Maturity- an understanding to be alone- Osho

Maturity has nothing to do with your life experiences.
It has something to do with your inward journey, experiences of the inner.

The more he goes deeper into himself, the more mature he is. When he has reached the very center of his being, he is perfectly mature. But at that moment the person disappears, only presence remains...
The self disappears, only silence remains.
Knowledge disappears, only innocence remains.

To me, maturity is another name for realization: you have come to the fulfillment of your potential, it has become actual. The seed has come on a long journey, and has blossomed.
Maturity has a fragrance. It gives a tremendous beauty to the individual. It gives intelligence, the sharpest possible intelligence. It makes him nothing but love. His action is love, his inaction is love; his life is love, his death is love. He is just a flower of love.

The West has definitions of maturity which are very childish. The West means by maturity that you are no longer innocent, that you have ripened through life experiences, that you cannot be cheated easily, that you cannot be exploited, that you have within you something like a solid rock -- a protection, a security.
This definition is very ordinary, very worldly. Yes, in the world you will find mature people of this type. But the way I see maturity is totally different, diametrically opposite to this definition. The maturity will not make you a rock; it will make you so vulnerable, so soft, so simple.
I remember... a thief entered a master's hut. It was a full-moon night, and by mistake he had entered; otherwise, what can you find in a master's house? The thief was looking, and was amazed that there was nothing. And then suddenly he saw a man who was coming with a candle in his hand.
The man said, "What are you looking for in the dark? Why did you not wake me up? I was just sleeping near the front door, and I could have showed you the whole house." And the man looked so simple and so innocent, as if he could not conceive that anybody could be a thief.
Before his simplicity and innocence, the thief said, "Perhaps you do not know that I am a thief."
The master said, "That doesn't matter, one has to be someone. The point is that I have been in the house for thirty years and I have not found anything, so let us search together! And if we can find something, we can be partners. I have not found anything in this house -- it is just empty."
The thief was a little afraid -- the man seems to be strange. Either he is mad or... who knows what kind of man he is? He wanted to escape, because he had brought things from two other houses that he had left outside the house.
The master had only one blanket -- that was all that he had -- and it was a cold night, so he told that thief, "Don't go this way, don't insult me this way; otherwise I will never be able to forgive myself, that a poor man came to my house in the middle of the night and had to go empty-handed. Just take this blanket. And it will be good -- outside it is so cold. I am inside the house; it is warmer here."
He covered the thief with his blanket. The thief was just losing his mind! He said, "What are you doing? I am a thief!"
The master said, "That does not matter. In this world everybody has to be somebody, has to do something. You may be stealing; that doesn't matter, a profession is a profession. Just do it well, with all my blessings. Do it perfectly, don't be caught; otherwise you will be in trouble."
The thief said, "You are strange. You are naked and you don't have anything!"
The master said, "Don't be worried, because I am coming with you! Only the blanket was keeping me in this house; otherwise in this house there is nothing -- and the blanket I have given to you. I am coming with you -- we will live together. And you seem to have many things; it is a good partnership. I have given my all to you. You can give me a little bit -- that will be right."
The thief could not believe it. He just wanted to escape from that place and from that man. He said, "No, I cannot take you with me. I have my wife, I have my children, and my neighbors, what will they say? -- `You have brought a naked man!"
He said, "That's right. I will not put you in any embarrassing situation. So you can go, I will remain in this house." And as the thief was going, the master shouted, "Hey! Come back!" The thief had never heard such a strong voice; it went just like a knife. He had to come back. The master said, "Learn some ways of courtesy. I have given you the blanket and you have not even thanked me. So first, thank me -- it will help you a long way. Secondly, going out -- you opened the door when you came in -- close the door! Can't you see the night is so cold, and can't you see that I have given you the blanket and I am naked? Your being a thief is okay, but as far as manners are concerned, I am a difficult man. I cannot tolerate this kind of behavior. Say thank you!"
The thief had to say, "Thank you, sir," and he closed the door and escaped. He could not believe what had happened! He could not sleep the whole night. Again and again he remembered... he had never heard such a strong voice, such power. And the man had nothing!
He enquired the next day and he found out that this was a great master. He had not done well -- it was absolutely ugly to go to that poor man; he had nothing. But he was a great master.
The thief said, "That I can understand myself -- that he is a very strange kind of man. In my whole life I have been coming in contact with different kinds of people, from the poorest to the richest, but never... even remembering him, a shivering goes through my body.
"When he called me back I could not run away. I was absolutely free, I could have taken the things and run away, but I could not. There was something in his voice that pulled me back."

After a few months the thief was caught, and in the court the magistrate asked him, "Can you name a person who knows you in this vicinity?"
He said, "Yes, one person knows me" -- and he named the master.
The magistrate said, "That's enough -- call the master. His testimony is worth that of ten thousand people. What he says about you will be enough to give judgment."
The magistrate asked the master, "Do you know this man?"
He said, "Know him? We are partners. He is my friend. He even visited me one night in the middle of the night. It was so cold that I gave him my blanket. He is using it, you can see. That blanket is famous all over the country; everybody knows it is mine."
The magistrate said, "He is your friend? And does he steal?"
The master said, "Never! He can never steal. He is such a gentleman that when I gave him the blanket he said to me, `Thank you, sir.' When he went out of the house, he silently closed the doors. He is a very polite, nice fellow."
The magistrate said, "If you say so, then all the testimonies of the witnesses who have said that he is a thief are cancelled. He is freed." The master went out and the thief followed him.
The master said, "What are you doing? Why are you coming with me?"
He said, "Now I can never leave you. You have called me your friend, you have called me your partner. Nobody has ever given me any respect. You are the first person who has said that I am a gentleman, a nice person. I am going to sit at your feet and learn how to be like you. From where have you got this maturity, this power, this strength, this seeing of things in a totally different way?"
The master said, "Do you know that night how bad I felt? You had gone; it was so cold. Without a blanket sleep was not possible. I was just sitting by the window seeing the full moon, and I wrote a poem: `If I was rich enough I would have given this perfect moon to that poor fellow, who had come in the dark to search for something in a poor man's house. I would have given the moon if I had been rich enough, but I am poor myself.' I will show you the poem, come with me.
"I wept that night, that thieves should learn a few things. At least they should inform a day or two ahead when they come to a man like me, so we can arrange something, so they don't have to go empty-handed.
"And it is good that you remembered me in the court; otherwise those fellows are dangerous, they may have mistreated you. I offered that very night to come with you and be partners with you, but you refused. Now you want... There is no problem, you can come. Whatever I have I will share with you. But it is not material: it is something invisible."
The thief said, "That I can feel -- it is something invisible. But you have saved my life, and now it is yours. Make whatever you want to make of it. I have been simply wasting it. Seeing you, looking in your eyes, one thing is certain -- that you can transform me. I have fallen in love from that very night."

