Missisippi

http://www.osho.com/magazine/tarot/p...sf058Doing.jpg

Doing

Trust in Allah, but tether your camel first


Each day it happens: you could have done something but you didn't do it, and you are using the excuse that if God wants it done, He will do it anyhow. Or, you do something and then you wait for the result, you expect, and the result never comes. Then you are angry, as if you have been cheated, as if God has betrayed you, as if He is against you, partial, prejudiced, unjust. And there arises great complaint in your mind. Then trust is missing.

The religious person is one who goes on doing whatsoever is humanly possible but creates no tension because of it. Because we are very, very tiny, small atoms in this universe, things are very complicated. Nothing depends only on my action; there are thousands of crisscrossing energies. The total of the energies will decide the outcome. How can I decide the outcome?

But if I don't do anything then things may never be the same. I have to do, and yet I have to learn not to expect. Then doing is a kind of prayer, with no desire that the result should be such. Then there is no frustration.

Trust will help you to remain unfrustrated, and tethering the camel will help you to remain alive, intensely alive.


This Sufi saying wants to create the third type of man, the real man: who knows how to do and who knows how not to do; who can be a doer when needed, can say "Yes!" and who can be passive when needed and can say "No"--who is utterly wakeful in the day and utterly asleep in the night; who knows how to inhale and how to exhale; who knows the balance of life.

"Trust in Allah but tether your camel first."

This saying comes from a small story. A master was traveling with one of his disciples. The disciple was in charge of taking care of the camel. They came in the night, tired, to a caravanserai. It was the disciple's duty to tether the camel; he didn't bother about it, he left the camel outside. Instead of that he simply prayed. He said to God, "Take care of the camel," and fell asleep.

In the morning the camel was gone--stolen or moved away, or whatsoever happened. The master asked, "What happened to the camel? Where is the camel?" And the disciple said, "I don't know. You ask God, because I had told Allah to take care of the camel, and I was too tired, so I don't know. And I am not responsible either, because I had told Him, and very clearly! There was no missing the point. Not only once in fact, I told Him thrice. And you go on teaching 'Trust Allah,' so I trusted. Now don't look at me with anger."

The master said, "Trust in Allah but tether your camel first--because Allah has no other hands than yours." If He wants to tether the camel He will have to use somebody's hands; He has no other hands. And it is your camel! The best way and the easiest and the shortest way is to use your hands. Trust Allah--don't trust only your hands, otherwise you will become tense. Tether the camel and then trust Allah."

You will ask, "Then why trust Allah if you are tethering the camel?"--because a tethered camel can also be stolen. You do whatsoever you can do: that does not make the result certain, there is no guarantee. So you do whatsoever you can, and then whatsoever happens, accept it.

This is the meaning of tether the camel: do whatever is possible for you to do, don't shirk your responsibility, and then if nothing happens or something goes wrong, trust Allah. Then He knows best. Then maybe it is right for us to travel without the camel. It is very easy to trust Allah and be lazy. It is very easy not to trust Allah and be a doer. The third type of man is difficult--to trust Allah and yet remain a doer. But now you are only instrumental; God is the real doer, you are just instruments in His hands.

Muffinssi

Osho Zen Tarot


http://www.osho.com/magazine/tarot/p...sf034Anger.jpg

Anger


The monk with the ungovernable temper


Next time you feel angry, go and run around the house seven times, and afterwards sit under a tree and watch where the anger has gone. You have not repressed it, you have not controlled it, you have not thrown it on somebody else....

Anger is just a mental vomit. There is just no need to throw it on somebody. Do a little jogging, or take a pillow and beat the pillow until your hands and teeth are relaxed. In transformation you never control, you simply become more aware. Anger is happening--it is a beautiful phenomenon, it is just like electricity in the clouds....

A Zen student came to Bankei and said, "Master, I have an ungovernable temper. How can I cure it?"
"Show me this temper," said Bankei, "it sounds fascinating."
"I haven't got it right now," said the student, "so I can't show it to you."
"Well then," said Bankei, "bring it to me when you have it."
"But I can't bring it just when I happen to have it," protested the student. "It arises unexpectedly, and I would surely lose it before I got it to you."
"In that case," said Bankei, "it cannot be part of your true nature. If it were, you could show it to me at any time. When you were born you did not have it--so it must have come to you from the outside. I suggest that whenever it gets into you, you beat yourself with a stick until the temper can't stand it and runs away."

Even while anger is happening, if you suddenly become conscious, it drops. Try it! Just in the middle, when you are very hot and would like to murder--suddenly become aware, and you will feel something has changed: a gear inside, you can feel the click, your inner being has relaxed.

It may take time for your outer layer to relax, but the inner being has already relaxed. The cooperation has broken...now you are not identified. The body will take a little time to cool down, but deep at the center everything is cool.

Awareness is needed, not condemnation--and through awareness transformation happens spontaneously. If you become aware of your anger, understanding penetrates. Just watching, with no judgment, not saying good, not saying bad, just watching in your inner sky. There is lightning, anger, you feel hot, the whole nervous system shaking and quaking, and you feel a tremor all over the body--a beautiful moment, because when energy functions you can watch it easily; when it is not functioning you cannot watch.

Close your eyes and meditate on it. Don't fight, just look at what is happening--the whole sky filled with electricity, so much lightning, so much beauty--just lie down on the ground and look at the sky and watch. Then do the same inside. Somebody has insulted you, somebody has laughed at you, somebody has said this or that... many clouds, dark clouds in the inner sky and much lightning. Watch!

It is a beautiful scene--terrible also, because you don't understand. It is mysterious, and if mystery is not understood it becomes terrible, you are afraid of it. And whenever a mystery is understood, it becomes a grace, a gift, because now you have the keys--and with keys you are the master.

Muffinssi

http://www.osho.com/magazine/tarot/p...ightenment.jpg


Enlightenment

Why the Buddha waits at the gates of heaven

Whatsoever you do, do it with deep alertness; then even small things become sacred. Then cooking or cleaning become sacred; they become worship. It is not a question of what you are doing, the question is how you are doing it. You can clean the floor like a robot, a mechanical thing; you have to clean it, so you clean it--then you miss something beautiful. Cleaning the floor could have been a great experience--you missed it; the floor is cleaned but something that could have happened within you has not happened. If you were aware, alert, not only the floor but you yourself would have felt a deep cleansing.

Clean the floor full of awareness, luminous with awareness. Work or sit or walk, but one thing has to be a continuous thread: make more and more moments of your life luminous with awareness. Let the candle of awareness burn in each moment, in each act. The cumulative effect is what enlightenment is. The cumulative effect, all the moments together, all small candles together, become a great source of light.

