Osho - Weekly Meditation For The Here And Now
Weekly Meditation - Week 38. Liberation From Yourself
September 16
Liberation From Yourself
Enlightenment is not a state of ecstasy; it is beyond ecstasy.
Enlightenment has no excitement in it; ecstasy is a state of excitement. Ecstasy is a state of mind-a beautiful state of mind, but still a state of mind. Ecstasy is an experience. And enlightenment is not an experience, because there is nobody left to experience.
Ecstasy is still within the ego, but enlightenment is beyond the ego. It is not that you become enlightened - you are not, then enlightenment is. It is not that you are liberated, it is not that you remain in that liberation, liberated-it is a liberation from yourself.
September 17
Running
If you can do long-distance running, it is a perfect meditation. Jogging, running, swimming-anything in which you can get totally involved - is very good.
Only the activity remains, you are not, because the ego cannot function. When you are running there is really only running, there is no runner. And that's what meditation is.
If there is only dance and no dancer, that's meditation. If you are painting and there is only painting and no painter, then it is meditation. Any activity that is total and in which there is no division between the doer and the done becomes meditation.
September 18
Self-Centeredness
It happens: People who become interested in their own nature and want to know who they are become self-centered; it is just natural.
When you become too self-centered, your very self-centeredness becomes the last barrier; it has to be dropped. Nothing has to be changed in it; rather, something has to be added to it, and that will bring balance.
Buddha used to insist on meditation and compassion together. He used to say, when you meditate and feel ecstasy, immediately shower ecstasy on the whole of existence. Immediately say, "Let my ecstasy be of the whole existence." Don't go on hoarding it, otherwise that will become a subtle ego. Share it, immediately give it, so that you are empty again. Go on emptying, but never hoard. Otherwise, just as you hoard money, so you hoard ecstasies, peak experiences, and the ego can be strengthened very much.
And this second type of ego is more dangerous, because it is more subtle-it is a very pious ego, pure poison.
September 19
Going Back
There is no going back, and there is no need to go back. You have to go forward, not back.
Again and again you will think about how to go back. There is no going back; there is no need to go back. You have to go forward. You have to attain your own light; and that can be done. There is no possibility of going back, and even if there were, the same experience wouldn't satisfy you anymore. It would just be a repetition it - wouldn't give you the same thrill: The thrill was in the novelty of it. Now the same experience is not going to give you any joy. You will say, "This I know-but what more is there? What is new in it?" And if it is repeated a few times, you will get bored with it.
One has to go forward, and each day there are new experiences. Existence is so eternally new, that you never have the same glimpse again. It has so many millions of aspects that each day you can have a new vision - so why bother about the old? There is no need.
September 20
Awareness
There is nowhere to go; we just have to see where we are. If you become aware, then you suddenly recognize that you were already there, just where you have been trying to reach.
One is born as one should be - nothing has to be added, and nothing has to be improved. And nothing can be improved. All efforts to improve create more mess and confusion and nothing else. The more you try to improve upon yourself, the more you will be in difficulties, because the very effort goes against your reality. Your reality is as it should be; there is no need to improve it. One simply grows in awareness, not existentially.
It is as if you have not looked into your pocket and you think you are a beggar, so you go on begging, and in your pocket you are carrying a valuable diamond that can give you enough treasures for your whole life. Then one day you put your hand in the pocket, and suddenly you are an emperor. Nothing has changed existentially, the situation is the same - the diamond was there before, the diamond is there now. The only thing that has changed is that now you have become aware that you possess it.
So all growth is growth in awareness, not in being. Being remains exactly as it is. A Buddha or a Christ, you or anybody, have exactly the same state, the same space - but one becomes aware and becomes a Buddha, the other remains unaware and remains a beggar.
September 21
Neurosis
Neurosis only comes when you cannot accept failure. It never comes when one is succeeding.
When things are going perfectly well, when one is on top of the world, why should one be neurotic? The problem arises only when you suddenly find that you are no longer at the top. You are in the ditch, dark and dismal, and now things are not succeeding. That is when neurosis enters. The same energy that was becoming ambition, and on which you were riding, turns against you in failure, starts killing you, starts destroying you.
If every neurotic person were to succeed, there would be no more neurosis in the world. When Hitler was successful, nobody ever suspected that he was mad. But in the last moment he himself knew that he was mad - he committed suicide. The problem arises only when you are not succeeding. One has to be just playful while one is succeeding. Develop that attitude of playfulness. Success and failure are not the point-to enjoy whatever you are doing is the point.
Each success is followed by failure, each day is followed by a night, and each love is followed by a darkness. Life is a progression, a movement; nothing is static. Now you are young; one day you will be old. Now you have so many friends, one day you will not have any. Now you have money, one day you will not. If you are playful, nothing is wrong. Just one quality has to be developed - playfulness.
September 22
Repetition
Repetition does not exist. Existence is always fresh, utterly fresh.
Every day is different, and if sometimes you cannot see the difference between one day and another, that simply means that you are not seeing rightly. Nothing is ever repeated. Repetition does not exist. Existence is always fresh, utterly fresh. But if we look through the past, accumulated thoughts, the mind, then it can appear like repetition. And that's why the mind is the only source of boredom. It makes you bored, because it never allows the freshness of life to be revealed to you. It goes on seeing things in the same pattern.
If life seems to be repeating itself, then always remember that it is not life, it is your mind. The mind makes everything dull, Hat, one-dimensional. Life is three-dimensional; life is very colorful. The mind is just black and white. Life is like a rainbow. Between black and white there are millions of nuances of light and color and shade. Life is not divided between yes and no. The mind is divided. The mind is Aristotelean. Life is not.
