Creativity: Unleashing the Forces Within by Osho

• Creativity is the fragrance of individual freedom.
• Consciousness is being, compassion is feeling, creativity is action.
• Logic is dry, poetry is alive… Only poetry can love, only poetry can take the jump into the paradox of love.
• Relaxation is like flowing, you cannot force it.
  • A relaxed person is simply non-obsessive, and the energy starts accumulating within me. He conserves his energy, it is conserved automatically, and then when the moment for action comes his total being flows into it. That’s why action is total.
• … it simply falls, just like a dead leaf from the tree… when something drops by itself, on its own accord, it leaves no trace on you. If you force it then a trace is left, then a scar is left.
• Relaxation comes to you when there is no urge to activity; the energy is at home, not moving anywhere.
• Relaxation is an absence, absence of activity.
• But for this type of energy the goal is never reached, because this type of energy goes on changing every present moment into a means for something else, into the future. The goal always remains on the horizon. You go on running, but the distance remains the same.
• Be the celebrators, celebrate! Already there is too much – the flowers have bloomed, the birds are singing, the sun is there in the sky – celebrate it! You are breathing and you are alive and you have consciousness, celebrate it!
• Here is all. The whole existence culminates in this moment, it converges into this moment.
• Act unmotivated, just an overflow of your energy. Share but don’t trade, don’t make bargains. Give because you have, don’t give to take back – because then you will be in misery.
• You need not become anything – simply realize who you are, that’s all.
• What is to be practiced then? To be more and more at ease. To be more and more here and now. To be more and more in action, and less and less in activity. To be more and more hollow, empty, passive. To be more and more a watcher – indifferent, not expecting anything, not desiring anything. To be happy with yourself as you are. To be celebrating.
• … allowing something to happen through you. It is not a doing, it is an allowing.

Life is occupied both in perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself; if all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying. – Simone de Beauvoir

• You can be with the whole in harmony, or you can be in conflict with the whole in disharmony.
  • Harmony naturally results in a deep silence, joy, delight. Conflict results in anxiety, anguish, stress, tension.
• Try to make something perfect and it will remain imperfect. Do it naturally and it is always perfect. Nature is perfect, effort is imperfect. So whenever you are doing something too much, you are destroying.
• Whenever you try to perform something, you are seeking food for the ego.
• Self-consciousness is weakness. Self-forgetfulness is strength.
• These are the poets, the painters, the dancers, the musicians – they absorb the universe in deep receptivity and then they pour whatsoever they have absorbed into their imagination.
  • First you become receptive and then you become creative.
• The true artist disappears utterly. These other people are only technicians; I will not call them artists but only technicians. I will not call them creators, I will call them only composers. yes, to compose a poem is one thing, to create a poem is quite another. To compose poetry one needs to know language, grammar, rules of poetics. It is a game with words and if you know the whole game, you can create poetry. It will not be very poetic, but it will have the appearance of poetry. Technically it may be perfect, but it will have only the body – the soul will be missing.
• The real artist thinks certainly of totality but never of perfection.
  • On the contrary, the more they think of perfection the more neurotic they become. They have ideals. They are always comparing and they are always falling short.
• A law need not to be known in order to function… Apples used to fall before Newtons, too!
• … the questions that life raises are always new.
• Experience always remains open… Belief is always complete and finished.
• You work if you love it, don’t ask for recognition.
• Life consists of small things.
• Whenever you are creating, you will have the taste of life – and it will depend on your intensity, on your totality. Life is not a philosophical problem, it is a religious mystery. Then anything can become the door – even cleaning the floor. If you can do it creatively, lovingly, totally, you will have some taste of life.
• A creator fools around. He does not know what is the right way to do a thing so he goes on seeking and searching again again in different directions.
• Risk is his love affair.
• You can vomit the same thing if you have not digested it, remember.
• One who is ready to learn is a disciple, and the process of being ready to learn is discipline.

I know only one thing, that I know nothing. – Socrates

• Try to be alive, with all its inconsistencies, and live each moment without any reference to the past and without any reference to the future either. Live the moment in the context of the moment, and your response will be total. And that totality has beauty and that totality is creativity. Then whatsoever you do will have a beauty of its own.

A housewife was so pleased with the promptness shown by the grocer’s boy that she asked him his name. “Shakespeare,” replied the boy.

“Well, that is quite a famous name.”

It should be. I have been delivering in this neighborhood for almost three years now.”

• Life consists of small things. They become great if you love.
• The greatness is in the consciousness that you bring while you do it.
• You have a song in your heart to be sung and you have a dance to be danced, but the dance is invisible, and the song – even you have not heard it yet. It is deep down hidden in the innermost core of your being; it has to be brought to the surface, it has to be expressed. That’s what is meant by “self-actualization.”
• Psychological memory vs. factual memory
• In the present moment all past is contained, and in the present moment all future is potential.
• Let the new penetrate you. Let the new come and thrill your heart. The past will be needed, but not now; the past will be needed when you start expressing this new experience. Then the past will be needed because the language will be needed – language comes from the past.
• There is great difference between creation and composition. You go on arranging your old known things in different ways, but they are old; nothing is new there. you simply manage to change the structure.
  • Technician vs. creative person
• The creative person is one who brings something from the unknown into the world of the known, who brings something from God into the world…
• Meaning is always in reference to something bigger than you.
• Life in itself has no meaning. Life is an opportunity to create meaning. Meaning has not to be discovered: it has to be created. You will find meaning only if you create it. It is not lying there somewhere behind the bushes, so you can go and you search a little bit and find it. It is not there like a rock that you will find. It is a poetry to be composed, it is a song to be sung, it is a dance to be danced.
• Meaning is a by-product of richness.
• Don’t allow you life to become just a dead ritual. Let there be moments, unexplainable. Let there be a few things that are mysterious, for which you cannot supply any reason. Let there be a few doing for which people will think you are a little crazy. A man who is a hundred percent sane is dead. A little bit of craziness by the side is always a great joy. Go on doing a few crazy things, too. And the meaning will be possible.

