Living- Health

No need to go anywhere !

Buddha had to ask forgiveness.

His wife - her name was Yashodhara - said, "For these twelve years I have been carrying only one question to ask to you. And that question is: whatever you have attained - and certainly you have attained something, I can see it in your eyes, on your face, in your grace. My question is: Whatever you have attained, was it not possible to attain it in the palace, in the kingdom? Was renunciation necessary?"

Gautam Buddha said, "At that time I thought so, because for centuries it has been said that unless you renounce the world you cannot find the ultimate truth. But now I can say with absolute certainty, whatever has happened to me could have happened in the kingdom, in the palace; there was no need to go anywhere." – OSHO

Excerpted from :No Mind: The Flowers of Eternity. chapter #9

I love the Gautam Buddha as I have loved nobody else.

I have been speaking on him throughout my whole life.

Even speaking on others I have been speaking on him.

Take note of it, it is a confession.

I cannot speak on Jesus without bringing Buddha in; I cannot speak on Mohammed without bringing Buddha in.

Whether I mention him directly or not that's another matter.

It is really impossible for me to speak without bringing Buddha in.

He is my very blood, my bones, my very marrow.

He is my silence, also my song.

0SH0

Books I Have Loved

Life is Boring, why ?

I feel life is very boring. What should I do?

Brij Mohan, As it is, you have already done enough. You have made life boring -- some achievement! Life is such a dance of ecstasy and you have reduced it to boredom. You have done a miracle! What else do you want to do? You can't do anything bigger than this. Life and boring? You must have a tremendous capacity to ignore life.

Just the other day I was telling you that ignorance means the capacity to ignore. You must be ignoring the birds, the trees, the flowers, the people. Otherwise, life is so tremendously beautiful, so absurdly beautiful, that if you can see it as it is you will never stop laughing. You will go on giggling -- at least inside.

Life is not boring, but mind is boring. And we create such a mind, such a strong mind, like a China Wall around ourselves, that it does not allow life to enter into us. It disconnects us from life. We become isolated, encapsulated, windowless. Living behind a prison wall you don't see the morning sun, you don't see the birds on the wing, you don't see the sky in the night full of stars. And, of course, you start thinking that life is boring. Your conclusion is wrong. You are in a wrong space; you are living in a wrong context.

You must be a religious person, Brij Mohan, because to make life boring one has to be religious; one has to be very scholarly. One has to know Christianity, Hinduism, Islam. One has to learn much from the Vedas and the Koran and The Bible. You must be very well-informed. A man who is too well-informed, too knowledgeable, creates such a thick wall of words -- futile words, empty words -- around himself that he becomes incapable of seeing life.

Knowledge is a barrier to life.

Put aside your knowledge! And then look with empty eyes...and life is a constant surprise. And I am not talking about some divine life -- the ordinary life is so extraordinary. In small incidents you will find the presence of God -- a child giggling, a dog barking, a peacock dancing. But you can't see if your eyes are covered with knowledge. The poorest man in the world is the man who lives behind a curtain of knowledge.

The poorest are those who live through the mind. The richest are those who have opened the windows of no-mind and approached life with the no-mind.

OSHO : Ah, This!, Chapter 2

Ego

Be Yourself !

So when I say, "Just be yourself,"

I am saying to you, "Just be unprogrammed, unconditioned
awareness."

That's how you had come into the world, and that's how the enlightened person leaves the world.

He lives in the world but remains totally separate.

One of the great mystics, Kabir, has a beautiful poem about it.

All his poems are just perfect --
nothing can be better.

One of his poems says, "I will give back the soul that was given to me at the time of my birth as pure, as clean, as it was given to me.

I will give it back that way when I die." He is talking about awareness, that it has remained unpolluted.

The whole world was there to pollute it, but he has remained watchful.

All that you need is just to be watchful, and nothing will affect you.

This unaffectedness will keep your purity, and this purity has certainly the freshness of life, the joy of existence -- all the treasures that you have been endowed with.

But you become attached to the small things surrounding you and forget the one that you are.

OshO 
Beyond Psychology

Stress Less

Water - Boat

The boat may remain in water, but if water enters the boat it will bring great catastrophe. [Likewise] a man may live in the world, but if the world enters [the mind of] the man the whole life will be miserable.

('Guru Vachaka Kovai' 821)

Laughing

Perfect being !

Final luxury

Super Happy

Drop Comparision

I N S P I R A T I O N

"Seeing people all around — walking corpses — is inspiration enough not to move with them, not to go their way, but to find a small footpath of your own if you want to be alive.

