Lotus

 

 

The lotus is the symbol of the ultimate unfolding of consciousness. It is the most beautiful flower in the East, the most fragrant, and it has become the symbol of ultimate awakening, ultimate awareness. It has become the symbol for certain reasons. One is that it grows out of dirty mud. It is such a revolution — to see the mud, and the lotus growing out of it — it is unbelievable, it is a miracle. One cannot believe that such dirty mud can create such a beautiful flower.

 

Man in his unconsciousness is nothing but dirty mud. Seeing man, one cannot believe that Jesus or Buddha or Lao Tzu could have been possible. That’s why so many people doubt the very existence, the historical existence of Jesus and Buddha and Lao Tzu and people like that. They doubt for the simple reason that all around they see a humanity which is nothing but dirty mud, and they see people throwing dirt on each other, enjoying mud-slinging. How can they believe that a man like Buddha really did happen? It seems improbable, it seems impossible, it seems only a myth — maybe a wish-fulfillment, maybe a fictitious story to keep man’s hopes alive. Their doubt has a reason in it, it is logical. These people seem to be so exceptional and they happen so rarely, only once in a while, but you come across dirty mud every day.

 

The experience of ordinary humanity is so bitter that one cannot believe that there was a man like Jesus who loved for no reason at all, whose love was just unmotivated, who loved for the sheer joy of loving, who died because he loved too much, who was ready to die for his love. But it happens. That’s why the lotus has become a symbol. If the dirty mud can produce a lotus, the dirty humanity can also produce a Buddha, a Jesus, a Zarathustra. And it is everybody’s potential.

 

The second important thing about the lotus is that it grows out of dirty mud and floats in water. It is a water flower, but the miracle is that the water never touches its petals. Even if it rains there will be drops of water on the petals but they will be separate. You can see them resting like pearls. The lotus is so velvety that they don’t touch it, it remains untouched; hence it has become the symbol of sannyas.

 

A sannyasin is a man who lives in the world but remains untouched by it, who remains with all kinds of unconscious people — one has to remain with these people, there are no other kind — but who remains untouched, unaffected. One remains absolutely still, restful, cool, as if nothing is happening anywhere. One remains in time and yet beyond time, in the world yet not of the world.

 

- Osho, (Unknown Source)

 

 

 

 

When you look deeply, mind is controlled. Suddenly you have become the master. Thoughts are there but they are no more masters of you, they cannot do anything to you; they simply come and go. You remain untouched just like a lotus flower amidst rainfall: drops of water fall on the petals but they go on slipping, they don’t even touch. The lotus remains untouched. 

 

That’s why in the East lotus became so much significant, became so much symbolic. The greatest symbol that has come out of the East is the lotus. It carries the whole meaning of the eastern consciousness. It says, “Be like a lotus, that’s all. Remain untouched, and you are in control. Remain untouched and you are the master.”

 

-Osho, "Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 3, #3"

 

 

 

 

A person will be joyous even if he has chosen to go to hell; and a person cannot be joyous if he is forced to live in heaven, because freedom is the very soul of bliss, the very centre of bliss. So once you are deprogrammed you are free to act according to your own spontaneity. I don't give you any ready-made answers. I simply hammer so that all your answers are destroyed, demolished, so that you have again a plain ground: the old building has disappeared and you can start making whatsoever you want to make. You can make a palace or a hut -- or if you want to live under the sky, perfectly beautiful!

 

A nan has a birthright to be himself. Sannyas means getting courage enough to live out of freedom, and then bliss follows like a shadow. It is the shadow of freedom.

 

The lotus is a very significant symbol in eastern mysticism. The lotus lives in water, it grows in water, but its petals are so velvety that the water cannot touch them. If you go in the early morning to a lotus pond you will see on the lotus leaves, on the lotus petals, dewdrops shining like pearls in the early morning sun -- it is a beauty to see dewdrops on lotus leaves or lotus petals. But the most miraculous thing is that they are on the leaves, on the petals, but they are not touching them. They don't make them wet. Just a slight breeze and the dewdrops slip into the lake; and they don't leave even a trace behind because the leaf or the petals remain totally untouched, absolutely untouched, as if there have been no dew-drops on them. And this is the symbol of a sannyasin.

 

The lotus has become the very metaphor for sannyas, live in the world but remain untouched by it. I don't teach escape, I don't teach renunciation. I am all for life, I am totally for life, because to me life is god and there is no other god than life. All the ideas of god other than life are simply fabrications Or the cunning minds, ways to exploit simple-minded human beings.

 

Life is the only god, so I cannot teach escape from life. One has to live in it and one has to live intensely, passionately, not half-heartedly, not in a lukewarm way. One has to burn one's life torch from both ends together; then even a single moment is more valuable than the whole of eternity. A single moment of intense, ecstatic living, is far deeper, far higher, than living for one hundred years, but living just so-so, half-heartedly, fragmentarily, unconsciously, somehow dragging from the cradle to the grave, sad, sombre, serious, with no dance, with no celebration, with no light in the eyes, with no song in the heart. That is not life; that is simply vegetating.

