There’s a very meaningful Sufi story: A man was very worried because every night someone would enter his garden and destroy all his plants. He did everything that could be done to protect it. He posted guards all along the boundary, but never was anybody seen entering the garden at night. Yet, every morning, the garden would be trashed. The man did everything he could, but nothing helped. He then went to a Sufi master, in the hope that the master would be able to see things he and the guards could not. The master closed his eyes and said, “Do one thing, fix the alarm on your clock for two o’clock in the night.” The man said, “How is this going to help? My guards are continuously watching and patrolling around the house.” The master said, “There is no need to argue. Just do what I say. Fix the alarm for two o’clock. Then come the next day and tell me what happened.”

He was not convinced but he tried. At two o’clock, when the alarm went off, he woke up. He was standing in his own garden, wreaking havoc on his plants. He was a somnambulist — a sleepwalker!

If we look deep within ourselves, we will see that in some way or the other, we are all sleepwalkers. We sow the seeds of our misdeeds in the deep sleep of unconsciousness, and then wonder why our lives are so miserable. When we love another person, we often end up taking things for granted in the name of love.

Osho suggests: Remain a watcher, remain a witness. Remember that. Remind yourself continuously. Sadness has come. It has happened to you; it is not you. The moment you remember this, suddenly you will see a distance arising between you and the sadness. It does not affect you any longer. When you lose awareness, it affects you; when you gain awareness, there is a distance. The more your awareness rises, the more the distance increases. A moment comes when you are so far away from your sadness that it is as if it’s not there at all. The same has to be done with happiness too. It will be difficult, because one wants to cling to happiness. But by clinging to happiness, you are sowing the seeds of your sorrow. That’s how this parable is of tremendous significance.

The master himself — in his sleep, in his unawareness — came to the field, the wheat field and sowed the seeds of weeds. In deep sleep! He was a sleepwalker. In the morning he started asking, “Who has done this?” You are responsible for the wrongs in your life. You have brought them upon yourself. But in the morning, when you wake up, you ask, “Who has done this?” and start searching for the wrongdoer. The enemy is within. The enemy is hidden deep within your unconsciousness.

Swami Chaitanya Keerti, editor of Osho World, is the author of Osho Fragrance.

Recently I came across a random poem aspiring to be something what it is not. It read:

“Looking to the future is something that is often done,
What will the coming years bring except for great fun?
How will the times change, what kind of person will I become?
This is a question often asked; I’ve contemplated it some.
To be respected, live happily, and be an example to all,
I want to bring a smile to everyone, the big or the small.”

The aspiration expressed in this poem is the aspiration that often springs in our hearts. While most of us try our best to fulfil our ambitions, often we don’t succeed. Many of us feel miserable and then the failure becomes a suffering. We start finding fault with ourselves; we feel incomplete.

This constant feeling of being incomplete is the rootcause of all misery. We spend our entire life trying to become something that we are not. We do all kinds of things to reach somewhere — what we assume is our goal. This goal has nothing to do with our inner reality because this goal does not originate out of our understanding of reality but from confusion and tension.

In reality, we are the seed that needs to flower. We are supposed to become what we are in our essence or potentiality. In that sense, We are perfect as we are, because we originate from the whole. The Upanishads declare:

Om Purnamidah Purnamidam Purnath Purnamudachyate.
Purnasya Purnamadaya Purnamevava shisyate

(This is the whole. That is the whole. From the whole springs the whole. Take the whole from the whole and only the whole remains.)

Meditation on this sutra can liberate us from all our anguish and misery. This wholeness is not something that will happen in future, nor it is something to be achieved. This wholeness is pulsating within us right now, in the present moment. The future never really comes. It is only a mental imagination functioning as conditioning. Meditation helps us become aware of this conditioning. Meditation is the key and witnessing our being without any divisions is the realisation.

In one of his discourses on Zen, Osho says: “You are carrying a masterpiece hidden within you, but you are standing in the way. Just move aside, then the masterpiece will be revealed. Everyone is a masterpiece, because God never gives birth to anything less than that. Everyone carries that masterpiece hidden for many lives, not knowing who they are. Often, they keep trying to become someone. Drop the idea of becoming someone, because you are already a masterpiece.

