Rajneesh Quotes

The body has to be looked after: one has to be very caring about the body and very loving to the body. And then, its very spontaneity purifies it, makes it holy.

Yes, it is better to look from the window than not to look at all, but to look through the window cannot be compared to the windowless sky.

Perfect people don't exist. And perfect people, if they existed, would be very boring. It is imperfection that keeps life interesting.

Don't hanker for the other world. Live this world, and live it with intensity, with passion. Live it with totality, with your whole being. And out of that whole trust, out of that life of passion, love, and joy, you will become able to go beyond.

The sannyasin knows what it means to be an emperor, because he simply gives; he enjoys giving, he loves sharing. And the miracle of life is: the more you give the more you have.

Enlightenment is choicelessness. But don`t misunderstand me. Before that, you will have to move very cautiously, choosing the right against the wrong, choosing the truer so that you can reach to the ultimate truth.

You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty.

Be happy! and meditation will follow. Be happy, and religion will follow. Happiness is a basic condition. People become religious only when they are unhappy - then their religion is pseudo. Try to understand why you are unhappy.

Enjoy simple things with total intensity. Just a cup of tea can be a deep meditation.

Meditation is the art of cleaning your mirror from all the dust that the society, the religion, the educational system has poured on you, to take away everything that has not been born with you, to bring you to your absolute innocence as you were born as a child.

Religion is not based on belief or faith: religion is based on awe, religion is based on wonder. Religion is based on the mysterious that is your surround. To feel it, to be aware of it, to see it, open your eyes and drop the dust of the ages. Clean your mirror! and see what beauty surrounds you, what tremendous grandeur goes on knocking at your doors. Why are you sitting with closed eyes? Why are you sitting with such long faces? Why can't you dance? and why can't you laugh?

Your whole past hangs around you with nothing completed - because nothing has been lived really, everything somehow bypassed, partially lived, only so-so, in a lukewarm way. There has been no intensity, no passion. You have been moving like a somnambulist, a sleepwalker. So that past hangs, and the future creates fear. And between the past and the future is crushed your present, the only reality.

Love needs two things: it has to be rooted in freedom and it has to know the art of trust.

Meditation is a flower and compassion is its fragrance.

Man is born as a seed; he can become a flower, he may not. It all depends on you, what you do with yourself; it all depends on you whether you grow or you don´t. It is your choice- and each moment the choice has to be faced; each moment you are on the crossroads.

Meditation is nothing but coming to terms with your inner emptiness: recognizing it, not escaping; living through it, not escaping; being through it, not escaping. Then suddenly the emptiness becomes the fullness of life.

All that you need is just to be silent and listen to existence.

When movement becomes ecstatic, then this is dance. When the movement is so total there is no ego, then it is dance.

Life is a mystery; that means it cannot be solved. And when all efforts to solve it prove futile, the mystery dawns upon you. Then the doors are open; then you are invited. As a knower, nobody enters the divine; as a child, ignorant, not knowing at all- the mystery embraces you. With a knowing mind you are clever, not innocent. Innocence is the door.

Don´t be unnecessarily burdened by the past. Go on closing the chapters that you have read; there is no need to go back again and again. And never judge anything of the past from the new perspective that is arriving, because the new is new, incomparably new and the old was right in its own context, and the new is right in its own context.

Attachment is misery, but from the very beginning the child is taught for attachment. The mother will say to the child, "Love me; I am your mother." The father will say, "Love me; I am your father" - as if someone is a father or a mother so he becomes automatically lovable.

My finger can point to the moon, but my finger is not the moon. You don't have to become my finger, nor do you have to worship my finger. You have to forget my finger, and look at where it is pointing.

Creativity has three layers; the ultimate is the mystic: he lives in a climate of creativity. The poet, once in a while, brings some treasures from the beyond; the scientist, also very rarely, but whenever he can visit the ultimate he brings something precious to the world. But one thing is certain - mystic, scientist or poet, whatsoever comes into this world comes from the beyond. To bring the beyond is creativity. To bring the beyond into the known is creativity. To help God to be manifested in some form is creativity.

Love can never really be a great base for marriage because love is fun and play. If you marry someone for love you will be frustrated, because soon the fun is gone, the newness is gone, and boredom sets in. Marriage is for deep friendship, deep intimacy. Love is implied in it, but it is not alone. So marriage is spiritual. It is spiritual. There are many things which you can never develop alone. Even your own growth needs someone to respond, someone so intimate that you can open yourself totally to him or her.

To me, man means awareness of death. I am not saying become afraid of death; that is not awareness. Just be aware of the fact that death is coming nearer and nearer and you have to be prepared for it.

