lunar

I couldn't resist..

I am here just to be a midwife. That's what Socrates used to say -- that a master is just a midwife. I can help, I can protect, I can guide, that's all. The actual phenomenon, the transformation, is going to happen to you. Suffering will be there, because no birth is possible without suffering. Much anguish will come up, because you have accumulated it and it has to be thrown. A deep cleansing and catharsis will be needed.

Birth is just like death, but the suffering is worth taking.

Out of the darkness of suffering a new morning arises, a new sun arises. And the dawn is not very far off when you feel darkness too much. When suffering is unbearable, bliss is very near. So don't try to escape from suffering -- that is the point where you can miss. Don't try to avoid it, pass through it. Don't try to find some way which goes round about -- no, that won't do. Pass through it. Suffering will burn you, destroy you, but really you cannot be destroyed. All that can be destroyed is just the rubbish that you have gathered. All that can be destroyed is something that is not you. When it is all destroyed, then you will feel that you are indestructible, you are deathless. Passing through death, consciously passing through death, one becomes aware of life eternal.

These few days you will be here with me many things are possible, but the first step to remember is to pass through suffering. Many times I create suffering for you; many times I create the situation in which all that is suppressed within you comes up. Don't push it down, don't repress it. Allow it, free it. If you can free your suffering, your suppressed suffering, you will become free of it. And you can come to the state of bliss only when all suffering has been passed through, thrown, completely dropped.

And I can see through you: the flame of bliss is just near the corner. Once a glimpse and that flame becomes yours. I will push you in many ways to have a glimpse of it. If you miss you will be responsible, no one else. The river is flowing, but if you cannot bow down, if you cannot come down from your egoistic state of mind, you may go back thirsty. Don't blame the river. The river was there but you were paralyzed by your ego.

That's what Nan-in says: Empty the cup. That means empty the mind. Ego is there, overflowing, and when ego is overflowing nothing can be done. The whole existence is around you but nothing can be done. All around the divine...surrounded...but nothing can be done. From nowhere can the divine penetrate you, you have created such a citadel. Empty the cup. Rather, throw the cup completely. When I say throw the cup completely I mean be so empty that you don't have even the feeling that "I am empty."

Once it happened, a disciple came to Bodhidharma and said: "Master, you told me to be empty. Now I have become empty. Now what else do you say?"

Bodhidharma hit him hard with his staff on the head, and he said: "Go and throw this emptiness out."

If you say: "I am empty," the "I am" is there, and the "I" cannot be empty. So emptiness cannot be claimed. No one can say: "I am empty," just as no one can say: "I am humble." If you say: "I am humble," you are not. Who claims this humility? Humbleness cannot be claimed. If you are humble, you are humble, but you cannot say it. Not only can you not say it, you cannot feel that you are humble because the very feeling will give birth to the ego again. Be empty, but don't think that you are empty, otherwise you have deceived yourself.

You have brought many philosophies with you.

Drop them. They have not helped you at all, they have not done anything for you. It is time enough, the right time. Drop them wholesale, not in parts, not in fragments. For these few days you will be here with me just be without any thinking. I know it is difficult but still I say it is possible. And once you know the knack of it, you will laugh at the whole absurdity of the mind that you were carrying so long.

I have heard about a man who was traveling in a train for the first time, a villager. He was carrying his luggage on his head, thinking: "Putting it down will be too much for the train to carry, and I have paid only for my own self. I have purchased the ticket but I have not paid for the luggage." So he was carrying the luggage on his head. The train was carrying him and his luggage, and whether he carried it on his head or put it down made no difference to the train.


6 hours agoShaun Theron
Perhaps this (discourse by Osho) is a little off-the-wall but it may be of more value than words and gestures designed for the purpose of comfort:

I am here just to be a midwife. That's what Socrates used to say -- that a master is just a midwife. I can help, I can protect, I can guide, that's all. The actual phenomenon, the transformation, is going to happen to you. Suffering will be there, because no birth is possible without suffering. Much anguish will come up, because you have accumulated it and it has to be thrown. A deep cleansing and catharsis will be needed.

Birth is just like death, but the suffering is worth taking.

Out of the darkness of suffering a new morning arises, a new sun arises. And the dawn is not very far off when you feel darkness too much. When suffering is unbearable, bliss is very near. So don't try to escape from suffering -- that is the point where you can miss. Don't try to avoid it, pass through it. Don't try to find some way which goes round about -- no, that won't do. Pass through it. Suffering will burn you, destroy you, but really you cannot be destroyed. All that can be destroyed is just the rubbish that you have gathered. All that can be destroyed is something that is not you. When it is all destroyed, then you will feel that you are indestructible, you are deathless. Passing through death, consciously passing through death, one becomes aware of life eternal.

