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

This nothingness is the gate.

The Gateless gate.

Riko once asked Nansen

to explain to him the old problem of the goose

in the bottle.

If a man puts a gosling into the bottle, he said,

and feeds the gosling through the bottle’s neck

until it grows and grows and becomes a goose –

and then there is simply no more room inside the bottle,

how can the man get it out without killing the goose

or breaking the bottle?

Riko! shouted Nansen, and gave a great clap

with his hands.

Yes master! said Riko with a start.

See! said Nansen.

The goose is out!

339. Love.

Meditation requires understanding and not effort,

understanding is essential, not effort,

and remember always that you cannot

substitute understanding with any effort whatsoever.

But what do I mean by understanding?

By understanding I mean – living a natural life.

Of course, you cannot try to be natural,

that is self-contradictory!

You can be natural but you cannot try to be natural.

Do you understand this?

Suzuki tells a story:

A monk once asked one of the old Chinese masters:

What is the way?

The master replied: The natural one, the ordinary one,

is the way.

How, continued the monk, am I to be in accord with it?

When you try to be in accord with it, said the master,

then you deviate from it.

Does this mean that one should not try?

No, because that too is a way of trying.

Of course, indirect, but still intentional;

that too will not help.

But just see the dilemma clearly and you are out of it.

Are you not?

340. Love and blessings.

I received your letter.

I was waiting for it daily since you left.

I know that you have gone far away from here

but I also know that now you cannot go away from me –

and that nearness is all that counts.

You have come near me in a non-spatial and

non-temporal sense.

The meeting has taken place in the nowhere

or in the everywhere –

because they mean the same thing.

And the real meeting takes place only in this way.

All else is illusion.

Remember me whenever you need

and you will find me then and there.

Ask anything and wait – and you will be answered.

The barriers have fallen from your mind

and you have entered the meditative state.

Now the doors of the divine are open.

Do not hesitate, and take the plunge.

You are completely ready,

just be courageous enough to enter the uncharted

and the unknown.

The call from beyond has come –

now accept the challenge and be fulfilled.

Now close your eyes

and feel me and see me and let my blessings

be showered on you.

341. Love.

Don’t take life so seriously,

because seriousness is a great dis-ease,

and not only a disease but a suicide also.

Be playful – totally,

because that is the only way to be living.

Life is a play, a leela, and to know it as such is religion,

and to live it as such is sannyas – renunciation.

If you can act and live as if acting and living in a dream

and still be a witness to it

then you will be in the cosmic flow, the tao.

And to be in the cosmic flow is to be free –

free from oneself, the ego.

The ego is the seriousness, the disease,

and the tao, the egoless existence, is the bliss, the ecstasy.

That is why I have given you such an absurd name!

But I have given it to you knowingly.

I have given it to you so that

you may never be identified with it.

The name is so absurd

that you will have to remain nameless

and a nobody behind it.

The name is such that not only others

but you yourself

will be able to laugh at it.

SWAMI KRISHNA CHRIST!

What a name!

But perfectly suitable in a dream drama,

is it not so?

So feel at ease with it,

and laugh with it, and sing and dance with it,

and be Swami Krishna Christ

with all the letters capitalized!

And always remember that you are nobody.

Always be aware that

you are neither a swami nor a Krishna nor a Christ –

that is what is meant by a swami!

And Krishna himself is not a Krishna,

Christ himself is not a Christ,

because they are nameless, absolutely nameless.

They are nobodies – and that is what makes them divine.

The moment one is identified with any name

one is lost to one’s divinity.

Either one can be a name or a reality,

and no one can be both simultaneously.

Really be a name –

and your reality is lost.

Really be a reality –

and your name is just a dream, maya.

And what nonsense to be a swami!

But once one is at ease with the no-sense

one transcends it.

Please! Don’t try to be sensible

otherwise you will never have any sense at all –

because only stupidity tries to be sensible!

The existence is absurd

and meaningless

and irrational –

and that is why it is so beautiful,

and to be in it, such a blessing!

342. Love.

Man is free to decide, but not free not to decide –

because not to decide is to decide,

to waver is to decide,

to postpone and evade decision is to decide.

There is no escape:

one must say yes or no.

And there are a thousand ways of saying no,

only one way of saying yes,

and no way of not saying anything at all.

This is the human situation,

and the seeker of truth must be aware of it,

otherwise life is wasted unnecessarily.

A single moment lost cannot be regained –

and we have wasted so many lives –

so decide to decide,

and decide to transform and transcend.

With the decision comes crystallization,

and then one is ready to take the jump into the unknown.

343. Love.

A traveler stops at an inn:

he passes the night there,

takes his meal,

and as soon as he has done so

he packs and continues his journey again.

As for the host of the inn, he has nowhere to go.

The one who does not stay is the guest,

and the one who stays is the host.

Now who are you –

the guest or the host?

Meditate.

No answer is required,

rather, realize,

because all answers belong to the guest

and realization only to the host.

But do not believe me, I may be just deceiving you.

Go in and find out for yourself!

344. Love.

Meditation is the master key.

It can open the doors of the infinite

and it can unlock the mystery of the unknown.

But just by possessing the key nothing is attained,

unless one uses it.

Idries Shah tells a dervish tale:

There was once a wise and very rich man who had a son.

He said to him:

My son, here is a jeweled ring.

Keep it is a sign that you are my successor,

and pass it down on for posterity.

