The Spiritual Life, Topic Twenty three, Bringing paradise to earth

The Spiritual Life, Topic Twenty three

Bringing paradise to earth

Osho teaches that there are three types of romantic special relationships: dependent, independent, and interdependent. In this article, the interdependent type of relationship is described.

And the third possibility is of interdependence. That happens very rarely, but whenever it happens a part of paradise falls on the earth. Two persons, neither independent nor dependent but in a tremendous synchronicity, as if breathing for each other, one soul in two bodies—whenever that happens, love has happened. Call only this love. The other two are not really love, they are just arrangements—social, psychological, biological, but arrangements. The third is something spiritual.

Osho. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living) . St. Martin's Press. P. 50 

The “interdependent” type of romantic special relationship is based on unconditional love. In the first two types of relationships, dependent and independent, the “love,” if you call it that, is conditional. Conditional love love is based on the idea of “I will love you if…………………” It is not really love at all but an exchange. The other is an object, a commodity.

The interdependent relationship is the kind of relationship most people say they want, a “kindred spirit” kind of relationship, but it rarely is achieved. In the first stages of a relationship when one has a “crush” or feels infatuated one is in a honeymoon phase. This honeymoon phase is an illusion because it is based on idealization and fantasy. It’s only a matter of time before the bubble bursts and the person comes face to face with the reality of the relationship which can be very annoying, hurtful, disappointing, and disillusionment sets in.

When the disillusionment inevitably sets in, the opportunity to create a genuine, authentic, interdependent relationship is presented. Few people, other than the very mature, are able to create and engage in such a relationship.

The hallmark of such an interdependent relationship is the conscientiously conscious awareness of another person’s well being. There is a deep seated empathic care and concern that is based on nothing other than the person’s intention to be there for the other person.

At a deep level, this being there for me is what a person wants the most out of a relationship. They want a partner who is dependable, reliable, understanding, and wants only the best for them and their relationship. They want a partner who will love them at their worst as well as at their best, warts and all. This is how God loves us and the experience of this kind of interdependent love is what, as Osho says, brings paradise to earth.

Relationships grow and develop over time. They can start as dependent and then progress to independent and culminate in interdependent. The question always to be answered as one pursues and engages in a special relationship is “What is the purpose of this relationship?” Is it to get one’s needs met? Is it companionship and to mitigate loneliness? Is it to acquire resources to accomplish some life goal? Is it to facilitate one’s own and a partner’s growth and development to actualize the potential to become ones’ best selves?

The Spiritual Life, Topic Twenty two, Special and holy relationships

The Spiritual Life, Topic Twenty two

Special and holy relationships

Osho teaches in his book, Maturity: The Responsibility Of Being Oneself, that there are three kinds of special romantic relationships: dependent, independent, and interdependent. This article will address the second of the three: independent.

The second possibility is love between two independent persons. That too happens once in a while. But that too brings misery, because there is constant conflict. No adjustment is possible; both are so independent and nobody is ready to compromise, to adjust with the other. 

Poets, artists, thinkers, scientists, those who live in a kind of independence, at least in their minds, are impossible people to live with; they are eccentric people to live with. They give freedom to the other, but their freedom looks more like indifference than like freedom, looks more as if they don’t care, as if it doesn’t matter to them. They leave each other to their own spaces. Relationship seems to be only superficial; they are afraid to go deeper into each other because they are more attached to their freedom than to love, and they don’t want to compromise.

Osho. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living) . St. Martin's Press. 49 - 50

In psychology, the kind of “independent” relationship Osho describes is called “avoidant.” People are roommates. They are more like business partners who maintain a household together, who raise children together, who engage in social activities together when it meets both their needs but at a deeper psychological and emotional level they have little if any awareness of each other's well being.

People sometimes have a “trophy” wife or husband or partner. The partner is objectified as playing a role rather than being a real person. In the old days, a husband would refer to his wife as “mother” or the wife would refer to the husband as “father.” Even more telling is when the article “the” is used before the role.The husband might say to his buddies, having been asked to go play golf, “I’ll have to ask ‘the wife’ first.”