These few days you will be here with me many things are possible, but the first step to remember is to pass through suffering. Many times I create suffering for you; many times I create the situation in which all that is suppressed within you comes up. Don't push it down, don't repress it. Allow it, free it. If you can free your suffering, your suppressed suffering, you will become free of it. And you can come to the state of bliss only when all suffering has been passed through, thrown, completely dropped.

And I can see through you: the flame of bliss is just near the corner. Once a glimpse and that flame becomes yours. I will push you in many ways to have a glimpse of it. If you miss you will be responsible, no one else. The river is flowing, but if you cannot bow down, if you cannot come down from your egoistic state of mind, you may go back thirsty. Don't blame the river. The river was there but you were paralyzed by your ego.

That's what Nan-in says: Empty the cup. That means empty the mind. Ego is there, overflowing, and when ego is overflowing nothing can be done. The whole existence is around you but nothing can be done. All around the divine...surrounded...but nothing can be done. From nowhere can the divine penetrate you, you have created such a citadel. Empty the cup. Rather, throw the cup completely. When I say throw the cup completely I mean be so empty that you don't have even the feeling that "I am empty."

Once it happened, a disciple came to Bodhidharma and said: "Master, you told me to be empty. Now I have become empty. Now what else do you say?"

Bodhidharma hit him hard with his staff on the head, and he said: "Go and throw this emptiness out."

If you say: "I am empty," the "I am" is there, and the "I" cannot be empty. So emptiness cannot be claimed. No one can say: "I am empty," just as no one can say: "I am humble." If you say: "I am humble," you are not. Who claims this humility? Humbleness cannot be claimed. If you are humble, you are humble, but you cannot say it. Not only can you not say it, you cannot feel that you are humble because the very feeling will give birth to the ego again. Be empty, but don't think that you are empty, otherwise you have deceived yourself.

You have brought many philosophies with you.

Drop them. They have not helped you at all, they have not done anything for you. It is time enough, the right time. Drop them wholesale, not in parts, not in fragments. For these few days you will be here with me just be without any thinking. I know it is difficult but still I say it is possible. And once you know the knack of it, you will laugh at the whole absurdity of the mind that you were carrying so long.

I have heard about a man who was traveling in a train for the first time, a villager. He was carrying his luggage on his head, thinking: "Putting it down will be too much for the train to carry, and I have paid only for my own self. I have purchased the ticket but I have not paid for the luggage." So he was carrying the luggage on his head. The train was carrying him and his luggage, and whether he carried it on his head or put it down made no difference to the train.

Your mind is unnecessary luggage. It makes no difference to this existence that is carrying you; you are unnecessarily burdened. I say: Drop it. The trees exist without the mind and exist more beautifully than any human being; the birds exist without the mind and exist in a more ecstatic state than any human being. Look at children who are still not civilized, who are still wild. They exist without the mind, and even a Jesus or a Buddha will feel jealous of their innocence. There is no need for this mind. The whole world is going on and on without it. Why are you carrying it? Are you just thinking that it will be too much for God, too much for existence? Once you can put it down, even for a single minute, your whole existence will be transformed. You will enter into a new dimension, the dimension of weightlessness.

That's what I'm going to give you: wings into the sky, into the heaven -- weightlessness gives you these wings -- and roots into the earth, a groundedness, a centering. This earth and that heaven: they are two parts of the whole. In this life, your so-called ordinary life, you must be rooted; and in your inner space, in the spiritual life, you must be weightless and flying and flowing, floating.

Roots and wings I can give to you, if you allow -- because I am only a midwife. I cannot force the child out of you. A forced child will be ugly, and a forced child may die. Just allow me. The child is there, you are already pregnant. Everybody is pregnant with God. The child is there and you have already carried too long; long ago the period of nine months passed. That may be the root cause of your anguish -- that you are carrying something in the womb which needs birth, which needs to come out, which needs to be born. Think of a woman, a mother, carrying a child after the ninth month. Then it becomes more and more burdensome, and if the birth is not going to happen the mother will die, because it will be too much to bear. That may be the reason why you are in so much anxiety, anguish, tension. Something needs to be born out of you; something needs to be created out of your womb. I can help.

This Samadhi Sadhana Shibir, this camp for inner ecstasy and enlightenment, is just going to be a help for you so that which you have carried like a seed up to now can come out of your soil and become an alive thing, an alive plant. But the basic thing will be that if you want to be with me you cannot be with your mind. Both cannot happen simultaneously.