Osho - Weekly Meditation For The Here And Now
Weekly Meditation - Week 43. The Critical Voice
October 21
The Critical Voice
This critical voice is never yours. When you were a child, your father said, “Don't do this,” and your mother said, “Don't do that.” Whatever you wanted to do was always wrong, and whatever you never wanted to do was what they wanted you to do, was right.
You are in a double bind. You know what the "right" thing to do is, but you don't want to do it, so if you end up doing it, you do it as a duty, Then there is no joy; you feel that you are destroying yourself, that you are wasting your life. If you do what you like, you feel guilty, you feel that you are doing something wrong. So you have to get rid of your parents, that's all. And it is a very simple thing, because now you are grown-up, and your parents are no longer there; they are just inside your mind.
I don't mean to go and kill your parents - I mean kill this hangover from the past. You are no longer a child: Recognize this fact. Take the responsibility into your own hands; it is your life. So do whatever you like to do, and never do anything that you don't like to do. If you have to suffer for it, then suffer. One has to pay the price for everything; nothing is free in life.
If you enjoy something and the whole world condemns it, good! Let them condemn. Accept that consequence; it is worth it. If you don't like something and the whole world calls it beautiful, it is meaningless, because you will never enjoy your life. It is your life and who knows? Tomorrow you may die. So enjoy it while you are alive! It is nobody else's business - neither your parents nor society's nor anybody else's. It is your life.
October 22
Technique
Love is what works; the technique is just an excuse. The therapist works, not the therapy.
Sometimes with a man like Fritz Perls, the founder of Gestalt therapy, something starts happening. It is not Gestalt, it is the personality of the man-his tremendous courage, his tremendous compassion. He tries to help; he tries to reach the other person. But our logical minds say that it must be the Gestalt therapy that is helping; and that has been the fallacy through the ages. It is not Christianity that helps, it was Christ. It is not Buddhism, but Buddha.
For twenty-five hundred years people have been thinking that it was Buddhism that helped people, but it was Buddha. If Buddha had been saying something different, that too would have been of help. Even if he had said just the opposite of whatever he said, then too it would have helped. It was the life force of that man, his compassion and his love and his understanding that helped.
But our minds immediately catch hold of the techniques, of the superficial. Then the superficial becomes important, and we lose contact with the essential. And there are problems: The essential cannot be taught, only-the non-essential can be taught. So you cannot teach Fritz Perls-you can only teach Gestalt. A Fritz Perls happens when he happens; there is no way to teach that! But society wants to be certain about something, so it starts teaching, and only the nonessential can be taught. So all teaching goes against the teacher, because the teacher brings the essential, and the teaching teaches the nonessential.
October 23
Prison Break
I may be wrong. I may not really be out of jail, maybe I am just pretending. I may even be the jailer himself! Nobody can ever be certain about it. So it is a gamble, a matter of trust. Trust is always a gamble.
If you decide on your own to quit smoking, and you say nothing to anybody, there are ninety-nine chances out of a hundred that you will smoke. Someone else decides that he will not smoke, and he tells his friends. There is a ninety percent chance that he will still smoke. The third possibility is that he joins a society of nonsmokers where nobody smokes. Now there is a ninety-nine percent chance that he will not smoke.
Gurdjielf used to say that if you want to do something, find a few friends so that you can do it together. It is almost as if you are imprisoned in a jail: You want to escape, but to escape alone will be very difficult. If you make a gang the possibility is greater: together you can kill the guard, but alone it will be very difficult. Together you can break the wall, but alone it will be very difficult. But there is still a possibility that you may not be able to succeed, because your gang will be a small gang of helpless prisoners.
The forces that manage the jail are bigger than you. The best thing is to make contact with people who are outside, who are already free, who are not in the jail, who can supply things to you, who can give you the map, who can bribe the guards, who can take the jailer away for a picnic.
October 24
Body Rhythm
Body rhythm is very important to understand. And it cannot be changed. It settles the moment you are born.
Just watch your rhythm. If you feel like going to bed early, then go to bed early and get up early in the morning. And once you have understood what time suits you, it is better to be regular about it. If it is possible, then be regular; if sometimes it is not possible, that's okay, but don't make irregularity a routine.
Now much research has been done on body rhythm, and there seems to be no possibility to change it. It is something in the very cells; the cells are programmed. There are birds that fall asleep as the sun sets. Once these birds were put in artificial chambers and deceived.
When it was night outside there was light in the chamber, and when it was day outside there was night in the chamber. The birds were in these chambers for months. They became neurotic - they started committing suicide or killing one another - but their body rhythm could not be changed. They would fall asleep while it was day in the chamber and they would become awake when it was night. And of course it was very strange for their bodies to be awake in the night - they started feeling something eerie, something weird, and that started telling on their systems. So simply follow your own rhythm.
October 25
Shadow
Nobody can kill the ego, because the ego is not. It. is a shadow you cannot kill a shadow.
Even to fight with a shadow is foolish, you will be defeated - and not because the shadow is very powerful but because the shadow is not! If you start fighting with a shadow, how can you win? It is non-existential; and so is the ego.
The ego is the shadow of the self, Just as the body creates a shadow, the self also creates a shadow. You cannot fight with it, and you cannot kill it; in fact, the one who wants to kill it is the ego. One can only understand. If you want to kill the shadow, bring light in, and the shadow will disappear; bring more awareness, and the ego will disappear.
October 26
The Master Key
Total acceptance is the key. It is the master key; it opens all the doors.
There is no lock that cannot be opened by acceptance. It is simply the key that fits all the locks - because the moment you accept something, a transformation has started in your being because now there is no conflict. You are not two. In acceptance you have become one, you have become a unity.
Remember your unity, your complexity. It is beautiful. Desires are beautiful. Passion is good - if you accept it, it will become compassion. If you accept the desires, by and by you will see that the same energy is becoming desirelessness. It is the same energy that was involved in the desires. When you accept the desires, by and by you relax, and energy starts streaming more naturally. You start seeing things as they are. You are not too involved with this desire or that. You have accepted, so there is no problem.
Whatever you call desire will become desirelessness. Right now is like coal. It can be transfigured into diamonds; it can become precious. Just think of the man who is desireless - he will be impotent. In fact, she will not be alive, because how will he live without desire? So desirelessness is not negative. It is the ultimate positivity of all desires. When desires are known, understood, lived, and experienced, you have gone beyond them. You have come of age.
October 27
Parents
It is always good to come to an understanding with your parents.
Gurdjieff used to say, "Unless you are in good communion with your parents, you have missed your life." If some anger persists between you and your parents, you will never feel at ease. Wherever you are, you will feel a little guilty. You will never be able to forgive and forget...Parents are not just a social relationship. It is out of them that you have come. You are part of them, a branch of their tree. You are still rooted in them.
When parents die, something very deep - rooted dies within you. When parents die, for the first time you feel alone, uprooted. So while they are alive, do everything that you can so that an understanding can arise and you can communicate with them and they can communicate with you. Then things settle and the accounts are closed. Then when they leave the world - and they will leave someday - you will not feel guilty, you will not repent; you will know that things have settled. They have been happy with you; you have been happy with them.
