https://oshofriends.com/dictionary/69349React
Naturally. We always react from our past. It has always worked, so we think it is going to work in every situation, but one day a situation arises where your past is simply irrelevant; it doesn't work. That is real crisis... and real opportunity too.
The Chinese word for crisis -- they don't have a word, they have pictures -- the Chinese ideogram for crisis is beautiful. It consists of two small pictures, of two small ideograms: one means danger, the other means opportunity. Crisis is danger AND opportunity; it will depend on you. If you go on reacting out of the past you will be committing suicide. It is dangerous. If you have the intelligence to see that the problem is new so the answer has to be new -- old answers won't do -- if you have that intelligence to see, then it is great opportunity. Passing through the desert you will attain to great maturity and great integration. And remember, this is how it happens every time. [....]
We always think out of the past. That is how EVERYBODY reacts. That is the meaning of reaction. That is the difference between reaction and response. A response means seeing that the situation is so new that you cannot have any answer from the past; seeing this, you respond to the situation. You go with the situation, you don't think of the past. If you think of the past and if you bring your past into it, you will destroy the opportunity for growth and you will go on behaving in the old pattern, the old rut. That's what happens.
-Osho, "The Wisdom of the Sands, Vol 1, #1"
