Change

  

 

 Misery arises because we don't allow change to happen. We cling, we want things to be static. If you love a woman you want her tomorrow too, the same way as she is yours today. That's how misery arises. Nobody can be certain about the next moment -- what to say about tomorrow?

 

A man of awareness knows that life is constantly changing. Life is change. There is only one thing permanent, and that is change. Everything else except change, changes. To accept this nature of life, to accept this changing existence with all its seasons and moods, this constant flow which never stops for a single moment, is to be blissful. Then nobody can disturb your bliss. It is your hankering for permanency that creates troubles for you. You want to live in a life with no change, and that is not possible -- you are asking the impossible. [....]

 

A man of awareness becomes courageous enough to accept the changing phenomena. In that very acceptance is bliss; then all is good, then you are never frustrated because in the first place you never asked anything. Jesus says, "Ask and it shall be given to you." He must be talking to very immature people; people were immature in those days. I say to you, "Ask and it shall never be given to you. Ask and you are asking for trouble. Don't ask and it shall be given to you."

 

-Osho, "No Man is an Island, #31"

 

 

 

 Life repeats itself mindlessly - unless you become mindful, it will go on repeating like a wheel. Thats why Buddhists call it the wheel of life and death, the wheel of time. It moves like a wheel: birth is followed by death, death is followed by birth; love is followed by hate, hate is followed by love; success is followed by failure, failure is followed by success. Just see!

 

If you can watch just for a few days, you will see a pattern emerging, a wheel pattern. One day, a fine morning, you are feeling so good and so happy, and another day you are so dull, so dead that you start thinking of committing suicide. And just the other day you were so full of life, so blissful that you were feeling thankful to God that you were in a mood of deep gratefulness, and today there is great complaint and you don't see the point why one should go on living. And tomorrow again that blissful moment will come. The cherry blossoms will come again, and there will be fragrance and the singing of birds, and the sunlit days... and AGAIN the cloudy days, and the dark nights of the soul. And it goes on and on, but you don't see the pattern.

Once you see the pattern, you can get out of it. Once you see the pattern, that it goes on and on mindlessly, it does not need you.... People ordinarily think that when they are angry, somebody has created the anger in them. That is utterly wrong! Even if you were alone and there was nobody, you would have been angry in that moment. That has something to do with your inner wheel, with your inner periodicity, inner rhythm -- it has nothing to do with somebody outside.

The outside is just an excuse, because it is so ugly to think, "I am creating my anger myself." The excuse feels good, it relieves you of a burden. Then some day, meeting a friend, you feel so happy and you think, "The coming of the friend has made me so happy" -- that too is false. Even if you were sitting alone in that moment, you would have been happy.

 

That is one of the great realizations that comes to people who move into isolation for a few days. That's a good meditation, to move into isolation for a few weeks and just to be alone for a few weeks. You will be surprised! Out of nowhere... one day you are feeling good -- nobody is there and nobody has done anything to you. And one day you are feeling so bad. One day you are dancing, another day you are crying. And then you can see that you create your own states.

 

-Osho, "Take It Easy, Vol 1, #7"