You are the unopened book.

Osho

My favourite Osho quotes.

Dr. Krishnaja A.P. 20th November 2012.

You are the unopened book. Osho

My favourite Osho quotes.

Osho. I heard the name for the first time in 1973 when I shifted base to Bombay. The name immediately caught my fancy. For me, it was an unusual and unheard of name at that time. Back then, Osho was very much in the news, shrouded in controversy. My priorities were different then and my knowledge of Osho was confined to reading a stray news item here or there. It was much later, in the 90s, that I chanced upon Oshos writings. It was during one of our trips to Delhi. I saw this fat red volume, with the photo of a man with a flowing beard on the cover, by the bed in my youngest sister Jayajas home. I was curious, started browsing through, reading a passage here and there the acid test that decides further exploration. I was hooked. Back in Bombay, I slowly and steadily started my Osho book collection. These are books I go through again and again. It often takes me back to the days spent reading P.G. Wodehouses books during college vacations, in the attic of our Calicut home. Like Wodehouse, Oshos sense of humour is contagious. You burst out laughing. Osho remains one of my favourites, opening up new vistas to explore, at times leaving you spellbound at the vast virgin grounds before you. You are awestruck by the sheer originality and depth of his thoughts. It transports you to another realm. Here are a few of his quotes that Id like to share.

I begin with laughter:

My definition of man is that man is the laughing animal. No computer laughs, no ant laughs, no bee laughs. If you come across a dog laughing you will be so scared! Or if a buffalo suddenly laughs: you may have a heart attack. It is only man who can laugh, it is the highest peak of growth.

Laughter is not irreligious. Laughter is one of the most evolved phenomena in human life. No other animal can laugh, it is only man; it is only man who can laugh.

Existence loves laughter. You may have observed, or not, that man is the only animal in the whole of existence who is capable of laughing. Laughter is the only distinguishing mark that you are not a buffalo, you are not a donkey.

Make life a laughter when great things are happening, and when nothing is happening, laughter should continue. Laughter should be the running thread of the garland of flowers of all your ecstasies and experiences of the beyond. They will change, but one thread of laughter can continue within you.

Life has to be taken hilariously! Life is so full of laughter, it is so ridiculous, it is so funny that unless your juices have gone completely dry you cannot be serious. I have looked around at life in every possible way and it is always funny, whatever way you look at it! It gets funnier and funnier! It is such a beautiful gift of the beyond.

Life is not serious. Only graveyards are serious, death is serious. Life is love, life is laughter, life is dance, song. But we will have to give life a new orientation. The past has crippled life very badly, it has made you almost laughter blind, just like there are people who are colorblind.

To me, authentic religiousness means a childlike innocence, playfulness, and a wholehearted capacity for laughter.

Existence sensitive.

is full of spirituality even mountains are alive, even trees are

One is simply enjoying oneself, enjoying this immense universe, dancing with the trees, playing on the beach with the waves, collecting seashells for no other purpose than just for the sheer joy of it. The salty air, the cool sand, the sun rising, a good job what more do you want? To me, this is religion enjoying the air, enjoying the sea, enjoying the sand, enjoying the sun because there is no other God than existence itself.

Take hold of your own life. See that the whole existence is celebrating. These trees are not serious, these birds are not serious. The rivers and the oceans are wild, and everywhere there is fun, everywhere there is joy and delight. Watch existence, listen to the existence and become part of it.

Life Dont choose. Accept life as it is in its totality.

Experience life in all possible ways good-bad, bitter-sweet, dark-light, summerwinter. Experience all the dualities. Dont be afraid of experience, because the more experience you have, the more mature you become.

A little foolishness, enough to enjoy life, and a little wisdom to avoid the errors, that will do.

Osho jokes.

Boys, said Father OFlanagan to his Bible class, You should never lose your tempers. You should never swear, or get excited or angry. I never do. Now to illustrate you see that big fly on my nose? A good many wicked men would get angry at that fly, but I dont. I never lose my temper. I simply say, Go away, fly, go away. And then suddenly he jumped and said, Jesus Christ! Its a bee, the son of a bitch! Little Ernie is looking through the family photo album when he comes across a photo of his parents wedding day. Ernie calls his father over, and pointing to his mothers wedding dress says, Was that the day that Mum came to work for us?