I have never had a master, and I am fortunate that I never had a master. I have been, in my past lives, with a few living masters. They were beautiful people, lovable, but one thing has been clear all along to me — that nobody can be a source of inspiration for me, because that word 

'inspiration' is dangerous.

First it is inspiration, then it becomes following, then it becomes imitation — and you end up being a carbon copy. There is no need to be inspired by anybody. Not only is there no need, it is dangerous too. Just watching, I have seen... each individual is unique. He cannot follow anybody else.

He can try — millions have been trying for thousands of years. Millions are Christians, millions are Hindus, millions are Buddhists. What are they doing? Inspiration from Gautam Buddha has made millions of people Buddhists, and now they are trying to follow in his footsteps. And they are not reaching anywhere; they cannot.

You are not a Gautam Buddha, and his footprints won't fit you, neither will his shoes fit you; you will have to find the exact size of shoes that fit you. He is beautiful, but that does not mean that you have to become like him. And that's the meaning of the word 'inspiration'. It means you are so much influenced that the man becomes your ideal, that you would like to be like him. That has misled the whole humanity. Inspiration has been a curse, not a blessing.

I would like you to learn from every source, to enjoy every unique being that you come across. But never follow anybody and never try to become exactly like somebody else; that is not allowed by existence. You can be only yourself.

And it is a strange phenomenon: the people who have become an inspiration for millions of other people were themselves never inspired by anybody — but nobody takes note of this fact. Gautam Buddha was never inspired by anybody, and that's what made him a great source of inspiration. Socrates was not inspired by anybody, but that's what makes him so unique.

All these people whom you think of as sources of inspiration have never been inspired by anybody else. That is something very fundamental to be understood. Yes, they learned; they tried to understand all kinds of people. They loved unique individuals, but nobody was to be followed. They still tried to be themselves.

So please don't be inspired by me; otherwise you will never become a source of inspiration. You will be just a carbon copy, you won't have your authentic, original face. You will be a hypocrite: you will say one thing — you will do another. You will show your face in different situations with different masks, and slowly, slowly you will forget which one is your real face; so many masks... [...]

A child is born — he is not Christian, he is not a Jew, he is not Mohammedan — and then we start putting a mask on him. His innocent face disappears. And he will die believing that he is a Christian. So don't laugh at that poor man who died believing that he was Abraham Lincoln, because everybody else is doing the same. People are dying as Hindus — they were not born as Hindus.

It was a continual trouble for me whenever there was census. The officers would come to me to fill out the form, and when it came to religion, I would say, "I don't have any religion."

They would be shocked, but they would say, "You must have been born into some religion. Your parents must have been Hindus, Mohammedans, Jainas."

I said, "That does not make any difference. My father can be a doctor or an engineer — that will not make me a doctor or an engineer. He may be a Hindu or a Mohammedan — that is his business. He cannot biologically transfer his religion to me. If he cannot transfer his medical knowledge to me, how can he transfer his spiritual knowledge to me? It is a deception, and I don't want to be part of any deception.

People are being trained as actors; in this whole big world you will find everybody acting. Everybody is brought up to act... beautiful names -- "etiquette," "manners" — but hidden behind is a subtle psychology to make you forget your originality and imbibe some actor which the vested interests want you to be.

Never be inspired by anybody.

Remain open.

When you see a beautiful sunset, you enjoy the beauty of it... when you see a Buddha, enjoy the beauty of the man, enjoy the authenticity of the man, enjoy the silence, enjoy the truth the man has realized — but don't become a follower. All followers are lost.

Remain yourself — because this man Gautam Buddha has found because he has remained himself. And all these beautiful names — Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu, Bodhidharma, Nagarjuna, Pythagoras, Socrates, Heraclitus, Epicurus — all these beautiful names which have been a great inspiration to many people were themselves never inspired by anybody. That's how they protected their originality; that's how they remained themselves.

I have been with masters, and I have loved them. But to me the very desire to be like them is ugly. One man is enough; a second like him will not enrich existence, it will only burden it. To me, uniqueness of individuals is the greatest truth.

Love people when you find them in some dimension true and authentic, blossoming. But remember, they are blossoming because of their authenticity and originality; so be mindful not to fall in the trap of following them. Be yourself.

The famous maxim from Socrates is: "Know thyself." But it should be completed — it is incomplete. Before "Know thyself" another maxim is needed: "Be thyself"; otherwise you may know only some actor that you are pretending to be. Knowing thyself comes second; first is being thyself.

