Tarot in the Spirit of Zen

by Osho

  When the energy is just at the center, pulsating … . When it is not moving anywhere, neither in the head nor in the heart but at the very source from where the heart takes it, the head takes it … pulsating at the very source—that is the very meaning of Zazen.

  Zazen means just sitting at the very source, not moving anywhere. A tremendous force arises, a transformation of energy into light and love, into greater life, into compassion, into creativity. It can take many forms, but first you have to learn how to be at the source. Then the source will decide where your potential is. You can relax at the source, and it will take you to your very potential. It does not mean that you have to stop thinking forever, it simply means you should be aware and alert and capable of moving into the source. When you need the head you can move the energy into the head, and when you need to love, you can move the energy into the heart.

  But you need not think twenty-four hours. When you are not thinking you have to relax back into your center—that keeps you constantly content, alert, joyful. A blissfulness surrounds you; it is not an act, it is simply radiation.

  Zazen is the strategy of Zen. Literally it means just sitting. Sitting where? Sitting at the very source.

  The source of luminosity is within you. It is not outside you. If you seek it outside, you seek in vain. Close your eyes and go within yourself. It is there … waiting since eternity. It is your innermost nature. You are luminosity, your being is luminous. This luminosity is not borrowed, it is your innermost core. It is you.

  You are light—a light unto yourself.

  2 of Fire: Possibilities

  To live means to live dangerously; to live means to remain available to all possibilities. And infinite are the possibilities. You are not limited to any possibility, you have an unlimited being, unbounded. You can be anything; the next moment can bring anything.

  Deep down, each individual is a whole humanity—not only a whole humanity, a whole existence. The tree exists in you, the dog exists in you, the tiger exists in you; the whole past exists in you and also the whole future. In a very atomic way, all that has happened in the world and all that is going to happen exists in you potentially. You can be in millions of ways, hence to live means to live dangerously, to live means to live through change, movement. One remains a river.

  If you are secure, you become a pool of water; there will be no movement, no dynamism. Static, stagnant, the pool of water becomes dirty, and by and by it dies. A river is alive and nobody knows what will happen. It may get lost in a desert. What is going to happen is unpredictable. A predictable life is a mechanical life; unpredictable and you are throbbing with life, pulsating, vibrating. Then the whole lives through you.

  Nature is a culmination of infinite possibilities. Within these possibilities the heating of water to a hundred degrees centigrade is a natural happening, and the freezing of water at zero is also a natural happening. A natural phenomenon such as the freezing of water at zero does not negate the natural phenomenon of water turning into vapor at a hundred degrees. It is not that one event is natural while the other is not—both are natural.

  Darkness is natural and so is light. Falling down is natural and so is rising up. There are infinite possibilities in nature. We are always standing on the crossroads from where an infinite number of paths emerge. And the interesting thing is that whatever we choose, the capability to choose will itself be a gift from nature. Even if we were to choose a wrong path, nature will bring us to the very end of it.

  Nature is very cooperative. If we choose the road to hell, nature begins to clear the way and invites us to proceed. It will not stop you. Why would nature stop you from turning water into ice, if you wish to do so, and have you rather turn it into vapor? Nature will be happy to clear your way if you wish to go to hell, or to heaven. Whether you wish to live or die, nature will always be willing to cooperate. To live is natural, to die is natural, and your ability to choose either of the two is natural too. If you can grasp this multidimensionality of nature, you will have no difficulty in understanding what I am saying.

  Suffering is natural and so is happiness. To live like a blind man is natural, and to live with open eyes is natural too. To be awake is natural, and to stay asleep is natural as well. Nature contains endless possibilities. And the interesting thing is that we are not living outside of nature, we are part of nature. Our choosing is also due to the natural capability we have within us.

  As the individual becomes more and more conscious, his ability to choose becomes more and more profound. The more unconscious an individual is, the less profound is his ability to choose.

  For example, there is no way that water lying in the sun cannot turn into vapor—it would be difficult for it not to. The water can’t decide whether to become vapor or not. If it stays in the sun then it is sure to become vapor, and lying in the cold it is sure to become ice. This the water will have to live through, although it will have no knowledge that it is living through it because its consciousness is low, or not at all, or dormant.

  Man faces much greater choices because his consciousness is much more evolved. He chooses not only through his body, he chooses through his mind as well. He not only chooses to travel on earth, he also chooses to travel vertically, in space. That too is within his power to choose.

  Although this area has not been researched yet, I feel that in the near future science may discover there are trees that have suicidal tendencies—trees who may not be choosing to live, who may be wanting to stay short in the dense forest and eventually die. This is yet to be discovered.

  Among human beings we can see clearly that there are people who are suicidal—they don’t choose to live; they keep looking for ways of dying. Wherever they see a thorn, they rush towards it like a madman; flowers don’t appeal to them. Wherever they see defeat they are drawn towards it as if hypnotized, but when they see victory they look for scores of excuses. People find thousands of arguments against the possibility of growth, but where they are certain of decay they keep moving head-on in that direction.