These independent relationships can function well in the world of the ego as long as they are cooperative and there is no conflict, but if conflicts and disagreements arise people “fight” and if they can’t compromise the relationship will often end in separation.

A person in such a dyadic relationship has a choice: to either continue it in the independent, cooperative, avoidant style, to attempt to develop deeper rapport and conscientious awareness of the other’s well being, or to separate and go one’s own way.

In A Course In Miracles the student is asked to consider the question, “What is the purpose of this relationship?” Is it conditional or unconditional? Is it a “special relationship” or a “holy relationship?” The independent style relationship is a “special relationship” based on conditions whether conscious or unconscious and is not a “holy relationship” which is based on unconditional love and not utility.

The spiritual question is what kind of relationships do you want? In what kind of relationship do you put your faith?

The Spiritual Life, Topic Twenty One, Three kinds of special relationships.

The Spiritual Life, Topic Twenty One, 

Three kinds of special relationships

Osho describes in the book, Maturity: The Responsibility Of Being Oneself, three kinds of romantic relationships or what A Course In Miracles calls “special relationships.”

The first kind is characterized by dependence, the second by independence, and the third by interdependence.

Here is what Osho says about the first kind of romantic relationship: dependence.

Love can have three dimensions. One is that of dependence; that’s what happens to the majority of people. The husband is dependent on the wife, the wife is dependent on the husband; they exploit each other, they dominate each other, they possess each other, they reduce each other to a commodity. In ninety-nine percent of cases, that’s what is happening in the world. That’s why love, which can open the gates of paradise, opens only the gates of hell.

Osho. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living) . St. Martin's Press. P.49

In A Course In Miracles there are two primary dynamics at work in dependent relationships: “give to get” and “one or the other.”

The first dynamic, “give to get,” is manipulative. The second dynamic is the projection of guilt. Both ego games create hell on earth.

The purpose of the dependent romantic relationship is to get someone else to make you happy. When they disappoint and fail us in our desires and expectations we get angry, defensive, resentful, full of grievance, and depressed. It can get so bad that people start to wish they were dead rather than endure any more emotional pain. Our egos are significantly wounded.

The learning that needs to take place is that it is inappropriate and unfair to place the responsibility for our happiness on other people. Ultimately, the only person that can make a person happy is themselves. It is quite a dawning when people recognize this fact and they begin to embark on a spiritual journey in search of where their true happiness lies.

The Spiritual Life, Topic Twenty, Becoming Aware Of One's Own Holiness.

The Spiritual Life, Topic Twenty

Becoming aware of one’s own holiness.

From:  Maturity: The Responsibility For Being Oneself by Osho

Life has an inner pattern, it is good to understand it. Every seven years, physiologists say, the body and mind go through a crisis and a change. Every seven years all the cells of the body change, are completely renewed. In fact if you live seventy years, the average limit, your body dies ten times. Each seventh year everything changes—it is just like changing seasons. In seventy years the circle is complete. The line that moves from birth comes to death, the circle is complete in seventy years. It has ten divisions.

In fact man’s life should not be divided into childhood, youth, old age. That is not very scientific, because every seven years a new age begins, a new step is taken. P.24


Osho, in the book, Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself, describes the human life cycle as including 10 stages in seven year spans. Osho’s description is very helpful in understanding the primary motivation and functioning of a person during each stage of life.

It may be helpful to use our understanding of  these seven year stages of human development to see how churches can function and help meet a person’s developmental needs at each stage of a person’s life.

UU A Way Of Life is focused primarily on people over 42 and particularly for people 56 and older. People over 56 are concerned primarily with the purpose of their lives and how they can actualize their potential. Their years of raising the next generation are over for the most part and so they are ready to refocus their attention on their own development.

While cultivating an interior spiritual life is important at each stage of life, it is even more important as one matures and finds that the things of the ego are not ultimately satisfying and fulfilling. More than in previous stages of life, they are aware that the idea that the idols in the world of the ego will make one happy has been a Big Lie.

Having had this dawning that the things of the ego does not make one genuinely happy, one then starts a search, in earnest, for the things that would be satisfying and fulfilling and help one bring to comforting completion the purpose of their life.