It is of value, of fine appearance,

and it has the added capacity of opening

a certain door to wealth.

Some years later he had another son.

When the son was old enough

the wise man gave him

another ring with the same advice.

The same thing happened in the case of his third

and last son.

When the old man had died and the sons grew up

one after the other claimed primacy for himself

because of his possession of one of the rings.

Nobody could tell for certain which was

the most valuable.

Each son had his adherents,

all claiming a greater value

and more beauty in his own ring.

But the curious thing was that

the door to wealth remained shut

for the possessors of the keys

and even their closest supporters.

They were all too preoccupied with

the problem of precedence,

the possession of the ring, its value and appearance.

Only a few looked for the door to the treasury

of the old man.

The rings had a magical quality too.

Although they were keys

they were not used directly

in opening the door to the treasury.

It was sufficient to look on them

without contention or too much attachment

to one or other of their qualities.

When this had been done

the people who had looked

were able to tell where the treasury was

and could open it merely

by producing the outline of the ring.

The treasuries had another quality too:

they were inexhaustible.

Meanwhile the supporters of the three brothers,

repeated the tales of their ancestors about

the merits of the rings,

each in a slightly different way.

The first community thought they had

already found the treasure

because they had the key.

The second thought that it was allegorical

and so consoled themselves.

And the third transferred the possibility

of opening the door

to a distant and remotely imaginable future

and so for them there was

nothing to do at present.

There is every possibility

for you too to belong to one of these three communities,

because anyone who begins to search

is always prone to fall into the trap of any one of the three.

Really, these are the three basic tricks the mind can play

to save itself from meditation.

So beware of these old tricks.

345. Love.

Look at yourself without thinking, evaluating, or judging,

without any liking or disliking;

that is, without any movement of the mind

or without the noise of the mind.

Then you have eyes

which are altogether different from your eyes

because they are not burdened by the past.

They are innocent and silent,

and in this silence there is neither

the observer nor the observed –

but that which is,

undivided and one,

beginningless and endless.

You can call it God or nirvana or anything whatsoever –

the name does not matter

because the name is not the thing,

and when one has known the thing

one does not bother about the value.

346. Love.

Begin the following meditation from tomorrow –

and know that this is an order!

Now you are so totally mine

that I cannot do anything other than order you! Prerequisites:

Do it cheerfully.

Do it relaxedly.

Be playful.

Do it in the morning after taking a bath.

The meditation:

First: breathe deeply and rhythmically,

not fast but slowly,

for ten minutes.

Second: dance rhythmically and slowly;

be ecstatic, as if flowing in it,

for ten minutes.

Third: use the mahamantra: hoo-hoo-hoo.

Continue dancing and moving,

do not be serious, do not be tense,

for ten minutes.

Fourth: close the eyes and be silent;

do not move or dance now.

Stand, sit or lie down, as you feel to do,

but just be as if dead,

feel a sinking in,

surrender and be in the hands of the whole,

for ten minutes.

Post requirements:

One: live the whole day in ecstasy,

in intoxication of the divine,

flowing and flowering in it,

and whenever depressed say inwardly: hoo-hoo-hoo,

and laugh outwardly,

laugh without any reason, and accept the madness.

Two: before sleep chant the mahamantra: hoo-hoo-hoo

for ten minutes,

then laugh at yourself.

Three: in the morning as you feel awake

chant again the mahamantra: hoo-hoo-hoo

for ten minutes,

and then begin the day with a hearty laugh.

Four: remember always that I am with you.

347. Love.

Everything belongs to the man who wants nothing.

Having nothing, he possesses all things in life:

renouncing all he becomes the master of all.

But why?

Because into his emptiness enters the divine.

348. Love.

Live humbly and in wonder

and then meditation comes by itself.

Relax, and there is ecstasy.

But effort is needed

because unless this fails completely you will not

be effortless!

349. Love.

Be aware of the mind before it is stirred by a thought,

or, be aware of the gap between two thoughts,

and – you will meet yourself!

And this meeting is the meeting with the divine.

350. Love.

Buddha says: If the mind does not arise

all things are blameless.

What more is there to be said?

And even this much is enough to blame everything!

351. Love.

The eyes are blind. One must look within the heart.

So do not believe the eyes,

believe the heart

and remember to look through it,

and then you will come to know things unbelievable.

And unless one comes to know the unbelievable

one has not known at all.

352. Love.

Remember always the one who is inside the body.

Walking, sitting, eating or doing anything,

remember the one who is neither walking nor sitting

nor eating.

All doing is on the surface,

and beyond all doing is the being;

so be aware of the non-doer in the doing,

of the non-mover in the moving.

One day Mulla Nasruddin’s wife,

hearing a tremendous thump

ran to his room.

Nothing to worry about, said the Mulla.

It was only my cloak which fell to the ground.

What! And made a noise like that? asked his wife

Yes – I was inside it at the time, said the Mulla.

353. Love.

A monk asked Daishu Ekai, What is nirvana?

The master answered: Not to commit oneself

to the vicious circle of birth and death

or pleasure and pain

is great nirvana.

What then is the vicious circle

of birth and death and pleasure and pain?

The master said:

To desire nirvana!

Now be silent and feel what is meant by to desire nirvana,

and remember that I am not saying think about it

because to think is to miss it.

Feel it.

Feel it.

Feel it.

354. Love.