LIFE IS AN EMPTY CANVAS _ OSHO

IS NOT LIFE NOTHING BUT MISERY?

It depends on you. Life in itself is an empty canvas; it becomes whatsoever you paint on it. You can paint misery, you can paint bliss.

This freedom is your glory. You can use this freedom in such a way that your whole life becomes a hell, or in such a way that your life becomes a thing of beauty, benediction, bliss, something heavenly. It all depends on you, man has all freedom. That’s why there is so much agony, because people are foolish and they don’t know what to paint on the canvas.

It is left to you, that is the glory of man. That is one of the greatest gifts of god to you. No other animal has been given the gift of being free; every animal is given an already fixed program.

All animals are programmed except man. A dog is bound to be a dog, and forever a dog, nothing else is possible, there is no freedom. He is programmed, everything is built in.The blueprint is there, he will simply follow the blueprint, he will be a dog. There is no choice for him, no alternatives are available. He is an absolutely fixed entity.

Except for man, everything is programmed. The rose has to be a rose, the lotus has to be a lotus, the bird will have wings, the animal will walk on four legs.

Man is utterly free, that is the beauty of man, the glory. The immense gift of god is freedom. You are left unprogrammed, you don’t carry a blueprint. You have to create yourself; you have to be self creative.

So it all depends on you, you can become a Buddha, a bahaudin, or you can become an Adolf Hitler, a Benito Mussolini. You can become a murderer or a meditator. You can allow yourself to become a beautiful flowering of consciousness, or you can become a robot.

But remember, you are responsible-and only you, and nobody else.

An optimist is a man who goes to the window in the morning and says, “Good morning, god” A pessimist is one who goes to the window and says, “My god it is morning?” it all depends on you. It is the same morning, maybe the same window, maybe the pessimist and the optimist are staying in the same room but it depends. And what a difference when you say, “good morning, god” and when you say”my god it is morning?”

I have heard an ancient Sufi parable.

Two disciple of a great master were walking in the garden of the master’s house. They were allowed to walk every day, morning and evening. The walking was a kind of meditation, a walking meditation- just as ZEN people do walking meditation. You cannot sit for twenty-four hours- the legs need a little movement, the blood needs a little circulation- so in Zen and in Sufism both, you meditate for a few hours sitting and then you start meditating walking. But the meditation continues, walking or sitting the inner current remains the same.

They both were smokers. They both wanted to ask for the permission of the master, so they both decided,”tomorrow. At the most, he will say no, but we are going to ask. And it doesn’t seem such a sacrilegious act to smoke in the garden, we will not be smoking in his house itself.” The next day they met in the garden. One was furious – furious because the other was smoking- and he said, “What happened? I also asked, but he simply flatly refused and said no. and you are smoking? Are you not abiding by his orders?” He said, “but he has said yes to me. “This looked very unjust. And the first said, “I will go and immediately inquire as to why he said no to me and yes to you,” The other said, “Wait a minute. Please tell me what you had asked.” He said, what I had asked? I had asked a simple thing, ‘can I smoke while meditating?’  He said no! And he looked very angry. The other started laughing; he said ‘now I know what is the matter. I asked, can I meditate while smoking? He said yes.’

It all depends. Just a little difference, and life is totally something else. Now there is a great difference. Asking, “can I smoke while meditating?” is just ugly. But asking, “Can I meditate while smoking?” – It’s perfectly okay. Good! At least you will be meditating. Life is neither misery nor bliss. LIFE IS AN EMPTY CANVAS, and one has to be very artistic about it. 

A tramp knocked at the door of an inn named “George and the dragon”. “Could you spare a poor man a bit to eat?” he asked the woman who answered the door. “No!” she screamed, slamming the door. A few seconds later, the tramp knocked again. The same woman answered the door. ”could I have a bit to eat?” said the tramp. “Get out, you good–for-nothing!” shouted the woman. “And don’t you ever come back!” after a few minutes the tramp knocked at the door again. The woman came to the door. “Pardon,” said the tramp, “but could I have a few words with George this time?”

Life is the inn called “George and the dragon”. You can ask to have a few words with George too.

OSHO 

NEW MAN

The song of the morning star welcoming the new man

IAM A NEW MAN, I am born again! Now I can see in depth, I can see into the very core of things, and each pebble has become a diamond, and each song of a bird is nothing but a call from God, and whenever a flower blooms, God blooms for me. Looking into people’s eyes I am looking into God’s eyes.