You cannot be improved. You have only to come to it, to know it, to realise it. God himself has created you; you cannot be improved.” All we need to do is to settle in our witnessing consciousness and let the flower of godliness bloom. It happens by itself. as the Zen mystics declare:

“Sitting silently Doing nothing The spring comes And the grass grows by itself”

Swami Chaitanya Keerti, editor of Osho World, is the author of Osho Fragrance

Also published at: www.asianage.com and www.deccanchronicle.com

Recently I read a story: “My name is Paul and I am a recovering perfectionist. I am also recovering from depression. The two are connected. I had been trying to do too much, too well, trying to please too many people, expecting too much of myself for too long, putting too much pressure on myself, creating too much stress. That’s a lot of ‘too much’ for one person. My self-esteem took a battering, I stopped looking forward to anything and I felt like I was useless and hopeless.” And he goes on with his story.

This is not the story of Paul alone. The world is full of such Pauls. They are going neurotic with such desires of being perfectionists and end up in the ditch of depression.

What is the solution?

The wise tell us that the world is perfect as it is. You cannot ask for more. But some people are never satisfied. They want to improve things. They are so obsessed with their idea of perfection that they would improve upon God’s creation too. Their obsession drives others crazy.

Here’s an interesting anecdote: a king passing through a small town saw what he took to be indications of amazing marksmanship. On trees, barns and fences there were many archery boards, each with a bullet hole in the bull’s eye. He could not believe his eyes. It was almost a miracle of achievement. He himself was a good marksman and had known many great marksmen in his life, but never seen anything like this. He wanted to meet the expert. He turned out to be a madman. “This is sensational! How in the world do you do it?” he asked the madman. “I am a good shooter too, but cannot match your skill. Please tell me!”

“Easy as pie!” said the madman, laughing uproariously. “I shoot first and draw the circles in later!”

Osho tells us not to be perfectionists. He says that perfectionism is the root cause of all neurosis. Unless humanity gets rid of the very idea of perfection, it will never ever be sane.

The very idea of perfection has driven the whole of mankind to a state of utter madness. To think in terms of perfection means that you are thinking in terms of ideology, goals, values, shoulds, should nots… you have a certain pattern to fulfil, else you feel immensely guilty. And the pattern is bound to be such that you cannot achieve it. If you do achieve it, then it will not be of much value to your ego!

Perfectionism is a neurotic idea. An intelligent person will understand that life is an adventure, a constant exploration. That is its very joy! Perfection means a full stop. Perfection means ultimate death. There is no way to go beyond it. Perfectionists take life as a puzzle and look for solutions. But for the wise, life is a mystery to be lived with a sense of wonder.

You should be perfectly and acutely aware of the difference between a mystery and a problem. A problem is something created by the mind but a mystery is something which is already there. A problem has some ugliness in it, like a disease.

A mystery, on the other hand, is beautiful. With a problem, fights arise. Something is wrong and you have to put it right; something is missing and you must supply the missing link. With a mystery, there is no question of a fight. The moon arises in the night — that is not a problem, it is a mystery. You live with it. You dance with it. You sing with it. Or you can be silent with it. Mystery surrounds you.

Swami Chaitanya Keerti, editor of Osho World, is the author of Osho Fragrance

Also published at: www.asianage.com

By Swami Chaitanya Keerti

The series of earthquakes in Nepal and India have shaken the world deeply and scientists in the West are expecting more earthquakes to shake the planet. Professor Bill McGuire of the University College London was quoted in the Newsweek as saying, “There are geological systems all around the planet with unstable volcanoes that are susceptible: when it comes to risk, I’m afraid there is a very, very long list.”

The insensitivity of our lifestyle towards the Earth has done tremendous harm. While scientists and politicians are busy providing solutions to disaster situations, here’s the story Osho told about a Japanese Zen master who was invited to a satsang at a mansion.

A few seekers had gathered for the session. As the master started talking there was an earthquake. Japan experiences earthquakes on a frequent basis. They were all assembled on the seventh floor of a seven-storey building. Everybody tried to escape. The host, running by, stopped to see what had happened to the zen master. The master was there with not even a ripple of anxiety on his face. He sat with his eyes closed, just as he was before the tremors began.

Seeing this the host felt a little guilty. The other guests had already gone downstairs, but he stopped. Though trembling with fear, he sat down beside the master. After the earthquake was over, the disciples began to tiptoe back to where the master was sitting in silence. When they asked him why he did not run away, he replied, “I also escaped, but you escaped outwardly, I escaped within. Your escape is useless because wherever you are going there is an earthquake, so it is meaningless, it makes no sense. You may reach the sixth storey or the fifth or the fourth, but there too is an earthquake. I escaped to a point within me where no earthquake ever reaches, cannot reach. I entered my centre.”

Thus, Osho concludes that meditation brings you face to face with reality. Once you know what life is, you never bother about death. Meditation is the only way to discover “deathlessness”.

Also Published at: www.asianage.com

The sutra of breathing