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

• Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.

Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxes at all because we never push through the obstruction. – William James

When you run on the earth and run with the earth, you can run forever. – Tarahumara saying

• Eat as though you were a poor person.
• You can’t hate the beast and expect to beat it; the only way to truly conquer something, as every great philosopher and geneticist will tell you, is to love it.

The Four Types Of Friends According To The Buddha

Young man, be aware of these four good-hearted friends: the helper, the friend who endures in good times and bad, the mentor, and the compassionate friend.

The helper can be identified by four things: by protecting you when you are vulnerable, and likewise your wealth, being a refuge when you are afraid, and in various tasks providing double what is requested.

The enduring friend can be identified by four things: by telling you secrets, guarding your own secrets closely, not abandoning you in misfortune, and even dying for you.

The mentor can be identified by four things: by restraining you from wrongdoing, guiding you towards good actions, telling you what you ought to know, and showing you the path to samsaric heavens.

The compassionate friend can be identified by four things: by not rejoicing in your misfortune, delighting in your good fortune, preventing others from speaking ill of you, and encouraging others who praise your good qualities.

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.

– Anaïs Nin

The man who spat to Buddha’s face / L’homme qui cracha au visage de Bouddha (by Osho)

humanetism (Eng/Fra)

Ici en Français

[E] A man came and spat to Buddha’s face. He was very angry. He was a Brahmin and Buddha was saying things that the priests were very angry about. Buddha wiped off his face and asked the man, “Have you anything more to say?”

His disciple, Ananda, became very angry. He was so angry that he asked Buddha, “Just give me permission to put this man right. This is too much! I cannot tolerate it.”

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Zen Painting by Osho

A Zen master was making a painting, and he had his chief disciple sit by his side to tell him when the painting was perfect. The disciple was worried and the master was also worried, because the disciple had never seen the master do anything imperfect. But that day things started going wrong. The master tried, and the more he tried, the more it was a mess….

In Japan or in China, the whole art of calligraphy is done on rice paper, on a certain paper, a very sensitive paper, very fragile. If you hesitate a little, for centuries it can be known where the calligrapher hesitated – because more ink spreads into the rice paper and makes it a mess. It is very difficult to deceive on rice paper. You have to go on flowing; you are not to hesitate. Even for a single moment. split moment, if you hesitate – what to do? – missed, already missed. And one who has a keen eye will immediately say, “It is not a Zen painting at all” – because a Zen painting has to be a spontaneous painting, flowing.

Footprint by Osho

A Frenchman was crossing the desert with an Arab guide. Day after day, the Arab never failed to kneel on the burning sand and call upon his God. At last, one evening the unbeliever said to the Arab, “How do you know there is a God?”

The guide fixed his eye upon the scoffer for a moment and then replied: “How do I know there is a God? How did I know that a camel and not a man passed last night? Was is not by the print of his hoof in the sand?” And pointing to the sun whose last rays were fading over the horizon, he added, “That footprint is not of man.”

… We come into the world with a ball of yarn to weave the fabric of our lives. One cannot know exactly what the tapestry will look like, but at a certain moment one can look back and say: Of course! It couldn’t have been any other way! That shiny thread, that stitching couldn’t have led anywhere else!

– Gioconda Belli

The Essence of Happiness by The Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler

• Sometimes, making the “right choice” in life is difficult because it involves some sacrifice of our momentary pleasures… But framing any decision we face with the question “Will this bring me happiness?” can be a powerful strategy… Shifting the focus from what we are denying ourselves to what we are truly seeking – ultimate happiness.
• If you possess this inner quality, a calmness of mind, a degree of stability within, then even if you lack various external facilities that you would normally consider necessary for happiness, it is still possible to live a happy and joyful life.
• How can we achieve inner contentment? Not to have what we want, but rather to want what we have.
• A tree with strong roots can withstand the most violent storm, but the tree can’t grow root just as the storm appears on the horizon.
• If we think about the injustice done to us, the ways that we have been unfairly treated, and keep thinking about it over and over, it feeds the hatred. Through this constant familiarity and thinking, we ourselves can make our emotions more intense and powerful.
• The ability to shift perspective – asking, “How can I see this differently?” – can be one of the most powerful and effective tools we have to help us cope with life’s daily problems.
• The essential ingredients to happiness.
  • Determination, effort, time.
• Feelings of grief and anxiety are natural responses to loss. But if you allow these feelings of loss and worry to persist, there’s danger: if these feelings are left unchecked, they can lead to a kind of self-absorption.
• I’ve found that sincere motivation acts as an antidote to reduce fear and anxiety.
• Real spiritual practice is in some sense like a voltage stabilizer. The function of the stabilizer is to prevent irregular power surges and instead give you a stable and constant source of power.

Don’t stay where you are tolerated, live where you are celebrated