Maturity to me is a spiritual phenomenon.

Aging is nothing that you do, aging is something that happens physically. Every child born, when time passes, becomes old. Maturity is something that you bring to your life -- it comes out of awareness. When a person ages with full awareness he becomes mature. Aging plus awareness, experiencing plus awareness, is maturity.

A mature person has the integrity to be alone. And when a mature person gives love, he gives without any strings attached to it: he simply gives. And when a mature person gives love, he feels grateful that you have accepted his love, not vice versa. He does not expect you to be thankful for it -- no, not at all, he does not even need your thanks. He thanks you for accepting his love. And when two mature persons are in love, one of the greatest paradoxes of life happens, one of the most beautiful phenomena: they are together and yet tremendously alone; they are together so much so that they are almost one. But their oneness does not destroy their individuality, in fact, it enhances it: they become more individual. Two mature persons in love help each other to become more free. There is no politics involved, no diplomacy, no effort to dominate. How can you dominate the person you love?
Just think over it. Domination is a sort of hatred, anger, enmity. How can you think of dominating a person you love? You would love to see the person totally free, independent; you will give him more individuality. That's why I call it the greatest paradox: they are together so much so that they are almost one, but still in that oneness they are individuals. Their individualities are not effaced -- they have become more enhanced. The other has enriched them as far as their freedom is concerned.
Immature people falling in love destroy each other's freedom, create a bondage, make a prison. Mature persons in love help each other to be free; they help each other to destroy all sorts of bondages. And when love flows with freedom there is beauty. When love flows with dependence there is ugliness.
Remember, freedom is a higher value than love. That's why in India, the ultimate we call MOKSHA; MOKSHA means freedom. Freedom is a higher value than love. So if love is destroying freedom, it is not of worth. Love can be dropped; freedom has to be saved: freedom is a higher value. And without freedom you can never be happy -- that is not possible. Freedom is the intrinsic desire of each man, each woman -- utter freedom, absolute freedom. So anything that becomes destructive to freedom -- one starts hating it.
Don't you hate the man you love? Don't you hate the woman you love? You hate. It is a necessary evil; you have to tolerate it. Because you cannot be alone you have to manage to be with somebody, and you have to adjust to the other's demands. You have to tolerate, you have to bear them.

Love, to be really love, has to be 'being-love', 'gift-love'. 'Being-love' means a state of love. When you have arrived home, when you have known who you are, then a love arises in your being. Then the fragrance spreads and you can give it to others. How can you give something which you don't have? To give it, the first basic requirement is to have it.

from Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself

Life is a RELATIONSHIP...says Osho

life is a relationship.
with your own self and with every thing, u think and do.
again sharing the words from osho:
From the chapter,
The Koan of Relationship
A relationship is a puzzle with no clue to it.
Howsoever you try to manage it, you will never be able
to manage it. Nobody has ever been able to manage it.
It is made in such a way that it simply remains
puzzling. The more you try to demystify it, the more
mysterious it becomes. The more you try to understand
it, the more elusive it is.
It is a greater koan than any koan that Zen masters
give to their disciples, because their koans are
meditative -- one is alone. When you are given the
koan of relationship it is far more complicated,
because you are two -- differently made, differently
conditioned, polar opposites to each other, pulling in
different directions, manipulating each other, trying
to possess, dominate... there are a thousand and one
problems.
While meditating, the only problem is how to be
silent, how not to be caught in thoughts. In
relationship there are a thousand and one problems. If
you are silent, there is a problem. Just sit silently
by the side of your wife and you will see - she will
immediately jump upon you: "Why are you silent? What
do you mean?" Or speak, and you will be in trouble -
whatsoever you say, you are always misunderstood.
No relationship can ever come to a point where it is
not a problem. Or if sometimes you see a relationship
coming to a point where it is no longer a problem,
that simply means it is not a relationship anymore.
The relationship has disappeared - the fighters are
tired, they have started accepting things as they are.
They are bored; they don't want to fight any more.
They have accepted it, they don't want to improve upon
it.
Or, in the past, people tried to create a kind of
harmony forcibly. That's why, down the ages, women
were repressed - that was one way of sorting things
out. Just force the woman to follow the man, then
there is no problem. But it is not a relationship
either. 

Money is Energy Says - Osho

Money should not become the goal, but I am not saying at the same time that you should renounce it and become beggars -- use it, it is a good means. I'm not against money, I have nothing to say against it. I am saying something about you and your possessiveness, not about money. Money can be beautiful -- if it is not possessed, if you don't become obsessed with it. It can be beautiful. Money is like blood circulating in the body: in the body of society money circulates, it is blood. It helps society to be enriched, to be alive -- but it is like blood.