The story is that when Gautam Buddha died he reached the doors of paradise. Those doors rarely open, only once in a while, in centuries--visitors don't come every day, and whenever someone comes to those doors the whole of paradise celebrates it. One more conscious-ness has attained to flowering, and existence is far richer than it has ever been before.
The doors were opened, and the other enlightened people who had entered into paradise before... because in Buddhism there is no God, but these enlightened people are godly--so there are as many gods as enlightened people. They had all gathered at the door with music, with song and with dance. They wanted to welcome Gautam Buddha but to their amazement he was standing with his back to the gate. His face was still looking toward the far shore that he had left behind.
They said, "This is strange. For whom are you waiting?"
He's reported to have said, "My heart is not so small. I'm waiting for all those I have left behind who are struggling on the way. They are my fellow travelers. You can keep the doors closed--you will have to wait a little for the celebration of my entering into paradise, because I have decided to enter this door as the last man. When everybody else has become enlightened and entered the door, when there is nobody left outside, then my time will have come to enter."
This story is a story--it cannot be an actual fact. It is not within your hands; once you have become enlightened you will have to enter into the universal source of life. It is not a question of your choice or decision. But the story is that he is still trying, even after his death. This story arose out of what he had said he was going to do on the last day before his death--that he would wait for you all.
He cannot wait here any longer, he has already waited over his time. He should have been gone by now but, seeing your misery and your suffering, he somehow kept himself together. But it has become more and more impossible. He will have to leave you--reluctantly--but he will wait for you on the other shore; he will not enter paradise, it is a promise: "So don't forget that for you, I will be standing there for centuries. But hurry, don't let me down, and don't let me wait too long."

Buffalo Bill

http://www.osho.com/magazine/tarot/p...Uniqueness.jpg

Uniqueness

Beyond superiority and inferiority


Every human being is unique. There is no question of anybody superior or anybody inferior. Yes, people are different.

Let me remind you of one thing; otherwise you will misunderstand me. I am not saying that everybody is equal. Nobody is superior, nobody is inferior, but nobody is equal either. People are simply unique, incomparable. You are you, I am I. I have to contribute my potential to life, you have to contribute your potential to life. I have to discover my own being, you have to discover your own being.


When inferiority disappears, all feeling of superiority also disappears. They live together, they cannot be separated. The man who feels superior is still feeling inferior somewhere. The man who feels inferior wants to feel superior somewhere. They come in a pair; they are always there together; they cannot be separated.

It happened... A very proud man, a warrior, a samurai, came to see a Zen master. The samurai was very famous, well known all over the country, But looking at the master, looking at the beauty of the master and the grace of the moment, he suddenly felt inferior. Maybe he had come with an unconscious desire to prove his superiority. He said to the master "Why am I feeling inferior? Just a moment ago, everything was okay. As I entered into your court suddenly I felt inferior. I have never felt like that. My hands are shaking. I am a warrior, I have faced death many times, and I have never felt any fear--why am I feeling frightened?"

The master said, "You wait. When everybody has gone, I will answer." People continued coming to visit the master, and the man was getting tired, more and more tired. By the evening the room was empty, there was nobody, and the samurai said, "Now, can you answer it?" And the master said, "Now, come outside."

A full moon night--the moon was just rising on the horizon... And he said, "Look at these trees, this tree high in the sky and this small tree. They both have existed by the side of my window for years, and there has never been any problem. The smaller tree has never said, 'Why do I feel inferior before you?' to the big tree. How is it possible? This tree is small, and that tree is big, and I have never heard any whisper."

The samurai said, "Because they can't compare."

The master said, "Then you need not ask me; you know the answer."

Comparison brings inferiority, superiority. When you don't compare, all inferiority, all superiority, disappear. Then you are, you are simply there. A small bush or a big high tree--it doesn't matter; you are yourself. You are needed. A grass leaf is needed as much as the biggest star. Without the grass leaf God will be less than he is. The sound of the cuckoo is needed as much as any Buddha; the world will be less, will be less rich if the cuckoo disappears.

Just look around. All is needed, and everything fits together. It is an organic unity: nobody is higher and nobody is lower, nobody superior, nobody inferior. Everybody is incomparably unique.

"u"

http://www.osho.com/magazine/tarot/p...sf010Worth.jpg

Worth


On the virtues of uselessness


Don't be bothered too much about utilitarian ends. Rather, constantly remember that you are not here in life to become a commodity. You are not here to become a utility--that is below dignity. You are not here just to become more and more efficient--you are here to become more and more alive; you are here to become more and more intelligent; you are here to become more and more happy, ecstatically happy.


Lao Tzu was traveling with his disciples and they came to a forest where hundreds of carpenters were cutting trees, because a great palace was being built.

Almost the whole forest had been cut, but one tree was standing there, a big tree with thousands of branches--so big that ten thousand persons could sit under its shade. Lao Tzu asked his disciples to go and inquire why this tree had not been cut yet, when the whole forest had been cut and was deserted.

The disciples went and they asked the carpenters, "Why have you not cut this tree?"

The carpenters said, "This tree is absolutely useless. You cannot make anything out of it because every branch has so many knots in it. Nothing is straight. You cannot make pillars out of it, you cannot make furniture out of it. You cannot use it as fuel because the smoke is so dangerous to the eyes--you almost go blind. This tree is absolutely useless. That's why."

They came back. Lao Tzu laughed and he said, "Be like this tree. If you want to survive in this world be like this tree--absolutely useless. Then nobody will harm you. If you are straight you will be cut, you will become furniture in somebody's house. If you are beautiful you will be sold in the market, you will become a commodity. Be like this tree, absolutely useless. Then nobody can harm you. And you will grow big and vast, and thousands of people can find shade under you."

Lao Tzu has a logic altogether different from your mind. He says: Be the last. Move in the world as if you are not. Remain unknown. Don't try to be the first, don't be competitive, don't try to prove your worth. There is no need. Remain useless and enjoy.

Of course he is impractical. But if you understand him you will find that he is the most practical on a deeper layer, in the depth--because life is to enjoy and celebrate, life is not to become a utility. Life is more like poetry than like a commodity in the market; it should be like poetry, a song, a dance.

Lao Tzu says: If you try to be very clever, if you try to be very useful, you will be used. If you try to be very practical, somewhere or other you will be harnessed, because the world cannot leave the practical man alone. Lao Tzu says: Drop all these ideas. If you want to be a poem, an ecstasy, then forget about utility. Remain true to yourself.

"u"

Käännös vielä tohon äskeiseen.

Arvot

Turhuuden arvostuksen takia

Älä vaivaudu liikaa ulitaristisesta lopusta./tarkoituksesta. Muista ennemmin jatkuvasti että et ole täällä elämässä tullaksesi kulutustavaraksi/hyödykkeeksi. Et ole täällä tullaksesi työkaluksi, se on alapuolella arvoasemasi/arvokkuutesi. Et ole täällä tullaksesi aina vain tehokkaammaksi --olet täällä tullaksesi enemmän ja enemmän eläväksi; olet täällä tullaksesi älykkäämmäksi ja älykkäämmäksi; olet täällä tullaksesi enemmän ja enemmän onnelliseksi, hurmioituneen onnelliseksi.

