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Tathata : Total acceptance: whatsoever the situation is, don't fight with it.

Tathata

 

 

Question 3

Osho,

What is tathata - total acceptance?

 

 

Dharmesh, tathata is one of Buddha's most significant contributions to the world. Tathata means total acceptance: whatsoever the situation is, don't fight with it. Accept it wholeheartedly, because it is through total acceptance that transcendence happens. If you fight with it you will be unnecessarily wasting your energy. Accepting it you preserve your energy. Accepting it you become capable of understanding it, because only one who accepts can understand; one who rejects cannot understand.

 

Anything that you reject, anything that you become inimical to, you become incapable of understanding -- because we avoid that which is rejected. We are really afraid of it so we keep it at the back and we escape from it; we find ways and means to escape from it. And if you try to escape from something, how are you going to understand it? And without understanding there is no liberation, no transformation.

 

Buddha says "tathata" -- accept it totally. Whatsoever is the case, accept without denying, without condemning, and in that acceptance many things happen, many doors open. The first is: your energy is preserved, which is a great blessing. In fighting you dissipate energy, your energy leaks, you remain always energyless. And to go to the heights you will need great energy, you will need vitality. If you want to reach to the sun, the journey is long and arduous. You cannot go to the sun, you cannot fly that far away, without energy in you.

 

The man who is fighting his sex, anger, greed, jealousy, possessiveness -- and there are a thousand and one things to fight -- remains entangled in his fight; he cannot go anywhere. He is constantly disturbed and distracted by these things. He fights with one, represses one, something else raises its head -- because he is one and the enemies are many. You fight anger, you will become greedy. The whole energy you repress from anger turns into greed. You fight greed, you will become very sexual. You fight sex, you will become very angry. You repress one thing, and the same thing with a new face, with a new mask, arrives from the back door. You will go insane.

 

That's how the whole of humanity has gone insane. The insanity is so pervasive, that's why we don't think that people are insane. Everybody is insane! It is very rare that there is a sane person. To be sane in this insane society is really a great work of understanding, courage, rebellion.

 

If you drop all the conditionings that the society has imposed on you, only then will you be able to remain sane. Otherwise society turns everybody into an insane person. The society turns everybody according to its own mode, mold, pattern, structure. It gives you ideas, ideologies, religions. It poisons you from the very beginning; when you are in your mother's womb the poisoning starts.

 

Now they are finding scientific ways of conditioning the child which is in the mother's womb. Yes, certain things can be done to condition the child. For example, they have tried using a certain type of tight belt on the mother's belly; that belt is made in such a way that it keeps the child in a tight situation. And they have discovered that these children are very obedient; when they are born they are more obedient than other children, because for nine months they have lived almost in a tight corner, in a prison.

 

In Soviet Russia they are trying the belt on many women. Now, the poor child who is not even born yet is already being conditioned, prepared for a certain society. He will be obedient. Certain music can reach to the womb. A soothing kind of music which lulls the child is helpful to create a slave. And so many drugs are available which can drug the child even before he is born -- he is born drugged. He will live his whole life in a kind of unconsciousness; but that's how the society wants him to live. Conscious people have proved dangerous; a Jesus, a Buddha, a Zarathustra, these people have proved dangerous.

 

The story is that the first thing that Zarathustra did when he was born was, he laughed loudly.

 

Can you think of a more rebellious child? Children are not supposed to laugh when they are born; they are supposed to cry, but not supposed to laugh. He must have shocked his parents and the neighborhood and the people who had heard his laughter. Why did he laugh? And such a person is not reliable, not reliable at all -- this is a dangerous man! He has done his first act of rebellion. He has already said that "I am not going to be a part of the crowd -- enough is enough. Many children have cried, I don't follow them. I will start my life with laughter."

 

Whether it really happened or not is not the question. In fact it is difficult to laugh immediately after you are born, but the story is significant because it says something about Zarathustra's whole philosophy of life: it is that of great rebellion.

 

Zarathustra is one of the greatest teachers of the world -- he has accepted life in its totality. He is not a renunciate, he is against renunciation. That's why the few Zarathustra followers that have survived had to escape their original motherland, Persia. They had to leave, because Mohammedans were coercing them, converting them; they converted Persia into a Mohammedan country. Persia is now known as Iran.

