“Very few people have understood the inner working of their own psychology. Rather than living, they start protecting.”
– Osho
Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh, known more popularly now as Osho, was a spiritual teacher and philosopher who incited great ambivalence in people who followed and loved him and those who distrusted him and were suspicious of his organization. Osho’s teaching style was eclectic and varied – he borrowed from different historical traditions including the Vedas, Zen and other mystical and philosophical schools, often with varying degrees of fidelity. A proponent of capitalism, Osho encouraged his students towards humor, creativity and openness in love and relationships. The following passage demonstrates Osho’s teachings about intimacy, and how clinging to a particular idea of love can make a marriage stale and how chasing after security can dampen the dynamic beauty of being in a constantly changing world. As Rilke expressed in his letter to a young poet, accepting this reality paramount.
Very few people have understood the inner working of their own psychology. Rather than living, they start protecting. The same energy that could have become a song and a dance becomes involved in creating more money, more power, more ambition, more security. The same energy that could have been a tremendously beautiful flower of love becomes just an imprisonment in a marriage.
Marriage is secure—by law, by social convention, by your own idea of respectability and what people will say. Everybody is afraid of everybody else, so people go on pretending. Love disappears—it is not in your hands. It comes just like the breeze comes, and it goes just like the breeze goes. Those who are alert and aware dance with the breeze, relish it to its deepest potential, enjoy its coolness and fragrance. And when it is gone, they are not sorry and sad. It was a gift from the unknown. It may come again. They wait—and it comes again and again. They learn, slowly, a deep patience and waiting. But most human beings down the centuries have done the very opposite. Afraid that the breeze may escape, they close all the doors, all the windows, all possible cracks from where it can escape. This is their arrangement for security; this is called marriage. But now they are shocked—when all the windows and the doors are closed, and they have plugged even small cracks, instead of having a great, cool, fragrant breeze they have only a stale, dead air! Everybody feels it, but it needs courage to recognize that they have destroyed the beauty of the breeze by capturing it.
In life, nothing can be captured and imprisoned. One has to live in openness, allowing all kinds of experiences to happen, being fully grateful as long as they last.
In life, nothing can be captured and imprisoned. One has to live in openness, allowing all kinds of experiences to happen, being fully grateful as long as they last. Thankful, but not afraid of tomorrow. If today has brought a beautiful morning, a beautiful sunrise, songs of birds, great flowers, why be worried about tomorrow? Because tomorrow will be another today. Maybe the sunrise will have different colors. Maybe the birds will change their songs a little, maybe there will be rain clouds and the dance of the rain. But that has its own beauty, that has its own nourishment.
It is good that things go on changing; that every evening is not the same, that every day is not exactly a repetition. Something new—that is the very excitement and ecstasy of life, otherwise man will be so bored. And those who have made their life completely secure are bored. They are bored with their wives, they are bored with their children, they are bored with their friends. Boredom is the experience of millions of people, although they smile to hide it.
Completely wrong attitudes have been taught to people: Hide your tears, remain always at a distance, keep others at least at arm’s length. Don’t allow others too close because then they may know your inner misery, your boredom, your anguish; they may know your sickness.
We are wasting our whole lives in accumulating security bonds… meanwhile a tremendously beautiful life is slipping out of your hands.
The whole of humanity is sick for the simple reason that we have not allowed life’s insecurity to be our very religion. Our gods are our security, our virtues are our security, our knowledge is our security, our relationships are our securities. We are wasting our whole lives in accumulating security bonds. Our virtues, austerities, are nothing but an effort to be secure even after death. It is creating a bank balance in the other world.
But meanwhile a tremendously beautiful life is slipping out of your hands. The trees are so beautiful because they don’t know the fear of insecurity. The wild animals have such grandeur because they don’t know that there is death, that there is insecurity. The flowers can dance in the sun and in the rain because they are not concerned about what is going to happen in the evening. Their petals will fall, and just as they had appeared from an unknown source they will disappear back into the same unknown source. But meanwhile, between these two points of appearance and disappearance, you have the opportunity either to dance or to despair.
An authentic person simply drops the idea of security and starts living in utter insecurity because that is the nature of life. You cannot change it. That which you cannot change, accept—and accept it with joy. Don’t unnecessarily hit your head against the wall, just pass through the door.
Osho (1931-1990)
From: Intimacy – Trusting Oneself and the Other