Money is not just there outside in the currency notes, it is something to do with your inner mind and attitudes. Money is your love of things, money is your escape from persons, money is your security against death, money is your effort to control life, money is a thousand and one things. Money is not just in the currency notes otherwise things would have been very easy.


Money is your love -- love of things, not of persons. The most comfortable love is of things because things are dead, you can possess them easily. You can possess a big house, a palace -- the greatest palace you can possess easily -- but you cannot possess even the smallest baby; even that baby rejects, even that baby fights for his freedom. A small baby, howsoever small, is dangerous for the man who wants to possess. It will rebel, it will become rebellious, but it will not allow anybody to possess it.

People who cannot love persons start loving money because money is a means to possess things. The more money you have, the more things you can possess; and the more things you can possess, the more you can forget about persons. You will have many things but you will not have any contentment because deep contentment comes only when you love a person. The money will not revolt but it cannot respond also, that is the trouble. That's why miserly people become very ugly. Nobody has responded to their love ever. How can you be beautiful without love falling on you, without love showering on you like flowers -- how can you be beautiful? You become ugly. You become closed. A man who possesses money or tries to possess money, is miserly and he will always be afraid of persons and people because if they are allowed to come closer they may start sharing. If you allow somebody closeness you have to allow some sharing also. People who love things become like things -- dead, closed. Nothing vibrates in them, nothing dances and sings in them, their hearts have lost the beat, they live a mechanical life. They drag, burdened, burdened with many things, but they don't have any freedom because only love can give you freedom; and love can give you freedom only if you give freedom to love.

People who are afraid of love become possessive about money. People who love become non-possessive, money doesn't matter much. If it is, it is okay, it can be used; If it is not, that too is okay, because love is such a kingdom that no money can purchase it. Love is such a deep fulfillment that you can be a beggar on the street and you can sing if you have love in your heart. If you have loved and you have been loved, love crowns you, makes a king of you. Money simply makes you ugly.

I am not against money. I am not saying: 'Go and throw it away,' because that is another extreme. That is also the last step of the miserly mind. A man who has suffered too much because of money, who has clung to money and could not love anybody or become open, becomes so frustrated in the end that he throws away the money, renounces and goes to the Himalayas, enters a Tibetan monastery and becomes a lama. This man has not understood. If you understand, money can be used, but people who don't understand are either misers, they can't use the money, or they renounce the money, because in renouncing they are also saving the same mind. Now there will be no difficulty in using it: you renounce all and escape. But they cannot use the money, they are afraid of using it.

They can renounce, remember this. I have seen misers renouncing completely, totally. A man founded a university in Sagar in India, I was a student there. This man was a rare specimen, his name was Dr. Hari Singh Gaur. I have never come across a greater miser than him and I have not come across a greater renouncer either. He was perfect in both the ways. For his whole life he never gave a single paise to anybody, no beggar ever received anything from his bungalow.

If it was known in his town, Sagar, that some beggar was going to Hari Singh's house to ask, others would laugh and they would say: Seems to be new to the town. Nobody ever received anything. He never donated a single rupee for any cause, humanitarian or anything. For the Indian National Freedom Movement he never donated a single paise -- no, that was not his way. He was a perfect miser and he was one of the greatest lawyers in the world. He had three offices, one in India, one in China, one in England, and he worked four months in England, four months in India, four months in China. He was one of the best lawyers in the world. He accumulated so much money and then in the end he donated his whole life's savings. The whole university of Sagar is created by a single person's donation. It is one of the most beautiful universities.

But when he donated, he donated all. You will be surprised to know that he donated so absolutely that he did not leave a single paise for his children. Now they are fighting in the courts, they have nothing, they are beggars on the street. The miser remains a miser to the very end, even when he renounces. He couldn't give to his children even a single paise but he could renounce the whole.

First you can accumulate money like a madman, then one day you understand that you wasted your whole life. When you understand this you become afraid, but the old habit persists. You can give the whole and forget about it and escape, but you cannot share it.

If a man of understanding has money he shares it because money is not for itself, it is for life. If he feels that life needs it, love needs it, he can throw it away completely, but it is not a renunciation, it is again using it. Love is the goal for him; money is never the goal, money is the means. For people who are after money, money is the goal, love becomes just a means. Even their prayer is for money; even prayer becomes a means to money.

Money is a very complex phenomenon. Why do people get so much into it, and so many people at that? It has a certain appeal, a magnetic appeal. Money has a hypnotic appeal in it and the appeal is that you can possess it completely. Money is very docile, it becomes a slave. The ego feels very fulfilled.

Love is not docile, love is rebellious. You cannot possess love. You can possess a woman, you can possess a man, but you can never possess love. If you possess a woman, the woman has become money, a thing; if you possess a man, the man has become money, a thing, an instrument. A man is a man and a woman is a woman only when they are an end unto themselves, not a means to anything else. Money is the means, and to become obsessed with the means is the greatest foolishness that can occur to a man and the greatest curse.

Money should not become the goal, but I am not saying at the same time that you should renounce it and become beggars -- use it, it is a good means. I'm not against money, I have nothing to say against it. I am saying something about you and your possessiveness, not about money. Money can be beautiful -- if it is not possessed, if you don't become obsessed with it. It can be beautiful. Money is like blood circulating in the body: in the body of society money circulates, it is blood. It helps society to be enriched, to be alive -- but it is like blood.

You must have heard about diseases in which the blood stops and cannot circulate, clots of blood come into existence and they become blocks and the blood cannot circulate in the body. Then you are paralyzed, and if the clots happen in the heart you are dead.

