Showing posts with label Osho. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Osho. Show all posts

Thursday, June 11, 2020

Time is horizontal. Eternity is vertical.



Osho teaches, 

"Time is that in which we live - it is horizontal. It is from A to B to C to D; it is in a line. Eternity is vertical. It is not from A to B and from B to C. It is from A to more A to still more A. It goes upward. The moment is rare when eternity penetrates time, because it happens only when meditation has reached ripening, maturity, when you have touched your innermost core." 

Osho, Maturity: The Responsibility Of Being Oneself, p. 85

We say, "It was like time stood still." "I lost track of time." "Time goes so fast." "Where did the time go."

In A Course In Miracles, the taste of eternity is called "The Holy Instant."

Psychologists call it "flow."

Osho calls it "meditation."

In the 60s we called it "cosmic consciousness."

Unfortunately, Unitarian Univeralism doesn't have a word for it although the transcendentalists allude to it with Emerson calling it the "oversoul."

In our modern scientific understanding, we call it a hologram which is similar to a mobius strip.

Saturday, November 2, 2019

What would Osho have thought about Unitarian Universalism?

"I am not a teacher. I am not teaching you anything at all. I am not a bridge between you and the Bible, between you and the Gita, between you and the Koran. I am not even a bridge between you and God – no. I am not giving you a teaching, a dogma, a creed, a philosophy, a theology. So understand the difference between a teacher and a master."

Osho




What would Osho have thought about Unitarian Univeralism?

Friday, August 2, 2019

Osho - What's the difference between dignity and ego?

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. What is this quality we call dignity?


Saturday, June 22, 2019

Spiritual book discussion - Maturity: The Responsibility Of Being Oneself.


From Maturity: The Responsibility Of Being Oneself by Osho

"Listen to your being. It is continuously giving you hints; it is a still, small voice. It does not shout at you, that is true.

And if you are a little silent you will start feeling your way.

Be the person you are. Never try to be another, and you will become mature.

Maturity is accepting the responsbility of being oneself, whatever the cost.

Risking all to be oneself, that's what maturity is all about." p.xxii

Comment:

This idea of being oneself and not trying to be like someone else is part of the perennial psychology which comes up repeatedly in most religions and philosophy.

We seek the genuine, the authentic, the sincere, the "real deal."

We spend a life time comparing ourself to others, and trying to belong. We compete to succeed and take pride in our success in becoming superior to others, outperforming others, wanting to be special, wanting to be "the best."

There is something about this striving which is antithetical to maturity. This comparsion with others and competitiveness seems childish.

While striving, competing, comparing may be necessary in the first stage of life, it blocks are further spiritual awareness of our true self and our natural inheritance of recpients of Unconditional Love as the Universalists have taught us.

Osho reminds us that true maturity is becoming aware of our ordinariness, our lack of specialness, that we like everyone else are unique but part of the Oneness.

Tuesday, June 4, 2019

Our original face when born is one of love

Teachings of Osho is a regular feature of UU A Way Of Life which appears on Tuesdays.



 








"When the child is born he is simple love. He has to be so, because he has not known anything else. In the mother's womb he has not come across any enemy. He has lived in deep love for nine months, surrounded by love, nourished by love. He knows nobody who is inimical to him. He knows only the mother and the mother's love. when he is born his whole experience is of love, so how can you expect him to know anything about hatred? This love he brings with himself; this is his original face. Then there will be trouble, then there will be many other experiences. He will start distrusting people. A newborn child is simply born with trust." 

Osho, Compassion: The Ultimate Flowering Of Love , p. 35

Monday, June 3, 2019

Spiritual Reading Discussion - Maturity by Osho, All of life should be a celebration



As your silence grows, your friendliness, your love grows; your life becomes a moment-to-moment dance, a joy, a celebration.

Have you ever thought about why, all over the world, in every culture, in every society, there are a few days in the year for celebration? These few days for celebration are just a compensation—because these societies have taken away all the celebration of your life, and if nothing is given to you in compensation your life can become a danger to the culture.

Every culture has to give some compensation to you so that you don’t feel completely lost in misery, in sadness. But these compensations are false.

Firecrackers and colored lights cannot make you rejoice. They are only for children—for you they are just a nuisance. But in your inner world there can be a continuity of lights, songs, joys.

Always remember that society compensates you when it feels that the repressed may explode into a dangerous situation if it is not compensated. The society finds some way of allowing you to let out the repressed—but this is not true celebration, and it cannot be true.

True celebration should come from your life, in your life.

