Osho - Weekly Meditation For The Here And Now
Weekly Meditation - Week 51. Freedom And Love
December 16
Freedom And Love
When two people are in love, they are free, individuals.
They have freedom; love is not a duty. It is out if their freedom that they give to each other, and they are free to say no. If people in love say yes to each other, that is their decision - it is not an obligation, it is not a fulfillment of any expectation. Because you enjoy giving love, you give. And any moment you can change, because no promise has been made, no commitment has been made. You remain two free individuals-meeting out of freedom, loving out of freedom, but your individuality and your freedom are intact. Hence the beauty of love!
The beauty is not only of love; it is more of freedom than of love. The basic ingredient of beauty is freedom; love is a secondary ingredient. Love is also beautiful with freedom, because freedom is beautiful. Once the freedom is gone, love becomes ugly. Then you will be surprised at what has happened. Where has all that beauty gone?
December 17
Nameless
Tao is the name for that which cannot be named, a name for the nameless-just like God or dharma or truth or logos.
These are just names for human helplessness. We have to call it something; we have to address it. Tao is one of the most beautiful names given to the unknown, because it is utterly meaningless. The word God has become very meaningful; hence it has lost Significance.
You can worship God, you cannot worship Tao; there is no image. You may not worship a stone image, but the moment you say "God," a subtle image arises in you: somebody sitting there on a golden throne, controlling the whole world, a very wise man with a white beard and all that, a father figure. But with "Tao" no figure arises. That is the beauty of the name, that it simply gives you no clue. It gives you no excuse to go into imagination.
Tao is the greatest name given to the unknown. It is Significant because it is meaningless; it means nothing. All that it means is the way - not a way to any goal but just the way things are.
December 18
Don’t Dissect The Flowers
When something unfolds inside you, don't jump on it intellectually.
Otherwise you will kill the flower. You will take the petals apart to see what is inside, but in that very dissection the flower is gone. The irony is that if you want to know what a flower is and you take its petals off, you will never know what the flower is. Whatever you come to know about it this way will be about something else maybe about the chemical constituents of the flower, the physical constituents of the flower, the color, and this and that, but it will have no reference to beauty. That beauty disappeared the moment you dissected and destroyed it. Now what you have is just a memory of the flower, it is not the flower. And whatever you know about it, you know about a dead flower, not about an alive one. And that aliveness was the very stuff, the real thing; that alive flower was growing, unfolding, releasing fragrance. And so is the case with the inner unfolding.
Meditation will bring many new spaces that are very good. But if you start thinking about it - what it is, why it happened, what it meant in the first place - you bring in the mind. And the mind is poison. Then rather than watering the flower, you have poisoned it. Meditation is just the diametrically opposite dimension to the mind. So don't bring the mind in. Enjoy! They have been good experiences. More and more experiences of far more significance will be coming - this is just a beginning. Remain open and available.
December 19
Do-It-Yourself
In itself life is neutral. We make it beautiful, we make it ugly; life is what energy we bring to it.
If you pour beauty into life, it is beautiful. If you simply sit there and you want it to be beautiful, then it will not be - you have to create beauty. Beauty is not there like an object, like a rock. Beauty has to be created. You have to give a vision to reality, you have to give color to reality, you have to give a song to reality - then it is beautiful.
So whenever you participate in creating beauty, it is there; whenever you stop creating, it is not. Beauty is a creation; so is ugliness. Happiness is a creation; so is misery. You get only that which you create, and you never get anything else. That is the whole philosophy of karma: You get only that which you do. Life is just a blank canvas - you can paint a beautiful scene, a landscape, or you can paint black ghosts and dangerous people. It's up to you. You can make a beautiful dream or a nightmare.
Once this is understood, things are very simple. You are the master; it is your responsibility. Ordinarily we think that life has some objective beauty and objective ugliness. No! Life is just an opportunity. It gives you all that is needed: Now do it yourself! It is a do-it-yourself affair.
December 20
The Last Luxury
When there is no need, love flowers.
Love flowers only when needs have disappeared. A love happens only between a king and a queen-neither is in any need. Love is the most luxurious thing in the world. It is not a need - it is the last luxury, the ultimate in luxuries. If you are needing it, it is just as other needs; one needs food, one needs shelter, one needs clothes, one needs this and that. Then love is also part of this world.
When there is no need and you are simply flowing with energy and would like to share with somebody, and somebody is also flowing with energy and would like to share with you, then you both offer your energies to an unknown God of love.
And it is sheer luxury, because it is purposeless. It has no business to do. It is intrinsic-it is not a means to anything else. It is a great play.
December 21
Wall Of Words
Ninety percent of language is just an avoidance of relationship. We create a great wall of words to hide the fact that we don't want to relate.
If you are feeling sad, then why say it? Be sad! People will know what you mean without language. If you are very, very happy, then why say it? Be happy! And happiness is neither Italian nor English nor German - everybody will understand it. You can dance when you are happy, and they will understand. When you are angry you can simply hit somebody - why say it? That will be more authentic and real. People will understand immediately that you are angry.
Language is a way of saying things that we really don't want to say. For example, I am angry at you and I don't want to be angry, so I simply say, "I am angry." It is a very impotent way of saying that I am angry. I love you and I don't want to really say it, so I simply say, "I love you." Just words! If I love you I will say it in some more real way - why through words?
Try expressing through a gesture, through the face, through the body, through touch, through expression, but not through language. And you will enjoy it, because you will have a new feeling and you can innovate.
December 22
Music
This existence is an orchestra, and we have to be in tune with it. That is why music has so much appeal to the human mind, to the human heart because sometimes listening to beautiful music, you start slipping into that universal harmony.
Listening to Beethoven or to Mozart, to classical Eastern music, one starts moving into a different world; a totally different gestalt arises. You are no longer in your thoughts-your wavelength changes. That great music starts surrounding you, starts playing on your heart, starts creating a rhythm that you have lost.
That's the definition of great music: that it can give you a glimpse of how one can exist, totally, with the whole - even for a few moments. Great peace descends, and there is great joy in the heart. You may not understand what has happened, but the great master, the great musician, is simply playing on a very fundamental base.
The fundamental base is that existence has a certain rhythm. If you can create music according to that rhythm, those who participate in listening to that music will also start falling into it. And you can do it in many ways. For example, if you are sitting by a waterfall just listen to the sound of the waterfall and become one with it. Close your eyes and feel that you have become one with the waterfall-start falling with the water, deep inside. And there will be moments, a few moments, when suddenly you will find that there has been a participation, that you could get the chanting of the waterfall, and you were in tune with it. Great ecstasy will arise out of those moments. Listening to the birds, do the same.
