Osho - Weekly Meditation For The Here And Now
Weekly Meditation - Week 13. Sibling Rivalry
March 26
Sibling Rivalry
The mother may love one child more, another a little less. You cannot expect that she should love absolutely equally; it is not possible.
Children are very perceptive. They can immediately see that somebody is liked more and somebody is liked less. They know that this pretension of the mother's loving them equally is just bogus. So an inner conflict, fight, ambition arises.
Each child is different. Somebody has a musical talent, somebody does not. Somebody has. a mathematical talent and somebody has not. Somebody is physically more beautiful than another or one has a certain charm of personality and the other is lacking it. Then more and more problems arise, and we are taught to be nice, never to be true.
If children are taught to be true, they will fight it out, and they will drop it by fighting. They will be angry, they will fight and say hard things to one another, and then they will be finished, because children get rid of things very easily. If they are angry, they will be angry, hot, almost volcanic, but the next moment they will be holding each other's hands and everything will be forgotten. Children are very simple, but often they are not allowed that simplicity. They are told to be nice, whatever the cost. They are prohibited from being angry at each other, "She is your sister, he is your brother. How can you be angry?"
These angers, jealousies, and a thousand and one wounds go on collecting. But if you can face each other in true anger, jealousy, if you can fight it out, immediately afterward, in the wake of the fight, a deep love and compassion will arise. And that will be the real thing.
March 27
Decisions
Respond to this moment. That's what responsibility is. Someone would like to marry you. Now you are puzzled as to whether to say yes or no, So you go to the I Ching.
It is your life - why leave it for someone who has written a book five thousand years ago to decide for you? It is better to decide on your own. Even if you err and go astray, it is still better to decide on your own. And even if you don't go astray and you have a more successful life through the I Chinn, it is still not good, because you are avoiding responsibility.
Through responsibility, one grows. Take responsibility into your hands. These are ways of avoiding. Some people give responsibility to God, others to karma, others to destiny, others to the I Ching. But we become spiritual when we take the whole responsibility on our own shoulders.
The responsibility is tremendous, and your shoulders are weak, that I know. But when you take on the responsibility, they will become stronger. There is no other way for them to grow and become stronger.
March 28
Like A Breeze
Just as it comes, it goes; you cannot hold on to it, you cannot cling to it.
The breeze comes like a whisper. It does not make noise, it does not make proclamations; it comes In very silently, you cannot hear it - suddenly it is there. And that's how God comes - truth comes - bliss comes, love comes-they all come in a whisper like manner, not with trumpets and drums. They suddenly come without even having an appointment, without even asking you, “May I come in?" - they just suddenly come. And that's how the breeze comes: One moment it is not there, another moment it is.
And the second thing: Just as it comes, it goes; you cannot hold on to it, you cannot cling to it. Enjoy it while it is there, and when it goes, let it go. Be thankful that it came. Don't hold any grudge, don't complain. When it goes, it goes - nothing can be done about it. But we are all clingers. When love comes, we are very happy, but when it goes we are very hurt. That is being very unconscious—ungrateful - misunderstanding. Remember, it comes in one way, now it is going in the same way. It did not ask to come... why should it ask now if it can go? It was a gift from the beyond, mysterious, and it has to go in the same mysterious way. If one takes life as a breeze, then there is no clinging, no attachment - no obsession— one simply remains available, and whatever happens is good.
March 29
Work In Balance
The best arrangement is to work in the world but not to be lost in It. Work for five or six hours, and then forget all about it. Give at least two hours to your inner growth, a few hours to your relationship, to love, to your children, to your friends, to society.
Your profession should only be one part of life. It should not overlap into every dimension of your life, as ordinarily it does. A doctor becomes almost a twenty-four-hour doctor. He thinks about it, he talks about it. Even when he is eating, he is a doctor. While he is making love, he is a doctor. Then it is madness; it is insane. To avoid this kind of madness, people escape. Then they become twenty-fourhour seekers. Again they are making the same mistake-the mistake of being in anything for twenty-four hours.
My whole effort is to help you to be in the world and yet to be a seeker. Of course this is difficult, because there will be more challenge and situations. It is easier to be either a doctor or a seeker. It will be difficult to be both, because that will give you many contradictory situations. But a person grows in contradictory situations.
In the turmoil, in that clash of the contradictions, integrity is born. My suggestion is that you work for five or six hours. Use the remaining hours for other things: for sleep, for music, for poetry, for meditation, for love, or for just fooling around. That too is needed. If a person becomes too wise and cannot fool around, he becomes heavy, somber, serious. He misses life.
March 30
Accidents
Always think if the positive side of things: There was an accident, but you are still alive, so you transcended it.
Don't take too much note of accidents. Rather, take note that you survived. That is the real thing. You defeated those accidents, and you survived. So there is nothing to worry about. Always think of the positive side of things: The accident happened, but you are still alive, so you transcended it. You proved your mettle, you proved stronger than the accident.
But I can understand that fear will arise if such things happen again and again. You fall into wells, and do things like that, then the fear of death is bound to arise in the mind. But death is going to happen anyway, whether you fall into a well or not. The most dangerous place to avoid, if you want to avoid death, is your bed, because ninety-nine percent of deaths happen there - rarely in a well!
Death is going to happen anyhow; it doesn't matter how it happens. And if one has to choose between the bed and the well, I think the well is far better; it has something aesthetic about it.
March 31
Fear Of Death
There is no need to be afraid if death. Death is going to come: that is the only certain thing in life. Everything else is uncertain, so why be worried about the certainty?
Death is an absolute certainty. One hundred percent of people die - not ninety-nine percent, but one hundred. All the scientific growth and all the advances in medical science make no difference as far as people's deaths are concerned: one hundred percent of people still die, just as they used to die ten thousand years ago. Whoever is born, dies; there is no exception. So about death we can be completely oblivious. It is going to happen, so whenever it happens it is okay. What difference does it make how it happens-whether you are knocked out in an accident or you just die in a hospital bed? It doesn't matter. Once you see the point that death is certain, these are only formalities-how one dies, where one dies.
The only real thing is that one dies. By and by you will accept the fact. Death has to be accepted. There is no point in denying it; and nobody has ever been able to prevent it. So relax! While you are alive, enjoy it totally; and when death comes, enjoy that too.
April 1
Watching TV
The whole secret if meditation is to be neither Jar nor against, but unconcerned, cool, without any likes and dislikes, without any choice.
Meditation is a simple method. Your mind is like a TV screen. Memories are passing, images are passing, thoughts, desires, a thousand and one things are passing; it is always rush hour. And the road is almost like an Indian road: There are no traffic rules, and everybody is going in every direction. One has to watch the mind without any evaluation, without any judgment, without any choice, simply watching unconcerned as if it has nothing to do with you and you are just a witness. That is choiceless awareness.
If you choose, if you say, "This thought is good - let me have it," or "It is a beautiful dream, I should enjoy it a little more," if you choose, you lose your witnessing. If you say, "This is bad, immoral, a sin, I should throw it out," and you start struggling, again you lose your witnessing. You can lose your witnessing in two ways: either being for or against. And the whole secret of meditation is to be neither for nor against, but unconcerned, cool, without any likes and dislikes, without any choice. If you can manage even a few moments of that witnessing, you will be surprised how ecstatic you become.