If money circulates, moves from one hand to another, goes on moving, the more movement the better, then the blood circulates well, then life is healthy. But when a miser comes in, a clot has happened; somewhere somebody is accumulating, not sharing, and that is a clot in the blood circulation. The man disturbs, he does not live himself and because of his blocking he does not allow others to live. The money has stopped circulating. Blood circulating is life, blood stopped, blocked, is death. Money circulating is life, money stopped, blocked, is death.

I'm for a society where money moves fast, nobody clings to it, everybody uses it, and you remember that the simple law of money is: the more you use it, the more valuable it is. For example, we are sitting here. If ten persons have a hundred rupees in their pockets, and they keep it to themselves, then ten persons have only one thousand rupees, dead. But when those rupees circulate, if they make two rounds, ten thousand have become twenty thousand; if they make three rounds they have become thirty thousand; and if they make four rounds.... The more they circulate, the more money there is, because when one hundred rupees are kept by one man those hundred rupees are dead. If he uses them they go to somebody else, then they come to him again because others are also using them; now he has two hundred rupees, and again three hundred, four hundred, five hundred.... The more you use it, the more money floats and circulates, and the richer society is.

America is richest because America is the least miserly country in the world. Money circulates fast; everybody is using that money which he has, and even that money which he is going to have in the future, he is using it too. The country is bound to become rich. A country like India is bound to remain poor because people cling. If you cling to money the country will remain poor. When nobody uses it, money becomes like clots in blood.

India has two types of people: misers and renouncers. Both these types are wrong, ill, abnormal, neurotic. One should have money, earn money, produce money -- and use it. One should hold it only to use and one should use it only to hold; it becomes a circle. Then a person is both, a miser and a renouncer together. When you are miser and renouncer together you are neither miser nor renouncer, you simply enjoy whatsoever money can give. Money can give many things and money cannot give many things; when you use it then you know what money can give. Money can give all that is outward -- things of this world, nothing is wrong in them. Nothing is wrong in having a beautiful house. Nothing is wrong in having a beautiful garden -- money can give it to you. But money cannot give you love, that is expecting too much from poor money.

One should expect only that which can be expected, one should not move in the impossibilities..Just asking poor money to give you love -- poor money cannot do it. But nothing is wrong, don't get angry with the money! Don't burn it and throw it in the river and go to the Himalayas. In the first place you asked something which a man of understanding would never have asked -- you are foolish, that's all. Nothing is wrong with the money.

A wandering monk came to see me two or three years ago and he was very much against money. He would not even touch it -- this is a neurosis. There are people who only count money the whole day, and in the night also, in their minds, they go on counting. They touch only money with a loving hand, they never touch anybody else with a loving hand. When they look at their currency notes, watch their eyes -- they sparkle. They are hypnotized. These are neurotic people. Then there are other neurotics... This wandering monk came to me, he would not touch money. So I said: Then it must be very difficult for you. How did you come to Bombay to see me? He said: There is nothing difficult. He showed two other men, his disciples: they could touch, they were not such evolved beings. What foolishness! They could purchase the ticket and they could keep the money, but for him, he said: I don't touch, I have gone far beyond it.

said: But what is the point? Now you are not only using money, you are using two other persons as your pockets. You have reduced two persons, alive persons, to pockets; you have murdered. What was wrong in keeping it in your own pocket?

And the man said: So it seems you are in favour of money? What can money give? Can money give love? Can money give God? I said: You are foolish if you ask love and God from poor money, your expectations are false. Money never promised them to you, but whatsoever money promises it can give. It never promises that it can give you love. If you expect it you are idiotic.

These people who have been expecting too much from money one day become enemies of money. Then they escape, then they don't touch money. Even Vinoba closes his eyes if you bring money to him, he will not see it. What nonsense! What is wrong in money? Something still seems to be miserly inside, something still seems to be like a wound, otherwise why close your eyes? What is wrong in a currency note? It is just paper, and these spiritual people go on saying that it is just paper. If you put ordinary paper in their hands, they touch it, but when you put a currency note there they throw it away as if it is a scorpion or very deadly disease.

Neurosis can move from one extreme to another. Use money. Money is beautiful as far as it goes, and it goes far enough! As far as the world is concerned it goes far enough, but don't expect love, because it is of the interior, of the inner being, and don't ask for God, because it is transcendental.

Use everything for its own capacities, not for your dreams. Then you are a healthy man, and to be healthy is to be holy. Don't be abnormal in any way. Be normal, ordinary, and just create more understanding so that you can see. Money can be used, should be used, it can give you a beautiful world.

Otherwise, sooner or later, if you are against money you will create a dirty country like India: everything is dirty -- but they think they are great spiritualists. Everything has gone ugly but they think they are great spiritualists because they have renounced. That's why things have got so bad. They think one has to close one's eyes and not look outside.

It is good to look outside because outside is God's creation; it is good to look inside because inside is sitting the Creator. Both are good. Eyes are meant to blink; they are not meant to remain open forever and they are not meant to be closed forever. They are meant to blink -- open and close, open and close. That is the rhythm -- out and in, out and in.

Look outside -- the beautiful creation; look inside -- the beautiful God. And by and by you will see that the in and out meet and mingle and are one.