After returning from church one Sunday with his parents, little Ernie surprises them by saying, I think I might be a preacher when I grow up. Thats fine, says his mother, but what gave you that idea? Well, replies little Ernie, If I have to go to church anyway it would be more fun to stand up and yell than sit still and listen. Mulla Nasruddin was talking to his doctor. The doctor said, Nasruddin, you confess that you are bad-tempered. I suppose I need not tell you that science has discovered that your bad temper is caused by an ugly little microbe. Mulla Nasruddin said, For heavens sake, speak quietly. Shes sitting in the next room. Do you think that you have as good a sense of judgment as I have? asked the wife during a quarrel. Well, no, replied Mulla Nasruddin slowly. Our choice of partners for life shows that you have better judgment than me. I intend to put together a volume of my collected sermons to be published posthumously, said the preacher to Mulla Nasruddin. Oh, really. I shall look forward to that, said Nasruddin. I sent my little boy for two pounds of plums and you only sent a pound and a half. Are your scales correct, Mulla? asked one harridan. My scales are all right, madam, said Mulla Nasruddin. Have you weighed your little boy? Humphrey Hogbreath wakes up slowly after undergoing a serious brain operation. He is just conscious enough to feel the softness of the comfortable bed and the warmth of gentle hands on his forehead. Ah! gasps Humphrey. Where am I? In heaven? No, dear, replies Hilda, his wife, I am still right here with you! A frustrated man was staring hopelessly down the platform at the departing train. If you hadnt taken so long getting ready, he accused his wife, we would have caught it. Yes, she replied, and if you hadnt hurried me we wouldnt have so long to wait for the next one!

Osho Wisdom Stories

The scorpion and the Sage Epics / Folklore One morning, after he had finished his meditation, the old man opened his eyes and saw a scorpion floating helplessly in the water. As the scorpion was washed closer to the tree, the old man quickly stretched himself out on one of the long roots that branched out into the river and reached out to rescue the drowning creature. As soon as he touched it, the scorpion stung him. Instinctively the man withdrew his hand. A minute later, after he had regained his balance, he stretched himself out again on the roots to save the scorpion. This time the scorpion stung him so badly with its poisonous tail that his hand became swollen and bloody and his face contorted with pain. At that moment, a passerby saw the old man stretched out on the roots struggling with the scorpion and shouted: Hey, stupid old man, whats wrong with you? Only a fool would risk his life for the sake of an ugly, evil creature. Dont you know you could kill yourself trying to save that ungrateful scorpion? The old man turned his head. Looking into the strangers eyes he said calmly, My friend, just because it is the scorpions nature to sting, that does not change my nature to save.

The Donkeys Common Sense One day a farmer lost his donkey. While searching for the donkey, he heard loud cries coming from a well. He looked down the well and found his old donkey crying piteously. He thought the old donkey must have received a lot of injuries. Its better to bury the donkey in the well and close the well to prevent the future calamities, he thought. So the farmer called his neighbours for help and they all started throwing mud inside the well. Initially one could hear the loud cries coming from well but slowly the cries stopped coming. After some time they looked down the well. To their amazement the donkey was still very much alive. As the farmers were throwing mud into the well, the donkey was shaking the mud from its back and was taking one step up. This way the donkey was gaining height in the well and was coming closer to edge of well and soon it was out from the calamity. All challenges in our life are like the mud which life throws at us. We just

need to shake off the mud and take one step up. All challenges are opportunities to rise high.

Goddess of Beauty and Ugliness Kahlil Gibran has written a very nice story. He says when God created the world he created a Goddess of Beauty and a Goddess of Ugliness. He sent them both to earth. Since the road from heaven to earth is very long, they were both tired before they reached halfway. They looked at their clothes so covered with dust that they could hardly make one another out. So they halted beside a lake and decided to take a bath and wash their clothes. There was no one around so they removed their clothes and stepped into the water without fear.

The Goddess of Beauty loved the feeling of the cold, soothing waters. She swam far out. The Goddess of Ugliness grabbed the opportunity and quickly came ashore, put on her companions clothes and disappeared. After some time the Goddess of Beauty, having had her fill and realizing it was getting late, decided to come ashore. To her surprise her companion was missing and so were her clothes. What was she to do? The people from the village were arriving. She was obliged to put on the ugly ones clothes.

Gibran says, Ever since then ugliness masquerades on earth in the clothes of the Goddess of Beauty, while the latter moves about in her clothes. This is exactly what has happened. Suffering goes about in the garb of happiness, untruth masquerades as truth, and the mind is deceived by it. It fails to see what is behind the mantle.

Self-restraint requires first that you begin to see the suffering. You will experience great difficult initially. How difficult it is to get up at five oclock in the morning. The whole body revolts, the mind refuses and offers excuses: It is too cold to get up today, and you need the sleep. You can get up early tomorrow. You gain nothing by sleeping that much longer, but the mind coaxes you into thinking how lovely it would be. You have no idea of the happiness outside: the sun is rising, birds are singing, flowers are opening, dew is

on the leaves all the beauty hidden in the early morning! There is no more beautiful time of the day, no moment so refreshing.

Missing the morning, you can never regain that freshness during the day, but the mind whispers otherwise: Stay and rest a little longer in that world of oblivion. Waking seems so difficult, but only by awakening does one reach happiness; asleep, a man only loses.

