Osho - Weekly Meditation For The Here And Now
Weekly Meditation - Week 49. Parenthood
December 2
Parenthood
A Jew parents are needed to change the whole world. But it is difficult – you follow the pattern that your parents have forced on you.
This is the problem that we can't see at all: You cannot tolerate your parents, but you are following the same pattern as they did. The world will be totally different if parents can become a little more understanding. They are not, and nobody can tell them anything because they are so loving-that's the trouble. Behind love, so much that is not love goes on hiding. Love becomes a shelter for many things that are not love at all.
Your parents might have been very loving and must have done whatever they could. They must have been thinking that they were creating a happy life for you. But nobody can make anybody happy, nobody. So allow your children to grow in freedom. Of course it is risky, but what can be done? Life is a risk, but every growth is possible in danger and risk. Don't protect them too much or they will become hothouse plants-almost useless. Let them be wild. Let them struggle in life, let them grow on their own, and they will always be grateful to you. And you will always be happy, because later on you will see an aliveness in them.
December 3
Solitude
All that is beautiful has always happened in aloneness; nothing has happened in a crowd. Nothing of the beyond has happened except when one is in absolute solitude, alone.
The extrovert mind has created conditioning all around that has become very ingrained: that when you are lonely you feel bad. It tells you to move around, meet people, because all happiness is in being with people. That's not true. The happiness that is with people is very superficial, and the happiness that happens when you are alone is tremendously deep. So delight in it…
When aloneness happens, enjoy it. Sing something, dance something, or just sit silently facing the wall and waiting for something to happen. Make it an awaiting, and soon you will come to know a different quality. It is not sadness at all. Once you have tasted from the very depth of aloneness, all relationship is superficial. Even love cannot go so deep as aloneness goes, because even in love the other is present, and the very presence of the other keeps you closer to the circumference, to the periphery.
When there is nobody, not even a thought of anybody and you are really alone, you start sinking, you drown in yourself. Don't be afraid. In the beginn1n.g that drowning will look like death, and a sadness will surround you, because you have always known happiness with people, in relationships.
Just wait a little. Let the sinking go deeper, and you will see a silence arising and a stillness that has a dance to it, an unmoving movement inside. Nothing moves, and still everything is tremendously speedy, empty, yet full. Paradoxes meet, and contradictions dissolve.
December 4
Facing The Wall
Just sit facing the wall. The wall is very beautiful. There is nowhere to go.
Bodhidharma sat for nine years just facing the wall, doing nothing - just sitting. The tradition has it that his legs withered away. To me that is symbolic. It simply means that all movements withered away, because all motivation withered away. He was not going anywhere. There was no desire to move, no goal to achieve-and he achieved the greatest that is possible. He is one of the rarest souls that has ever walked on earth.
And just sitting before a wall he achieved everything, by not doing anything, using no technique, no method, nothing. This was the only technique. So whenever you sit, just sit facing the wall. The wall is very beautiful. There is nowhere to go. Don't even put a picture there; just have a plain wall. When there is nothing to see, by and by your interest in seeing disappears. By just facing a plain wall, inside you parallel emptiness and plainness arise. Parallel to the wall another wall arises - of no-thought.
Remain open and delight. Smile; hum a tune or sway. Sometimes you can dance - but go on facing the wall; let it be your object of meditation.
December 5
Drugs
It is better not to use drugs, because sometimes they can give you certain experiences, and that's the problem. Once you have the experiences this way, it is very difficult to reach them naturally - without drugs. And to have an experience is not the basic thing; to grow through it is.
You can have an experience through a drug, but you don't grow. The experience comes to you; you don't go to the experience. It is as if you have seen the Himalayas in a vision-beautiful as far as it goes, but it does not go very far. You remain the same. By and by, if the vision becomes your reality, you are losing something, because you will become addicted to it. No, it is better to - go to the Himalayas. It is hard; it is a long journey. Drugs make it too short. They are almost violent; they force something premature.