And true celebration cannot be according to the calendar, that on the first of November you will celebrate. Strange, the whole year you are miserable and on the first of November suddenly you come out of misery, dancing? Either the misery was false or the first of November is false; both cannot be true. And once the first of November is gone you are back in your dark hole, everybody in his misery, everybody in his anxiety.

 Life should be a continuous celebration, a festival of lights the whole year round. Only then can you grow up, can you blossom.

Transform small things into celebration.

Osho. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living) . St. Martin's Press.pp. xvii-xviii

Comment:

Do UUs say grace before meals? Do they practice mindful eating? I have done this with evangelical Christians but never with UUs. Why is that?

Do UUs say their prayers before they go to bed and when they awake in the morning? I was taught to do this as a child having been raised as a Roman Catholic, but I have never heard of this practice in Unitarian Universalism.

Do UUs pray five times a day directing their prayers towards Mecca as the Muslims do, or follow the practice of praying the hours as Christians do? I have never heard of such a thing in Unitarian Universalism.

There is some effort to be mindful and mindfulness practices have been encouraged by and for UUs, and these mindfulness practices take many forms such as mindful eating, mindful walking, mindful working.

The Buddhists have told us that prayer can be chopping wood and carrying water. It can be driving to work and home and doing our paperwork. Can running errands and taking the kids to their activities be a prayer? If so, Osho tells us, there is no need for holidays, for vacations, for celebrations. All of life is a celebration and every day is a holiday - a holy day.

Slow down and smell the roses and have a holy day today with several holy moments.

Sunday, June 2, 2019

Spiritual reading discussion - Maturity by Osho - Form or content: What's important?



We have not bothered about the outside; we have insisted that only the inner should be paid attention to. The outer is unimportant. Somebody is young, somebody is old, somebody is black, somebody is white, somebody is man, somebody is woman—it does not matter; what matters is that inside there is an ocean of silence. In that oceanic state, the body takes a certain posture.

Osho. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living) . St. Martin's Press. p.xvi

Comment:

What appears on the outside is form. What is important is what's on the inside, the content.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. What this UU principle points to is the content not the form.

Look for the divine spark in every person, today, and focus on that. It's what's inside that counts not the outside. Same is true for oneself. I'm a fat old man, but inside I'm a beloved child of God.

Friday, May 31, 2019

Osho and the UU fourth principle


The fourth principle of Unitarian Universalism is to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Having adopted the principle, how does one apply it to their life?

Spiritual reading - Maturity - What is the role of the arts in spiritual development?



All music is an effort to bring this silence somehow into manifestation. The seers of the ancient East have been very emphatic about the point that all the great arts—music, poetry, dance, painting, sculpture—all are born out of meditation. These arts are an effort to in some way bring the unknowable into the world of the known for those who are not ready for the pilgrimage—they are gifts for those who are not ready to go on the pilgrimage. Perhaps a song may trigger a desire to go in search of the source, perhaps a statue.

Osho. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living) . St. Martin's Press. Kindle Edition.

Comments:

The Protestant revolution did away with the arts in Catholicism. The iconography, music, architecture, paintings, statues were declared idolotrous. Protestantism brought an austerity to religious practices and worship.

To this day, when I compare my experience of my former Catholicism with my now Unitarian Universalism I miss the expression of the religous experience in the arts. The passion, the inspiration, the joy is not present in UU worship the same way it is in the liturgical rituals of the sacramental churches.

Osho ays that the arts are an effort to bring the unknowable to people's awareness. The arts are the hook that attracts and engages people in the religious experience and practice. Without the inspiration of the beauty of the arts the religious experience is intellectualized and falls flat. Intellectuallization does not open the heart the same way the arts do.

What's your favorite piece of religious art?

Editor's note:
You are encouraged to get a copy of Osho's book, Maturity, and read along with us and comment. Feel free to comment even if you have'nt read the book.

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Spriritual reading discussion - Maturity by Osho - The interdependent web



Chapter six
Appreciating the interdependent web of all existence

As you become more sensitive, life becomes bigger. It is not a small pond; it becomes oceanic. It is not confined to you and your wife and your children—it is not confined at all. This whole existence becomes your family, and unless the whole existence is your family you have not known what life is—because no man is an island, we are all connected. 

We are a vast continent, joined in millions of ways. 

And if our hearts are not full of love for the whole, in the same proportion our life is cut short.

Osho. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living) . St. Martin's Press. p.xvi

Comment:
Osho was not a Unitarian Universalist but he was an enlightened mystic with a consciousness that encompassed the UU seven principles and here he describes the seventh.