This search brings one to an experience of one’s own intrinsic holiness and this awareness contributes to peace and bliss and takes the whole world one step further on its evolutionary path to sanctification and enlightenment.

The Spiritual Life, Topic Nineteen, Take responsibility for your own peace of mind.

The Spiritual Life - Topic Nineteen

Take responsibility for your own peace of mind.

The people who are always considering others and their opinions are immature. They are dependent on the opinions of others. They can’t do anything authentically, honestly they can’t say what they want to say—they say what others want to hear. Your politicians say the things you want to hear. They give you the promises you want. They know perfectly well that they cannot fulfill these promises; neither is there any intent to fulfill them. But if they say exactly, truthfully, what the situation is, and make it clear to you that many of the things you are asking for are impossible, that they cannot be done, they will be thrown out of power. You will not choose a politician who is honest. 

It is a very strange world. It is almost an insane asylum. If, in this insane asylum, you become alert and aware of your inner being, you are blessed. p.22-23

A person can live their life based on “indirect self acceptance” or “direct self acceptance.”

People who live their lives based on indirect self acceptance only like themselves if other people like them. Their experience of their self worth, their self esteem, their self confidence is based on what other people think of them. These people are sometimes called “people pleasers” and “co-dependent.” These people organize their lives around other peoples’ functioning.

People who base their lives on direct self acceptance know what makes them tick. They examine their own life and lead it by internal values and standards which they have consciously chosen. Other people’s opinions and feedback is not the determining factor in what they think, how they feel, what their preferences and intentions are. These people have made their values and standards the center of their lives and not someone else's.

Do you live your life based on your own sense of right and wrong, and your own values, or based on someone else's?

The mature person who has actualized their potential is confident in their own thoughts, feelings, and behavior. They are their own person and not suggestible, and easily influenced by the thoughts and desires of others.

Mothers often tell their children, “Just because your friend jumps off a bridge, doesn’t mean that you should.” There is an important lesson here which even as adults we would do well to consider and use to guide our behavioral choices accordingly.

So today, consider who and what you are living your life for? Who and what have led to your decisions about how to live your life? Are your choices self determined or made for you by other people and circumstances?

A mature person knows that while they often have no control over the external circumstances that occur in their lives, they always have control over how they choose to respond.

An immature person easily plays the victim and makes others responsible for their unhappiness while a mature person knows that only their choices about how they will respond to life’s happenings can determine their sense of well being.

The mature person no longer makes other people, and life circumstances, responsible for their unhappiness. They have given up the blame game and taken responsibility for their own peace of mind.

The Spiritual Life, Topic Eighteen, Love, peace, and bliss

The Spiritual life - Topic Eighteen

Where to find love, peace, and bliss.

Maturity has nothing to do with your life experiences. It has something to do with your inward journey, your experiences of the inner. The more a man goes deeper into himself the more mature he is. When he has reached the very center of his being he is perfectly mature. But at that moment the person disappears, only presence remains. The self disappears, only silence remains. Knowledge disappears, only innocence remains.

To me, maturity is another name for realization: you have come to the fulfillment of your potential, it has become actual. The seed has come on a long journey and has blossomed. Maturity has a fragrance. It gives a tremendous beauty to the individual. It gives intelligence, the sharpest possible intelligence. It makes him nothing but love. His action is love, his inaction is love; his life is love, his death is love. He is just a flower of love. P.16

Osho teaches that maturity does not come from life experience. Maturity comes from the meaning that one makes of one’s life experience.

Osho teaches that maturity does not come from external experiences but from inner awareness.

Many people say that when they retire they want to travel. They become tourists. Other people say that they are not tourists but pilgrims. As a pilgrim, one never needs to leave home. In fact leaving home can be a distraction.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. If the pilgrim searches in the external world, the pilgrim will not find what they are looking for. For the spiritual actualization that they yearn for is to be found within, in silence.

Osho teaches that maturity is realization, the actualization of one’s potential, the acceptance and pursuit of becoming one’s true Self. This true Self is not individualized and personalized. The true Self is to be found in the cosmic consciousness of becoming one with the All which requires the dropping of the ego.