Lao Tzu matkusti opetuslastensa kanssa ja he tulivat metsään jos sadat puunkaatajat kaatoivat puita palatsin rakentamista varten.
Koko metsä oli jo kaadettu mutta yksi puu oli vielä jäljellä, suuri puu tuhansine oksineen--niin iso että kymmenet tuhannet ihmiset kykenivät istumaan sen varjossa. Lao Tzu pyysi opetuslapsiaan tiedustelemaan miksi tätä puuta ei ollut vielä kaadettu, kun koko muu metsä oli kaadettu autioksi.

Opetuslapset kysyivät puunkaatajilta miksi nämä eivät olleet kaataneet tätä puuta. Puunkaatajat sanoivat, "Tämä puu on käyttökelvoton koska joka oksassa on niin paljon kyhmyjä. Mikään niistä ei ole suora. Siitä ei voi tehdä pilareita eikä huonekaluja. Sitä ei voi käyttää polttoaineena koska sen savu on liian sakeaa silmille ---siitä tulee vain sokeaksi. Tämä puu on täysin hyödytön, siksi.

Opetuslapset tulivat takaisin. Lao Tzu nauroi ja sanoi, "olkaa kuin tuo puu. Jos haluatte selvitä tästä elämästä niin olkaa kuin tuo puu---täysin hyödytön. Silloin kukaan ei tee sinulle harmia. Jos olet suora sinut kaadetaan, sinusta tulee huonekalu jonkun kotiin. Jos olet kaunis sinut myydään torilla, sinusta tulee raaka-aine. Tule sellaiseksi kuin tämä puu, täysin hyödyttömäksi. Silloin kukaan ei aiheuta sinulle harmia. Ja sinä tulet kasvamaan isoksi ja laajaksi ja tuhannet ihmiset löytävät altasi varjon. "

Lao Tzu lla on täysin erilainen logiikka sinun mielesi kanssa. Hän sanoo: Ole viimeinen. Kulje maailmassa kuin et olisi. Pysy tuntemattomana. Älä yritä olla ensimmäinen, älä ole kilpailuhenkinen, älä yritä todistaa arvoasi. Siihen ei ole tarvetta. Pysy hyödyttömänä ja nauti.

Tottakai hän on epätarkoituksenmukainen/epäkäytännöllinen. Mutta jos ymmärrät häntä huomaat että hän on kaikkein tarkoituksenmukaisin sen syvällisemmässä mielessä, syvällisimmässä---sillä elämä on iloa ja juhlaa, elämä ei ole hyödylliseksi tulemista varten. Elämä on enemmän runoutta kuin tulla myydyksi raaka-aineena torilla; sen pitäisi olla kuin runoutta, laulua, tanssia.

lao Tzu sanoo: Jos yrität olla hyvin älykäs, jos yrität olla hyvin hyödyllinen, tulet käytetyksi. Jos yrität olla hyvin käytännöllinen, tulet aina jossain valjastetuksi koska maailma ei voi jättää käytännöllistä ihmistä rauhaan. Lao Tzu sanoo, jätä kaikki tuollaiset ajatukset. Jos haluat tulla runoksi, haltioituneeksi, silloin unohda hyödyllisyys, Muista totuus itsestäsi


Wikipedia:
Utilitarismi on seurausetiikan muoto, jonka perusperiaatteen mukaan teon moraalinen hyve määräytyy sen meissä ja ympäröivissä ihmisissä tuottaman hyödyn perusteella. Filosofi John Stuart Mill määrittelee utilitarismin opiksi, joka olettaa "moraalin perustaksi hyödyn tai suurimman onnellisuuden periaatteen".[1] Tästä seuraa, että utilitarismin mukaan teot ovat oikein silloin kun ne edistävät onnellisuutta ja väärin silloin kuin niillä on taipumus tuottaa onnettomuutta.[2] Utilitarismissa moraalisesti hyvän toiminnan mittapuuna toimiva onnellisuus ei siis ole toimijan omaa onnellisuutta, vaan kaikkien niiden onnellisuutta, joita toiminta koskee

Ukko-Pekka uu uu

http://www.osho.com/magazine/tarot/p...77Ripeness.jpg

Ripeness

Only if your meditation has brought you a light that shines in every night will even death not be a death to you but a door to the divine. With the light in your heart, death itself is transformed into a door, and you enter into the universal spirit; you become one with the ocean. And unless you know the oceanic experience, you have lived in vain. Now is always the time, and the fruit is always ripe. You just need to gather courage to enter into your inner forest. The fruit is always ripe and the time is always the right time. There is no such thing as wrong time.

Commentary:
When the fruit is ripe, it drops from the tree by itself. One moment it hangs by a thread from the branches of the tree, bursting with juice. The next moment it falls--not because it has been forced to fall, or has made the effort to jump, but because the tree has recognized its ripeness and simply let it go. When this card appears in a reading it indicates that you are ready to share your inner riches, your 'juice'. All you need to do is relax right where you are, and be willing for it to happen. This sharing of yourself, this expression of your creativity, can come in many ways--in your work, your relationships, your everyday life experiences. No special preparation or effort on your part is required. It is simply the right time.


http://www.osho.com/magazine/tarot/p...9TheSource.jpg

The Source

Zen asks you to come out of the head and go to the basic source.... It is not that Zen is not aware of the uses of energy in the head, but if all the energy is used in the head, you will never become aware of your eternity.... You will never know as an experience what it is to be one with the whole. When the energy is just at the center, pulsating, when it is not moving anywhere, neither in the head nor in the heart, but it is 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.

Commentary:
When we speak of being "grounded" or "centered" it is this Source we are talking about. When we begin a creative project, it is this Source that we tune in to. This card reminds us that there is a vast reservoir of energy available to us. And that we tap into it not by thinking and planning but by getting grounded, centered, and silent enough to be in contact with the Source. It is within each of us, like a personal, individual sun giving us life and nourishment. Pure energy, pulsating, available, it is ready to give us anything we need to accomplish something, and ready to welcome us back home when we want to rest. So whether you are beginning something new and need inspiration right now, or you've just finished something and want to rest, go to the Source. It's always waiting for you, and you don't even have to step out of your house to find it.


http://www.osho.com/magazine/tarot/p...001TheFool.jpg

The Fool

A fool is one who goes on trusting; a fool is one who goes on trusting against all his experience. You deceive him, and he trusts you; and you deceive him again, and he trusts you; and you deceive him again, and he trusts you. Then you will say that he is a fool, he does not learn. His trust is tremendous; his trust is so pure that nobody can corrupt it.

Be a fool in the Taoist sense, in the Zen sense. Don´t try to create a wall of knowledge around you. Whatsoever experience comes to you, let it happen, and then go on dropping it. Go on cleaning your mind continuously; go on dying to the past so you remain in the present, herenow, as if just born, just a babe.

