Osho Rajneesh – The Art of Living 5

Osho
Life is a mystery and the first mysterious thing about life is that you can be alive and not have life at all. Just being born is not enough to have life. To be born is just the opportunity. You can use it to have life. You can miss it also and live a dead life. It will just look like life but there will be not alive current in you. Life has to be attained. Like a seed needs much effort, right soil, care, love, awareness. Only then the seed sprouts. Unless you reach the state of flowering … you are alive just in the name. Unless life becomes a celebration. Ecstasy, nirvana, whatever… that is the flowering. If you remain miserable you are not alive, the very misery shows that you have missed a step. An indication that life is struggling within to explode from within but the cocoon is too hard. The ego is too much and the doors are closed. Misery is nothing but a struggle of life to explode into millions of colours, smells, sounds.

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Misery is the absence of ecstasy. Understand this deeply. Otherwise you’ll fight with it and you can’t fight with an absence. You cannot fight with darkness. You can light a candle and the darkness disappears. You can’t fight with it… it’s not there. You can’t do anything with it, if you do something your own energies will dissipate. You have to do it with light not with darkness. Misery is like darkness… it is nothing, existential. If you start fighting with misery, more misery will be created. It is just an indication. A natural indication to your being that life is still struggling to be born, the candle is not lit yet. Something can be done for the ecstasy. You are miserable and you go on trying to solve it. Here on this point the paths of religious and irreligious man separate. Irreligious man starts to fight the misery the absence. The religious man starts seeking ecstasy, bliss… you may call it god. These paths are opposite, never meeting… they may run parallel but never meet and irreligious man has to come to an understanding. Rather strive for light, once light is there you need not do anything else… misery disappears.

Life is there only as a potentiality. You have to work it out. You have to bring it to an actual existential state. Nobody is born alive, only with the possibility of being alive. Jesus says if you have eyes… see, ears… listen. Why did he say that. He’s talking about the capacity to see a Christ. To hear a Christ. How can you hear a Christ if you have not heard your inner voice. It’s nothing but yourself in it’s absolute glory, final flowering. You live as a seed. There are few things. 99% people live like seeds. Perhaps there is something in it… it seems comfortable. Life seems dangerous. A seed is not vulnerable, once it sprouts, it becomes vulnerable. It can be attacked, animals are there, children, people… once a seed sprouts it becomes insecure. Hazards start. Life is a great adventure, in the seed you’re protected, secure. How can you be killed if you are not alive. The more alive you become, the more vulnerable. The more dangers. A perfectly alive man lives in the greatest of dangers.

Remember, a life is insecurity. It’s the very nature of life. You cannot have secure life, you can have a secure death. Life has millions have dangers around… that is why you remain a seed. But what are you protecting? There is nothing to secure. A seed is as dead as people on the path and if there is death, there is bound to be misery. Because that was not it’s destiny. The bird has to leave the egg shell for the vast dangerous sky. Vast possibility. Death is not against life. Death is the very background that life flowers… death is not opposite. It’s just like a blackboard and life is which chalk. Whatsoever you write with white shows. Death is like a blackboard where white lines show on it. (Paras note: DEEP) Those who want life have to accept death, welcome it. If you don’t accept death you will remain a seed. The bird will die in the egg. Many birds die in the egg. You are here, if you want any help from me… let me break your securities, life insurances, make you vulnerable. The egg is to protect you not to kill you. Does not mean you should stay in the egg. When you are ready the egg has to be broken.

Dangers are beautiful. Life without dangers is ugly. Deep down within everyone there is the urge to live dangers. Thats why you go to the mountains, unknown journeys, to the moon. There is a deep urge for danger… which is for life. Don’t kill that urge, otherwise you will be here and not alive. If you understand me well… when I initiate to a sanyas, I’m initiating you into vulnerability. Sanyas is jumping out of an egg, jumping out of ego. Ego is like a protection. That is why ego is touchy. The way someone smiles you are hurt and you protect yourself, ready to fight. With whatsoever to be dangerous. Ego is a constant fight against life. From wherever life tires to reach you, the ego is there like a rock protecting you. Step over the rock, break the egg of ego. The sky is dangerous, I can’t say there is no danger. But life thrives in danger. It’s the very blood of life to be there. Live in danger. That is the meaning of sanyas. The past protects you, known, familiar… you feel at home with the past.

You always open the door for the past. You never open the door for the future. In fact you’d like your future to be a repetition… like the past. (Paras note: WWWWWOOOOWWWW!!!) This is fear. And remember, you always thing that you are afraid of death but you’re not afraid of death you are afraid of life. Only life can die. If you are afraid of death you are afraid of life. If you are afraid of falling down you will afraid of rising. If you are afraid of being rejected you will become afraid to approach anybody. If you are afraid of rejection you will be incapable of love. Afraid of death you are incapable of life, then you will live just for names sake. And only miseries, darkness, night… surround you. Just being born is not enough… necessary but not enough.

Hindus have a word for it… they call it ‘dwij’ twice born. One birth, from your parents is just a potential. A second birth is needed, what Jesus calls resurrection where you break all the things of the past… selves, egos, familiar, known and you move into the unknown, strange, dangers… full of dangers. Every moment possibility of death and with that you become alive. In fact life never dies but it’s the experience of one who knows what life is. You have never had courage enough to come out of the egg. How can you know that life is deathless. You will live in misery. Ego is the negation of life. Negate the ego and life will happen, but you cling… clinging to ego is darkness, misery. How can life be misery for you and bliss for me, we are not talking about the same thing. You are talking about the life in the seed. A life just in hope, dreams, fantasies, not authentic life. Life only desires and hankers. A life which is constantly feeling suffocated. A life which is miserable, a hell.

A heaven is to be born. How can heaven be born out of hell. More miseries will be born. A child is not so miserable as a man… why? It should be the opposite, he should be reaching his peak… of experiences. He’s nowhere near. Life has not been a rising wave. He has descended into hell. A child is more heavenly than man… this goes against nature. A child is just a seed, old man has to become an ancient oak. He’s not… as if life is a falling… not a rising. What happens to an old man. The old man has just accumulated all the miseries of the journey.