Tao: The Three Treasures
Vol-2
# 6

Osho on Marriage

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( Osho's view on marriage was very shocking to me when read this post first few years ago. but this is very important realization- that in present format- marraige is hell. stress. becauce basic need of any human is freedom. and marriage is binding. against freedom. one has to cultivate a kind of understanding with the fellow human being.... my hope with post has been tremendous.  what works in relationship is love... there is no other way....) osho says-    This is the compromise that human beings have made: to be secure about the future, to be certain about the tomorrows, to have a guarantee that the woman who loves you is going to love you forever, that it is not a temporary affair....  That’s why religious people say that marriages are "made in heaven"... a strange kind of heaven, because if these marriages are made in heaven, then what can you make in hell? They don’t show the signs, the fragrance, the freshness, the beauty of heaven. They are certainly disgusting, ugly... they show something of hell certainly. But man settled for marriage because that was the only way to have private property.  Animals don’t have private property -- they are all communists, and far better communists than have appeared in human history. They don’t have any dictatorship of the proletariat and they have not lost their freedom, but they don’t have any private property.  Man also lived for thousands of years without marriage, but those were the days when there was no private property. Those were the days of hunting; man was a hunter. And those people thousands of years ago had no cold-storage system, no technology -- whatever food they got they had to finish as quickly as possible. They could only hope that tomorrow they will get some food again.  Because there was nothing to accumulate, there was no question of marriage. People lived in communes, tribes; people loved, people reproduced, but in the beginning there was no word for "father." The word "mother" is far more ancient and far more natural. You will be surprised to know that the word `uncle’ is older than the word "father" -- because all the people who were the age of your father... you didn’t know who your father was. Men and women were mixing joyously -- without any compulsion, without any legal bondage, out of their free will. If they wanted to meet and be together there was no question of domination. The children never knew who their father was, they knew only their mother. And they knew many men in the tribe; someone amongst those men must have been their father, hence they were all uncles.  As private property came into existence with cultivation.... With hunting, man could not survive long. People have destroyed complete species of animals. Hundreds of species which once used to dance and sing on this earth... man has eaten them up. Something had to be done because hunting was not reliable. Today you may get food, tomorrow you may have to be hungry. And it was very arduous. The search for animals did not allow man to develop any of his other talents, his genius. But cultivation changed the whole life of man.  You must be reminded of the fact that  cultivation  is the discovery of women,  not of men. The woman was confined -- she was not able to go hunting. Most of the time she was pregnant, she was weak, she was carrying another soul within her. She needed care, protection...so she was living in the house. She started making the living space more beautiful -- and this you can see even today, after thousands of years.  If you enter into a bachelor’s room you can immediately say that it is a bachelor’s room. You may not be able to decide by seeing the bachelor whether he is bachelor or not, but his room certainly is a bachelor! The woman, her touch, is missing. The house of a bachelor is never a home, it is just a place where he sleeps. It is not something with which he feels a certain intimacy, a certain creative relationship.  The home, the village, the city and the whole civilization are because of the woman, because she was free from hunting and she had different values of the heart and of the mind -- she was more aesthetic, more graceful, more earthly, not at all interested in hell and heaven and God and the devil and all that crap! No woman has written a single religious scripture. No woman has been a philosopher thinking about abstract, faraway things.  Woman’s consciousness is interested only in the intimate surroundings -- she would like a beautiful house, she would like a beautiful garden. She wants to create a small world of her own -- cozy, comfortable. She imparts a certain quality to a dead house and it becomes a living home. It is a magical transformation.  Man continued to hunt, and the woman started looking around...the man had no time. He has always been busy without business, but the woman had all the time there is. The basic work of hunting was being done by the groups of men and the woman started looking around. She discovered cultivation because she saw wild fruits growing, she saw many other things growing and she also saw that every year the crop dies, the seeds fall back into the earth and when the rains come, again those seeds sprout in thousands of plants.  She started experimenting to find what was edible and what was not edible. Soon, as hunting was becoming more and more difficult, men had to agree with women: "We have to shift our whole economic focus. We have to go for cultivation, for fruits, for vegetables. And these are in our hands -- we can produce as much as we want, as we need it, and there is tremendous variety."  Slowly, slowly the nomads, the wandering tribes...because hunters cannot stay in one place. They have to go on moving as the animals escape. Once hunting was dropped and cultivation became our very measure of survival a new thing also happened alongside.  There were people who were powerful people and there were people who were weak people. The people who were physically powerful managed to claim much ground as their property. They earned much...slowly, slowly the barter system started, because when you have too much of one crop, what are you going to do with it? You have to exchange it; then you can have many more things. Life became more complex, with more excitement.  But a problem was felt: after a person dies, who is going to inherit his property? Nobody wanted their property to be inherited by any XYZ. They wanted their property to belong to their own blood.  It is out of economics, not out of the understanding of love that marriage came into existence.  Its very birth was wrong,  under the wrong stars. And because man had to agree for marriage.... The woman was very willing for the simple reason that for thousands of years in the hunting period she was not financially a part of the society; man was all. Man continued his power, although the whole social structure changed. The hunter’s nomadic life became a peaceful life in a village but man’s concern about his property.... He wanted a contract with the woman to be certain that the son she was giving birth to is not somebody else’s, but his own. For this simple purpose all the woman’s freedom had to be destroyed. She had to live almost like a prisoner, or worse.  Man agreed -- under compulsion, he compromised. If the woman was losing a few things -- her freedom of movement, her freedom in changing lovers -- man was also ready to sacrifice his freedom. They would remain devoted to each other forever.  But it is against nature. Even if you want to do it nature is not going to support you.  Nature is for freedom, not for any kind of bondage.  So new problems started arising. Men started finding prostitutes who were no-one’s wives, or as it was phrased in India, the prostitute was the wife of the whole town: nagarvadhu. She belongs to anybody, she is a commodity; you have to pay and buy her time and her body. Because of marriage it was very difficult to find married women because then there were more complexities: they had their husbands.... Prostitutes were good.  And you will be surprised to know that in India every city had its topmost prostitute -- she was the most beautiful girl born in that city. Because she was so beautiful it was not right to let her get married to one person, she had to be shared. She was so beautiful that if she got married there would be trouble, there would be problems -- people would go on falling in love with her. It was better to keep her free for anybody who would pay.  Marriage created suspicion. The husband was always suspicious about whether the child born to them was his own or not. And the problem is, the father had no way to determine that a child was his own. Only the mother knew. Because the father had no way of being certain, he created more and more walls around the woman -- that was the only possibility, the only alternative -- to disconnect her from the larger humanity. Not to educate her, because education gives wings to people, thoughts, makes people capable of revolt, so no education for women. No religious education for women, because religion makes you saints, holy people and it has been a male-dominated society for centuries and man cannot conceive a woman to be higher and holier than himself.  Man has been cutting from the very roots any possibility of woman’s growth. She is just a factory to manufacture children. She has not been accepted by any culture in the world as equal to man.