UUs covenant together to affirm and promote a respect for the interdependent web of all existence, and Osho points out that as a person grows and matures, the person’s circle of awareness widens and moves beyond the experience of immediate relationships to all of existence.

Osho says that unless a person develops an awareness of the interdependent nature of all of existence, the person has not lived fully and their life has been cut short. What do you think of this idea?



Teachings of Osho - From whence does wealth come?

Teachings of Osho is a regular feature of Unitarian Universalism: A Way Of Life which appears on Tuesdays.

Osho 2

Osho has said, "Only those who have no needs are wealthy. Desires make you poor and a mind besieged by desires becomes a beggar. It is continually asking for something or other. You are wealthy only if you have no demands left."

A young man considered entering into religious life which required vows of celibacy, obedience, and poverty. He had no problem with celibacy or obedience, but the vow of voluntary poverty made him pause.

It is not the material wealth per se that is the problem but the desire for it. The desire for material things often indicates an inner insecurity. This inner insecurity is pronounced for those, who may even be affluent, but for whom no matter what they have, it is never enough.
These desires for material things in excess may be a symptom of an inner poverty which could be alleviated if recognized, acknowledged, and foresworn.

Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning which brings about, ulimately, the awareness that this truth and meaning is not found in material things in the outer world but the awareness of the Unconditional Love which comes from within.

Saturday, May 25, 2019

Spiritual Reading Discussion - Maturity by Osho - What Does It Take To Save the World?

Welcome back to the spiritual reading discussion group. Today's installment is the fifth chapter in our review. Feel free to join in leaving comments.

Introduction - Spiritual reading discussion group - Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself by Osho
Chapter one - Growing old and growing up - two different things.
Chapter two - Ignorance or innocence
Chapter three - The rejuvenation of innocence
Chapter four -  Being born again
Chapter five - What does it take to save the world





Chapter five
What does it take to save the world?
The second principle is the pilgrimage. Life must be a seeking—not a desire but a search; not an ambition to become this, to become that, a president of a country or prime minister of a country, but a search to find out “Who am I?”
It is very strange that people who don’t know who they are, are trying to become somebody. They don’t even know who they are right now! They are unacquainted with their being—but they have a goal of becoming.
Becoming is the disease of the soul.
Being is you.
Osho. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living) . St. Martin's Press. P.xiii
Comment:

The fourth principle in Unitarian Universalism is the free and responsible search for truth and meaning but most UUs don’t know much about what this search is about. For most people it means searching for a religious faith which is external to them. It is about finding a set of beliefs and a church that they feel comfortable with. This search is always doomed to failure for, as Jesus tells us, the kingdom of God is within you.”
Osho in this passage from his book, Maturity: The Resonsiblity of Being Oneself, is telling us the same thing: that the search for truth and meaning is a search within not a search without.
Dr. Paul Pearsall, the psychologist, taught that the three major existential questions which all human beings struggle with are: Why was I born? What is the purpose of my life? What happens when I die?
Osho tells us that in our ego thought system we are concerned with our becoming when we don’t even understand who we are. Becoming will not make us happy until we realize that we are okay right now as an extension of God’s Unconditional Love. This is the basic understanding of our Universalist faith, and is embodied in our first principle, the inherent worth and dignity of every person, which we affirm and promote. Few, however, actually believe and inexperience this inherent worth and dignity in their lives in the here and now. If a person actually experienced this, the world would be saved.

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Spiritual reading - Maturity, Being Born Again

Chapter four

 Being born again 

Osho has said,

 “Whenever you understand that you have missed life, the first principle to be brought back is innocence. Drop your knowledge, forget your scriptures, forget your religions, your theologies, your philosophies. Be born again, become innocent—and it is in your hands. Clean your mind of all that is not known by you, of all that is borrowed, all that has come from tradition, convention. All that has been given to you by others—parents,teachers, universities—just get rid of it. Once again be simple, once again be a child. And this miracle is possible by meditation.” 

Osho. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living) . St. Martin's Press.p.xii

Comments:

Among “born again” Christians, the conversion experience is highly encouraged and supported. This experience seems to mean different things to different people, and other than some sort of altered consciousness brought about by some sort of emotional hypnotic effect, it is unclear what is meant by this term.

 Osho is clear in his description that being born again is an emptying and an opening of oneself to one’s Higher Power. Osho’s description seems to be similar to Jesus’ statement that unless a person become like a little child again, the person cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.