In the beginning it is going to be very difficult. The world will start taking advantage of you...let them. They are poor fellows. Even if you are cheated and deceived and robbed, let it happen, because that which is really yours cannot be robbed from you, that which is really yours nobody can steal from you.

And each time you don´t allow situations to corrupt you, that opportunity will become an integration inside. Your soul will become more crystallized.


Commentary:
Moment to moment, and with every step, the Fool leaves the past behind. He carries nothing more than his purity, innocence and trust, symbolized by the white rose in his hand. The pattern on his waistcoat contains the colors of all four elements of the tarot, indicating that he is in harmony with all that surrounds him. His intuition is functioning at its peak. At this moment the Fool has the support of the universe to make this jump into the unknown. Adventures await him in the river of life.

The card indicates that if you trust your intuition right now, your feeling of the 'rightness' of things, you cannot go wrong. Your actions may appear 'foolish' to others, or even to yourself, if you try to analyze them with the rational mind. But the 'zero' place occupied by the Fool is the numberless number where trust and innocence are the guides, not skepticism and past experience.

Osho Zen Tarot

Kastemalja

Control

Controlled persons are always nervous because deep down turmoil is still hidden. If you are uncontrolled, flowing, alive, then you are not nervous. There is no question of being nervous - whatsoever happens, happens. You have no expectations for the future, you are not performing. Then why should you be nervous?

To control that mind, one has to remain so cold and frozen that no life energy is allowed to move into your limbs, into your body. If energy is allowed to move, those repressions will surface. That's why people have learned how to be cold, how to touch others and yet not touch them, how to see people and yet not see them. People live with clichés - "Hallo. How are you?" Nobody means anything. These are just to avoid the real encounter of two persons. People don't look into each other's eyes, they don't hold hands, they don't try to feel each other's energy, they don't allow each other to pour - very afraid, somehow just managing, cold and dead, in a straitjacket.

Osho Dang Dang Doko Dang Chapter 5



Commentary:

There is a time and a place for control, but if we put it in charge of our lives we end up totally rigid. The figure is encased in the angles of pyramid shapes that surround him. Light glitters and glints off his shiny surfaces, but does not penetrate. It's as if he is almost mummified inside this structure he's built up around himself. His fists are clenched and his stare is blank, almost blind. The lower part of his body beneath the table is a knife point, a cutting edge that divides and separates. His world is ordered and perfect, but it is not alive - he cannot allow any spontaneity or vulnerability to enter it.

The image of the King of Clouds reminds us to take a deep breath, loosen our neckties and take it easy. If mistakes happen, it's okay. If things get a little out of hand, it's probably just what the doctor ordered. There is much, much more to life than being "on top of things."

Kastemalja

Osho Zen Tarot




http://www.osho.com/magazine/tarot/p...Conscience.jpg

Conscience

Mary Magdalene and the priceless perfume


Society goes on telling you, "This is right, and that is wrong"--that is conscience. It becomes ingrained, implanted in you. You go on repeating it. That is worthless; that is not the real thing. The real thing is your own consciousness. It carries no ready-made answers about what is wrong and what is right, no. But immediately, in what-ever situation arises, it gives you light --you know immediately what to do.


Jesus went to visit the home of Mary Magdalene. Mary was deeply in love. She poured very precious perfume on his feet--the whole bottle. It was rare perfume; it could have been sold. Judas immediately objected. He said, "You should prohibit people from doing such nonsense. The whole thing is wasted, and there are people who are poor and who don't have anything to eat. We could have distributed the money to poor people."

What did Jesus say? He said, "You don't be worried about it. The poor and the hungry will always be here, but I will be gone. You can serve them always and always--there is no hurry--but I will be gone. Look at the love, not at the precious perfume. Look at Mary's love, her heart."

With whom will you agree? Jesus seems to be very bourgeois and Judas seems to be perfectly economical. Judas is talking about the poor, and Jesus simply says, "I will be gone soon, so let her heart do whatsoever she wants and don't bring your philosophy in."

Ordinarily your mind will agree with Judas. He was a very cultured man--sophisticated, a thinker. And he betrayed--he sold Jesus for thirty silver pieces. But when Jesus was crucified, he started feeling guilty. That's how a good man functions--he started feeling very guilty, his conscience started pricking him. He committed suicide.

He was a good man, he had a conscience. But he had no consciousness. This distinction has to be felt deeply. Conscience is borrowed, given by the society; consciousness is your attainment. The society teaches you what is right and what is wrong: do this and don't do that. It gives you the morality, the code, the rules of the game--that is your conscience. Outside, the constable; inside, the conscience --that is how the society controls you.

Judas had a conscience, but Jesus had consciousness. Jesus was more concerned with the love of the woman, Mary Magdalene. It was such a deep thing that to prevent her would be wounding her love; she would shrink within herself. Pouring the perfume on Jesus' feet was just a gesture. Behind it, she was saying. "This is all that I have--the most precious thing I have. To pour water won't be enough; it is too cheap. I would like to pour my heart, I would like to pour my whole being...."

But Judas was a man of conscience: he looked at the perfume and he said, "It is costly." He was completely blind to the woman and her heart. The material is the perfume, the immaterial is the love. But the immaterial Judas could not see. For that, you need eyes of consciousness.

Pirjo

http://www.osho.com/magazine/tarot/p...001TheFool.jpg

The Fool

A fool is one who goes on trusting; a fool is one who goes on trusting against all his experience. You deceive him, and he trusts you; and you deceive him again, and he trusts you; and you deceive him again, and he trusts you. Then you will say that he is a fool, he does not learn. His trust is tremendous; his trust is so pure that nobody can corrupt it.

Be a fool in the Taoist sense, in the Zen sense. Don´t try to create a wall of knowledge around you. Whatsoever experience comes to you, let it happen, and then go on dropping it. Go on cleaning your mind continuously; go on dying to the past so you remain in the present, herenow, as if just born, just a babe.

In the beginning it is going to be very difficult. The world will start taking advantage of you...let them. They are poor fellows. Even if you are cheated and deceived and robbed, let it happen, because that which is really yours cannot be robbed from you, that which is really yours nobody can steal from you.

And each time you don´t allow situations to corrupt you, that opportunity will become an integration inside. Your soul will become more crystallized.

Commentary:
Moment to moment, and with every step, the Fool leaves the past behind. He carries nothing more than his purity, innocence and trust, symbolized by the white rose in his hand. The pattern on his waistcoat contains the colors of all four elements of the tarot, indicating that he is in harmony with all that surrounds him. His intuition is functioning at its peak. At this moment the Fool has the support of the universe to make this jump into the unknown. Adventures await him in the river of life.

The card indicates that if you trust your intuition right now, your feeling of the 'rightness' of things, you cannot go wrong. Your actions may appear 'foolish' to others, or even to yourself, if you try to analyze them with the rational mind. But the 'zero' place occupied by the Fool is the numberless number where trust and innocence are the guides, not skepticism and past experience.

