by Osho
9 of Water: Laziness
One should be overflowing with energy. One should be at ease, but not lazy. One should be relaxed, but not lazy.
Mind tends to be lazy—all laziness is in the mind. Mind wants to avoid any effort. That’s why mind does not want to move in new dimensions. It remains clinging to the old, to the familiar, because it knows it is very efficient there. It has a certain proficiency and skill. Now, once you have settled, you don’t want to change it.
Many people go on living with a woman or with a man not because they love the man or the woman, but just because it is familiar. Now it will again be a trouble to move with another woman and start from ABC. They are simply lazy.
People go on living the way they are living—even if it is miserable, even if nothing comes out of it except anguish, but they continue because at least it is familiar, known; they have become skillful in it. And they can go on sleeping.
Mind is lazy. This laziness is one of the barriers.
Laziness is a negative state. One should be overflowing with energy. One should be at ease, but not lazy. One should be relaxed, but not lazy.
Laziness and easiness look so alike that it is very easy to misunderstand which is which. But laziness always feels a certain guilt, a certain feeling that “I am doing something that I should not be doing,” that “I am not participating in existence.” Laziness means you have dropped out of the creativity of the universe—you are standing aside while the universe goes on creating, day in, day out.
Take everything with absolute relaxation, with ease. Whether you are doing something or not, that is not the point. You must be overflowing with energy even when you are not doing anything. These trees are not doing anything, but they are overflowing with energy. You can see that in their flowers, in their colors, in their greenery, in their freshness, in their absolute naked beauty in the sunlight, in the dark night under the stars.
Life is not a tension anywhere except in the minds of humanity. To take life with ease, without any tension, without any hurry—that is not laziness, that is easiness.
10 of Water: Harmony
You are just in the middle between death and life—you are neither. So don’t cling to life and don’t be afraid of death.
Heraclitus says, “The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.”
Have you watched a river? Sometimes it is going left, sometimes it is going right, sometimes to the south, sometimes to the north, and you will see that this river is very inconsistent—but there is a hidden harmony; it reaches the ocean. Wherever it is going, the ocean is the goal. Sometimes it has to move toward the south because the slope is towards the south; sometimes it has to move just the opposite way, towards the north, because the slope is toward the north—but in every direction it is finding the same goal. It is moving towards the ocean, and you will see that it has reached.
Think of a river that is consistent, that says, “I will always move to the south because how can I move to the north? People will say I am inconsistent.” This river will never reach the ocean. The rivers of Aristotle never reach the ocean; they are too consistent, too much on the surface. And they don’t know the hidden harmony—that through opposites you can seek the same goal. The same goal can be sought through the opposites. That possibility is completely unknown to them.
That possibility is there. Heraclitus says, “The hidden harmony is better than the obvious”—but it is difficult, you will be in constant difficulty. People expect consistency, and the hidden harmony is not a part of the society. It is part of the cosmos but not of the society. Society is a man-made affair, and society has worked out the whole plan as if everything is static. Society has created moralities, codes, as if everything is unmoving. That’s why moralities continue for centuries together. Everything changes and the dead rules continue. Everything goes on changing and the so-called moralists always go on preaching the same things that are absolutely irrelevant—but they are consistent with the past. Absolutely irrelevant things go on … .
A moralist is a person who lives on the surface. He lives for the rules, the rules are not made for him. He is for the scriptures, the scriptures are not for him. He follows the rules but he doesn’t follow awareness. If you follow awareness, witnessing, you will attain to a hidden harmony. Then you are not bothered by the opposite, you can use it. And once you can use the opposite, you have a secret key.
You can make your love more beautiful through hate. Hate is not the enemy of love, it is the very salt that makes love beautiful—it is the background. Then you can make your compassion intense through anger; then it is not the opposite. And this is the meaning of Jesus when he says, “Love your enemies.” This is the meaning: Love your enemies because enemies are not enemies—they are friends, you can use them. In a hidden harmony they fall together and become one.
Anger is the enemy—use it, make it a friend! Hate is the enemy—use it, make it a friend! Allow your love to grow deeper through it, make it a soil—it becomes a soil.
This is the hidden harmony: Love the enemy, use the opposite. The opposite is not the opposite, it is just the background.
Death and life are not two, either. Death cannot be really the opposite. If the name of the bow is life, then the name of the lyre must be death. And between these two the fairest harmony of life comes up.
You are just in the middle between death and life—you are neither. So don’t cling to life and don’t be afraid of death. Heraclitus says, “You are the music between the lyre and the bow. You are the clash and the meeting and the merging, and the harmony, and the fairest that is born out of it.”
Don’t choose! If you choose, you will be wrong. If you choose, you will become attached to one, identified with one. Don’t choose! Let life be the bow, let death be the lyre—and you be the harmony, the hidden harmony.
THE SUIT OF CLOUDS (SWORDS)
Knowledge—Thoughts—Mind
All your thoughts are given by others to you. Watch—can you find a single thought that is yours, authentically yours, that you have given birth to? They are all borrowed. The sources may be known or unknown, but they are all borrowed. The mind functions like a computer, but before the computer can give you any answer you have to feed it. Mind is a biocomputer.