The real great masters have been only friends, a helping hand, fingers pointing to the moon; they have never created a slavery. But the moment they died they left such a great impact around them that cunning people — theologians, priests, scholars — started preaching to people, "Follow Gautam Buddha."

Now the man is dead and he cannot deny anything... and these people started exploiting the great impact that Buddha had left. Now the whole of Asia, millions of people, for twenty-five centuries have followed in the steps of Gautam Buddha, but not a single Gautam Buddha has been created. It is enough proof: two thousand years and not a single Jesus again; three thousand years, not a single Moses again. Existence never repeats.

History repeats itself because history belongs to the unconscious mob.

Existence never repeats itself. It is very creative and very inventive. And it is good; otherwise, although Gautam Buddha is a beautiful man, if there are thousands of Gautam Buddhas around — if wherever you go you meet Gautam Buddha, in every restaurant! — you will be really bored and tired. It will destroy the whole beauty of the man. It is good that existence never repeats. It only creates one of a kind, so it remains always rare.

You are also one of a kind. You just have to blossom, to open your petals and release your fragrance."

— OSHO, Beyond Psychology, Chapter #5

Masters are difficult people !

Masters are difficult people. Never take them at their face value, never take them by their appearance; their appearance can be deceptive.

It is said about Gurdjieff that whenever a new disciple would come who would like to enter into the inner circle, he would start behaving erratically, suddenly he would start being crazy. And the old disciples would know that again he was playing his old trick, but the new one would escape, looking at this madman, what he was doing.

Once it happened, a journalist came. He wanted an interview, and he was showing much interest in Gurdjieff’s teachings. Gurdjieff looked around, saw an old disciple and asked, ”What day is it today?”
The disciple said, ”Today is Saturday.”
Gurdjieff said, ”How is it possible? Yesterday it was Friday, how is it possible that it is Saturday today? That is just mad – yesterday was Friday, how is it possible then that today is Saturday?”

The journalist stood up and he said, ”I am not in search of mad people. What’s going on here?” And Gurdjieff looked at him in such an angry way, such a penetrating way, that the journalist started perspiring with fear, feeling that this man can be dangerous. And Gurdjieff was a very strong man. If he jumped, he could kill you.

The journalist simply escaped, never came back again. And Gurdjieff
had a belly laugh.Some disciple asked, ”But why did you behave in such a way? He could have been helpful. He could have written an article. And he has contacts, he is a very well known man. Why...?”
Gurdjieff said, ”It is better to finish from the very beginning, because once he starts coming he will be coming more and more, and he cannot understand; he is a superficial man. He just took the appearance, how can he understand deeper things?”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OSHO
JUST LIKE THAT
CHAPTER 8. BEYOND MOTHER’S KNEES

Gautam Buddha used to say,

"Once I was passing through a forest, and a branch of a tree fell on me. What do you think? Should I beat that branch of the tree because it hurt me, it wounded me?"

The person to whom he was talking said,

"There is no question of beating the branch; it had no desire to hurt you, it had no desire to fall on you. It was just a natural accident that you happened to be under the tree when the branch fell."

Buddha said,

"If somebody insults me, that is also the same.I simply happened to be there and that man was full of anger. If I had not been there he would have been angry with somebody else. It was his nature; he was following his nature. I followed my nature."

And to be in tune with your nature, you certainly become impenetrable, unperturbable.

You become so crystallized in yourself that nothing can disturb you.

~ 0 S H 0~~

Bodhidharma: The Greatest Zen Master

Inside you remain the same !

Have you observed that if you look inside, time exists not?

If you look outside there is time, but if you look inside there is no time.

Have you not felt it sometimes, sitting silently with closed eyes -- that inside you have not aged at all?

Inside you remain the same as when you were a child, or as when you were young.

Inside nothing has changed: the face is wrinkled by age, the hairs have gone gray, death is approaching -- this is all from the outside.

If you look in the mirror then of course there are signs that much time has passed, that very little is left, that sooner or later you will be gone.

But look within: there has never been any time there.

You are exactly the same as you ever were when you were running in a garden or on the sea-beach and collecting colored stones and seashells.

Just remember..

0 S H 0 ~~

The Ten Grounds Of The Way

Every meditation is a preparation for enjoying the aloneness which is our nature.

~ Osho : The Language Of Existence ~

Meditation

Laughter

Ramakrishna- A man of Himalayan Heights !

One day Ramakrishna and his followers are passing the Ganges in a boat and suddenly in the middle he starts crying, "Don't beat me! I have not done anything wrong. Why are you beating me?" And tears started flowing.