Pirjo

13. Dropping Knowledge

Naropa's haunting vision


Truth is your own experience, your own vision. Even if I have seen the truth and I tell you, the moment I tell you it will become a lie for you, not a truth. For me it was truth, for me it came through the eyes. It was my vision. For you, it will not be your vision, it will be a borrowed thing. It will be a belief, it will be knowledge--not knowing. And if you start believing in it, you will be believing a lie.

Now remember it. Even a truth becomes a lie if it enters your being through the wrong door. The truth has to enter through the front door, through the eyes. Truth is a vision. One has to see it.


Naropa was a great scholar, a great pundit, with ten thousand disciples of his own. One day he was sitting surrounded by thousands of scriptures--ancient, very ancient, rare. Suddenly he fell asleep, must have been tired, and he saw a vision.

He saw a very, very old, ugly, horrible woman--a hag. Her ugliness was such that he started trembling in his sleep. It was so nauseating he wanted to escape--but where to escape, where to go?

He was caught, as if hypnotized by the old hag. Her eyes were like magnets.

"What are you studying?" asked the old woman.

He said, "Philosophy, religion, epistemology, language, grammar, logic."

The old woman asked again, "Do you understand them?"

Naropa said, "Of course... Yes, I understand them."

The woman asked again, "Do you understand the word, or the sense?"

Thousands of questions had been asked to Naropa in his life--thousands of students always asking, inquiring--but nobody had asked this: whether he understands the word, or the sense. And the woman's eyes were so penetrating--those eyes were going to the very depth of his being, and it was impossible to lie. To anybody else he would have said, "Of course I under-stand the sense," but to this woman, this horrible-looking woman, he had to say the truth. He said, "I understand the words."

The woman was very happy. She started dancing and laughing, and her ugliness was transformed; a subtle beauty started coming out of her being. Thinking, "I have made her so happy. Why not make her a little more happy?" Naropa then said, "And yes, I understand the sense also."

The woman stopped laughing, stopped dancing. She started crying and weeping and all her ugliness was back--a thousandfold more. Naropa said, "Why are you weeping and crying? And why were you laughing and dancing before?"

The woman said, "I was happy because a great scholar like you didn't lie. But now I am crying and weeping because you have lied to me. I know--and you know--that you don't understand the sense."

The vision disappeared and Naropa was transformed. He escaped from the university, he never again touched a scripture in his life. He became completely ignorant, he understood--the woman was nobody outside, it was just a projection. It was Naropa's own being, through knowledge, that had became ugly. Just this much understanding, that "I don't understand the sense," and the ugliness was transformed immediately into a beautiful phenomenon.

This vision of Naropa is very significant. Unless you feel that knowledge is useless you will never be in search of wisdom. You will carry the false coin thinking that this is the real treasure. You have to become aware that knowledge is a false coin--it is not knowing, it is not understanding. At the most it is intellectual--the word has been understood but the sense lost.

Pirjo

The Foolish Heart


http://www.osho.com/magazine/tarot/p...olishHeart.jpg

The crazy wisdom of Francis of Assisi


The heart has its own reasons, which the mind cannot understand. The heart has its own dimension of being, which is completely dark for the mind. The heart is higher and deeper than the mind, beyond the reach of it. It looks foolish. Love always looks foolish because love is not utilitarian. Mind is utilitarian. It uses everything for something else-- that is the meaning of being utilitarian. Mind is purposive, end-oriented; it turns everything into a means--and love cannot be turned into a means, that is the problem. Love in itself is the goal.


Fools always have a subtle wisdom in them, and the wise always act like fools. In the old days all great emperors always had one fool in their court. They had many wise men, counselors, ministers and prime ministers, but always one fool.

Why?--because there are things so-called wise men will not be able to understand, that only a foolish man can understand--because the so-called wise are so foolish that their cunningness and cleverness closes their minds. A fool is simple, and was needed because many times the so-called wise would not say something because they were afraid of the emperor. A fool is not afraid of anybody else, he will speak whatsoever the consequences.

This is how fools act--simply, without thinking what the result will be. A clever man always thinks first of the result, then he acts. Thought comes first, then action. A foolish man acts; thought never comes first.

Whenever someone realizes the ultimate, he is not like your wise men. He cannot be. He may be like your fools, but he cannot be like your wise men.

When Saint Francis became enlightened he used to call himself "God's fool." The pope was a wise man, and when Saint Francis went to see him even the pope thought this man had gone mad. He was intelligent, calculating, clever; otherwise how could he be a pope? To become a pope one has to pass through much politics. To become a pope diplomacy is needed, a competitive aggression is needed to put others aside, to use others as ladders and then throw them.

It is politics... because a pope is a political head. Religion is secondary, or nothing at all. How can a religious man fight and be aggressive for a post? They are only politicians.

Saint Francis came to see the pope, and the pope thought this man was a fool. But trees and birds and fishes thought in a different way. When Saint Francis went to the river the fishes would jump in celebration that Francis had come. Thousands witnessed this phenomenon--millions of fishes would jump simultaneously; the whole river would be lost in jumping fishes. Saint Francis had come and the fishes were happy. And wherever he would go birds would follow; they would come and sit on his leg, on his body, in his lap. They understood this fool better than the pope. Even trees that had become dry and were going to die would become green and blossom again if Saint Francis came near. These trees understood well that this fool was no ordinary fool--he was God's fool.

mitä

http://www.osho.com/magazine/tarot/p...028Healing.jpg


Healing

You carry your wound. With the ego, your whole being is a wound. And you carry it around. Nobody is interested in hurting you, nobody is positively waiting to hurt you; everybody is engaged in safeguarding his own wound. Who has got the energy? But still it happens, because you are so ready to be wounded, so ready, just waiting on the brink for anything.

You cannot touch a man of Tao. Why? - because there is no one to be touched. There is no wound. He is healthy, healed, whole. This word whole is beautiful. The word heal comes from the whole, and the word holy also comes from the whole. He is whole, healed, holy.

Be aware of your wound. Don't help it to grow, let it be healed; and it will be healed only when you move to the roots. The less the head, the more the wound will heal; with no head there is no wound. Live a headless life. Move as a total being, and accept things.

Just for twenty-four hours, try it - total acceptance, whatsoever happens. Someone insults you, accept it; don't react, and see what happens. Suddenly you will feel an energy flowing in you that you have not felt before.

Osho The Empty Boat Chapter 10

Commentary:
It is a time when the deeply buried wounds of the past are coming to the surface, ready and available to be healed.

The figure in this card is naked, vulnerable, open to the loving touch of existence. The aura around his body is full of light, and the quality of relaxation, caring and love that surrounds him is dissolving his struggle and suffering. Lotuses of light appear on his physical body, and around the subtle energy bodies that healers say surround each of us. In each of these subtle layers appears a healing crystal or pattern.

When we are under the healing influence of the King of Water we are no longer hiding from ourselves or others. In this attitude of openness and acceptance we can be healed, and help others also to be healthy and whole.

