• Find godliness and good will come on its own accord. And when good comes on its own accord, it has a beauty, a grace, a simplicity, a humbleness.
    - Osho

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Responsibility : To be in tune with the present moment. This ability to respond is responsibility.

Responsibility

 

 

You don't understand even the meaning of the word responsibility. The society has been so cunning. It has destroyed our most beautiful words, given them distorted meanings. Ordinarily in your dictionaries `responsibility' means duty, doing things the way you are expected to do them by your parents, by your teachers, by your priests, by your politicians, by somebody else.

 

Your responsibility is to fulfill the demands made upon you by your elders and your society. If you act accordingly, you are a responsible person; if you act on your own -- individually -- then you are an irresponsible person. And your fear is: in acting spontaneously, here and now, there is a danger -- you may start acting individually. What will happen to your responsibility?

 

The fact is that `responsibility', the very word, has to be broken into two words. It means `response ability'. And response is possible only if you are spontaneous, here and now. Response means that your attention, your awareness, your consciousness, is totally here and now, in the present. So whatever happens, you respond with your whole being. It is not a question of being in tune with somebody else, some holy scripture, or some holy idiot. It simply means to be in tune with the present moment. This ability to respond is responsibility.

 

But without experience you will not be able to see the contradiction in your question. Yes, I say you will be able to act with absolute response-ability. But it will not be the responsibility that you have been taught and conditioned for. It will be a totally new phenomenon.

 

It will be just like a mirror. If you come in front of it, it responds, it reflects you. The moment you have gone out of its focus, it is again silent. It is not a photographic film that catches your reflection. It remains always clean and available. Whoever comes in front of it -- it will respond with totality and reflect the reality. The consciousness which is in the present is just like a mirror.

 

-Osho, “Sat Chit Anand, #20, Q2”

 

 