THE NEW MAN I have been talking about all my life will not need masters, because he will be so full of adventurous spirit that he would like to go within himself just out of sheer adventure, to see what is there at the very source of life.

THE FUTURE GENERATIONS of the new man will feel grateful that at least there was one man who did not care about the whole world being annoyed with him. He went on discriminating between what is truth and what is not truth.

THE NEW MAN I talk about, and the new humanity, will not be Eastern or Western. It will not believe in this world only or in that world only. It will believe in the totality of man. It will believe in the body of man, It will believe in the soul of man, it will believe in the material, it will believe in the spiritual. In fact the new humanity will think of spirituality and materiality as two aspects of one phenomenon. Then the world will be rich in the both ways, within and without.

THE NEW MAN is not only clever in arithmetic, he can also enjoy and compose music. He can dance, he can play the guitar-which is a tremendous relaxation for his head, because the head is no longer functioning. And the new man is not only of the heart; there are moments when he drops even deeper and simply is. That source of your is-ness is the very center of your life. To touch it, to be there is to be rejuvenated.

I HAVE CALLED the NEW MAN ZORBA THE BUDDHA. Zorba represents the materialist, objective approach. Buddha represents the subjective, spiritual approach. Divided, both are poor. Neither of them is a full circle. Joined, they become immensely rich. Joined together, they experience the greatest ecstasy that is available to humanity.

I AM NOT A MESSIAH, and I am not a missionary. And I am not here to establish a church or to give a doctrine to the world, a new religion, No. My effort is totally different: a new consciousness not a new religion, a new consciousness, not a new doctrine. Enough of doctrines and enough of religions! Man needs a new consciousness.

The old man lives under the law; the new man lives under love. The old man lives in the society; the new man becomes a peak of absolute aloneness. The old man lives in the past. In the future; the new man lives only in the present. The new man has a presence, a different quality of being. A magnetism, a charisma.

WE NEED A WORLD…. a new man, a new woman, a new child, who has intelligence. Not to imitate, not to deceive, but to stand on his own with power and integrity. Even if it means that he will be condemned by the whole world, it does not matter. What ultimately matters is that you have your own face.

THERE IS NO OTHER miracle in the world than meditation. It is the only science of transforming you into a new man. Into a superman. The superman is needed very much, urgently, because only the superman can prevent this beautiful planet from being destroyed by pygmy politicians, by ugly religions. All these vested interests are going to destroy the most beautiful planet in the universe. You can do only one thing to save it, and that is to become a Buddha and spread your Buddhahood---- share it.

THE PEOPLE WHO WILL go beyond mind will create the new man, the new mind. And the most special thing to be remembered about the new mind is that it will never become a tradition, that it will be constantly renewed. If it becomes a tradition it will be the same thing. The new mind has to become continuously new, every day new, ready to accept any unexpected experience, any unexpected truth just available, vulnerable.

The more empty you become, the more you will be able to receive my vibrations, my heartbeat, my song, the more you will be able to dance in tune with me—and that is the only right way to spread the message. Because the message is not of language; the message is of being, of experience.

I want to emphasize the point that if a man can have ninety years of physical age and thirteen years of mental age, the vice versa is also possible, and should be made possible.  A thirteen-years-old boy can have the mind and mental age of a ninety years old man. And that will be the day of rejoicing, when your mental age is ahead of your physical age. That is the beginning of a superman, the beginning of the new man, a new humanity.

A NEW MAN WHO WILL not hate life, as in the past it has done; a new man who will love life; a new man who will not be negative in any way, but will be affirmative; a new man who will not desire life after death, but will live moment to moment in sheer joy—who will think of this life as a gift and not as a punishment;  who will not be antagonistic to the body, who will respect the body as the temple of the soul;  who will love, and who will not be afraid of love; who will move in all kinds of relationships and yet be able to remain himself.

A real religious man is one who has no past, who has no autobiography, who is continuously new, each moment slipping with GOD. Go on… he is always calling you ahead, and ahead. He is always persuading you to move into new territories of being: from lust to love, from love to prayer—and there are higher realms than prayer. And he is constantly on the move. If you follow him, the only way is to be constantly on the move. Be a river.

THIS IS RELIGION—enjoying the air, enjoying the sea, enjoying the sand, enjoying the sun—because there is no other god than existence itself. Zorba the Buddha, on the one hand, is the end of the old man—his religions, his politics, his nations, his racial discriminations, and all kinds of stupidities. On the other hand, zorba the Buddha is the beginning of a new man—a man totally free to be himself, allowing his nature to blossom.