Osho Zen Tarot

Tämän

Breakthrough

To transform breakdowns into breakthroughs is the whole function of a master. The psychotherapist simply patches you up. That is his function. He is not there to transform you. You need a meta-psychology, the psychology of the buddhas.

It is the greatest adventure in life to go through a breakdown consciously. It is the greatest risk because there is no guarantee that the breakdown will become a breakthrough. It does become, but these things cannot be guaranteed. Your chaos is very ancient - for many, many lives you have been in chaos. It is thick and dense. It is almost a universe in itself. So when you enter into it with your small capacity, of course there is danger. But without facing this danger nobody has ever become integrated, nobody has ever become an individual, indivisible.

Zen, or meditation, is the method which will help you to go through the chaos, through the dark night of the soul, balanced, disciplined, alert. The dawn is not far away, but before you can reach the dawn, the dark night has to be passed through. And as the dawn comes closer, the night will become darker.

Commentary:
The predominance of red in this card indicates at a glance that its subject is energy, power and strength. The brilliant glow emanates from the solar plexus, or center of power on the figure, and the posture is one of exuberance and determination.

All of us occasionally reach a point when "enough is enough." At such times it seems we must do something, anything, even if it later turns out to be a mistake, to throw off the burdens and restrictions that are limiting us. If we don't, they threaten to suffocate and cripple our very life energy itself.

If you are now feeling that "enough is enough," allow yourself to take the risk of shattering the old patterns and limitations that have kept your energy from flowing. In doing so you will be amazed at the vitality and empowerment this Breakthrough can bring to your life.

menneisyyden taakka

Clinging to the Past
sininen 5

These tenses--past, present and future--are not the tenses of time; they are tenses of the mind. That which is no longer before the mind becomes the past. That which is before the mind is the present. And that which is going to be before the mind is the future. Past is that which is no longer before you. Future is that which is not yet before you. And present is that which is before you and is slipping out of your sight. Soon it will be past.... If you don't cling to the past...because clinging to the past is absolute stupidity. It is no longer there, so you are crying for spilled milk. What is gone is gone! And don't cling to the present because that is also going and soon it will be past. Don't cling to the future--hopes, imaginations, plans for tomorrow--because tomorrow will become today, will become yesterday. Everything is going to become yesterday. Everything is going to go out of your hands. Clinging will simply create misery. You will have to let go.

Osho The Great Zen Master Ta Hui Chapter 10

Commentary:
The figure pictured in this card is so preoccupied with clutching her box of memories that she has turned her back on the sparkling champagne glass of blessings available here and now. Her nostalgia for the past really makes her a 'blockhead', and a beggar besides, as we can see from her patched and ragged clothes. She needn't be a beggar, of course--but she is not available to taste the pleasures that offer themselves in the present. It's time to face up to the fact that the past is gone, and any effort to repeat it is a sure way to stay stuck in old blueprints that you would have already outgrown if you hadn't been so busy clinging to what you have already been through. Take a deep breath, put the box down, tie it up in a pretty ribbon if you must, and bid it a fond and reverent farewell. Life is passing you by, and you're in danger of becoming an old fossil before your time!

läsnäolo

Totality
punainen 5

Every moment there is a possibility to be total. Whatsoever you are doing, be absorbed in it so utterly that the mind thinks nothing, is just there, is just a presence. And more and more totality will be coming. And the taste of totality will make you more and more capable of being total. And try to see when you are not total. Those are the moments which have to be dropped slowly, slowly. When you are not total, whenever you are in the head--thinking, brooding, calculating, cunning, clever--you are not total. Slowly, slowly slip out of those moments. It is just an old habit. Habits die hard. But they die certainly--if one persists, they die.

Osho Take it Easy, Volume 1 Chapter 12

Commentary:
These three women are high in the air, playful and free, yet alert and interdependent. In a trapeze act, nobody can afford to be a little bit "absent" even for a split second. And it is this quality of total attentiveness to the moment at hand that is represented here.

We may feel there are too many things to do at once, but get bogged down in trying to do a bit here, a bit there, instead of taking one task at a time and getting on with it. Or perhaps we think our task is "boring" because we've forgotten that it's not what you do but how you do it that matters.

Developing the knack of being total in responding to whatever comes, as it comes, is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. Taking one step through life at a time, giving each step your complete attention and energy, can bring a wondrous new vitality and creativity to all that you do.

Tyhjä mieli

No-Mind

The ultimate and the inexpressible

The state of no-mind is the state of the divine. God is not a thought but the experience of thoughtlessness. It is not a content in the mind; it is the explosion when the mind is content-less. It is not an object that you can see; it is the very capacity to see. It is not the seen but the seer. It is not like the clouds that gather in the sky, but the sky when there are no clouds. It is that empty sky.


When the consciousness is not going out to any object, when there is nothing to see, nothing to think, just emptiness all around, then one falls upon oneself. There is nowhere to go--one relaxes into one's source, and that source is God.

Your inner being is nothing but the inner sky. The sky is empty, but it is the empty sky that holds all, the whole existence, the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, the planets. It is the empty sky that gives space to all that is. It is the empty sky that is the background of all that exists. Things come and go and the sky remains the same.

In exactly the same way, you have an inner sky; it is also empty. Clouds come and go, planets are born and disappear, stars arise and die, and the inner sky remains the same, untouched, untarnished, unscarred. We call that inner sky sakshin, the witness--and that is the whole goal of meditation.

Go in, enjoy the inner sky. Remember, whatsoever you can see, you are not it. You can see thoughts, then you are not thoughts; you can see your feelings, then you are not your feelings; you can see your dreams, desires, memories, imaginations, projections, then you are not them. Go on eliminating all that you can see. Then one day the tremendous moment arrives, the most significant moment of one's life, when there is nothing left to be rejected. All the seen has disappeared and only the seer is there. That seer is the empty sky.

To know it is to be fearless, and to know it is to be full of love. To know it is to be God, is to be immortal.

Menneet elämät

http://www.osho.com/magazine/tarot/p...9PastLives.jpg

Past Lives

The child can become conscious only if in his past life he has meditated enough, has created enough meditative energy to fight with the darkness that death brings. One simply is lost in an oblivion and then suddenly finds a new womb and forgets completely about the old body. There is a discontinuity. This darkness, this unconsciousness creates the discontinuity.

The East has been working hard to penetrate these barriers. And ten thousand years' work has not been in vain. Everybody can penetrate to the past life, or many past lives. But for that you have to go deeper into your meditation, for two reasons: unless you go deeper, you cannot find the door to another life; secondly, you have to be deeper in meditation because if you find the door of another life, a flood of events will come into the mind. It is hard enough even to carry one life....

Osho Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen Chapter 7



Commentary:

The hands of existence form the shape of the female genitals, the opening of the cosmic mother. Revealed within are many images, faces from other times.

While it might be entertaining to fantasize about famous past lives, it is just a distraction. The real point is to see and understand the karmic patterns of our lives, and their roots in an endless repetitive cycle that traps us in unconscious behavior.

