. After a while… It can happen within weeks, it can happen within months,

or it can take years — it depends on you how  intently, how wholeheartedly you are

doing it. Then one day, suddenly, the thought is not there. You are alone. Great joy

will arise — a thousandfold greater than the first joy that happened when the tree

was there and the thought had disappeared. A thousandfold!  It will be so immense

that you will be flooded with joy.

This is the second step. When this has started happening, then do the third

thing – watch the watcher. Now there is no object. Things have been dropped,

thoughts have been dropped; now you are alone. Now simply be watchful of this

watcher, be a witness to this witnessing.

In the beginning it will again be difficult because we know only how to watch

something — a thing or a thought. Even a thought is at least something to

watch. Now there is nothing, it is absolute emptiness. Only the watcher is left.

You have to  turn upon yourself.

This is the most secret key. You just go on being there alone. Rest in this

aloneness, and a moment comes when this happens. It is bound to happen. If

the first two things have happened the third is bound to happen; you need not

worry about it.

When this happens, then for the first time you know what joy is. It is not

something happening to you so it cannot be taken away. It is you in your

authentic being, it is your very being. Now it cannot be taken away. Now there

is no way to lose it. You have come home.

So you have to unlearn things, thoughts. First watch the gross, then watch the

subtle, and then watch the beyond that is beyond the gross and the subtle.

Copyright © 2014 OSHO International Foundation, www.osho.com/copyrights

OSHO is a registered trademark of OSHO International Foundation, www.osho.com/trademarks

This free meditation is available  at The Mentors Channel.  with free download of excerpts from Osho’s books.   These are my notes from the Series…

Day 20 – Maturity, The Responsibility of Being Oneself

“Every child has to lose his innocence and regain it. Losing is only half of the process. Many have lost it, but very few have regained it. Maturity is a rebirth, a spiritual birth. You are born anew, you are a child again. With fresh eyes you start looking at existence. Maturity is coming. You are gaining your innocence again. Maturity is living in the present, fully alert and aware of all the beauty and the splendor of existence.

With love in the heart you approach life. With silence and innocence you penetrate your own inner most core. You are no more just the head. Now you use the head, but it is your servant. First you become the heart, and then you transcend even the heart.”

Today’s Thought

“As I live more in the present, I am transformed into my mature self”

Today’s Quote

“Everybody grows old, very few people grow up. Aging is one thing, growing up another. What is the meaning of growing up? Taking all the responsibility, good and bad — whatsoever happens to you, you are responsible for it.” ~Osho

Intro

“Welcome back to our program, Osho, A Course in Meditation, a 21-day workout for your consciousness.  In this program, Osho redefines the meaning of the word, maturity.  As today’s talk takes us back to the roots of our childhood and the importance of reclaiming our past, paradoxically and surprisingly, we find that surprisingly, maturity has nothing to do with our life experiences and rather everything to do with our inner journey.  Today’s meditation is called Complete the Day in which we’ll take a half hour at night and look at our day and finish everything that has remained incomplete.”

My Notes From Osho’s Talk

“What is the meaning of maturity? Maturity means the same as innocence only with one difference.  It is innocence recaptured.  Every child is born innocent but every society corrupts him.  Every society, up to now, has been a corrupt influence on every child, all cultures depend on exploiting the innocence of the child and exploiting the child, making him a slave, in conditioning him for their own purposes, own ends, political, social, ideological.  They’re whole effort has been to recruit the child as a slave for some purpose.  Those purposes are decided by the bested interests.  The priests and the politicians have been in deep conspiracy.  The moment the child starts becoming part of society, he loses something immensely valuable, becomes more and more hung up in the head, forgets all about the heart.  The heart is the bridge which leads to being.  Without th heart, you cannot reach your own being.  It is impossible.  You have to go by the heart, not the head and all societies are destructive to the heart.  They are against feelings – they condemn feelings as sentimentalism.  They condemn all levels down the ages for the simple reason that love is not of the head, it is of the heart and the man who is capable of heart sooner or later will discover his being and once a person discovers his being, he is free from all patterns, structures.  He is free from all bondage.  Maturity means regaining your innocence, reclaiming your paradise, becoming a child again.  When you reclaim your childhood, no one can corrupt you.  You know what society has done to you and you are alert and aware and will not allow it to happen again.  Maturity is a rebirth, a spiritual birth, you are born anew, you are a child again.  With fresh eyes you start looking at existence with love in the heart.   You approach life with silence and innocence, you penetrate your own innermost core.  You are no more just the head.  Now you use the head but it is your servant.  First you become the heart and then you transcend even the heart, going beyond parts and feelings.  Becoming a whole  being is maturity.  Maturity is the ultimate flowering of meditation.