 

A few people escaped who were not ready to accept this coercive violence. They came to India; they live in Bombay and around Bombay -- the Parsis. They are the only followers of Zarathustra; they are very life-affirmative people. Hence many Parsis have become interested in me; to them I have a great appeal because I also affirm life. I am not in favor of escaping.

 

It is because of Zarathustra's total affirmation of life that Friedrich Nietzsche loved him tremendously and wrote his great book, THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA. He wrote the book to appreciate life and the love for life. He could not find any other master so life-affirmative as Zarathustra; a man who begins his life with laughter, whose whole life is a laughter. There is no pessimism, not even a strain of pessimism in him.

 

That's exactly the meaning of tathata -- accept the whole of life as it is. In your acceptance you will be preserving your energy, and you have inexhaustible sources of energy if you accept.

 

Secondly: when you accept everything, your life becomes cheerful. Nobody can make you miserable, nothing can make you miserable.

 

A man with three hairs on his otherwise bald head came into a hair saloon and asked to get his hair shampooed and braided. The hairdresser got on with his job but just as he was about to finish combing it, one of the hairs fell out.

 

The hairdresser was very embarrassed but the man only said, "Well, what to do? I guess I will have to part my hair in the middle!"

 

The hairdresser very carefully put one hair to the right side and was about to put the other to the left side when that one fell out too. The hairdresser could not apologize enough but the man took it really cool.

 

"Well," he said, "I guess now I will have to run around with my hair all ruffled up."

 

This is tathata, this is total acceptance! You cannot disturb such a man. He is always contented, he always finds a way to be contented. It is a great art. And a man who is always contented and always finds a way to remain contented has the capacity to see things transparently.

 

Discontent clouds your eyes and your vision; contentment makes your eyes unclouded and your vision clear. You can see through and through, you can understand things as they are.

 

Tathata is also translated as suchness; that too is one of its meanings. You see things as they are in their suchness; you don't impose any idea of your own on them.

 

And that is a miracle, a magic key. If you can see anger as it is, without any judgment, you will be surprised: seeing anger without judgment, without condemnation, without saying it is bad or good, should be or should not be, without bringing any "shoulds" in... if you can see your anger as it is, with no prejudice for or against, a miracle happens: anger disappears and its energy becomes absorbed in you. Just by pure insight you transform anger, greed, jealousy. And all that goes on dragging you hither and thither, keeps you running, never allows you rest and relaxation, is absorbed; more energy becomes available to you.

 

And slowly slowly, when there is no anger -- not that you have rejected it but you have absorbed it, digested it -- no greed, no jealousy, no possessiveness, no sexuality... you have digested all these phenomena in you. You are becoming greater and greater and you have energies available to rise higher; you have fuel enough to keep your fire burning bright and without smoke.

 

Dharmesh, tathata is a method of transforming your energies into your friends. Ordinarily you are taught such stupid ways that your own energies become your enemies and you are constantly fighting with yourself. Now there can be no greater stupidity than this; this is the most stupid act in the world that people go on doing -- fighting with themselves. You cannot win, you cannot defeat. You will remain quarreling with yourself, you will destroy yourself in quarreling your whole life. You will die, and you will never know what life was. You will never know the glories of life, the grandeur of life and the tremendous gift that life was, and could have been if you had lived with right mindfulness, with tathata, with acceptance.

 

-Osho, “The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 6, #10, Q3”

 

 