 

Millions of people are simply living like cabbages (laughter). A few live like cauliflowers (laughter): my definition of a cauliflower is a cabbage with a college education -- with a Ph.D or a D.Lit. The same cabbage having a certificate from a university becomes a cauliflower.

 

But whether one lives like a cabbage or a cauliflower makes no difference. Rarely, a very few people have lived really, authentically, totally -- and that's what I teach: live moment-to-moment, but live without holding anything back. And live like a lotus flower, untouched. Take life as a beautiful game and learn the art of sportsmanship -- that's what sannyas is: do whatsoever you want to do but be a sportsman. Whether you win or not does not matter, whether you succeed or fail is irrelevant. All that matters is that you played well, that you did your best, that you enjoyed while you did it. To me that is the real thing. Failure or success makes no difference. [....]

 

This is the way one has to live: each moment has to be the last moment, so why live half-heartedly? You may not be able to live another moment, so put all that you have got, risk all that you have got in the moment because who knows about the other moment?

 

This is the way to live! And when you don’t care about the result you become a lotus.

 

I have chosen the color for my sannyasins: this is the color of the lotus; and the lotus has to be remembered again and again so that you can go on getting deeper and deeper into the now and here – but unattached, unclinging, untouched. No future, so that you can live totally, and no past so that you remain untouched.

 

Once that happens life is bliss! Unbounded bliss, infinite bliss, eternal bliss.

 

-Osho, “The Old Pond ... Plop, #26“

 

 

 

 

The white lotus is a beautiful symbol. White represents multidimensionality, because white contains all the colors of the spectrum. That is the most strange, unbelievable quality about white: it contains all the colors yet it seems to be colorless. It is not red, it is, not blue, it is not green, although it contains all the colors. But it contains all those colors in such synthesis, in such harmony, that they all disappear. They dissolve into oneness, and that oneness is white.

 

White represents the ultimate synthesis and harmony. It is the greatest orchestra, where all the musical instruments dissolve into each other -- and not only the instruments but the musicians, too. The whole orchestra functions as a single, organic, orgasmic unity. White represents that.

 

And the lotus also is a great symbol, particularly in the East -- naturally, because the East knows what great lotuses are. In the West you only have small lotuses -- they need hot sun. The East knows great fragrant lotuses, and the lotus became one of the central symbols of the East. You may have seen buddha statues of Buddha sitting on a lotus, of Vishnu, the Hindu god, standing on a lotus.

 

The lotus represents the essential meaning of sannyas. The lotus lives in the lake and yet the water cannot touch it. It lives in the water and yet remains untouched by the water. The lotus represents the witnessing quality of your being: you live in the world, but you remain a witness. You remain in the world and yet you are not part of it. You participate and yet you are not part of it. You are in the world, but the world is not in you.

 

When you become a calm and cool observer of life you are going to laugh -- not ordinary laughter but a belly laughter like a lion's roar. And white lotuses will start showering on you.

 

Life is neither serious nor nonserious. It is a tremendous play, playfulness. Yes, many times it is ridiculous, incredibly absurd, but in our minds those words have a very wrong connotation, something negative. When we say something is absurd we mean that it is something wrong. No, it is not so.

 

Absurd simply means beyond our logic. Absurd simply means beyond our expectations. Absurd simply means that there is always a surprise. Absurd simply means that life is unpredictable and cannot be reduced to cause-and-effect, that life is more than logic, more than language can contain, more than can be expressed.

 

-Osho, “The White Lotus, #4”

 

 

 

 

The word for lotus that Buddha uses is PANKAJ; it is one of the most beautiful words. Pankaj means that which is born out of the mud, out of dirty mud. The lotus is one of the most miraculous phenomena in existence; hence in the East it has become the symbol of spiritual transformation. Buddha is seated on a lotus, Vishnu is standing on a lotus. Why a lotus? -- because the lotus has one very symbolic significance: it grows out of dirty mud. It is a transformation symbol, it is a metamorphosis. The mud is dirty, maybe stinking; the lotus is fragrant, and it has come out of the stinking mud.

 

Buddha is saying: Exactly in the same way, life ordinarily is just stinking mud -- but the possibility of becoming a lotus is hidden there. The mud can be transformed, you can become a lotus. Sex can be transformed and it can become samadhi. Anger can be transformed and it can become compassion. Hate can be transformed and it can become love. Everything that you have that looks negative right now, mudlike, can be transformed. Your noisy mind can be emptied and transformed, and it becomes celestial music.

 

-Osho, “The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 2, #5”