That is the ultimate synthesis - when Zorba becomes a Buddha. I am trying to create here not Zorba the Greek but Zorba the Buddha.

Drop guilt! - because to be guilty is to live in hell. Not being guilty, you will have the freshness of dewdrops in the early morning sun, you will have the freshness of lotus petals in the lake, you will have the freshness of the stars in the night. Once guilt disappears you will have a totally different kind of life, luminous and radiant. You will have a dance to your feet and your heart will be singing a thousand and one songs.

The really creative person is not interested in dominating anybody. He is so utterly rejoicing in life - he wants to create, he wants to participate with God. Creativity is prayer. And whenever you create something, in those moments you are with God, you walk with God, you live in God. The more creative you are the more divine you are. To me, creativity is religion. Art is just the entrance to the temple of religion.

If you love, love totally; if you hate, hate totally. Don't be fragmentary; suffer the consequences. Because of consequences you try to deceive.

Take it easy, and remember "Easy is Right."

And desires are never here and now - they are non-existential. They are just mental, in the mind. And they cannot be fulfilled because their very nature is to move into the future.

Don't analyze, celebrate it.

I believe that the very effort to convert anybody is violence, it is interfering in his individuality, in his uniqueness, into his freedom.

When you are happy you are ordinary, because to be happy is just to be natural. To be miserable is to become extraordinary. Nothing is special in being happy - trees are happy, birds are happy, animals are happy, children are happy. What is special in that? It is just the usual thing in existence. Existence is made of the stuff called happiness. Just look! - can't you see these trees?...so happy. Can't you see the birds singing?...so happily. Happiness has nothing special in it. Happiness is a very ordinary thing.

So just look into your acts, into your thoughts, into your feelings: you will find the armor everywhere. Wherever you see fear, you have created it. It was needed at one time - now it is no longer needed. A simple understanding that it is no longer needed... now it is a barrier, a hindrance, a burden. If you find something truthful, it will have its own validity. But in the armor you will not find anything that has any connection with truth. The whole armor is made of fear - layers and layers of fear.

The reality consists only of now, the present. It has nothing to do with the past and nothing to do with the future. It is so concentrated in this moment that if you can be in this moment, all that you are seeking and searching will be fulfilled. This moment is the door to the divine.

My message, my key, my golden key to transform your energies, is creativity. Be more and more creative, and slowly slowly you will see a transformation happening of its own accord. Your mind will disappear, your body will have a totally different feel to it, and constantly you will remain aware that you are separate, that you are a pure witness.

God is always joking. Look at your own life - it is a joke! Look at other people's lives, and you will find jokes and jokes and jokes. Seriousness is illness; seriousness has nothing spiritual about it. Spirituality is laughter, spirituality is joy, spirituality is fun.

A creativity that comes out of meditative innocence, of meditative purity. And a real creator is possible only through meditation.

Desire means you are dragged out of the moment; that creates a tension, that creates anxiety, that creates hope. And then finally hope turns sour, becomes frustration. Each hope leads you into anguish. Buddha calls it the only impurity. Cut the roots of desire, live in the moment so totally, pull yourself out of the past and don`t project yourself into the future. Let this moment be all and all. And your life will have such a purity, such a crystal-clear consciousness that right now you cannot imagine.

Only a fulfilled heart can pray, because only a fulfilled heart can be grateful and can feel the grace descending.

What I am saying is that there is no need for anybody to suffer. Just be aware, let awareness be there. Anger will arise and will be consumed by awareness. One cannot be angry with awareness and one cannot be greedy with awareness and one cannot be jealous with awareness. Awareness is the golden key.

Become aware, awake. Then you will see that everything comes and goes, all things come and pass. Life is a flux. Your consciousness is the only thing that is immovable, that is eternal. To attain it is freedom. To attain it is the goal of life. If you miss it you have missed your life and you have missed a tremendously great gift, a great opportunity.

If you work without love, you are working like a slave. When you work with love, you work like an emperor. Your work is your joy, your work is your dance.

Your love will deepen as your meditation deepens, and vice-versa: as your meditation blossoms, your love will also blossom.

Love and laughter go together; and laughter is one of the greatest medicines.

The really intelligent person keeps his childhood alive to his last breath.He never loses it-the wonder the child feels looking at the birds,looking at the flowers,looking at the sky...Intelligence also has to be,in the same way,childlike.

But one thing you have to understand clearly is that it is the man who longs for domination, and it is the woman who dominates. This is what I call coexistence: live and let live. More than that is all imagination. If you really had known what love is...the basic thing is not to create a relationship. Stand aloof as the pillars of a temple stand aloof, but support the same roof. Don't destroy the individuality of the other, enhance it if you can; otherwise, at least leave it as it is, uninterfered with.