A mature person has recaptured the innocence and wonder of a small child. They are no longer calloused, cynical, narcissistic, bitter, resentful, angry, fearful. Nothing is about them as an individual. They have become a presence but no longer an ego. As Osho describes, the fragrance of maturity is love, peace, and bliss.

The Spiritual Life, Topic Seventeen, Remember you are going to die.

The Spiritual Life - Topic Seventeen

Memento mori

From - Maturity: The Responsibility For Being Oneself by Osho

Life can be lived in two ways. If you live unconsciously you simply die; if you live consciously you attain more and more life. Death will come—but it never comes to a mature man, it comes only to a man who has been aging and getting old. A mature person never dies, because he will learn even through death. Even death is going to be an experience to be intensely lived, and watched, allowed. A mature man never dies. In fact, on the rock of maturity death struggles and shatters itself, commits suicide. Death dies, but never a mature man. That is the message of all the awakened ones, that you are deathless. They have known it, they have lived their death. They have watched and they have found that it can surround you but you remain aloof, you remain far away. Death happens near you but it never happens to you. Deathless is your being, blissful is your being, divine is your being, but those experiences you cannot cram into the mind and the memory. You have to pass through life and attain them.

Much suffering is there, much pain is there. And because of pain and suffering people like to live stupidly—it has to be understood why so many people insist that they should live in hypnosis, why Buddhas and Christs go on telling people to be awake, and nobody listens. There must be some deep involvement in the hypnosis, there must be some deep investment. What is the investment? 

To become old is not to become wise. If you have been a fool when you were young and now you have become old, you will be just an old fool, that’s all. The mechanism has to be understood; otherwise you will listen to me and you will never become aware. You will listen and you will make it a part of your knowledge, that “Yes, this man says be aware and it is good to be aware, and those who attain to awareness become mature … .” But you yourself will not attain to it, it will remain just knowledge. You may communicate your knowledge to others, but nobody is helped that way. Why? Have you ever asked this question? Why don’t you attain to awareness? If it leads to the infinite bliss, to the attainment of satchitananda, to absolute truth—then why not be aware? Why do you insist on being sleepy? There is some investment, and this is the investment: if you become aware, there is suffering. 

If you become aware, you become aware of pain, and the pain is so much that you would like to take a tranquilizer and be asleep. This sleepiness in life works as a protection against pain. But this is the trouble—if you are asleep against pain, you are asleep against pleasure also. Think of it as if there are two faucets: on one is written “pain” and on the other is written “pleasure.” You would like to close the faucet on which pain is written, and you would like to open the faucet on which pleasure is written. But this is the game—if you close the pain faucet the pleasure faucet immediately closes, because behind both there is only one faucet, on which “awareness” is written. Either both remain open or both remain closed, because both are two faces of the same phenomenon, two aspects. 8-10

Osho teaches that a person can live their life in one of two ways: in fear of pain, or in love of awareness.

When it comes to dying you have two choices: to die unconsciously or consciously.

Is the fear of death paralyzing and managed by avoidance and denial or is the idea of dying liberating and managed by curiosity and gratitude?

One of the benefits of living a spiritual life is having a positive and constructive way of managing our fear of death. The body surely will die but what happens to the spirit? This question is one of the fundamental existential questions that all wise and aware people consider and reflect on. It is this existential question which makes living life worthwhile, satisfying, and fulfilling. Some recognize, acknowledge, and examine this question while others deny it, dismiss it, and distract themselves with multiple idols of the ego.

Osho suggests that we consider our dying with curiosity. Osho teaches that it is in considering and examining our dying that we become wise. This wisdom involves an expansion of consciousness beyond our individual ego and it is this cosmic consciousness which lives forever.

The Spiritual Life - Topic Sixteen, Growing old and growing up

The Spiritual Life - Topic Sixteen

Growing old and growing up.

There is a great difference between maturity and aging, a vast difference, and people always remain confused about it. People think that to age is to become mature—but aging belongs to the body. Everybody is aging, everybody will become old, but not necessarily mature. Maturity is an inner growth. P.4

There are two ways to live: one, to live in a deep sleep—then you age, every moment you become old, every moment you go on dying, that’s all. Your whole life consists of a long, slow death. 