Knowledge
Life is such a mystery, no one can understand it, and one who claims that he understands it is simply ignorant. He is not aware of what he is saying, what nonsense he is talking. If you are wise, this will be the first realization: life cannot be understood. Understanding is impossible. Only this much can be understood—that understanding is impossible.
Life is not a riddle. A riddle can be solved. A mystery is unsolvable by its very nature—there is no way to solve it. Socrates said, “When I was young, I thought I knew much. When I became old, ripe in wisdom, I came to understand that I knew nothing.”
It is reported of one of the Sufi masters, Junnaid, that he was working with a new young man. The young man was not aware of Junnaid’s inner wisdom, and Junnaid lived such an ordinary life that it needed very penetrating eyes to realize that you were near a buddha. He worked like an ordinary laborer, and only those who had eyes would recognize him. To recognize Buddha was very easy—he was sitting under a bodhi tree. To recognize Junnaid was very difficult—he was working like a laborer, not sitting under a bodhi tree. He was in every way absolutely ordinary.
One young man was working with him, and that young man was continually showing off his knowledge. So whatsoever Junnaid would do, he would say, “This is wrong. This can be done in this way, it will be better”—he knew about everything. Finally Junnaid laughed and said, “Young man, I am not young enough to know so much.”
This is really something. He said, “I am not young enough to know so much.” Only a young man can be so foolish, so inexperienced. Socrates was right when he said, “When I was young, I knew too much. When I became ripened, experienced, I came to realize only one thing—that I was absolutely ignorant.”
Life is a mystery. That means it cannot be solved. And when all efforts to solve it prove futile, the mystery dawns upon you. Then the doors are open; then you are invited. As a knower, nobody enters the divine. As a child, ignorant, not knowing at all, the mystery embraces you. With a knowing mind you are clever, not innocent. Innocence is the door.
A disciple went to a Zen master and said, “In what state of mind should I seek the truth?” The master said, “There is no mind so there cannot be any state of mind.”
Mind is the illusion that is not, but appears to be, and appears to be so much that you think that you are the mind. Mind is maya, mind is just a dream. Mind is just a projection, a soap bubble floating on a river. The sun is just rising, the rays penetrate the bubble; a rainbow is created and nothing is there in it. When you touch the bubble it is broken and everything disappears—the rainbow, the beauty … nothing is left.
Only emptiness becomes one with the infinite emptiness. Just a wall was there, a bubble wall. Your mind is just a bubble wall—prick it, and the mind disappears.
Mind
The master said, “There is no mind, so what type of state are you asking about?” It is difficult to understand. People say, “We would like to attain a silent state of mind.” They think that the mind can be silent. Mind can never be silent. Mind means the turmoil, the illness, the disease. Mind means the tense, the anguished state. The mind cannot be silent. When there is silence there is no mind. When silence comes, mind disappears; when mind is there, silence is no more. So there cannot be any “silent mind,” just as there cannot be any “healthy disease.” Is it possible to have a healthy disease? When health is there, disease disappears.
Silence is the inner health; mind is the inner disease, the inner disturbance.
So there cannot be any silent mind, and this disciple is asking, “What type, what sort, what state of mind should I achieve?” Point blank, the master said, “There is no mind, so you cannot achieve any state.” So please drop this illusion; don’t try to achieve any state in the illusion. It’s as if you are thinking to travel on the rainbow and you ask, “What steps should we take to travel on the rainbow?” I say, “There is no rainbow. The rainbow is just an appearance, so no steps can be taken on it.” A rainbow simply appears to exist; it is not really there. It is not a reality, it is a false interpretation of the reality.
The mind is not your reality; it is a false interpretation. You are not the mind, you have never been a mind, you can never be the mind. That is the problem—you have become identified with something that is not. You are like a beggar who believes that he has a kingdom. He is so worried about the kingdom—how to manage it, how to govern it, how to prevent anarchy. There is no kingdom, but he is worried.
Chuang Tzu once dreamt that he had become a butterfly. In the morning he was very depressed. His friends asked, “What has happened? We have never seen you so depressed.”
Chuang Tzu said, “I am in a puzzle, I am at a loss, I cannot understand. In the night, while asleep, I dreamt that I had become a butterfly.”
So the friends laughed: “Nobody is ever disturbed by dreams. When you awake, the dream has disappeared, so why are you disturbed?”
Chuang Tzu said, “That is not the point. Now I am puzzled: if Chuang Tzu can become a butterfly in the dream, it is possible that now the butterfly has gone to sleep and is dreaming that she is Chuang Tzu.”
If Chuang Tzu can become a butterfly in the dream, why not the other? The butterfly can dream and become Chuang Tzu. So what is real—Chuang Tzu dreaming that he has become a butterfly or the butterfly dreaming that she has become Chuang Tzu? What is real? Rainbows are there, you can become a butterfly in a dream. And you have become a mind in this bigger dream you call life.