To know the real beauty of your childhood, first you have to lose it – otherwise you will not know it.  A fish doesn’t know where the ocean is unless you pull the fish out of the ocean onto the sand into the burning sun.  Now she longs for the ocean.  She makes every effort to get back to the ocean and jump in.  It is the same fish but not the same fish.  It is the same ocean but not the same ocean because the fish has learned a new lesson and is now aware.  Now she knows this is the ocean and this is my life.  Without it, I am no more.  I am part of it.  Every child has to lose his innocence and regain it.  Losing is only half the process.  Many have lost it but very few have regained it.  The moment you become aware that to be a part of a society, any religion, any culture, is to remain miserable, a prisoner.  Maturity is living in the present, fully alert and aware of the beauty of this existence.”

Reflection Questions

1.  “Have you experienced a spiritual rebirth?”

2.  “What beliefs did you have to let go of?

Free Meditation Download from Osho

Meditation for Today

“Complete the Day”

When I say to drop the past, I mean that from now onward that is going to be

an everyday thing.

The Method

Every night before you go to sleep, finish that day. It is finished in existence;

now it is futile to carry it in the mind. Just be finished with it. Say good-bye to

it.

If something has remained incomplete in the day it is difficult to finish it.

Complete it, complete it in the mind. You were passing on the road and you

saw a beautiful woman and you wanted to hug her. Now that cannot be done;

something hangs incomplete.

Before you go to sleep just look at the whole day and see what is incomplete.

Complete it psychologically: hug her. Relive that moment, hug her in the mind,

thank her, and be finished with it. Don’t carry it as incomplete. Only incomplete

moments are carried. They are hanging because each experience wants to be

complete.

There is an intrinsic mechanism in each and everything that compels it to

become complete. A seed wants to become the tree, a child wants to become

a young man, the unripe fruit wants to become ripe, and so on and so forth.

Everything wants to complete itself: it has an inbuilt urge to complete. And

that is so about every experience.

You wanted to hit somebody and it was not feasible, not practical. It would

have cost too much and you were not ready to lose that much. Do it before

you go to sleep. Let there be half an hour every night, and that will be your

meditation: go on finishing. Start from the morning and finish everything that

has remained incomplete. You will be surprised that it can be completed. And

once it has been completed you will fall into sleep.

You can always experiment with this meditation whenever you’d like.

This free meditation is available  at The Mentors Channel.  with free download of excerpts from Osho’s books.   These are my notes from the Series…

“Opening Night”
http://www.sfago.com
Sharon Abbott-Furze

Day 21 – Zorba the Buddha, the Ultimate Synthesis

“Congratulations! Today marks 21 days since we began our journey and you’re still here. We trust your life has been uplifted by Osho’s words and concepts. And we urge you to continue your meditation practice throughout your life.

“Zorba the Buddha”, is Osho’s vision of a new man who is whole, not split between materialism and spirituality – a person able to celebrate every aspect of life. Zorba the Greek, as portrayed in an old movie, is a man who embraces the pleasures of the body through all his senses. He enjoys life to the fullest. Zorba is playfulness. The other dimension of the new man is represented by ‘Buddha’, the embodiment of the spiritual, the silence and awareness that lie beyond the material world, or hidden in its deepest depths. For Osho, these two are complementary, not divisive. His vision is the synthesis of Zorba and Buddha.

Zorba is the foundation and Buddha is the palace. Buddha is the peak, but the foundation stones are laid by Zorba. It will be foolish to choose to be a Buddha without having the foundation stones. The Buddha is asleep in the Zorba. It has to be awakened. And nobody can awaken you except life itself. First become a Zorba, a flower of this earth, and earn the capacity through it to become a Buddha – the flower of the other world.”