But if you bring awareness to your experiences—whatsoever you do, whatsoever happens to you, you are alert, watchful, mindful, you are savoring the experience from all the corners, you are trying to understand the meaning of it, you are trying to penetrate the very depth of it, what has happened to you, you are trying to live it intensely and totally—then it is not just a surface phenomenon. Deep down within you something is changing with it. You are becoming more alert. If this is a mistake, this experience, you will never commit it again. A mature person never commits the same mistake again. But a person who is just old goes on committing the same mistakes again and again. He lives in a circle; he never learns anything. P.6

Osho teaches that there is a difference between growing old and growing up. All things grow old, but in growing up, in becoming more mature, in actualizing our innate potential, we have a choice.

Maturity is actualizing one’s potential and becoming the person that Life has created you to become. Actualizing one’s potential though is a choice. Some people do, some don’t. Some actualize their potential fast and some do it slow and some never do it. Some are awake and alert as they live their lives and some are asleep and oblivious. How we live our lives is up to us once we become aware that we have a choice.

Socrates said that an unexamined life is not worth living, and the bumper sticker says that the unlived life is not worth examining. Some people continue to live on the path of the ego based on their socialization and conditioning. Their lives become increasingly meaningless and desperate as they age. It is a sad thing to watch even if they appear to be “happy” in the ego world. Other people, though, embark on an intentional search for truth and meaning and they begin to blossom and their lives exude a fragrance which is lovely, comforting, and inspiring.

The difference between winners and losers is not that winners are successful and losers have failed. Winners and losers both make the same mistakes and experience the same misfortune, challenges, barriers and obstacles to satisfaction and fulfillment. The difference between winners and losers is that winners learn from their mistakes and losers never learn a thing. Losers don’t grow from difficulties but go in circles. They stay in the same old rut. Winners and losers will both physically grow old, but winners grow up and mature beautifully actualizing their spiritual potential while losers stay stuck at infantile levels of development.

Do you examine your life on a regular basis? Hopefully you examine your functioning as things happen on a regular basis but at least intentionally once a day? Of all spiritual practices, this one is the most important. Having been raised Roman Catholic I was taught to “examine your conscience.” In Alcoholic Anonymous, it is called “taking your inventory.” In New Age spirituality it is called being “mindful.” In Unitarian Universalism it is called the “free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” I prefer to think about it and talk about it as being in the “witness.” Being in the “witness” is simply to observe our own functioning in a nonjudgmental way physically, cognitively, emotionally, socially, psychologically, and spiritually. The simple question which cuts through this more complex model is “What makes you tick.?” The more coherent an answer you have to this question, the more mature you are.

This ability to observe and manage one’s own functioning in a purposeful and deliberate way is the epitome of maturity.

The Spiritual Life - Topic Fifteen, Throwing off the chains of conditioning to finally become oneself

The Spiritual Life - Topic Fifteen

Throwing off the chains of conditioning to finally become oneself.

From Maturity: The Responsibility For Being Oneself by Osho

Every child has to lose his innocence and regain it. Losing is only half of the process—many have lost it, but very few have regained it. That is unfortunate, very unfortunate. Everybody loses it, but only once in a while does a Buddha, a Zarathustra, a Krishna, a Jesus regain it. Jesus is nobody else but Adam coming back home. Magdalene is nobody else but Eve coming back home. 

They have come out of the sea and they have seen the misery and they have seen the stupidity. They have seen that it is not blissful to be out of the ocean. The moment you become aware that to be a part of any society, any religion, any culture is to remain miserable, is to remain a prisoner—that very day you start dropping your chains. Maturity is coming, you are gaining your innocence again. pp. 4-5

Osho is teaching that we must throw off the chains of the conditioning and socialization of the ego world.

It dawns on us that we have left paradise when we separated ourselves from the oceanic Oneness and been taught that happiness lies in the things of the ego world. It dawns on us that this is a Big Lie. We have left heaven for hell - hell on earth in the ego world.

The best response to this dawning awareness that we have left paradise for hell on earth is to laugh. We become aware of the absurdity of it all. We finally get the cosmic joke that has been played on us by our families, our communities, our employers, our churches, our schools and universities, our nation, our culture.

