Talent

 

 

That's how I see every human being -- as having a deep skill to be divine. One may refine it or not: one may become a great artist in it, or one may leave it undeveloped and crude. It is like a rock, but a little work and it can become a beautiful statue. That skill is everybodys potentiality, but very few people develop it, and it cannot be developed on its own.

 

Everybody is born with it, but millions of people never use it, so the faculty goes on shrinking; it remains a seed and never sprouts. Just a little work towards it and much is the payoff, tremendous is the benefit. And there is no greater skill than that. One may be a poet, but then there are only a few seconds in the life of a poet which are beautiful, otherwise he crawls on the earth like everybody else. One can be a painter, but only a few moments are there -- rare and far apart -- where there are glimpses of the un-known. They come and go; they don't last. The painter is back on the earth again -- and more miserable than ever.

 

That is the misery of great artists, because they have something to compare. They have known a few moments when they were no more of this earth. They have known a few moments when they were part of the stars. They have known a few moments when there was depth and height and they were expansive... when everything was totally different, was a benediction. Then they are thrown back again and again. They don't know what to do. Back on earth they are more miserable, and the darkness is far darker.

 

When you know a few moments of happiness, your unhappiness becomes very very penetrating; you can compare. So all great artists have a few moments of what I call the divine. They live in misery, they live in a nightmare; they are almost on the verge of becoming mad.

 

So all other talents are just partial talents. There is only one talent which is total and whole -- and that is the talent to become divine. And if you develop it a little, it remains with you. Then whatsoever you do it is there, silently, like a shadow surrounding you, engulfing you... like a glow following you. It becomes your golden aura.

 

And I can see that you can develop it very easily. The effort is not going to be arduous. But daring and courage will be needed because it is like death. To be in the divine, one has to die -- die to the past, die to all that you have been. Become as empty as possible, because only in emptiness is that benediction. Only when you are empty, suddenly you become full. On one side you are empty, on another side something is penetrating you and filling you. It is a death and a resurrection.

 

Much is possible, but one has to be an adventurer.

 

-Osho, "The Passion for the Impossible, #20"