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Osho Dictionary

A Spiritual Dictionary for the Here and Now

List of Articles
No. Category Subject
63 T Taboo : A real humanity will not have any taboos: no taboo about sex, no taboo about death.
62 T Tai Chi : All the eastern techniques are in a way repressive.
61 T Tai Chi : Feel more like a liquid, Flowing energy, than like a solid body.
60 T Talent : Everybody is born with it, but millions of people never use it, so the faculty goes on shrinking
59 T Talking : They talk just to hide themselves behind the noise. Whenever you are nervous you start talking.
58 T Tantra : Osho on Tantra
57 T Tantra Sex : Real Tantra is not technique but love. Is not technique but prayer.
56 T Taoist tantra : It is spontaneity in sexuality; it is spontaneity in love.
» T Tathata : Total acceptance: whatsoever the situation is, don't fight with it.
54 T Tea : Tea has to be taken in a very meditative mood.
53 T Teacher and Master : The teacher is one who teaches borrowed knowledge. He knows nothing
52 T Tears : Something to do with anything that is too much inside and wants to overflow.
51 T Tears : The language of the heart
50 T Tears : The whole world has to learn again the beauty of crying and weeping and tears
49 T Technology : Enlightenment cannot be reduced to a technology.
48 T Technology : I am all for technology - but a better technology, a more human technology.
47 T Temples : All the temples are false, all the mosques are false, all the churches are false.
46 T Temples : Religion has nothing to do with churches and temples and rituals
45 T Temptation : Life is so simple! But you can label things as temptations, then they become temptations.
44 T Tenderness : Life is full of surprises, but only for those who have a tender heart.
43 T Tension : Life is also a musical instrument. It needs a certain tension but only a certain tension.
42 T Terrorism : The Terrorism is in your Unconscious
41 T Therapist : A good therapist has to be immensely compassionate, because it is not his techniques of therapy that help people, it is his love.
40 T Therapy : Love is therapy, and there is no other therapy in the world except love.
39 T Therapy : Therapy basically has nothing to do with spirituality. I was using it just to clean the rubbish that the mind has gathered down the ages.
38 T Therapy : Therapy is a function of love. So with ego, you can't help.
37 T Thinking : Be less a thinker and more an experiencer. That's my fundamental message, be existential.
36 T Thoughts : They are not one with your nature, they come and go - you remain
35 T Tibet : The most ancient, primitive, innocent culture file
34 T Time : Time and death are the same; to live in time means to live in death.
33 T Time : Time means mind. When the mind stops, time stops.
32 T Time Changing : It is only in the times of chaos and confusion that great things happen, because people are loose.
31 T Timeless-ness : Nobody is new, all are very ancient pilgrims.
30 T Tomorrow : There is no tomorrow.
29 T Totality : Because it is total it does not leave a trace behind. That's the beauty of totality
28 T Totality : Live each moment totally, but don’t carry the idea of purpose
27 T Totality : Totality is an experience herenow. Totality is not a goal, it is a style of life.
26 T Touch : A person becomes a person only when he is touched by love.
25 T Tourism : Tourism is not pilgrimage. A tourist is superficial.
24 T Tourist : The tourist goes on missing everything; he is in such a rush that he can't see anything.
23 T Tradition : A tradition means something of the past, and enlightenment has to happen right now!
22 T Transcendence : We have to transcend the body - that is our outermost circumference.
21 T Transcendental Meditation : It is taking you towards just the opposite of awareness: it is taking you towards sleep.
20 T Transformation : Transformation happens simultaneously with understanding and acceptance.
19 T Transformation : Unconditionally accepting yourself brings transformation.
18 T Trees : Man cannot live without trees and trees cannot live without man.
17 T Trees : The Western mind has been too aggressive against itself and against nature.
16 T Trees : Trees can read your thoughts
15 T Trinity : The body, the mind and the soul. These three are meeting in you.
14 T Trinity : The Christian trinity looks very immature, childish.
13 T Trinity : The Holy Ghost is not right, but the Mother – the Father, the Mother and the Son. Then it is perfectly true, factual.
12 T Trust : Even if you are deceived because of your trust, it is better than not to trust.
11 T Trust : If you can't trust anybody that means you must be deceiving others.
10 T Trust : Osho on Trust
9 T Trust : The way to trust is DOUBT, and doubt to the very end.
8 T Trust and Judgment : Judgment can never lead you to trust
7 T Truth : Nobody can give you the truth; truth has to be discovered within your own soul.
6 T Truth : One can be it, but one cannot say it.
5 T Truth : Truth can only be realized. It cannot be explained or understood.
4 T TV : Television has become one of the great dangers to humanity.
3 T TV(Television) : They have lost track of reality. The TV has become more real.
2 T TV, Wathching : People are completely unaware
1 T TV, Wathching : People get involved in strange dramas. Very few people live authentically - they just act.
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