It seems paradoxical in our Western world with its cognitive thought system based on Aristotelian logic, to think that maturity, growing up, comes from a shedding of one’s socialization and conditioning.

In Alcoholics Anonymous this shedding of socialization, conditioning, is known as the third step which is a decision to turn our will over to the care of our Higher Power as we understand It.

It seems counterintuitive for Osho to suggest that the path to maturity is to drop our knowledge and empty ourselves so we can experience the Divine Spark within by meditation. However, this same insight has been taught by the mystics of all major religions and is a key practice encouraged by the perennial psychology.

 

Tuesday, May 21, 2019

Spiritual Reading Online Spiritual Reading Book Club - Maturity by Osho, Chapter One, Growing old or growing up?

Chapter one
Growing Old or Growing Up?

Growing old
This is the first article in a series on Osho's book, Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself and comes from the forward.

So first we have to understand what I mean by “life.”

It must not be simply growing old, it must be growing up. And these are two different things. Growing old, any animal is capable of. Growing up is the prerogative of human beings.

Only a few claim the right.

Growing up means moving every moment deeper into the principle of life; it means going farther away from death—not toward death. The deeper you go into life, the more you understand the immortality within you. You are going away from death; a moment comes when you can see that death is nothing but changing clothes, or changing houses, changing forms—nothing dies, nothing can die. Death is the greatest illusion there is.
Osho. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being O
neself (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living) . St. Martin's Press. Kindle Edition.

Comment: Growing old and growing up are two different things. The choice is ours. Many people are in denial and unconscious of fact that they have a choice. Unitarian Universalism requires that people become consciously aware of their choice when it asks them to covenant together with others to affirm and promote the fourth principle to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning.

Unitarian Universalism asks people right up front to take responsibility for becoming oneself by formulating and understanding their own faith, their idea of what Paul Tillich called their "ultimate concern" rather than just going along with what other people expect and require.

Socrates taught that an unexamined life is not worth living. If most people are asked, "What makes you tick?" they become uncomfortable as if they have been put on the spot.

The covenant of Unitarian Universalism asks people to come to awareness of their own state of being. This can be a frightening think initially, but as one searches one finds more peace.
People come to a point in their lives gradually or suddenly that what they have been taught by society is illusional and that there has to be a better way to live their lives.

If we put maturity on a scale of 0 - 10 with 0 being newborn and very immature and 10 being fully self realized, actualized, self-aware, enlightened human beings are mature are you? How mature are the various people that you know well in your life?

My experience of Unitarian Univeralists is that many of them who actually understand and apply the principles in their lives are very mature. How ever I have also met many UUs who are just along for the ride and don't take the faith seriously in terms of working the principles in any kind of meaningful way.

Monday, May 20, 2019

Spiritual reading discussion - Maturity by Osho, Chapter three: The rejuvenation of innocence.



Chapter three
The rejuvenation of innocence.



What happens with the original face of the child, with the child’s original innocence?

The child was conditioned by society, and stuffed with knowledge. The process is called by many names and my favorite is “socialization.” Children become socialized into the values, beliefs, opinions and practices of the herd, first, their family of origin, and then by neighbors, school, peers, media, etc.

Osho puts it like this:
In the second birth he is going to gain what was available in the first birth, but the society, the parents, the people surrounding him crushed it, destroyed it. Every child is being stuffed with knowledge. His simplicity has to be somehow removed, because simplicity is not going to help him in this competitive world. His simplicity will look to the world as if he is a simpleton; his innocence will be exploited in every possible way. Afraid of the society, afraid of the world we ourselves have created, we try to make every child be clever, cunning, knowledgeable—to be in the category of the powerful, not in the category of the oppressed and the powerless.
 Osho. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living) . St. Martin's Press. Kindle Edition.

 Comment: The corruption on the path of the ego can be almost complete. And yet, deep down within, there is a Divine Spark that is with us always.

 Things often have to get worse before they get better in terms of the consequences of our socialization. When we hit bottom, it dawns on us that there must be a better way. With this dawning begins the search which is captured in our Unitarian Univeralist fourth principle which is the affirmation and promotion of the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. It is this search which takes us to the regaining of our lost innocence. Jesus has told us that unless we become like little children we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. It is this recapturing of our innocence through the shedding of our socialization and conditioning that creates our salvation.

In A Course In Miracles this shedding of our socialization, our conditioning, in a conscious way, is what the Course calls “forgiveness.” We are forgiving our mistakes and the mistakes of others in thinking that our socialization is real.

