Osho - Weekly Meditation For The Here And Now
Weekly Meditation - Week 5. Trust
January 29
Trust
Always remember that at no cost should you become mistrustful. Even if your trust allows others to deceive you, this is better than not to trust.
It is very easy to trust when everybody is loving and nobody is deceiving you. But even if the whole world is deceptive and everybody is bent on deceiving you-and they can only deceive you when you trust-then too, go on trusting. Never lose trust in trust, whatever the cost, and you will never be a loser, because trust in itself is the ultimate end. It should not be a means to anything else, because it has its own intrinsic value.
If you can trust, you remain open. People become closed as a defense, so that nobody can deceive them or take advantage of them. Let them take advantage of you! If you insist on continuing to trust, then a beautiful flowering happens, because then there is no fear. The fear is that people will deceive-but once you accept that, there is no fear, so there is no barrier to your opening. The fear is more dangerous than any harm anybody can do to you. This fear can poison your whole life. So remain open, and just trust innocently, unconditionally.
You will flower, and you will help others to flower once they become aware that they have not been deceiving you a bit, but they have been deceiving themselves. You cannot go on deceiving a person endlessly if that person continues to trust you. The very trust will throw you back to yourself again and again.
January 30
Emptiness
The greatest day in life is when you cannot find anything in you to throw out; all has already been thrown out, and there is only pure emptiness. In that emptiness you will find yourself.
Meditation simply means becoming empty of all the contents of the mind: memory, imagination, thoughts, desires, expectations, projections, moods. One has to go on emptying oneself of all these contents. The greatest day in life is when you cannot find anything in you to throw out; all has already been thrown out, and there is only pure emptiness. In that emptiness you will find yourself; in that emptiness you find your pure consciousness.
That emptiness is empty only as far as mind is concerned. Otherwise it is overflowing, full of being -empty of mind but full of consciousness. So don't be afraid of the word empty; it is not negative. It negates only the unnecessary luggage, which you are carrying just from old habit, which does not help but only hinders, which is just a weight, a mountainous weight. Once this weight is removed you are free from all boundaries, you become as infinite as the sky. This is the experience of God or Buddhahood or whatever word one likes. Call it dharmma, call it Tao, call it truth, call it nirvana-they all mean the same thing.
January 31
Experimentation
Always remain open and experimentative, always ready to walk a path you have never walked before. Who knows? Even if it proves useless, it will be an experience.
Edison was working on a certain experiment for almost three years, and he had failed seven hundred times. All his colleagues and his students became completely frustrated. Every morning he would come to the lab happy and bubbling with joy, ready to start again. It was too much: seven hundred times and three years wasted! Everybody was almost certain that nothing was going to come of the experiment. The whole thing seemed to be useless, just a whim.
They all gathered and told Edison, "We have failed seven hundred times. We have not achieved anything. We have to stop."
Edison laughed uproariously. He said, "What are you talking about? Failed? We have succeeded in knowing that seven hundred methods won't be of any help. We are coming closer and closer to the truth every day! If we had not knocked on those seven hundred doors, we would have had no way of knowing. But now we are certain that seven hundred doors are false. This is a great achievement!
This is the basic scientific attitude: If you can decide that something is false, you are coming closer to the truth. Truth is not available in the market so that you can go directly and order it. It is not ready-made, available. You have to experiment. So always remain experimentative. And never become smug. Never think that whatever you are doing is perfect. It is never perfect. It is always possible to improve on it; it is always possible to make it more perfect.
February 1
Problems
If you can Junction as if you have no problems, you will find that you don't have any problems! All problems are make-believe; you believe in them, and that's why they are there.
It is autohypnosis: You go on repeating that you are this way and that way, that you are inadequate or incapable. You repeat this, and it becomes a mantra; it sinks into your heart and becomes reality. Just try to function as if you have no problems, and suddenly YOU will see that you have a totally different quality: you don't have any problems! And then it is up to you whether you take up the problem again or you drop them forever. A problem can be dropped so easily if you understand that it is you holding the problem, not the problem holding you. But we cannot live without problems, so you go on creating them. One feels so alone without problems there is nothing left to be done. With the problem you feel very happy something has to be done, and you have to think about it; it gives you an occupation.
This continuous idea that you are inadequate and you are incapable and you are this and that-this is basically very egoistic. You want to be so adequate, but why? You want to be really tremendously capable, but why? Why can't you be satisfied with all the inadequacies and limitations that are there? Once you accept them you will see that you start to flow more easily.
February 2
Remain Ignorant
Don't have any attitude about fear; in fact, don't call it fear. The moment you have called it fear, you have taken an attitude about it.
This is one of the most essential things to stop giving things names. Just watch the feeling, the way it is. Allow it, and don't give it a label-remain ignorant. Ignorance is a tremendously meditative state. Insist on being ignorant, and don't allow the mind to manipulate. Don't allow the mind to use language and words, labels and categories, because this starts a whole process. One thing is associated with another, and it goes on and on.
Simply look - don't call it fear. Become afraid and tremble, that is beautiful. Hide in a corner, get under a blanket. Do what an animal does when it is afraid. If you allow fear to take possession of you, your hair will stand on end! Then for the first time you will know what a beautiful phenomenon fear is. In that turmoil, in that cyclone, you will come to know that there is still a point somewhere within you that is absolutely untouched.
February 3
Life Is Simple
Life is very simple. Even trees are living it; it must be simple. Why has it become so complicated for us? Because we can theorize about it.
To be in the thick of life, in the intensity and passion of life, you will have to drop all philosophies of life. Otherwise you will remain clouded in your words.
Have you heard the famous anecdote about a centipede? It was a beautiful sunny morning, and the centipede was happy and must have been singing in her heart. She was almost drunk with the morning air. A frog sitting by the side was very puzzled-he must have been a philosopher. He asked, "Wait! You are doing a miracle. A hundred legs! How do you manage? Which leg comes first, which comes second, third - and so on, up to a hundred? Don’t you get puzzled?
How do you manage? It looks impossible to me." The centipede said, "I have never thought about it. Let me brood." And standing there, she started trembling, and she fell down on the ground. She herself became so puzzled-a hundred legs! How was she going to manage? Philosophy paralyzes people. Life needs no philosophy, life is enough unto itself. It needs no crutches; it needs no support, no props. It is enough unto itself.
February 4
Centering
Don't create conflict between going astray and remaining centered. Float. if you become afraid of going astray, there is a greater chance that you will go astray; whatever you try to suppress becomes significant.
Whatever you try to deny becomes very attractive. So don't create any condemnation of going astray. In fact, go with it. If it is happening, allow it to happen; there is nothing wrong in it. There must be something in it, and that's why it is happening. Sometimes even going astray is good. A person who really wants to remain centered should not worry about centering. If you worry about it, the worry will never allow you to be centered; you need an unworried mind.
Going astray is good; there is nothing wrong in it. Stop fighting with existence. Stop all conflict and the idea of conquering-surrender. And when you surrender, what can you do? If the mind goes astray, you go; if it doesn't go, that too is okay, Sometimes you will be centered, and sometimes you will not. But deep down you will always remain centered because there is no worry. Otherwise everything can become a worry. Then going astray becomes just like a sin one is not to commit-and the problem is created again.
Never create duality within you. If you decide to always be true, then there will be an attraction to being untrue. If you decide to be nonviolent, then violence will become the sin. If you decide to be celibate, then sex will become the sin. If you try to be centered, going astray will become a sin-that's how all religions have become stupidities. Accept, go astray; there is nothing wrong in it.
