Coming Home to Yourself

Annotation

"Selected from Osho's hundreds of public talks and intimate conversations"--from How to use this book.

Author Biography

Osho, known for his revolutionary contribution to the science of inner transformation, continues to inspire millions of people worldwide in their search to define a new approach to individual spirituality that is self-directed and responsive to the everyday challenges of contemporary life. Osho was described by the UK's Sunday Times as one of the "1000 Makers of the Twentieth Century." His internationally bestselling works are available in fifty-eight languages around the world.

Excerpt from Book

How to Use This Book Move with as much wholeness and totality as you can to the very center of your being, the center of the cyclone. And you have come home.--Osho All of us have experienced moments of "coming home"--feeling relaxed, grounded, free of the restlessness that characterizes so much of our everyday lives. These moments can arise in nature or in the depths of an activity we enjoy, alone or together with people we love. As unique and varied as the individuals who experience them, these moments have in common the feeling that we are exactly where we are supposed to be. These pages, selected from Osho''s hundreds of public talks and intimate conversations, are designed to be a companion on the journey toward transforming our rare moments of "at-home-ness" into an undercurrent that permeates all aspects of our lives. They offer general guidance about meditation and specific techniques to try, insights into the habits that keep us tense and conflicted, and what life might look like if we can recognize those habits and let them go. In a very real sense, "how to use this book" is up to you. If you''re the sort of person who likes to read the manual before operating the equipment, you can do that and read the book straight through before experimenting with the techniques. If you''re more the type to jump straight into an activity to see what happens, you can do that, too--although you may find yourself going back to read the parts you skipped over to see how your experience fits in. A brief practical note: You will find occasional references to one or more of Osho''s unique "active meditations" such as Dynamic Kundalini, or Nataraj. More information about these techniques can be found at the back of the book. A Certainty I know that if you jump into the stream you will be able to swim, because swimming is a natural phenomenon. One need not learn it. I''m not talking about the outer stream and swimming; there you may be drowned. I am talking about the stream of the inner consciousness, the stream of consciousness--if you jump into it. And that''s what is meant, that is the parallel story that you have to decode. You naturally know. Have you ever seen any fish learning to swim? Once Mulla Nasruddin was caught fishing somewhere that fishing was prohibited. The inspector came suddenly and he was caught red-handed: he was just hauling in a fish. He immediately threw the fish back and sat there, undisturbed. The inspector was standing there. He asked, "What are you doing, Mulla?" Mulla said, "I am teaching this fish to swim." Now, no fish needs to be taught swimming. The fish is born there, swimming is like breathing. Who has taught you breathing? There is no need to be afraid; if you are ready to trust, to jump into the stream of your consciousness, you will know how to swim. At the most, it can happen that you may drift a long way before a fisherman hauls you up. You can at the most drift, that''s all. You cannot be drowned. You belong to consciousness, you are part of that stream. An Invitation Bliss is not pleasure; pleasure is physical, momentary. Bliss is not happiness, either; happiness is psychological--a little deeper than pleasure, but only a little. Pleasure is just on the surface and happiness is skin-deep, but just scratch the skin and it disappears. It has no real roots, it is just in the mind. Bliss is neither of the body nor of the mind; hence it has infinite depth. It is your very soul, your self-nature, your being. Pleasure comes and goes; happiness happens and disappears. Bliss is forever. Even when we are not aware of it, it is there, present as an undercurrent; one just has to dig. And that''s my whole work here, to help to dig a well within your being so that you can find the undercurrent of blissfulness. When you dig deep within yourself, first you will find truth, then you will find consciousness, and then you will find bliss. Bliss is the deepest--and the deepest is also the highest. God is only a name for bliss. God is not a person. The very idea of God as a person has misled humanity. It is an experience, the experience that is beyond bodymind, the experience of that which is hidden in you and has always been there. You need not create it; you need not search for it anywhere else; you just have to dive deep within yourself. To search means a turning in, it means exploring your interiority. I am not against the exterior--the exterior is beautiful--but if you don''t know your interiority, if you don''t know your inner world, your exterior cannot be very beautiful. It can have depth, beauty, joy, only if you are rooted within your own sources. If a tree wants to reach high into the sky, wants to touch the stars and whisper with the clouds, then the first thing it has to do is to reach as deep into the earth with its roots, as deep as possible. The deeper the roots, the higher the tree can rise. And the same is true about the internal and the external: the deeper the roots into the internal, the greater will be your approach into the external. If your roots are really touching your source of bliss, then your branches in the outside will flower. In the past the religions have tried to create a split between the outside and the inside--it was a reactionary attitude. Because they saw people, worldly people, too concerned with the outside, they turned to the opposite pole: they became too concerned, overly concerned, with the inner. But they created a split and that split has been one of the greatest calamities humanity has suffered so far: it has created a schizophrenic humanity. The outside and the inside look like enemies to each other; the worldly person and the otherworldly person look like enemies. The worldly is the sinner and the otherworldly is the saint. A seeker has to be both together: in the world and yet not of it, with roots in the inner and flowers in the outer. He hasn''t to escape to the Himalayas, to the monasteries; he has to live in the marketplace and yet live silently, peacefully, lovingly, meditatively. That is the only way that we can create a whole human being. And to me, to be whole is to be holy. The inner is not the only dimension of sacredness; the outer is also the same. But certainly first the roots have to grow, then the branches can follow. If the tree grows first it will fall down, it will not stand. So the seeker first has to become more and more meditative, more and more blissful, then naturally he starts growing new foliage on the outside, he becomes greener, he rises higher. And when the roots are nourished by the bliss inside, sooner or later the branches are bound to be burdened with flowers. That is the moment a person becomes a buddha . . .

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