REMEMBER; meditation is not something that is done by the mind, it is the absence of the mind. When the mind stops, meditation happens. It is not something out of the mind, it is something beyond the mind.

My sannyas is the most complicated phenomenon - OSHO

Sannyas needs courage more than anything else, because it is a declaration of your individuality, a declaration of freedom, a declaration that you will not be any longer part of the mob madness, the mob psychology. It is a declaration that you are becoming universal, you will not belongs to any country to any race, to any religion you will be religious but you will not be Muslim, Hindu, or Christian. You will love Jesus, Buddha and Muhammad because you will be religious, but you will not belong to any dogma or creed and you will not belongs to any state, any nation, because all those boundaries are false, all these divisions are ugly. The earth is one, and sannyas is a declaration of the oneness of humanity.

It certainly needs courage. It also needs courage because it is getting rid of tradition, of the past, of history. It is trying to live in the present according to your own light, not being dominated by the dead, not being dominated by history. To be free of history is such a tremendous joy, but it is also a risk, because then you are left alone, then you don’t have any guidelines, any maps to follow. But that’s the beauty of it too. When you don’t have any guidelines your own consciousness rises to take the challenge. When you don’t have the map you start exploring on your own. Then life becomes an adventure.

Sannyas is to live innocently, to live non-cleverly, to live non-calculatingly, to live without mathematics, without logic. Sannyas means saying goodbye to Aristotle... To live like a madman, and to live intensely and passionately. And the first step is to drop out of the past. People drop out of society- that is not much help. Because even if you drop out of society, you carry your past, which has been made, cultivated, conditioned by that society. You can go against society but you are part of society, so I don’t say drop out of society- I say drop out of your past. That is the real dropping out of society.

And about the change of your name is just indicative that you disown your past-that now you are no longer continuous with the past. Of course you cannot erase it, it is there. But increasingly you will see that it belonged to somebody else, that it is as if you had dreamt about it or you had seen a movie or read a novel you are totally separate from it.

Sannyas is new for you, always choose the new, always choose the unknown, and that has made all the difference, life grows only by choosing challenges. Life grows only by going into the storms. Life grows only by risking, gambling, sannyas needs courage. The old sannyas was not so dangerous. People think my sannyas is easier than the old, ancient idea of sannyas. But they are utterly wrong. the old sannyas  is very simple because it  expected, not only expected but demanded—that you renounce the world, it was simple, you went into a monastery, you live there, undisturbed,  undistracted by the world. Meditation becomes your whole life with no distractions. It was a monotonous life. The word ‘monastery’ and ‘monotony’ come from the same root. So does the word ‘monk’. Life was settled, monotonous, repetitive, the same, and the world was left far behind. It was easy.

My sannyas is far more complex. You have to live in the market-place and yet live as if you were living in a monastery. You have to accept all the distractions of life and yet remain undistracted. You have to be in the world and not be of it. I have thrown a great challenge to you. The old concept of sannyas was not challenging enough. It was very appealing to the cowards, to the escapists-those who were weary of life those who were tired of life, those who were incapable of life, they have escaped from life.

It is life that gives you sharpness; otherwise your sword will never be sharp. It is the struggle in life that provokes all the springs of your talents to come to the surface. You have to be intelligent to survive.

My sannyas is the most complicated phenomenon that has ever happened on the earth because I don’t say to you leave the world, I say live in it, indulge in it, love it enjoy it, go as deeply as possible so your intelligence is sharpened, your life provoked, your dormant sources of energies become dynamic, flowing. And yet keep yourself centered in your being-a watcher on the hills.

Remain an actor and let the life be just a drama where you are fulfilling a certain role. But don’t get identified with the role. Remember continuously that this is a role – that you are a carpenter or a doctor or an engineer or a teacher, husband, wife, mother, father, son – that these are all roles and the earth is a great stage and a great drama is on. God is the author of it and the director of it and you are just actors, participating. When the curtain falls your roles will disappear. You will again be just a pure being. You will not be the role that you had played. The world has to be transformed into an opportunity to remember yourself, for self-remembering. 

Hence sannyas is arduous. And I know that everybody hesitates before they take the jump, but if the desire has arisen, if the longing is there, don’t kill it, because that will be suicidal. Experiment with it, explore this new dimension. You have lived one way-what is the point of going on repeating it again and again? Live this new style too. Who knows? – You may come across god on this way. Who knows? - Fulfillment may await you on this path.

OSHO.   

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