The Course tells us this socialization is all an illusion. Maturity is the recognition that our socialization is small stuff and not to be taken seriously.

At a deeper level, where we recognize our inherent worth and dignity, our true Self is to be found. We are precious diamonds encrusted with the dirt and slag of socialization and conditioning.

Sunday, May 19, 2019

Spiritual reading book discussion articles

Spiritual Reading Online Book Discusion

Unitarian Univeralism: A Way of Life is introducing a new feature on its blog: an online spiritual reading book discussion group. This feature will provide a series of articles on the book being studied. Readers are invited to comment on the topics under discussion whether they have read the book or not.

If readers have nominations for future books for study, please leave them in the comments or email your nominations to davidgmarkham@gmail.com.

The first book being discussed is "Maturity: The Responsibility For Being Oneself" by Osho.

Maturity Osho

Editor's note: For a brief video commentary click here.</

Spirirtual reading discussion group - Maturity: The Responsibility For Being Oneself - Chapter Two - Ignorance or innocence?

Chapter two
Ignorance or innocence?
Osho Ignorance or innocence
For growing up, just watch a tree. As the tree grows up its roots are growing down, deeper. There is a balance—the higher the tree goes the deeper the roots will go. You cannot have a tree one hundred and fifty feet high with small roots; they could not support such a huge tree. Maturity means the same as innocence, only with one difference: it is innocence reclaimed, it is innocence recaptured.

In life, growing up means growing deep within yourself—that’s where your roots are.

To me, the first principle of life is meditation. Everything else comes second. And childhood is the best time. As you grow older it means you are coming closer to death, and it becomes more and more difficult to go into meditation.

Meditation means going into your immortality, going into your eternity, going into your godliness. And the child is the most qualified person because he is still unburdened by knowledge, unburdened by religion, unburdened by education, unburdened by all kinds of rubbish. He is innocent.

But unfortunately his innocence is condemned as ignorance. Ignorance and innocence have a similarity, but they are not the same. Ignorance is also a state of not knowing, just as innocence is—but there is a great difference too, which has been overlooked by the whole of humanity up to now. Innocence is not knowledgeable, but it is not desirous of being knowledgeable either. It is utterly content, fulfilled.

A small child has no ambitions, he has no desires. He is so absorbed in the moment—a bird on the wing catches his eye so totally; a butterfly, its beautiful colors, and he is enchanted; the rainbow in the sky … and he cannot conceive that there can be anything more significant, richer than this rainbow. And the night full of stars, stars beyond stars …

Innocence is rich, it is full, it is pure. Ignorance is poor, it is a beggar—it wants this, it wants that, it wants to be knowledgeable, it wants to be respectable, it wants to be wealthy, it wants to be powerful. Ignorance moves on the path of desire. Innocence is a state of desirelessness. But because both are without knowledge, we have remained confused about their natures. We have taken it for granted that they are the same.
Osho. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living) . St. Martin's Press. Kindle Edition.
Comment:
Osho makes the distinction between ignorance and innocence. Osho says that ignorance is not knowing but wanting to acquire knowledge. Ignorance is grasping, seeking, wanting to acquire the external. Innocence is being content with what is within and resting in wonderment, peace, curiosity, and awe.

Osho says that “Maturity means the same as innocence, only with one difference: it is innocence reclaimed, it is innocence recaptured.”

Unitarian Universalists recapture their innocence when they covenant together to affirm and promote the fourth principle which is the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This free and responsible search takes one within not without and requires a surrender of one’s will to the will of the Tao, their Higher Power however they understand It.

This is a second article in a series on Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself by Osho.

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Teachings of Osho - Heaven or hell is a result of our choosing.

Teachings of Osho is a regular feature on the UU A Way Of Life ministries blog which appears on Tuesdays.

Osho has said, "Man's feet are pointing to hell and his head toward heaven. Heaven and hell are both his potential. Which of these two seeds bears fruit is entirely up to him."

A Course In Miracles teaches a similar idea - that there is right mindedness and wrong mindedness and the mind that gets to choose.

At UU A Way of Life we call wrong mindedness the path of the ego which is based on conditional love and right mindedness is the path of the spirit which is based on Unconditional love.

The fourth principle of Unitarian Universalism is the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Will this search take a person further on the path of the ego and conditional love or onto the path of the spirit and unconditional love?

Osho tells us, as does A Course In Miracles, as does Unitarian Universalism, as does Jesus and all the great spiritual teachers that the choice is ours and the results of our choice take us to heaven or hell.
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