The two rainbow lizards on either side represent knowing and not-knowing. They are the guardians of the unconscious, making sure that we are prepared for a vision that might otherwise be shattering.

A glimpse into the eternity of our existence is a gift, and understanding the function of karma in our lives is not something that can be grasped at will. This is a wake-up call; the events in your life are trying to show you a pattern as ancient as the journey of your own soul.

Tämä ja nuo 3 edellistä on täältä
Meditation, the Science of the Inner: The Osho Experience
Area=Magazine&Sub1Menu=Tarot&Sub2Menu=OshoZenTarot &Language=English

kaksijakoisuus

Schizophrenia

Man is split. Schizophrenia is a normal condition of man--at least now. It may not have been so in the primitive world, but centuries of conditioning, civilization, culture and religion have made man a crowd--divided, split, contradictory.... But because this split is against his nature, deep down somewhere hidden the unity still survives. Because the soul of man is one, all the conditionings at the most destroy the periphery of the man. But the center remains untouched--that's how man continues to live. But his life has become a hell. The whole effort of Zen is how to drop this schizophrenia, how to drop this split personality, how to drop the divided mind of man, how to become undivided, integrated, centered, crystallized. The way you are, you cannot say that you are. You don't have a being. You are a marketplace--many voices. If you want to say 'yes', immediately the 'no' is there. You cannot even utter a simple word 'yes' with totality.... In this way happiness is not possible; unhappiness is a natural consequence of a split personality.

Osho Dang Dang Doko Dang Chapter 3

Commentary:
The person on this card brings a new twist to the old idea of "getting stuck between a rock and a hard place"! But we are in precisely this sort of situation when we get stuck in the indecisive and dualistic aspect of the mind. Should I let my arms go and fall head-first, or let my legs go and fall feet-first? Should I go here or there? Should I say yes or no? And whatever decision we make, we will always wonder if we should have decided the other way. The only way out of this dilemma is, unfortunately, to let go of both at once. You can't work your way out of this one by solving it, making lists of pros and cons, or in any way working it out with your mind. Better to follow your heart, if you can find it. If you can't find it, just jump--your heart will start beating so fast there will be no mistake about where it is!


Osho Zen Tarot

Harhakuvat

The Dream

This has been said again and again, down through the ages. All the religious people have been saying this: "We come alone into this world, we go alone." All togetherness is illusory. The very idea of togetherness arises because we are alone, and the aloneness hurts. We want to drown our aloneness in relationship.... That's why we become so much involved in love. Try to see the point. Ordinarily you think you have fallen in love with a woman or with a man because she is beautiful, he is beautiful. That is not the truth. The truth is just the opposite: you have fallen in love because you cannot be alone. You were going to fall. You were going to avoid yourself somehow or other. And there are people who don't fall in love with women or men--then they fall in love with money. They start moving into money or into a power trip, they become politicians. That too is avoiding your aloneness. If you watch man, if you watch yourself deeply, you will be surprised--all your activities can be reduced to one single source. The source is that you are afraid of your aloneness. Everything else is just an excuse. The real cause is that you find yourself very alone.

Osho Take it Easy, Volume 2 Chapter 1



Commentary:

Some enchanted evening you're going to meet your soulmate, the perfect person who will meet all your needs and fulfill all your dreams. Right? Wrong! This fantasy that songwriters and poets are so fond of perpetuating has its roots in memories of the womb, where we were so secure and "at one" with our mothers; it's no wonder we have hankered to return to that place all our lives. But, to put it quite brutally, it is a childish dream. And it's amazing we hang on to it so stubbornly in the face of reality. Nobody, whether it's your current mate or some dreamed-of partner in the future, has any obligation to deliver your happiness on a platter--nor could they even if they wanted to. Real love comes not from trying to solve our neediness by depending on another, but by developing our own inner richness and maturity. Then we have so much love to give that we naturally draw lovers towards us.

Osho Zen Tarot

Mittumaarì***

http://www.osho.com/magazine/tarot/p...telligence.jpg

Intelligence

Rabia and the riddle of the lost needle


We are born to be blissful, it is our birthright. But people are so foolish, they don't even claim their birthright. They become more interested in what others possess and they start running after those things. They never look within, they never search in their own house.

The intelligent person will begin his search from his inner being--that will be his first exploration--because unless I know what is within me how can I go on searching all over the world?--it is such a vast world. And those who have looked within have found it instantly, immediately. It is not a question of gradual progress, it is a sudden phenomenon, a sudden enlightenment.


I have heard about a very great Sufi mystic woman, Rabia al-Adawia. One evening, people found her sitting on the road searching for something. She was an old woman, her eyes were weak, and it was difficult for her to see. So the neighbors came to help her. They asked, "What are you searching for?"

Rabia said, "That question is irrelevant, I am searching. If you can help me, help."

They laughed and said, "Rabia, have you gone mad? You say our question is irrelevant, but if we don't know what you are searching for, how can we help?"

Rabia said, "Okay. Just to satisfy you, I am searching for my needle, I have lost my needle." They started helping her--but immediately they became aware of the fact that the road was very big and a needle was a very tiny thing. So they asked Rabia, "Please tell us where you lost it--the exact, precise place. Otherwise it is difficult. The road is big and we can go on searching and searching forever. Where did you lose it?"

Rabia said, "Again you ask an irrelevant question. How is it concerned with my search?"

They stopped. They said, "You have certainly gone crazy!"

Rabia said, "Okay. Just to satisfy you, I have lost it in my house."

They asked, "Then why are you searching here?" And Rabia is reported to have said, "Because here there is light and there is no light inside." The sun was setting and there was a little light still left on the road.

This parable is very significant. Have you ever asked yourself what you are searching for? Have you ever made it a point of deep meditation to know what you are searching for? No. Even if in some vague moments, dreaming moments, you have some inkling of what you are searching for, it is never precise, it is never exact. You have not yet defined it.

If you try to define it, the more it becomes defined the more you will feel that there is no need to search for it. The search can continue only in a state of vagueness, in a state of dreaming; when things are not clear you simply go on searching. Pulled by some inner urge, pushed by some inner urgency, one thing you do know: you need to search. This is an inner need. But you don't know what you are seeking. And unless you know what you are seeking, how can you find it?

It is vague--you think it is in money, power, prestige, respectability. But then you see people who are respectable, people who are powerful--they are also seeking. Then you see people who are tremendously rich--they are also seeking. To the very end of their life they are seeking. So richness is not going to help, power is not going to help. The search continues in spite of what you have.

The search must be for something else. These names, these labels--money, power, prestige--these are just to satisfy your mind. They are just to help you feel that you are searching for something. That something is still undefined, a very vague feeling. The first thing for the real seeker, for the seeker who has become a little alert, aware, is to define the search; to formulate a clear-cut concept of it, what it is; to bring it out of the dreaming consciousness; to look into it directly; to face it.