  All choices are open to human beings. The more conscious a person becomes, the more his choices will lead him towards happiness; the more unconscious he is, the closer he will move towards misery.

  3 of Fire: Experiencing

  Sitting by a flower, don’t be a man or a woman, be a flower. Sitting by a tree, don’t be a man or a woman, be a tree. Taking a bath in a river, don’t be a person, be a river. And then millions of signs are given to you.

  Look! See! Feel! Touch! But don’t think. The moment thinking enters, you are thrown off the track—then you live in a private world. Thinking is a private world; it belongs to you. Then you are enclosed, encapsulated, imprisoned within yourself. Non-thinking, you are no more. You are enclosed no more. Non-thinking, you open, you become porous; existence flows in you and you flow into existence.

  But the tendency of the mind is to interpret. Before you see something you have already interpreted it. Even before I have said anything you are already thinking about it. That’s how listening becomes impossible.

  You will have to learn to listen. Listening means you are open, vulnerable, receptive, but you are not in any way thinking. Thinking is a positive action. Listening is passivity: you become like a valley and receive; you become like a womb and you receive. If you can listen, then nature speaks—but it is not a language. Nature doesn’t use words. Then what does nature use? It uses signs. A flower is there: what is the sign in it? It is not saying anything, but can you say it is not saying anything really? It is saying much, but it is not using any words—a wordless message.

  To hear the wordless you will have to become wordless, because only the same can hear the same, only the same can relate to the same.

  Sitting by a flower, don’t be a man or a woman, be a flower. Sitting by a tree, don’t be a man or a woman, be a tree. Taking a bath in a river, don’t be a person, be a river. And then millions of signs are given to you. And it is not a communication—it is a c
ommunion. Then nature speaks, speaks in thousands of tongues, but not in language. It speaks from millions of directions, but you cannot consult a dictionary about it and you cannot ask a philosopher what it means. The moment you start thinking what it means you are already on the path of going astray.

  Existence opens millions of doors for you, but you stand outside and you would like to know something about it from the outside. There is no outside in nature.

  I would like to repeat these words: There is no outside to nature. Everything is inside.

  4 of Fire: Participation

  Jump into the river, that is the only way to know life. Jump into the river. Never be a spectator. The spectator is the poorest person in the world.

  Life can be known only through participation. Don’t be a spectator. The whole modern world has become just a spectator, a crowd of lookers-on. Somebody dances, you look at it. What are you doing? How can you look at a dance? A dance has to be felt, a dance has to be danced. Somebody is singing and you look and you listen. To know the song and the beauty of it you have to sing, you have to participate. But this calamity has taken epidemic proportions. You go on looking at everything.

  You rush to the movie—for what? Can’t you live a beautiful life? Why do you have to go to see a movie? People are glued to their chairs in front of their TVs just looking at other people’s living. And they are not even living, they are acting for you. They are acting for you and you are seeing those actors—and nobody is living. The dancer is not a true dancer, he is a professional and you are the audience. All is false.

  Look for the essential. When you start looking for the essential you will become a participant. You will know. A dance has to be known in only one way—that is to dance.

  How can you know what swimming is if you just stand on the bank and watch somebody swimming? You will see the strokes and you will see the man doing something in the water … but how will you know the thrill that is happening to him, the kick that is happening to him, the sensation, the buoyancy, the joy? The feeling of the river, flowing with the river, dancing with the river—how will you know it by standing on the bank?

  Jump into the river, that is the only way to know life. Jump into the river. Never be a spectator. The spectator is the poorest man in the world. Participate.

  This is my feeling: that if there is any God, he is not going to ask you what right things you have done and what bad things you have done; what sins you committed and what virtues you followed, no. If there is any God, he is going to ask: Has your life been a celebration or a sadness? That’s the only thing that can be asked.

  When the whole existence celebrates, why are you standing separate, alone, isolated? And then you feel that you are a stranger. When flowers flower, why do you stand aloof? Why not flower? When birds sing, why do you stand aloof? Why not sing, why not become a participant?

  5 of Fire: Totality

  Always do whatever you want to do, but do it totally.

  If it is good it will become part of you. If it is not good, you will come out of it. That is the beauty of being total … that is the secret of being total.

  I don’t say don’t commit a sin. I have no commandments. I don’t say, “Do this. This is moral and virtuous”—nothing like that. I say whatever you want to do, do. If you want to be a thief, be a total thief. If it is virtue it will become part of you. If it is not virtue you will come out of it. If you want to be angry, be totally angry. If it is worthwhile you will enjoy it. If you feel it is simply nonsense, it will simply drop of its own accord.

  Totality is the criterion.

  There is never any repentance in a buddha. He never looks back; there is no point. Each thing that he has done, he has done totally and perfectly.