Osho: Sermons in Stones, Chapter 13.

Bliss and Pleasure

what is the difference between bliss and pleasure?                           
              
Pleasure is physical, physiological. Pleasure is the most superficial
thing in life; it is titillation. It can be sexual, it can be of other
senses, it can become an obsession with food, but it is rooted in the
body. The body is your periphery, your circumference; it is not your
center. And to live on the circumference is to live on the mercy of
all kinds of things that go on happening around you.

The man who seeks pleasure remains at the mercy of accidents. It is
like the waves in the ocean; they are at the mercy of the winds. When
strong winds come, they are there; when winds disappear, they
disappear. They don't have an independent existence; they are
dependent, and anything that is dependent on the other brings bondage.
Pleasure is dependent on the other. If you love a woman, if that is
your pleasure, then that woman becomes your master. If you love a man,
if that is your pleasure and you feel unhappy, in despair, sad,
without him, then you have created a bondage for yourself. You have
created a prison, you are no more in freedom. If you are a seeker
after money and power, then you will be dependent on money and power.

The man who goes on accumulating money, if it is his pleasure to have
more and more money, will become more and more miserable -- because
the more he has, the more he wants, and the more he has, the more he
is afraid to lose it. A double-edged sword: the more he wants... the
first edge of the sword.
Hence he becomes more and more miserable.

The more you demand, desire, the more you feel yourself lacking
something, the more hollow, empty, you appear to yourself. On the
other hand -- the other edge of the sword -- is that the more you
have, the more you are afraid it can be taken away; it can be stolen.
The bank can go bankrupt, the political situation in the country can
change, the country can go communist.
There are a thousand and one things upon which your money depends.
Your money does not make you a master, it makes you a slave. Pleasure
is peripheral; hence it is bound to depend on the outer circumstances.
And it is only titillation. If food is pleasure, what actually is
being enjoyed? -- just the taste! For a moment, when the food passes
your taste buds on the tongue, you feel a sensation which you
interpret as pleasure. It is your interpretation. Today it may look
like pleasure and tomorrow it may not look like pleasure. If you go on
eating the same food every day your buds on the tongue will become
nonresponsive to it. Soon you will be fed up with it -- that's how
people become fed up.

One day you are running after a man or a woman and the next day you
are trying to find an excuse to get rid of the other. The same person,
nothing has changed! What has happened meanwhile? You are bored with
the other, because the whole pleasure was in knowing the new. Now the
other is no longer new; you are acquainted with the territory of the
other. You are acquainted with the body of the other, the curves of
the body, the feel of the body. Now the mind is hankering for
something new. The mind is always hankering for something new. That's
how mind keeps you always tethered somewhere in the future. It keeps
you hoping, but it never delivers the goods -- it cannot. It can only
create new hopes, new desires. Just as leaves grow on the trees,
desires and hopes grow in the mind. You wanted a new house and now you
have it -- and where is the pleasure? Just for the moment it was
there, when you achieved your goal. Once you have achieved your goal,
your mind is no longer interested in it; it has already started
spinning new webs of desire. It has already started thinking of other,
bigger houses. And this is so about everything.

Pleasure keeps you in a neurotic state, restless, always in turmoil.
So many desires, and every desire unquenchable, clamoring for
attention. You remain a victim of a crowd of insane desires -- insane
because they are unfulfillable -- and they go on dragging you into
different directions. You become a contradiction. One desire takes you
to the left, another towards the right, and simultaneously you go on
nourishing both the desires. And then you feel a split, then you feel
divided, then you feel torn apart, then you feel like you are falling
into pieces. Nobody is responsible. It is the whole stupidity of
desiring pleasure that creates this. And it is a complex phenomenon.
You are not the only one who is seeking pleasure; millions of people
just like you are seeking the same pleasures. Hence there is great
struggle, competition, violence, war. All have become enemies to each
other because they are all seeking the same goal, and they all can't
have it; hence the struggle has to be total. You have to risk all --
for nothing, because when you gain, you gain nothing, and your whole
life is wasted in this struggle. A life which might have been a
celebration becomes a long, drawn out, unnecessary struggle.

When you are so much after pleasure you cannot love, because the man
who seeks pleasure uses the other as a means. And to use the other as
a means is one of the most immoral acts possible, because each being
is an end unto himself, you cannot use the other as a means. But in
pleasure-seeking you have to use the other as a means. You become
cunning because it is such a struggle. If you are not cunning you will
be deceived, and before others deceive you, you have to deceive them.

Machiavelli has advised pleasure-seekers that the best way of defense
is to attack. Never wait for the other to attack you; that may be too
late. Before the other attacks you, you attack him! That is the best
way of defense. And this is being followed, whether you know
Machiavelli or not. This is something very strange: people know about
Christ, about Buddha, about Mohammed, about Krishna; nobody follows
them. People don't know much about Chanakya and Machiavelli, but
people follow them -- as if Machiavelli and Chanakya are very close to
your heart!

