Silence is the shrine of the truth. Enter into it, take the jump into it - that is the essential thing. If you miss it, you miss your whole life and the great opportunity that life has given to you. If you reach this essential core you are blessed, you have arrived home. That is the message of Desiderata and that is my message too."
This poem by Max Ehrmann has inspired millions, expressing a simplicity and truthfulness that most of us yearn for. Because of these qualities Osho says, "It can be of immense help to you on the path."
These talks on the Desiderata, interspersed with questions from seekers, illuminate both the essential and the non-essential. They inspire the reader to shine his own internal light of awareness in everyday life.
Osho is in a category all of his own his own, and as he states: "I am nobody. I don't belong to any nation, I don't belong to any religion, I don't belong to any political party. I am simply an individual, the way existence created me. I have kept myself absolutely uninfluenced by any idiotic ideology - religious, political, social, financial. And the miracle is that because I am not burdened with all these glasses on my eyes, and curtains before me, I can see clearly."
You have been told to have faith in the scriptures, faith in the words of God, faith in the religious teachers. I don't say this at all. I say: have faith in yourself. It is only by knowing your- self that you can know what there is in the scriptures, what the words of God are. One who has no faith in himself finds all his other beliefs meaningless. Can you stand on someone else's feet if you cannot stand on your own? Buddha has said: "Be a light unto your- self. Be your own refuge. There is no right refuge except the refuge of one's own self." I say the same thing.
One night a certain monk was bidding farewell to another monk who had been his guest when the latter said, "The night is very dark. How can I see to go?" The host lit a lamp and gave it to his guest. But as the guest was going down the staircase the host blew out the lamp. The place was enveloped in darkness again.
Then the host said, "My lamp will not be able to light your path. For that you must have a lamp of your own." The guest understood the monk's advice, and this understanding became the birth of a light on the path of his life that could never be extinguished nor taken away.
Spiritual discipline is not just a part, a fragment of life, it is the whole of it. Your standing, sitting, speaking, laughing has all to be encompassed by it. Only then is it meaningful and natural. Religion is not found in any particular act, like worship or prayer, it is a way of living in which your whole life becomes a worship, a prayer. It is not a ritual, it is a way of life. In this sense, no religion is religious, it is the individual who becomes religious. No behavior is religious. one's life is religious.
Book's Contents and Sample Pages
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Hindu (1751)
Philosophers (2385)
Aesthetics (332)
Comparative (70)
Dictionary (12)
Ethics (40)
Language (370)
Logic (73)
Mimamsa (56)
Nyaya (138)
Psychology (412)
Samkhya (61)
Shaivism (59)
Shankaracharya (239)
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