Immediately a transformation starts happening. If you start defining your search, you will start losing your interest in the search. The more defined it becomes, the less it is there. Once it is clearly known what it is, suddenly it disappears. It exists only when you are not attentive.

Let it be repeated: the search exists only when you are sleepy; the search exists only when you are not aware. The unawareness creates the search.

Yes, Rabia is right. Inside there is no light. And because there is no light and no consciousness inside, of course you go on searching outside--because outside it seems more clear. Our senses are all extroverted. The eyes open outwards, the hands move, spread outwards, the legs move into the outside, the ears listen to the outside noises, sounds. Whatsoever is available to you is all opening towards the outside; all the five senses move in an extrovert way.

You start searching there where you see, feel, touch--the light of the senses falls outside. And the seeker is inside. This dichotomy has to be understood. The seeker is inside but because the light is outside, the seeker starts moving in an ambitious way, trying to find something outside which will be fulfilling. It is never going to happen. It has never happened. It cannot happen in the nature of things--because, unless you have sought the seeker, all your search is meaningless. Unless you come to know who you are, all that you seek is futile, because you don't know the seeker. Without knowing the seeker how can you move in the right dimension, in the right direction? It is impossible.

The first things should be considered first. If all seeking has stopped and you have suddenly become aware that now there is only one thing to know--"Who is this seeker in me? What is this energy that wants to seek? Who am I?"--then there is a transformation. All values change suddenly. You start moving inwards. Then Rabia is no longer sitting on the road searching for a needle that is lost somewhere in the darkness of one's own inner soul. Once you have started moving inwards....

In the beginning it is very dark--Rabia is right. It is very, very dark because for lives together you have never been inside--your eyes have been focussed on the outside world. Have you watched it? Sometimes when you come in from the road where it is very sunny and there is bright light--when you suddenly come into the house it is very dark because the eyes are focussed for the outside light. When there is much light, the pupils of the eyes shrink. In darkness the eyes have to relax. But if you sit a little while, by and by the darkness disappears. There is more light; your eyes are settling.

For many lives you have been outside in the hot sun, in the world, so when you go in you have completely forgotten how to re-adjust your eyes. Meditation is nothing but a re-adjustment of your vision, of your eyes. And if you go on looking inside--it takes time--gradually, slowly, you start feeling a beautiful light inside. But it is not aggressive light; it is not like the sun, it is more like the moon. It is not glaring, it is not dazzling, it is very cool; it is not hot, it is very compassionate, it is very soothing, it is a balm.

By and by, when you have adjusted to the inside light, you will see that you are the very source. The seeker is the sought. Then you will see that the treasure is within you and the whole problem was that you were seeking for it outside. You were seeking for it somewhere outside and it has always been here within you. You were seeking in a wrong direction, that's all.

Osho Zen Tarot

Taivaan portit

Gates of Heaven

The samurai's pride


Heaven and hell are not geographical, they are psychological, they are your psycho-logy. Heaven and hell are not at the end of your life, they are here and now. Every moment the door opens; every moment you go on wavering between heaven and hell. It is a moment-to-moment question, it is urgent; in a single moment you can move from hell to heaven, from heaven to hell.

Hell and heaven are within you. The doors are very close to each other: with the right hand you can open one, with the left hand you can open another. With just a change of your mind, your being is transformed --from heaven to hell and from hell to heaven. Whenever you act unconsciously, without awareness, you are in hell; when-ever you are conscious, whenever you act with full awareness, you are in heaven.


The Zen master Hakuin is one of the rare flowerings. A warrior came to him, a samurai, a great soldier, and he asked "Is there any hell, is there any heaven? If there is hell and heaven, where are the gates? Where do I enter from? How can I avoid hell and choose heaven?"

He was a simple warrior. A warrior is always simple; otherwise he cannot be a warrior. A warrior knows only two things, life and death--his life is always at stake, he is always gambling; He is a simple man. He had not come to learn any doctrine. He wanted to know where the gate was so he could avoid hell and enter heaven. And Hakuin replied in a way only a warrior could understand.

What did Hakuin do? He said, "Who are you?"
And the warrior replied, "I am a samurai."

It is a thing of much pride to be a samurai in Japan. It means being a perfect warrior, a man who will not hesitate a single moment to give his life. For him, life and death are just a game. He said, "I am a samurai, I am a leader of samurais. Even the emperor pays respect to me."

Hakuin laughed and said, " You, a samurai? You look like a beggar."

The samurai's pride was hurt, his ego hammered. He forgot what he had come for. He took out his sword and was just about to kill Hakuin. He forgot that he had come to this master to ask where is the gate of heaven, to ask where is the gate of hell.

Hakuin laughed and said, "This is the gate of hell. With this sword, this anger, this ego, here opens the gate." This is what a warrior can understand. Immediately he understood: This is the gate. He put his sword back in its sheath.

And Hakuin said, "Here opens the gate of heaven."

Hell and heaven are within you, both gates are within you. When you are behaving unconsciously there is the gate of hell; when you become alert and conscious, there is the gate of heaven.

What happened to this samurai? When he was just about to kill Hakuin, was he conscious? Was he conscious of what he was about to do? Was he conscious of what he had come for? All consciousness had disappeared. When the ego takes over, you cannot be alert. Ego is the drug, the intoxicant that makes you completely unconscious. You act but the act comes from the unconscious, not from your consciousness. And whenever any act comes from the unconscious, the door of hell is open. Whatsoever you do, if you are not aware of what you are doing the gate of hell opens.

Immediately the samurai became alert. Suddenly, when Hakuin said, "This is the gate, you have already opened it"-- the very situation must have created alertness. A single moment more and Hakuin's head would have been severed; a single moment more and it would have been separated from the body. And Hakuin said, "This is the gate of hell."

This is not a philosophical answer; no master answers in a philosophical way. Philosophy exists only for mediocre, unenlightened minds. The master responds but the response is not verbal, it is total. That this man may have killed him is not the point. "If you kill me and it makes you alert, it is worth it"--Hakuin played the game.

This must have happened to the warrior--stopped, sword in hand with Hakuin just before him--the eyes of Hakuin were laughing, the face was smiling, and the gate of heaven opened. He understood: the sword went back into its sheath. While putting the sword back into the sheath he must have been totally silent, peaceful. The anger had disappeared, the energy moving in anger had become silence.

If you suddenly awake in the middle of anger, you will feel a peace you have never felt before. Energy was moving and suddenly it stops--you will have silence, immediate silence. You will fall into your inner being and the fall will be so sudden, you will become aware.

It is not a slow fall, it is so sudden that you cannot remain unaware. You can remain unaware only with routine things, with gradual things; you move so slowly you can't feel movement. This was sudden movement-- from activity to no-activity, from thought to no-thought, from mind to no-mind. As the sword was going back into its sheath, the warrior realized. And Hakuin said, "Here open the doors of heaven."

Silence is the door. Inner peace is the door. Nonviolence is the door. Love and compassion are the doors.

Osho Zen Tarot