Today’s Thought:

“I embrace both the Zorba and the Buddha within me”

Today’s Quote

“Everybody is telling you to keep a low profile. Why? Such a small life, why keep a low profile? Jump as high as you can. Dance as madly as you can.” ~Osho

Intro

“Welcome back to our program, Osho, A Course in Meditation, a 21-day workout for your consciousness.  Today, we introduce you to Zorba the Buddha, Osho’s vision of a man who is whole and not split between materialism and spirituality, a person able to celebrate every aspect of life.  One dimension of the new man is represented by Zorba the Greek as described in the novel, and made world famous by Anthony Quin in a movie by the same name.  Zorba is a man who embraces the pleasure of the body through all of his senses.  He enjoys life to the fullest.  Zorba is love, playfulness.  The other dimension of the new man is represented by Buddha, the embodiment of the spiritual, the silence and awareness that lie beyond the material world, or hidden in it’s deepest depths.  For Osho, these two are complimentary and not divisive.  He points out that the division of these two parts of who we are have driven humanity to the point of  insanity.  Osho’s vision is the synthesis of Zorba and Buddha.  Love and awareness, Zorba the Buddha.  Our meditation today will give you a taste of Zorba and Buddha being one.  It enhances the pleasure of the senses while giving you an experience of silent awareness  at the same time.”

My Notes From Osho’s Talk

“Sometimes when you speak, I get the vision of living a kind of Zorba the Greek life – eat, drink and be merry.  Lusty and passionate.  I think this is the way.  Other times I think you are saying the way is to sit silently, watchful and unmoving like a monk.  I sense that you have managed to integrate the contradictions.  That is the ultimate synthesis, when Zorba becomes a Buddha.  I am trying to create here, Zorba the Buddha.  Zorba is beautiful but something is missing, has the heart is his but the heaven is missing.  He is utterly rooted like a giant cedar but he has no wings.  He cannot fly into the sky.  Eat, drink and be merry is good, nothing wrong with it but it is not enough, soon it is tiresome.  One cannot go on, soon the merry-go-round turns into sorry-go-round because it is repetitive.  Only a very mediocre mind can be happy with it.  If you have a little intelligence, sooner or later you see the futility.  How long can you go on?  Sooner or later you will wonder why, what is the point of it all?  If you are very intelligent, it is always persistently there, hammering your heart for answers.  Why?  Remember, it is not the people who are poor, starving that become frustrated with life.  They haven’t lived yet so how can they be frustrated.  They have hopes.  A poor man always has hopes, desires, hopes.  If not today, then tomorrow.  If not in this life, then the next life.  Who are the people picture heaven as a Playboy club?  The starved? The poor?  Who have missed their lives?  They project that in heaven there are rewards.  It is only through experience that one comes to know the utter futility of it all.  Zorbas know.  Buddha himself was a Zorba, had all the beautiful women available in his country.  His father had managed all the beautiful girls around him.  He had the most beautiful palaces, different for different seasons.  He had all the luxury possible in those days.  He lived the life of a Zorba the Greek, hence only he was 29 he became very frustrated.  He was a very intelligent man.  If he were a mediocre man, then he would have lived in it but soon he saw the point, repetitive, the same every day.  He had new women every day but was soon fed up.  The experience of life is very bitter.  It is sweet only in imagination.  In reality, it is very bitter.  He escaped from the palace, the women, riches, luxury.  I am not against Zorba the Greek  – he is the foundation of Zorba the Buddha. Buddha arises from that experience.  The other world can only be experienced through this world so I don’t say skip that world.  Don’t become a monk, one who has moved against the Zorba.  He is an escapist, has done something in a hurry.  A monk is greedy for the other world and wants it too early and the season has not come.  He is not ripe yet.  Live in this world because this world gives ripening, maturity, integrity.  The challenges of this world give you a center, an awareness and that awareness.  Then you can move from Zorba to Buddha but remember, only Zorbas become Buddhas, never a monk.  A monk has become enchanted with the world of Buddha, false, pseudo, imitates Buddhas.  You can get into the higher only when you have lived through the lower, you earn it.  Before a lotus becomes a lotus, it has to move through the mud.  That mud is the world.  It is as if a lotus seed is afraid of falling into mud, maybe out of ego, but it is going to then remain a seed, will never bloom like a lotus.  Don’t hanker for the other world, live this world, and live it with passion.  Live it with totality with your whole being and out of the whole trust, passion, love nad joy, you will become able to go beyond.  The other world is hidden in this world.  The Buddha is asleep in the Zorba.  It has to be awakened and no one can waken you except life itself.  Be aware of yourself, whatever state, live it totally and then you will transcend it.  Become a Zorba, a flower of this earth and earn the capacity to become a Buddha, the flower of this world.  The flower is not of the other world, is not against this world, it is hidden in this, only a manifestation of the other and the other is the unmanifest part of it.

Reflection Questions

1.  “Do you see yourself more like Zorba or the Buddha?”

2.  “What steps could you take to live more in both worlds?”

Free Meditation Download from Osho

(21)_Zorba_the_Buddha_(The_Meditation)