You need not read them, you are already following them. Your whole
society is based on Machiavellian principles; that's what the whole
political game is all about. Before somebody snatches anything from
you, snatch it from the other. Be always on guard. Naturally, if you
are always on guard you will be tense, anxious, worried. And the
struggle is such and it is constant. You are one, and the enemies are
millions. For example, if in India you want to become the prime
minister, then millions of people, who also want to become the prime
minister, are your enemies. And who does not want to become the prime
minister? One may say, one may not say. So everyone is against you and
you are against everybody else. This small life of seventy, eighty
years, will be wasted into some utterly futile effort. Pleasure is not
and cannot be the goal of life. The second word to be understood is
happiness.

Happiness is psychological, pleasure is physiological. Happiness is a
little better, a little more refined, a little higher, but not very
much different from pleasure. You can say that pleasure is a lower
kind of happiness and happiness is a little higher kind of pleasure --
two sides of the same coin.
Pleasure is a little primitive, animal; happiness is a little more
cultured, a little more human -- but it is the same game played in the
world of the mind. You are not so much concerned with physiological
sensations; you are much more concerned with psychological sensations.
But basically they are not different; hence Buddha has not talked
about four words, he has talked about only two.

The third is joy; joy is spiritual. It is different, totally different
from pleasure, happiness. It has nothing to do with the other; it is
inner. It is not dependent on circumstances; it is your own. It is not
a titillation produced by things; it is a state of peace, of silence,
a meditative state.
It is spiritual. But Buddha has not talked about joy either, because
there is still one thing that goes beyond joy. He calls it bliss.

Bliss is total. It is neither physiological nor psychological nor spiritual.
It knows no division, it is indivisible. It is total in one sense and
transcendental in another sense. Buddha only talks about two words.
The first is pleasure; it includes happiness. The second is bliss; it
includes joy. Bliss means you have reached to the very innermost core
of your being.
It belongs to the ultimate depth of your being where even the ego is
no more, where only silence prevails; you have disappeared. In joy you
are a little bit, but in bliss you are not. The ego has dissolved; it
is a state of nonbeing. Buddha calls it nirvana. Nirvana means you
have ceased to be; you are just an infinite emptiness like the sky.
And the moment you are that infinity, you become full of the stars,
and a totally new life begins. You are reborn.

Pleasure is momentary, of time, for the time being; bliss is
nontemporal, timeless. Pleasure begins and ends; bliss abides forever.
Pleasure comes and goes; bliss never comes, never goes -- it is
already there in the innermost core of your being. Pleasure has to be
snatched away from the other; you become either a beggar or a thief.
Bliss makes you a master. Bliss is not something that you invent but
something that you discover. Bliss is your innermost nature. It has
been there since the very beginning, you just have not looked at it,
you have taken it for granted. You don't look inwards.
This is the only misery of man: that he goes on looking outwards,
seeking and searching. And you cannot find it in the outside because
it is not there.
Osho, excerpted from Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha,Volume 8, Chapter 5      
               

Raghu Rai- THE Photographer

Raghu Rai- (The one and only well known Indian Photographer) will be in mumbai.
sudharak told me on phone. and we are going to be there.
and we went.
it is not the first time- that I would be meeting him.
I know him since ages- when I was learning photography and my photography sir at Benaras Hindu University, mentioned and introduced his few works.
that was not the time of the net- when one can go to google and get more than one can chew. Today type Raghu Rai on google and one can see 13,000 image link to his name.
I have been following his work in 'India Today', where he was working as picture editor.
I was facinated by his work.
He was my personal Amitabh Bachchan.
when we had our all India photography context organized by Camera art society, Varanasi- back in 80's- my friend G K Santosh a noted photo-journalist from Varanasi, travelled to New Delhi to ask for his pictures to be exhibited in the show. And he gave.
I did not miss the cover story of 'The Illustrated weekly of India' which carried the cover story on him with an interview by Pritish Nandy.

That was the first time I came to know his process of picture taking. He said - it is a kind of photo-meditation for him. 

well, 

I first met him in 90's during the 'India 24hours' show at NCPA mumbai.

I recall him carrying his camera entering in the exhibition hall.

I was watching him the way one looks at the film stars.

Later that evening, in the party at the Oberoi Hotel, I introduced my self.

He gave me his delhi Phone number, and asked me show my work.

He said to me in that very first meeting- do not waste time being any ones fan- just do your work.

and I did not obey him.

In the year 2005, while making a short film On noted artist Himmat Shah   , I came to know - Himmat is the friend of Raghu Rai. I met Raghu Rai with Himmat sir at his office in delhi.

and since then he became Raghu sir to me.

Raghu sir spoke to me on camera about his close friend Himmat Shah and it became an important part of my film.

Oh!

Here I am sitting at the third floor of sylvania hotel worlie, Mumbai.

We are little late - and Raghu sir was already on microphone in dark confrance room telling his story.

I am sitting mesmerized with my friend Sudharak Olwe   listening and recording what he was saying. I want to become a silent microphone for the evening.

"Don’t take all those good pictures that you have seen before. We are human machines which get programmed each day. When we are young, our parents are doing it to us; in school, our teachers do it; our neighbours do it. You need to de-programme your mind, your thinking, your attitude, your mindset. Youngsters should look for their own kind of voice."

That evening, after the meeting I joined Raghu sir for a walk in worlie koliwada with sudharak olwe and Shantanu Das.

 it is a day before Ganapati. 

clouded worlie skyline. 

it might rain any moment. 

and enjoyed watching him practicing what he was telling to the audience- it was a sheer awareness of peace, sillence and spontanity. as if nature is creating images for the the generations to come.

The nature is saving some moments through the man Raghu Rai, who gets disslove in location as if he does not exist. 

Mahendra Damle's paintings

last month in Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai, India my friend Mahendra damle exhibited his work.here it is.

The Law of Magic by osho

I will tell you one of the deepest laws of life. You may not have thought about it at all. You have heard — the whole of science depends on it — that cause and effect is the base. You create the cause and the effect follows. Life is a causal link. You put the seed in the soil and it will sprout. If the cause is there, then the tree will follow. The fire is there: you put your hand in it and it will burn. The cause is there and the effect will follow. You take poison and you will die. You arrange for the cause and then the effect follows.