Power brings into actuality what is hidden in you.

The good man has no need to be powerful, because good can manifest without power. There is no need for good to have power. Good has its own intrinsic power. Evil needs some outside power to support it. The man who has a heart throbbing with goodness, with blessings, feels no need to be the president or the prime minister. He has no time to waste in the ugly game of power- politics. He has enough energy. That good brings with itself. He will create music, he will compose poetry, he will sculpt beauty in marble; he will do something for which power is not needed. All that is needed is already provided for him. That's the beauty of good, that it is intrinsically powerful... You can be certain that anything that needs power from outside is not good. It is something intrinsically impotent; it will live on borrowed life. So in life this strange situation happens: bad people reach good positions, become respectable or honoured, not only in their time but throughout history. Power never corrupts anybody, but only corrupted people are attracted towards power. And when they have power, then of course they use it for all their desires and passions. Shantam Divyama, there is the famous statement of an English philosopher: Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I do not agree with him. My analysis is totally different. Everybody is full of violence, greed, anger, passion but has no power; so he remains a saint. To be violent you need to be powerful. To fulfill your greed you need to be powerful. To satisfy your passions you need to be powerful.

So when power happens into your hands, all your sleeping dogs start barking. Power becomes a nourishment to you, an opportunity. It is not that power corrupts, you are corrupted. Power only brings your corruption into the open. You wanted to kill somebody, but you had not the power to kill; but if you have the power, you will kill.

It is not power that corrupts you, corruption you carry within yourself; power simply gives you the opportunity to do whatever you want to do. Power in the hands of a man like Gautam Buddha will not corrupt; on the contrary, it will help humanity to raise its consciousness. Power in the hands of Genghis Khan destroys people, rapes women, burns people alive. Whole villages are burnt people are not allowed to get out. It is not power this man Genghis Khan must have been carrying all these desires in him.

It is almost like when rain comes, different plants start growing; but different plants have different flowers. Whatever is hidden in your seeds, whatever is your potentiality, power gives you a chance because most human beings are living so unconsciously that when they come to power all their unconscious instincts have a chance to be fulfilled. Then they dont care whether it kills people, whether it poisons people. You are asking me about the misuse of power. Power is misused because you have desires which are ugly, which are an inheritance from the animals.

In a better world the first things should be. We waste almost one third of life in educating our children. In that one third of life, some time should be given to cleanse their unconscious; so by the time they graduate from their university, and they have some power somewhere somebody will become a police commissioner, somebody will become a governor, somebody will become a prime minister if they do not have anything in their unconscious that is poisonous, destructive, then power cannot be misused. Who is going to misuse it? Power is neutral.

You?
Be respectful of yourself, and be respectful of others. Be proud of your freedom. When you are proud of your freedom you want everybody else to be free, because your freedom has given you so much love and so much grace. You would like everybody else in the world to be free, loving, and graceful.

To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it. Man has lost one quality, the quality of zestfulness. And without zest, what is life? Just waiting for death? It cant be anything else. Only with zest do you live; otherwise you vegetate.

In this world, it is very difficult to find a happy person, because nobody is fulfilling the conditions for being happy. The first condition is that one has to drop all comparison. Drop all these stupid ideas of being superior and inferior. You are neither superior nor inferior. You are simply yourself! There exists no one like you, no one with whom you can be compared. Then, suddenly, you are at home.

Everything that you do should be expressive of you; it should have your signature on it. Then life becomes a continuous celebration. Even if you fall sick and you are lying in bed, you will make those moments of lying in bed moments of beauty and joy, moments of relaxation and rest, moments of meditation, moments of listening to music or to poetry. There is no need to be sad that you are sick. You should be happy that everybody is in the office and you are in your bed like a king, relaxing somebody is preparing tea for you, the samovar is singing a song, a friend has offered to come and play flute for you These things are more important than any medicine. When you are sick, call a doctor. But more important, call those who love you because there is no

medicine more important than love. Call those who can create beauty, music, poetry around you because there is nothing that heals like a mood of celebration.

Let this sensitivity grow, and slowly, as you become more and more sensitive, more and more sensuous, you will see more and more beauty around. The deeper your insight, the greater the beauty. And when you see this whole existence as a tremendous dance, a celebration, you are liberated by it. It is celebration that liberates, it is love that liberates, it is beauty that liberates it is not metaphysics or philosophy.

I am here not to make you understand me, I am here to help you to understand yourself. You have to watch your own actions, your relationships, your moods more closely: how you are when you are alone, how you are when you are with people, how you behave, how you react, whether your reactions are past-oriented, fixed patterns of thought or you are spontaneous, responsible. Watch all these things, go on watching your own mind, heart. Thats what has to be understood, that is the book to be opened.

You are the unopened book. Osho