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Osho Dictionary

A Spiritual Dictionary for the Here and Now

List of Articles
No. Category Subject
1031 A Absolute : A man of truth is always relative.
1030 A Abstinence : You can be a celibate, but to be a celibate does not mean to go beyond sexuality.
1029 A Abstractions : Because you can't love human beings you start loving humanity just to deceive yourself. Avoid abstractions.
1028 A Absurd : The absurd is nothing but another name of God
1027 A Absurdity : Collect as many absurdities in your life as possible.
1026 A Accept yourself : Accept yourself as you are, and accept totally, unconditionally. That is the way God wants you to be
1025 A Accept Yourself : This is the first step of Unio Mystica: be one with yourself.
1024 A Acceptance : Accepting is another name for Let Go
1023 A Acceptance : If somebody hits you, bow down your head, accept it with gratitude.
1022 A Accidental : Become a little more conscious. See what is happening.
1021 A Accidents : Consciousness can be, and without content. So that accident was a blessing.
1020 A Accidents : life goes ahead and your mind is past-oriented
1019 A Acharya : He knows exactly what he’s teaching, but not on his own authority.
1018 A Act : You will create a chain of reactions and you will get into karma.
1017 A Acting : The really spiritual person transforms his whole life into an acting.
1016 A Action : You have to use action to attain non-action.
1015 A Action and Activity : Action is when the situation demands it, you act, you respond. Activity is when the situation doesn't matter, it is not a response
1014 A Active Meditation : All traditional methods have become irrelevant.
1013 A Activity : Action is not activity; activity is not action.
1012 A Activity : Activity has utility, action is pure joy, pure beauty.
1011 A Acupuncture : Acupuncture deals with the cause. Never deal with the effect
1010 A Adam's Apple : Adam became knowledgeable, hence the fall. So knowledge is the fall.
1009 A Adam's Apple : I am against all kinds of enforced things.
1008 A Admiration : One wants to be admired because one has no respect for oneself.
1007 A Adultery : The real meaning of adultery is making love while you are not in love.
1006 A Advaita : Advaita means not two
1005 A Advaita : Existence Is Advaita
1004 A Advertising : It hypnotized you.
1003 A Advice : Listen, but don’t follow.
1002 A Ageing (Aging) : You are just pure consciousness
1001 A Aging : Change beautifies everything.
1000 A Ah : Ah, this cake is delicious
999 A AIDS : Perversion requires the basic condition that you are fed up with changing women, you want something new.
998 A Alchemy : How to change the negative into the positive
997 A Alcohol : Nothing but a chemical strategy to forget your miseries, anxieties, your problems, to forget yourself.
996 A Alertness : If you are alert, if your actions become more and more aware
995 A Alienation : He is an uprooted tree. He has forgotten how to relate with existence
994 A Alone : The person who is not able to be alone cannot be together with somebody, because he has no individuality.
993 A Aloneness : Rejoicing in Your Own Aloneness
992 A Aloneness : We are born alone, we live alone, and we die alone
991 A Ambition : Nothing kills love more than Ambitiousness
990 A Ambition : The result of an inferiority complex
989 A Ambition : The root cause
988 A Amen : It simply means "Yes, Lord, yes. Let thy will be done.
987 A Analysis : The beauty is something more, hence in analysis it disappears.
986 A Androgyny : Where your man and woman inside meet and mingle and disappear into each other.
985 A Angels : You are simply creating belief systems to cling to.
984 A Anger : Anger is just a mental vomit.
983 A Anger : If anger rages within, shout, cry, jump, talk, babble, do whatever you please
982 A Anguish : Anguish is, in short, the quest of who you are.
981 A Anguish : God is not responsible for your stupidity. It is your own work.
980 A Anguish : The anguish of not knowing oneself
979 A Answer : To Be Questionless is the Answer
978 A Anti Christ : The people who established Christianity, they are the Antichrist.
977 A Apology : We don't try to reform ourselves, we only try to reform our image.
976 A Art : If it leads you towards God, it is true art, it is authentic art.
975 A Art : To be a painter, you have to drop the ego
974 A Art, Objective : Objective art means something that helps you to become centered
973 A Asleep : Man is asleep – man lives in a deep slumber
972 A Assertion (Assertive) : Everybody has to be assertive, not aggressive.
971 A Astrology : Astrology is an investigation into the possibility that whatever is happening anywhere in the universe also affects man.
970 A Astrology : The Science of Cosmic Oneness
969 A Atheism : Just as the theists are blind, so are the atheists. Both are believers.
968 A Attachment : Attachment means clinging to something, wanting it the way it is forever.
967 A Attention : If you pay much attention to suffering, you help it to grow. If you pay much attention to happiness, you help it to grow.
966 A Aum : The primordial sound of which the whole universe consists
965 A Aum : The symbol of the seventh body
964 A Austerity : Austerity does not mean torture; austerity means a simple life, an austere life.
963 A Authenticity : To be authentic means to be true to oneself.
962 A Authoritative : Authoritarian People are suffering from Inferiority Complex
961 A Autohypnosis : You create illnesses! You believe in them.
960 A Average : You will drop your averageness. It is just forced on you.
959 A Avoidance : The harder you try to avoid it, the more focused you become on it.
958 A Awareness : The Seed of Godliness in You
957 B Babies : All babies are beautiful, but all grown-ups are not beautiful.
956 B Bachelorhood : she was also looking for a perfect husband!
955 B Baggage : On the highest peaks, one has to be weightless.
954 B Balance : Witnessing brings balance.
953 B Bardo : Between These Two Dreams
952 B Beauty : The deeper you become, the more beautiful you are.
951 B Beggars : The meeting of a world conqueror with a beggar
950 B Beginners : The Zen person always keeps the beginner's mind
949 B Behaviorism : He lives in such cowardly ways, he is so afraid of anything new.
948 B Belief : The believer is not a seeker.
947 B Betrayal : There is only one betrayal: and that is to betray one's own life.
946 B Bibles : People become interested only when they are almost in their graves.
945 B Biography : After Self-Knowledge there Is No Autobiography
944 B Birthdays : One is never born and never dies; both are illusions.
943 B Bitterness : We are bitter because we are not what we should be.
942 B Black hole : Black hole is like Buddha’s concept of emptiness
941 B Blame : The whole responsibility is yours, don't blame anybody
940 B Blindness : Don't carry the books
939 B Bliss : Bliss needs great courage
938 B Bliss : Blissfulness is our birthright
937 B Body : The body has a great wisdom in it.
936 B Boiling Point : They don't have intensity. They live only so-so, lukewarm
935 B Books : Beware of knowledge. It is so cheap to become knowledgeable.
934 B Boredom : A Buddha is not bored, A Jesus is not bored
933 B Boredom : Boredom comes out of insensitivity.
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