Zen gives us total freedom; our lifestyle doesn’t matter. All that counts is our awareness, which will take us back to our original source. “If you are courageous and you don’t go backwards, if you don’t fall back to the ego and you go on and on, there is a hidden center within you that you have been carrying for many lives. That is your soul, the atman, the self.” Osho

Osho, Returning to the Source, HC. 272 pages, - euro 18.00 - order here
Listen to Osho talking on CD: EGO

Chapter Titles
Chapter 1: One Short Note
Chapter 2: Throw It Out!
Chapter 3: The Abbot of Nansen
Chapter 4: The Good Wife
Chapter 5: This Is Egoism
Chapter 6: The Two Concubines
Chapter 7: Snowflakes as Beautiful as These
Chapter 8: The First Principle
Chapter 9: The Practical Joke
Chapter 10: Making a Nuisance

 

  Existence is not divided into either-or, it has no duality. 
It is one energy flowing from this end to that. Both banks of the river are joined together underneath -- they are part of one land. They appear to you to be two because you have not entered the river and you have never gone to the very bottom. The banks are not two, they belong to one land. But for the river to flow, they appear to be as two. Existence is just like two banks meeting underneath, and mind is just looking at the surface. So mind says: I am at this bank, and you are at that. You are against me. If you are a friend, then you are on this bank with me; you are an enemy if you are on that bank. But both the wings belong to one earth. The mind cannot see so deeply. The mind is the phenomenon on the surface -- hence dualities. Existence is one, it cannot be otherwise. There are not two existences, only one exists. But because of the rhythm you are alive -- you inhale and exhale. That inhalation and exhalation becomes like two banks for your river to flow, but you are neither.

The breath comes in, the breath goes out; it gives a rhythm -- two banks. And that rhythm is beautiful if you are not stuck to some extreme. Even in breathing, the mind is always choosing. Rarely does it happen that you can see a person who exhales and inhales equally -- rarely. If you come to a point where you can exhale and inhale and remain just in the middle, you will attain to Enlightenment. As you are, you only inhale, you never exhale. The body exhales and forces the air out -- you again inhale. Just watch your breathing -- you pay more attention to inhalation, you go on inhaling. Exhalation is just left to the body. The body throws air out, you inhale again, because deep down you think that inhalation is life and exhalation is death. In a way it is true, because the first thing a child does after birth is to inhale.

Life starts functioning with inhalation. Hence, you identify life with inhalation. And the last thing a man who is going to die will do will be to exhale. You cannot die with inhalation, can you? So deep down, the unconscious feels that exhalation is death and inhalation is life. You cling to inhalation. And if you cling to one pole, you will become a mind. Exhale, inhale -- remain in the middle and don't choose. Don't choose. Don't choose between the opposites -- remain in the middle. Because if you choose one opposite, you become unbalanced. Imbalance is neurosis.

Then you become addicted to one pole, and life is a rhythm -- it needs the other. It is neither sound nor silence, it is both. Silence is one pole and sound is another pole, and life is just the rhythm between these two polarities. Don't choose!

If you choose sound, you will become addicted to sound, to noise, to the outside. You will become an extrovert, because sound is outside. Inside is silence. If you choose silence, you will become an introvert. Then you will close yourself completely towards the existence that exists without. You will move in and in, and that movement will not be a rhythm because you have denied the other pole. Rather, this movement will be a dead stagnancy. You will be stuck with it, you cannot be ecstatic. With silence and sound both, you simply move between these polarities because you are neither. You are just in the middle -- you are the rhythm. My left hand and my right hand are both me; sound and silence are both me; life and death are both me. Don't cling. Exhalation, inhalation -- both are me.

If you cling to one, then your life will be a neurosis, because what will you do with the other? -- it is there. And whether you choose to or not you have to move to the other. How can you stop exhalation? And if you stop exhaling, how will you be able to inhale? Look at the beauty: you exale -- the moment you exhale, you have created a situation for a deep inhalation. When you inhale, you have created a situation for a deep exhalation. The opposite is really not the opposite. How can it be the opposite? Inhalation depends upon exhalation, exhalation depends on inhalation. How can they be enemies? How can there be any antagonism? They are friends, they are not foes. They are playing a game in which they appear to be opposites, but deep down they are one earth.

Don't choose love against hate because then, you will be in trouble -- because then where will you put hate? Hate is there, as much part of you as love. Remain in the middle. Let hate have its own way. Let love have its own way. You simply watch from the middle, don't move to the extreme. If you move to one extreme, what will you do with the other? You will then become afraid of the other, and the other is going to come. Because that which you have chosen cannot remain alone -- it depends on the other.

You fall in love with a man or a woman, then you become afraid of hate, anger and conflict. But what will you do? -- they are bound to come. Your so-called love depends on them; it cannot exist alone, it is a rhythm. The opposite is needed.

Have you ever seen a river with one bank? Life is a river, and mind tries to flow with one bank -- that is the neurosis. There are peaks and there are valleys. There are high moments and there are low moments. Don't get obsessed with any high peak, otherwise, what will happen to the valley? Have you seen a peak without a valley?
Go to the Himalayas -- the higher the peak is, the deeper the valley will be. Near Everest, the deepest valley exists -- it can only exist there. Only such a high peak can allow such a deep valley; and there is a balance. The valley has to be deep to the same extent as the peak has gone high. They balance each other. Watch a tall tree reaching to the sky. The roots are hidden, but the roots go deep down to the same extent: if the tree has grown one hundred feet, the roots have to grow one hundred feet deep down. Otherwise, what will support the tree?what will support this one hundred foot tree? And if the tree chooses just the height and tries to deny the roots, it will die. And this is what you have been doing. This is what the whole of humanity has been doing. That's why the whole of humanity has shrunk, caved-in. Everything has gone wrong because you want only high moments.

People come to me and they say: Yesterday I was ecstatic, and now I am low. You have to be. What will support the ecstasy? What will support the peak? The peak could not exist alone -- this valley was bound to follow.
Watch the waves in the ocean. The higher the wave goes, the deeper is the wake that follows it. One moment you are the wave, another moment you are the hollow wake that follows. Enjoy both -- don't get addicted to one. Don't say: I would always like to be on the peak. It is not possible. Simply see the fact: it is not possible. It has never happened and it will never happen. It is simply impossible -- not in the nature of things. Then what to do?

Enjoy the peak while it lasts and then enjoy the valley when it comes.
One should laugh and one should weep also. Laughter and weeping are two banks -- balance is needed. If you really laugh, you will also weep. And what is wrong with weeping? Tears are beautiful. If you have laughed, if you have laughed deeply, tears become very, very beautiful. They carry... they carry something of the laughter, because deep down the banks are one, they are not two. On one pole laughter, on another pole tears; one pole smiles, another pole cries, but deep down they are joined together. If you have laughed totally, you will weep totally, and both are beautiful. Totality is beautiful. But if you cling, then you can never be total. When you weep, you cling to the laughter; you try to smile, you try to force a smile because you don't want this weeping and crying. 'This is bad, this is ugly,' and you force a smile. Tears are in the eyes and you force a smile. This smile is false -- this is neurosis. When the body wants to weep and you are smiling, this is schizophrenia. This is how the split starts, how a person becomes two. Totality is lost. Then remember, when you laugh it can never be total.
That's why in China, they have made the yin-yang symbol. It is a moving circle and this circle exists in every dimension. A man is not man, he is also a woman. A woman is not only a woman, she is also a man. There are moments when a woman is man, there are moments when a man is woman.

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On no other subject Osho has talked more than on Zen.