This is one of the most basic scientific laws, that cause and effect is the innermost link of all processes of life. Religion knows about a second law which is still deeper than this. But the second law which is deeper than this will look absurd if you don’t know it and don’t experiment with it.

Religion says: Produce the effect and the cause follows. This is absolutely absurd in scientific terms. Science says: If the cause is there, the effect follows. Religion says the converse is also true: you create the effect, and see: the cause follows.

There is a situation in which you feel happy. A friend has come, a beloved has called. A situation is the cause — you feel happy. Happiness is the effect. The coming of the beloved is the cause. Religion says: Be happy and the beloved comes. Create the effect and the cause follows.

This is my own experience, that the second law is more basic than the first. I have been doing it and it has been happening. Just be happy: the beloved comes. Just be happy: friends are there. Just be happy: everything follows.

Jesus says the same thing in different words: Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, then all else will follow. But the Kingdom of God is the end, the effect. Seek ye first the end — the end means the effect, the result — and the cause will follow. This is as it should be.

It is not only that you place a seed in the soil and the tree follows; let there be a tree and there are millions of seeds. If the cause is followed by the effect, the effect is again followed by the cause. This is the chain! Then it becomes a circle — start from anywhere, create the cause or create the effect.

I tell you, it is easier to create the effect because the effect depends totally upon you; the cause may not be so dependent on you. If I say I can only be happy when a certain friend is there, then it depends on a certain friend, whether he is there or not. If I say I cannot be happy until I attain this much wealth, then it depends on the whole world and the economic situations and everything. It may not happen, and then I cannot be happy.

The cause is beyond me. The effect is within me. The cause is in the surroundings, in the situations — the cause is without. The effect is me! If I can create the effect, the cause will follow.

Choose happiness — that means you are choosing the effect — and then see what happens. Choose ecstasy and see what happens. Choose to be blissful and see what happens. Your whole life will change immediately and you will see miracles happening around you...because now you have created the effect and causes will have to follow.

This will look magical; you can even call it “The Law of Magic.” The first is the law of science and the second is the law of magic. Religion is magic, and you can be the magician. That’s what I teach you: to be the magician, to know the secret of magic.

Try it! You have been trying the other your whole life — not only this but many other lives also. Now listen to me! Try this magic formula, this mantra I give to you. Create the effect and see what happens; causes immediately surround you, they follow. Don’t wait for the causes; you have waited long enough. Choose happiness and you will be happy.

What is the problem? Why can’t you choose? Why can’t you work on this law? Because your mind, the whole mind, which has been trained by scientific thinking, says that if you are not happy and you try to be happy, that happiness will be artificial. If you are not happy and you try to be happy that will be just acting, that will not be real. This is what scientific thinking says, that that will not be real, you will be just acting.

But you don’t know: life energy has its own ways of working. If you can act totally it will become the real. The only thing is, the actor must not be there. Move totally in it, then there is no difference. If you are acting half-heartedly then it will remain artificial.

If I say to you dance and sing and be blissful, and you try half-heartedly, just to see what happens, but you remain behind...and you go on thinking: This is just artificial. I am trying but this is not coming, this is not spontaneous — then it will remain acting, a waste of time.

If you try, then try wholeheartedly. Don’t remain behind, move into it, become the acting — dissolve the actor into acting and then see what happens. It will become real and then you will feel it is spontaneous. You have not done it; you will know then that it has happened. But unless you are total this cannot happen. Create the effect, be in it completely, see and observe the results.

I can make you kings without kingdoms; you only have to act like kings, and act so totally that before you even a real king will appear as if he is just acting. And when the whole energy has moved into it, it becomes reality! Energy makes anything real. If you wait for kingdoms they never come.

Even for a Napoleon, for an Alexander, who had big kingdoms, they never came. They remained miserable because they didn’t come to realize the second, more basic and primal law of life. Alexander was trying to create a bigger kingdom, to become a bigger king. His whole life was wasted in creating the kingdom, and then there was no time left for him to be king. He died before the kingdom was complete.

This has happened to many. The kingdom can never be complete. The world is infinite; your kingdom is bound to remain partial. With a partial kingdom how can you be a total king? Your kingdom is bound to be limited and with a limited kingdom how can you be the emperor? It is impossible. But you can be the emperor. Just create the effect.

Swami Ram, one of the mystics of this century, went to America. He used to call himself Badshah Ram, Emperor Ram. And he was a beggar! Somebody said to him: You are just a beggar, but you go on calling yourself the emperor. So Ram said: Don’t look at my things, look at me. And he was right, because if you look at things then everybody is a beggar...even an emperor. He may be a bigger beggar, that’s all. When Ram said: Look at me! in that moment, Ram was the emperor. If you looked, the emperor was there.

Create the effect, become the emperor, be a magician... and from this very moment, because there is no need to wait. One has to wait if the kingdom has to come first. If the cause has to be created first, then one has to wait and wait and wait and postpone. There is no need to wait to create the effect. You can be the emperor this very moment.

When I say, Be! Just be the emperor and see: the kingdom follows.... I have known it through my experience. I am not talking to you about a theory or a doctrine. Be happy, and in that peak of happiness you will see the whole world is happy with you.

There is an old saying: Laugh and the world laughs with you; cry, and you cry alone. Even the trees, the rocks, the sand, the clouds...if you can create the effect and be ecstatic, they will all dance with you; then the whole existence becomes a dance, a celebration.

But it depends on you, if you can create the effect. And I say to you, you can create it. It is the easiest thing possible. It looks very difficult because you have not tried it yet. Give it a try!