Osho,
How can one get out of the trap the mind creates of never being quite blissful in the
moment, and being patient, letting the grass grow by itself? I'm always wanting to move
faster, to push the river, and missing the beauty of it taking me in its own time. Would
you please comment?
IT IS ONE OF THE ETERNAL questions. The East has come up
with something very close to the truth. There are religions born in India and religions
born outside India; the religions born outside all believe in one life -- that is, seventy
years. Naturally, one is in a hurry; one has to be in a hurry -- such a small life and so
much to do, so much to experience, so much to explore. That's why the Western mind is
speedy, wanting to do everything faster and faster, quickly, because his conception of
life is too small. You cannot blame him.
The religions born in India have an eternal expanse -- life after life. There is no
hurry, there is no haste. But man is so stupid that you solve one question, and out of the
solution a thousand other questions will arise. The idea of many lives was really to help
you to relax: there is no hurry; the eternity is yours, so don't run, just walk the way
you go for a morning walk -- at ease, relaxed.
That was the idea of the people who gave the conception of reincarnation, but people
are such that rather than becoming relaxed, they became lazy. They said, "There is no
hurry, so why bother even to walk? Running is out of question but even to go for a morning
walk, what is the need? Eternity is ours -- you can go any time for your morning
walk."
The East became poor because of this, because no technology was evolved. Technology is
just to make things quickly, to produce things faster than man can do with his own hands.
The people remained poor, went on becoming poorer. The idea was good, but the consequences
proved not to be good.
The West has just the opposite idea -- of a small life. It created great tension and
anxiety, but it created technology, scientific developments, richness, comfort, luxuries;
it created everything. But the man inside was lost, because he was always running. He was
never where he was; he was always going for something else. And that goal where you can
stop never comes. So in the West people have means of speed, and they are going fast. But
don't ask them, "Where are you going?" Don't waste their time in asking such
stupid questions! All that matters is that they are going fast; it does not matter where
they are going and why they are going.
Both ideas have failed. Eastern religions have not been of help; Western religions have
not been of help. They both tried to give you an idea, but they never gave you an insight
into your own being.
That's where I differ.
For example, your question is that you understand, "Relax and let the grass grow
by itself," but still you go on pushing.
No, you don't understand. The first thing for you to understand is that you don't
understand the meaning of the grass growing by itself. If you understand that, the
pushing, the forcing, will disappear. When I say it will disappear, I am not saying it
will stop. It will differ with different people.
If you understand what it means that the grass grows by itself... such a vast universe
is going so silently, so peacefully; millions of solar systems, millions of stars moving
day in, day out, from eternity to eternity... If you understand that existence is happening,
it is not doing, then if pushing is your nature you will accept it. It is not a
question of stopping it, because that will be again doing. You simply understand that
things are happening, that this is how you are: that you push, that you force. Then there
is a great acceptance of it, and in that acceptance, the tension disappears.
For a few others the pushing may disappear -- if it is not part of their nature, if
they are imitating somebody else, if they are competing with somebody else and because
everybody else is pushing, they are pushing. It may stop, understanding that things are
happening, and you need not unnecessarily bother about them; you can enjoy silently the
way things are happening. You can contribute without any anxiety anything that comes
naturally to you; but not beyond that.
So each individual will have different things happening out of the same understanding.
If pushing is your nature, then there is nothing wrong in it. Enjoy it, push as much as
you can -- but with a song and with a dance, and without being worried that you are
pushing. This is you. This is your grass, and it grows this way. There are grasses and
grasses.
Just one thing has to be remembered, that anything that you are doing is joyfully done,
rejoicingly done -- that's enough. Different people will be doing different things, and
the world needs that different people should do different things. It is the richness of
the world, that all are not alike, and should not be alike. But on one point they should
meet; and that is the cosmic center of being relaxed.
IN JAPAN they have developed strange things for meditative
purposes... Japan has done a tremendous service to humanity. Meditation was developed in
India, but it remained a very limited phenomenon -- just sitting in a lotus posture
witnessing your thoughts, becoming silent. It did the work, but Japan tried different
dimensions, strange dimensions: swordsmanship, but with meditation. Two swordsmen bent
upon killing each other have to remain centered in themselves without tension, without
fear, without anger, without revenge, just playful.
To the observer it is a question of life and death, but to those two meditators it is
playfulness. And a strange thing has been observed again and again: if both the meditators
are of the same depth in meditation, nobody wins, nobody is killed. Even before one person
raises the sword to hit the other person at a certain point -- even before he has done
that -- just that idea of his has reached to the other, and his sword is ready to protect
him.
It is impossible to declare who is the winner. Ordinarily it is difficult to think of
swordsmanship and meditation, aikido and meditation, jujitsu and meditation, wrestling and
meditation. But in Japan they have tried every dimension possible, and they have found
that it doesn't matter what you are doing; what matters is, are you centered?
If you are centered then you can do anything and it will not create any tension; your
relaxation will remain the same.
So don't be worried about pushing. Just try to understand that we are so small compared
to this immense universe; what we do or don't do makes no difference to existence. We are
not to be serious about it. I was not here and existence continued; I will not be here,
and existence will continue. I should not take myself seriously.
That is a fundamental understanding of a meditator -- that he does not take himself
seriously. Then relaxation comes automatically. And with relaxation, whatsoever is natural
to you continues, and whatsoever is not natural to you falls on its own accord.
Osho, Beyond Psychology, Chapter 11