  You always have to look back for the simple reason that you are always partial, fragmentary. Only a part of your being gets involved, and you do everything in such a way that you are never wholly in it. Later on you start thinking, “I should have done that,” or “I should have done this,” or “Maybe a better way of doing it was possible.” You start repenting, you start feeling guilty. Your actions are so incomplete, that’s why there is this hang-up.

  When some action is done with your totality, when you are entirely in it, then once you are out of it, you are entirely out of it.

  Remember this fundamental law: if you are totally into something, you can be totally out of it. If you are not totally in it you will remain involved in it even when the time is past; even when its days are gone you will remain involved in it. Some part of you will go on clinging to the past, and you will always feel miserable. Whatever you choose, misery is bound to follow, because sooner or later you will realize that you could have done better.

  But a person of awareness knows that there is no possibility of doing it any better. Then what is the point of remembering it? A buddha does not remember the past. Not that he has no memory—he has a clearer memory than you have—but that memory is just a silent storage. If he needs it, that memory can be used, but he is not a slave to the memory.

  And he never thinks of the future. He never rehearses for the future, because he knows that “Whatever happens, I will always be there with my totality. More than that is not possible.” So he simply acts spontaneously, with no memory, with no future projection. His act is total and of the present—and the act that is total and of the present brings freedom.

  6 of Fire: Success

  Just go on moving, enjoying whatsoever becomes available. If success is there, enjoy it. If failure is there, enjoy it—because failure brings a few enjoyments that no success can ever bring. Success also brings a few joys that no failure can ever bring.

  If you want to be successful then you will remain miserable. You may succeed, you may not succeed; but one thing is certain: you will remain miserable.

  If you want to succeed, and you succeed by chance, by coincidence, it is not going to fulfill you—because this is the way of the mind. Whatsoever you have got becomes meaningless, and the mind starts going ahead of you. It desires more and more and more—the mind is nothing but the desire for more. And this desire can never be fulfilled, because whatsoever you have got you can always imagine more. And the distance between that “more” and that which you have got will remain constant.

  This is one of the most constant things in human experience: everything changes, but the distance between that which you have and that which you would like to have remains constant.

  Albert Einstein says: The speed of time remains constant—that is the only constant. And buddhas say: The speed of mind remains constant. And the truth is that mind and time are not two things—they are both the same; two names for the same thing.

  So if you want to succeed, you may succeed, but you will not be content. And what is the meaning of a success if you are not content? And this, I say, is only coincidence that you may succeed; the greater possibility is that you will fail, because you are not chasing success alone—millions of people are chasing. In a country of six hundred million people only one person can be the prime minister—and six hundred million people are wanting to be the president or the prime minister. So only one succeeds, and the whole crowd fails. The greater possibility is that you will fail; mathematically that seems to be more certain than success.

  If you fail you feel frustrated; your whole life seems to be a sheer wastage. If you succeed, you never succeed; if you fail, you fail—this is the whole game.

  But if you are against success, then again you have another idea of being successful. That is, how to drop this nonsense of being successful. Then you have another idea … again the distance, again the desire.

  Now, this is what makes people monks, makes people move into monasteries. They are against success. They want to go out of the world, where there is competition—they want to escape from it all so that there will be no provocation, no temptation; they can rest in themselves. And they try not to desire success—but this is a desire! Now they have an idea of spiritual succ
ess: how to succeed and become a buddha, how to succeed and become a Christ. Again an idea, again the distance, again the desire—again the whole game starts.

  I am not against success; that’s why I am in the world; otherwise I would have escaped. I am not for it, I am not against it. I say: Be a driftwood—whatever happens, let it happen. Don’t have a choice of your own. Whatever comes your way, welcome it. Sometimes it is day, sometimes it is night; sometimes it is happiness, sometimes it is unhappiness—you be choiceless, you simply accept whatsoever is the case.

  This is what I call the quality of a spiritual being. This is what I call religious consciousness. It is neither for nor against—because if you are for, you will be against; if you are against, you will be for. And when you are for something or against something you have divided existence into two. You have a choice, and choice is hell. To be choiceless is to be free of hell.

  Let things be. You just go on moving, enjoying whatever becomes available. If success is there, enjoy it. If failure is there, enjoy it—because failure also brings a few enjoyments that no success can ever bring. Success brings a few joys that no failure can ever bring. And a man who has no idea of his own is capable of enjoying everything, whatever happens. If he is healthy, he enjoys health; if he is ill, he rests on the bed and enjoys illness.

  Have you ever enjoyed illness? If you have not enjoyed it you are missing a lot. Just lying down on the bed doing nothing, no worry of the world and everybody caring for you, and you have suddenly become a monarch—everybody attentive, listening, loving. And you have nothing to do, not a single worry in the world. You simply rest. You listen to the birds, you listen to music, or you read a little and doze into sleep. It is beautiful! It has its own beauty. But if you have an idea that you have to be always healthy, then you will be miserable.