Often at first we are confused, and then distressed: both mad and sad, and then scared. Some people have a “nervous breakdown” or what the mystics call the “dark night of the soul.” In first world countries we go to the doctors who tell us we are depressed, we have a “chemical imbalance” in our brains and the physicians give us pills, a form of magic, to soothe our grief over losing our hopes and dreams that the things of the ego world will make us happy.

Or we turn to chemicals and mood altering activities of our own whether it be alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, overeathing, shopping, business, sports, and “new age” activities like yoga, crystals, aroma therapy, psychic readings, etc.

The searching takes us many places and as Osho shares with us, it seems that few people turn into a Buddha, a Jesus, a Krishna, a Mary Magdalene, a Mother Teresa. But some do, and here at UU A Way of Life our mission to help people become aware of their innate holiness, the Unconditional Love that resides within, our natural inheritance.

Today, we can begin to consciously renounce the things of the ego and turn toward the pursuit of the things of the spirit. This pursuit involves two primary things: forgiveness which means giving up making others responsible for your own unhappiness, and following the North Star, the litmus test question, “What would Love have me do?”

Basically, maturity, accepting the responsibility of being oneself, means throwing off the chains of the path of the ego and embarking on the path of the spirit, reclaiming the innocence of our childhood,  and entering the flow which takes us home from whence we have come.

The Spiritual Life, Topic Fourteen, Deliver us from evil

The Spiritual Life, Topic Fourteen

Deliver us from evil.

From  Maturity: The Responsibility For Being Oneself by Osho

Once Jesus was standing in a marketplace and somebody asked, “Who is worthy of entering into your kingdom of God?” He looked around. There was a rabbi, and the rabbi must have moved forward a little, thinking that he would be chosen—but he was not chosen. There was the most virtuous man of the town—the moralist, the puritan. He moved forward a little, hoping that he would be chosen, but he was not chosen. Jesus looked around—he saw a small child, who was not expecting to be chosen, who had not moved, not even an inch. There was no idea, there was no question that he would be chosen. He was just enjoying the whole scene—the crowd and Jesus and people talking, and he was listening. Jesus called the child, he took the child up in his arms, and he said to the crowd, “Those who are like this small child, they are the only ones worthy of entering into the kingdom of God.” Maturity means gaining your lost innocence again, reclaiming your paradise, becoming a child again. Of course it has a difference—the ordinary child is bound to be corrupted, but when you reclaim your childhood, you become incorruptible. P. 3

But remember, he said, “Those who are like this small child … .” He didn’t say, “Those who are small children.” There is a great difference between the two. He did not say, “This child will enter into the kingdom of God,” because every child is bound to be corrupted, he has to go astray. Every Adam and every Eve is bound to be expelled from the garden of Eden, they have to go astray. That is the only way to regain real childhood: first you have to lose it. It is very strange, but that’s how life is. It is very paradoxical, but life is a paradox. To know the real beauty of your childhood, first you have to lose it; otherwise you will never know it. p.4

The folk song Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell includes the verse, “You don’t know what you got til it’s gone.” Osho teaches the same thing about childhood as did Jesus before him. You have to lose the innocence of your childhood to regain it.

After years of socialization and conditioning, we come to realize that the works of the ego won’t make us happy. The works of the ego don’t bring real satisfaction and fulfillment. And so it dawns on us that there must be a better way to live our lives and this dawning triggers a search for what that better way might be. This search takes us onto the path of the spirit and we begin to reclaim the innocence of our childhood which we have lost.

This reclamation in once sense is very easy because all that is involved is removing the barriers and obstacles to our awareness of Love’s presence which has been within us all the time. Love’s presence is our natural inheritance which we have forgotten because we have become enticed and distracted by the things of the ego world.

We begin a process of renunciation and purification not so much of the physical things of the ego world but of the mental baggage which has been ingrained in our minds and hearts.

Today, we have to decide and choose which we want: the things of the world of the ego or the innocence, peace and joy of the things of the Spirit. The choice is simple while the implementation of our decision is hard because we are constantly tempted to turn away from Love and pursue and attain the things of the ego.

The great Christian Prayer,  the “Our Father,” says in part at the end of the prayer, “...and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” Indeed. May it be so.