When you awaken you don’t achieve an awakened state of mind, you achieve a no-state of mind, you achieve no-mind.
Thoughts
What does no-mind mean? It is difficult to follow but sometimes, unknowingly, you have achieved it. You may not have recognized it. Sometimes, just sitting ordinarily, not doing anything, there is no thought in the mind—because mind is just the process of thinking. It is not a substance, it is just a procession. You could say a crowd has gathered, but is there really something like a crowd? Is a crowd substantial, or are there only individuals? By and by the individuals will go away, then will there be a crowd left behind? When individuals have gone, there is no crowd.
The mind is just like a crowd; thoughts are the individuals. And because thoughts are there continuously, you think the process is substantial. Drop each individual thought and finally nothing is left. There is no mind as such, only thinking.
Thoughts are moving so fast that you cannot see the interval between two thoughts. But the interval is always there. That interval is you. In that interval there is neither Chuang Tzu nor the butterfly—because the butterfly is a sort of mind and Chuang Tzu is also a sort of mind. A butterfly is one combination of thoughts, Chuang Tzu a different combination, but both are minds. When the mind is not there, who are you—Chuang Tzu or a butterfly? Neither. And what is the state? Are you in an enlightened state of mind? If you think you are in an enlightened state of mind this is, again, a thought, and when thought is there you are not. If you feel that you are a buddha, this is a thought. The mind has entered; now the process is there, again the sky is clouded, the blueness lost. The infinite blueness you can see no more.
Between two thoughts, try to be alert. Look into the interval, the space in between. You will see no-mind; that is your nature. Thoughts come and go—they are accidental—but that inner space always remains. Clouds gather and go, disappear—they are accidental—but the sky remains.
You are the sky.
King of Clouds: Control
In controlling yourself you miss the whole point of being alive, because you miss celebration. How can you celebrate if you are too controlled?
Don’t try to become anything—patient, loving, non-violent, peaceful. Don’t try. If you try, you will force yourself and you will become a hypocrite. That’s how the whole of religion has turned into hypocrisy. Inside you are different; on the outside painted. You smile, and inside you would have liked to kill. Inside you carry all the rubbish and on the outside you go on sprinkling perfume. Inside you stink; on the outside you create an illusion as if you are a rose flower.
Never repress. Repression is the greatest calamity that has happened to man. And it has happened for very beautiful reasons. You look at a buddha—so silent, undisturbed. A greed arises: you would also like to be like him. What to do? You start trying to be a stone statue. Whenever there is a situation and you can be disturbed, you hold yourself back. You control yourself.
Control is a dirty word. It has not four letters in it, but it is a fourletter word.
And when I talk about freedom I don’t mean license. When I say freedom you may understand license, because that’s how things go. A controlled mind, whenever it hears about freedom, immediately understands it as license. License is the opposite pole of control. Freedom is just in between, just exactly in the middle, where there is no control and no license.
Freedom has its own discipline, but it is not enforced by any authority. It comes out of your awareness, out of authenticity. Freedom should never be misunderstood as license, otherwise you will again miss.
Awareness brings freedom. In freedom there is no need for control, because there is no possibility for license. It is because of license that you have been forced to control, and if you remain licentious the society will go on controlling you.
It is because of your licentiousness that the policeman exists and the judge and the politician and the courts, and they go on forcing you to control yourself. And in controlling yourself you miss the whole point of being alive, because you miss celebration. How can you celebrate if you are too controlled?
You can choose either control or license. You can say, “If I drop control, I will become licentious. If I drop license
then I have to become controlled.” But I tell you, if you become aware, control and license both go down the same drain. They are two aspects of the same coin, and in awareness they are not needed.
Queen of Clouds: Morality
There is no higher law than love, so love is the true foundation of morality—not codes, not commandments.
The righteous, the moralistic, the puritanical are always ready to condemn, to send more and more people to hell, to crucify people, to kill and destroy. The moralist is ready to suffer, he is ready to be a masochist, he is ready to go through all kinds of foolish austerities just to enjoy the feeling of superiority, the feeling of holier-than-thou, the feeling that “You are all sinners and I am a saint.”
The real saint has a totally different quality. He is not moralistic; he knows how to forgive, because he knows he has been forgiven so much. He knows human limitations, because he himself has suffered through those human limitations. He can forgive, he is understanding.
The moralist is never understanding, he is never forgiving; he cannot forgive because he has been so hard with himself. He has attained to his so-called character with such difficulty that the only joy, the only pleasure that he can get is that of holier-than-thou. How can he forgive? If he forgives then he cannot enjoy the egoistic trip that he has been on.
Morality is a social phenomenon; society needs it because society consists of millions of people. It has to keep a certain order, a certain discipline; otherwise there will be chaos. Morality keeps that order. Morality creates a conscience in you. Conscience functions as an inner policeman who does not allow you to do anything that is against the law or against the code or against the tradition. Society has imprinted in your heart certain ideas and now you are dominated by those ideas. Even if you go against those ideas they will torture you, they will become a nightmare to you. If you follow them you will feel you are not tortured so much.