And his people said, "Nobody is beating you - what are you doing?" Even his own followers once in a while suspected that he was insane, because they were only followers. Nobody was beating him, and he was crying. And they could see from his face that he was being whipped very badly.

And he said, "You don't believe me? Just look at my back." They removed his clothes and they could not believe it: there were so many lines, blood oozing; he had been whipped badly. They could not believe... what to make of it? This man is mad and he is making his followers mad.

But when they reached the other shore, they found a man who had been beaten, and there was a crowd. And they looked at his back and they were surprised: the marks of the beating were exactly the same on both Ramakrishna's and this man's back. Such oneness of feeling, that when somebody else is being beaten - innocently, he has not done anything -- Ramakrishna becomes part of that person, they become one.

This is not madness, this is a tremendous experience, a man of Himalayan heights... And although he was not a preacher, not a scholar, in everything that he says you can find the insight of the greatest men who have walked on the earth.
OSHO
Beyond Psychology, Chapter-35

Triphala !

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa !

It happened that some photographer took a picture of Ramakrishna. That was his first picture and the photographer was very happy. He brought the large framed picture to present to Ramakrishna who was sitting with his disciples. He took the picture in his hand and kissed the feet in the picture. The photographer could not believe it! Is this man sane or insane? His own picture, and he is kissing the feet!

Vivekananda, his chief disciple, was sitting by the side. He said, "Paramahansadeva, what are you doing? This is your own picture. Have you seen it or not?" He thought he had not looked at the picture – Just that the man had given it to him, and he must have thought it was some god’s picture, so he had kissed it.

Ramakrishna said, "Is it so? Let me look." He looked and he said, "Yes, it is my picture," and he kissed the feet again!

Vivekananda said, "Now this is too much."

Ramakrishna said, "I am not kissing my own feet. This is a picture of a state, it has nothing to do with me. Just look at the picture," he said, "It is a picture of a certain state. The body is just the outer lines, but look into the eyes, look into the face. And I remember perfectly where I was when this picture was taken: I was in samadhi, so it is a picture of samadhi. And I say to you that only this picture should be distributed, no other picture."

So only that picture hangs in the houses of people who worship Ramakrishna, because that picture was worshipped by Ramakrishna himself. It is absurd logically, but just a little bit of patience and you can see the point. It is a picture of a state. It is immaterial whether Ramakrishna was in that state or Mahavira was in that state or Buddha was in that state. It is immaterial – what matters is that consciousness.

Good music, good poetry, can raise your consciousness. They can create the situation for the entry into the third. Very few musicians have been there very few poets, very few painters, and very few sculptors are capable of creating such artifacts that can give you a resonance inside you.

OSHO

From Misery to Enlightenment, Chapter #5

You have been chosen !

You are here because this existence needs you as you are. Otherwise somebody else would have been here!–existence would not have helped you to be here, would not have created you. You are fulfilling something very essential, something very fundamental, as you are. 

If God wanted a Buddha he could have produced as many Buddhas as he wanted. He produced only one Buddha–that was enough, and he was satisfied to his heart’s desire, utterly satisfied. Since then he has not produced another Buddha or another Christ.

He has created you instead. Just think of the respect that the universe has given to you! You have been chosen, not Buddha, not Christ, not Krishna. You will be needed more, that’s why. You fit more now. Their work is done, they contributed their fragrance to existence. Now you have to contribute your fragrance......

And you can be only yourself–there is no other way, there has never been, there is no possibility that you can be anybody else. You will remain yourself. You can enjoy it and bloom, or you can wither away if you condemn it.

OSHO, 

Transformation Tarot: Insights and Parables for Renewal in Everyday Life

Confucius !

The second, THE ANALECTS OF CONFUCIUS. I don't like Confucius at all, and I don't feel any guilt about not liking him. I feel really relieved that it is now on record. Confucius and Lao Tzu were contemporaries. Lao Tzu was a little older; Confucius had even gone to see Lao Tzu and came back trembling, shaken to the very roots, perspiring. His disciples asked, "What happened in the cave? ... Because you were both there and nobody else."

Confucius said, "It is good that nobody witnessed it. That man, my God, he is a dragon! He would have killed me, but I escaped. He is truly dangerous."

Confucius is reporting truly. A man like Lao Tzu can kill you just to resurrect you; and unless one is ready to die one cannot be reborn. Confucius escaped from his own rebirth.