It is better to go the long way, because only through struggle do you grow. An integration arises in you, and you become crystallized. That's the real thing - experience is irrelevant. The real thing is growth. Always remember that my whole emphasis is on growth, not on experiences. The mind is always asking for more and new experiences; it is infatuated with experiences - and we have to - go beyond the mind.
So the real spiritual dimension is not the dimension of experience. In fact, there is nothing to experience. Only you - not even you, just pure consciousness with no limit, with no object to it-just pure subjectivity, just being. Not that you experience beautiful things. You are beautiful, but you don't experience beautiful things. You are tremendously beautiful, but nothing happens. All around is tremendous emptiness.
December 6
Spiritual Experience
Finally one has to remember that everything has to be dropped so you remain, in your total purity. Even a spiritual experience corrupts; it is a disturbance.
Something happens, and a duality arises. When something happens that you like, the desire to have it more arises. When something happens that makes you feel beautiful, the fear that you may lose it arises, so all corruption comes in-greed, fear. With the experience, everything of the mind comes back and again you are trapped...
My whole effort here is to take you beyond-beyond the experience - because only then are you beyond the mind, and there is silence. When there is no experience, there is silence. When there is no bliss, then there is bliss - because bliss is not an experience; you don't feel that you are blissful. If you feel, it is just happiness. It will go, will wither away, and you Will be left in the dark.
If you understand the point, then no technique is spiritual, because all techniques will give you experiences. And one day this should be the goal - that everything has been dropped. You are alone in your house - with no furniture, with no experiences and then you experience the ultimate. But it is not an 'experience', that is just a way of saying it.
December 7
Commitment
Commitment cannot be forced. Make the person happy so he feels there is no need for any other relationship. But on the contrary, most people make such trouble that even if the other was not thinking of another relationship, he will have to think of it - just to escape.
This is one of the deep - rooted problems in any man - woman relationship. Man has more need of freedom than of love, and 'woman has more need of love than of freedom. It is a problem all over the world with every couple. The woman is not worried about freedom at all. She is ready to become a slave if only she can make the other a slave also. She is ready to move into any commitment if the other is also forced into a commitment. She is ready to live in a prison if the other is ready to live in a dark cell.
And the man is ready even to sacrifice love if it becomes too risky to his freedom. He would like to live in the open sky, even alone. He would like to be in a loving relationship, but it becomes dark and an imprisonment. So this is the trouble. One has to become aware that this asking for too much commitment or for too much freedom are both immaturities.
Somewhere one has to come to terms with the other person. Once you understand that the man needs more freedom, you put down your demands for commitment. Once the man understands that the woman needs commitment, he puts down his demand for freedom, that's all. If you love, you are ready to sacrifice a little. If you don't love, it is better to separate.
December 8
Resistance
Resistance is one of the most basic problems, and out of that all other problems are created. Once you resist something, you are in trouble.
Jesus has said, "Resist not evil." Even evil should not be resisted, because resistance is the only evil, the only sin. When you resist something it means you are separating yourself from the whole. You are trying to become an island, separate, divided. You are condemning, judging, saying this is not right, that should not be so. Resistance means you have taken a posture of judgment. If you don't resist, then there is no separation between you and the energy that is moving around. Suddenly you are with it - so much so that you are not; only the energy is moving, So learn to cooperate with things that are going on; don't put yourself against the whole. By and by you start feeling a tremendous new energy that comes by walking in step with the whole, because in resistance you dissipate energy. In nonresistance you absorb energy.
That is the whole Eastern attitude about life: Accept and don't resist, surrender and don’t fight. Don't try to be victorious, and don't try to be the first. Lao Tzu has said, "Nobody can defeat me, because I have accepted defeat and I am not hankering for any victory." How can you defeat anyone who is not hankering for any victory? How can you defeat an unambitious person? How can you kill a person who is ready to die? It is impossible. Through this surrender, one comes to be victorious...
Let this be an insight: Don't waste time in resisting.