I have already chosen Lao Tzu, and forever. Confucius belonged to the very ordinary, mundane world. But let it be noted that I don't like him; he is a snob. It is strange he was not born in England.

But anyway, China in those days WAS England. In those days England was just barbarious, there was nothing of value there.

Confucius was a politician, cunning, clever, but not really intelligent; otherwise he would have fallen at the feet of Lao Tzu, he would not have escaped. He was not only afraid of Lao Tzu, he was afraid of silence... because Lao Tzu and silence are the same.

But I wanted to include one of Confucius' most famous books, just to be fair. ANALECTS is his most important book. To me it is just like the roots of a tree, ugly but very essential - what you call a necessary evil. ANALECTS is a necessary evil. In it he talks about the world and worldly matters, politics and all. One disciple asked him, "Master, what about silence?"

Confucius was irritated, annoyed. He shouted at the disciple and said, "Shut up! Silence? - silence you will have in your grave. In life there is no need for it, there are many much more important things to do."

This was his attitude. You can understand why I don't like him. I pity him. He was a good man. Alas, he came so close to one of the greatest, Lao Tzu, and yet missed! I can only shed a tear for him.

Osho 

Books I Have Loved, Chapter#11.

Ambedkar- Gandhi-Osho

Ambedkar wanted the untouchables to have their own constituencies and their own candidates, otherwise they would never be represented in any parliament anywhere.

Who would give votes to a shoemaker? In India a shoemaker is untouchable -- who is going to give him the vote?

Ambedkar was absolutely right. One fourth of the country is untouchable.

They are not allowed in schools because no other student is prepared to sit with them, no teacher is ready to teach them.

The government says the schools are open, but in reality no student is willing.... If one untouchable enters, all thirty students leave the class, the teacher leaves the class. Then how are these poor people -- one fourth of the country -- going to be represented? They should be given separate constituencies where only they can stand and only they can vote.

Ambedkar was perfectly logical and perfectly human.

But Gandhi went on a fast, saying, "He is trying to create a division within the Hindu society."

The division has existed for ten thousand years. That poor Ambedkar was not creating the division, he was simply saying that one fourth of the people of the country had been tortured for thousands of years.

Now at least give them a chance to advance themselves. At least let them voice their problems in the parliament, in the assemblies. But Gandhi said, "I will not allow it while I am alive. They are part of Hindu society, hence they cannot have a separate voting system" -- and he went on fasting.

For twenty-one days Ambedkar remained reluctant, but every day... the pressure of the whole country.

And he started feeling that if this old man dies then there is going to be great bloodshed.

It was clear -- he would be killed immediately, and millions of the untouchables would be killed everywhere, all over the country: "It is because of you that Gandhi died." When the whole arithmetic of how it would work out was explained to him -- "You figure it out soon, because there is not much time, he cannot survive more than three days" -- Ambedkar hesitated.

He was perfectly right; Gandhi was perfectly wrong.

But what to do? Should he take the risk? He was not worried about his life -- if he was killed it was okay -- but he was worried about those millions of poor people who didn't know anything about what was going on.

Their houses would be burned, their women would be raped, their children would be butchered. And it would be something that had never happened before.

Finally he had to accept the conditions. He went with the breakfast in his hand to Mahatma Gandhi, "I accept your conditions.

We will not ask for a separate vote or separate candidates. Please accept this orange juice." And Gandhi accepted the orange juice.

But this orange juice, this one glass of orange juice, contains millions of people's BLOOD.

I have met Doctor Ambedkar. He was one of the most intelligent men I have ever met. But I said, "You proved weak."

He said, "You don't understand: the situation was such that I knew I was right and he was wrong, but what to do with that stubborn old man? He was going to die, and if he died then I would have been responsible for his death, and the untouchables would have suffered."

I said, "That is not the point. Even an idiot could have suggested a simple thing to you.

You should have gone on a fast unto death. And you are so overweight." He was a fat man, four or five times heavier than Gandhi.

"If you had asked me.... A simple solution: just put another cot by the side of Mahatma Gandhi, lie down, and fast unto death. Then let them see! I promise you that Gandhi would have accepted all your conditions within three days."

Ambedkar said, "But this idea never occurred to me."

I said, "You are a fool if this idea never occurred to you! That was the idea with which that man was controlling the whole country -- and it never occurred to you.

The only difficulty would have been to go on a fast -- particularly for a man like you: fat, eating four times a day. Naturally you would not have been able to manage it. Gandhi has practiced his whole life, he is an experienced faster; and you may not have ever missed a single breakfast."

He said, "That is true."

I said, "Otherwise if it had been my problem and he was being so illogical, I would have just laid down, even if I was going to die, and let him be responsible.

He would not have allowed that, because my death would have taken away all his mahatmahood, all his aura, all his leadership of the people. He would not have allowed me to die; he would have accepted my conditions.

"But unfortunately I am not an untouchable, and anyway why should I be bothered with you two'IDIOTS'?

To me both of you are 'IDIOTS' .

You have one fourth of the country in your hands and you can't do anything; that man has nothing in his hands -- but just by fasting.... He has learned a womanly trick. Yes, I call his whole philosophy a feminine psychology."

That's what women do every day. Gandhi must have learned it from his wife. In India women do it every day. The wife will fast, she won't eat, she will lie down. And then the husband starts shaking. He may be right, that is not the point.

Now there is no point of right or wrong; now the point is how to persuade her to eat? Because she is not eating, the children are not eating -- and who is going to do the cooking in the first place? Is he also going to fast? And the children are weeping, and they want food, and the wife is on a fast -- so you agree.

She needs a new sari, you bring it. First you bring the sari, then she goes into the kitchen. This is an old Indian strategy of all women in India.

Gandhi must have learned it from his wife, and he used it really very cleverly.But there is some strange side of the human mind which is impressed by anybody who is capable of torturing himself.

Osho

From Personality to Individuality

Today is Ramana Maharshi's Samadhi day !

It happened, Maharshi Raman was dying. On Thursday April 13th, a doctor brought Maharshi a palliative to relieve the congestion in the lungs, but he refused it.

“It is not necessary, everything will come right within two days,” he said. And after two days he died.

At about sunset, Maharshi told the attendants to sit him up. They knew already that every movement, every touch, was painful, but he told them not to worry about that.

He was suffering from cancer – very painful. Even to drink water was impossible, to eat anything was impossible, to move his head was impossible. Even to say a few words was very difficult.

He sat with one of the attendants supporting his head. A doctor began to give him oxygen, but with a wave of his right hand he motioned him away.

Unexpectedly, a group of devotees sitting on the verandah outside the hall began singing Arunachala-Siva – a bhajan that Maharshi liked very much. He liked that spot, Arunachala, very much; the hill he used to live upon – that hill is called Arunachala. And the bhajan was a praise, a praise for the hill.

On hearing it, Maharshi’s eyes opened and shone. He gave a brief smile of indescribable tenderness. From the outer edges of his eyes tears of bliss rolled down.

Somebody asked him, “Maharshi, are you really leaving us?”

It was hard for him to say, but still he uttered these few words: “They say that I am dying – but I am not going away. Where could I go? I am always here.”

One more breath, and no more. There was no struggle, no spasm, no other sign of death: only that the next breath did not come.

What he says is of immense significance 
“Where could I go? I am always here.”

There is nowhere to go. This is the only existence there is, this is the only dance there is – where can one go? Life comes and goes, death comes and goes – but where can one go? You were there before life.

Osho, Zen: The Path of Paradox, Vol. 2, Talk #6

Condense religion into a single statement

After nine years, when Bodhidharma was returning to India, he gathered four of his chief disciples and he asked them, ”Condense religion into a single statement so that I can know whether you have understood me or not.”

The first one said, ”Compassion is religion. That is Buddha’s basic message: compassion.”

Bodhidharma said, ”You have my bones, but nothing else.”

The second disciple said, ”Meditation. To be silent, to be so utterly silent that not a single thought moves inside you: that is the essence of
religion.”

Bodhidharma said, ”You have my flesh, but nothing more; because in what you are saying, you are only repeating my words. In your eyes I don’t see the silence; on your face I don’t see the depth that
silence brings.”

The third one said, ”It cannot be said. It is inexpressible.”

Bodhidharma said, ”You have my marrow. But if it cannot be said, why have you used even these words? You have already said it. Even in saying’It cannot be said, it cannot be expressed,’ you are saying something about it; hence I say you have only the marrow.”

He turned towards the fourth. There were tears in the disciple’s eyes and he fell at Bodhidharma’s feet. Bodhidharma shook him and asked him again and again, ”What is religion?” But only tears of joy... his hands holding his feet in gratitude. The disciple never spoke a single word, not even that it cannot be said, it is inexpressible.

Bodhidharma hugged him and said, ”You have me. Now I can go in peace because I am leaving something of me behind.”

OSHO

Chapter 11 : Truth: not a dogma but a dance
From Ignorance to Innocence

heart emoticon