Osho on Hasidism

 

 

A few things about Hasidism. First, the word ‘hasid’ comes from a Hebrew word which means pious, pure. It is derived from the noun ‘hased’ which means grace. This word ‘hasid’ is very beautiful. The whole standpoint of Hasidism is based on grace. It is not that YOU do something — life is already happening, youjust be silent, passive, alert, receiving. God comes through his grace, not throughyour effort.

 

So Hasidism has no austerities prescribed for you. Hasidism believes in life, in joy, Hasidism is one of the religions in the world which is life-affirmative. It hasno renunciation in it; you are not to renounce anything. Rather, you have to celebrate. The founder of Hasidism, Baal-Shem, is reported tohave said, ‘I have come to teach you a new way. It is not fasting and penance, and it is not indulgence, but joy in God.’

 

The Hasid loves life, tries to experience life. That very experience starts giving you a balance. And in that state of balance, some day, when you are really balanced, neither leaning on this side nor leaning on that side, when you are exactly in the middle, you transcend. The middle is the beyond, the middle is the door from where one goes beyond.

 

If you really want to know what existence is, it is neither in life nor in death. Life is one extreme, death is another extreme. It is just exactly in the middle where neither death is nor life is, where one is simply unborn, deathless. In that moment of balance, equilibrium, grace descends.

I would like you all to become Hasids, receivers of grace. I would like you to learn this science, this art of balance.

 

- Osho, "The Art of Dying, #3"

 

 

 

Hasidism teaches life in community. It is a very communal approach.It says that man is not an island, man is not an ego — should not be an ego, should not be an island. Man should live a life of community. We are growing a Hasidic community here. To live in a community is to live in love; to live in a community is to live in commitment, caring for others.

 

There are many religions which are very, very self-oriented: they only think of the self, they never think of the community. They only think of how I am going to become liberated, how I am going to become free, how I should attain moksha -- MY moksha, MY freedom, MY liberation, MY salvation. But everything is preceded by MY, by the self. And these religions try hard to drop the ego but their whole effort is based on the ego. Hasidism says if you want to drop the ego, the best way is to live in a community, live with people, be concerned with people -- with their joy, with their sadness, with their happiness, with their life, with their death. Create a concern for the others, be involved, and then the ego will disappear on its own accord. And when the ego is not, one is free. There is no freedom of the ego, there is only freedom FROM the ego.

 

Hasidism uses community life as a device. Hasids have lived in small communities and they have created beautiful communities, very celebrating, dancing, enjoying the small things of life. They make the small things of life holy -- eating, drinking. Everything takes the quality of prayer. The ordinariness of life is no longer ordinary, it is suffused with divine grace.

 

- Osho, "The Art of Dying, #3"

 

 

 

Hasidism is not a path of meditation, it is a path of prayer. Prayer has notechnique. Meditation can have millions of techniques because meditation is a scientific approach to inner reality. Hasidism is not a science, it is an art. Hasidism does not believe in techniques but in love.

 

Remember well, the technological mind is a mathematical mind.

 

The mind of the lover is non-mathematical; the mind of the lover is the mind of the poet. Love is a romance, not a technique. Love is a dream. not a technique. Love has a totally different approach to life.

 

Hasidism has no techniques; it has no yoga, no Tantra in it. It simply says: trust life, trust God, and whatsoever has been given to you, enjoy it. Enjoy it so deeplyand with such gratitude that every ordinary thing becomes hallowed, becomes holy, each small thing in life becomes sacred. Transform everything into a sacred thing – the profane disappears when you bring your energy of love, grace, gratitude.

 

Love is not a technique, so nobody can teach you how to love. And if you come across books which say that they can teach you how to love, beware of those books. If you once learn the techniques of love you will never be able to love again. Those techniques will become a barrier. Love is a natural spontaneous phenomenon. Even animals are loving -- they don't have Kinseys and Masters and Johnsons and they are achieving orgasm perfectly, without any scientific help. They don't have any sex therapists and they don't go to any guru to be taught how to love. It is an inborn quality. Each being born brings it with himself.

 

There are a few things which you bring with your birth. A child is born...nobody can teach the child how to breathe. If it depended on teaching then nobody would be able to be alive, because time would be needed to teach the child. He would first have to be sent to school, taught language, disciplined, and then finally, after at least seven, eight or ten years, we would be able to teach him how to breathe -- he doesn't understand even the word 'breathe'. No, it doesn't depend on any teaching. The Child is born with the capacity to breathe; it is inborn. It is as inborn as a flower on a bush. It is as inborn as water rushing towards the ocean -- naturally.

The moment a child is born the whole being of the child hankers, becomes hungry for breath -- not knowing what is happening because he has never breathed before. Nobody has ever taught him, he has never done it, he has no experience about it -- it simply happens.

In exactly the same way, one day, at the age of fourteen, the child starts feeling a tremendous attraction towards the other sex. Nobody has taught it; in fact, teachers have been teaching against it. The whole human history seems to be a teaching against sexuality. against sex energy. Religions, cultures, civilisations, priests and politicians -- they have all been teaching how to suppress sex. But still it cannot be suppressed. It seems it is impossible to suppress it.

It is a natural phenomenon. It arises. It arises even when you are against it -- see the truth of it. Even when you are against it, it arises in spite of you. It is bigger than you. You cannot control it. It is natural.

Hasidism says that if a man starts living a natural life, one day, suddenly, love of God arises as naturally as love for the woman or love for the man arises; as naturally as breathing arises after birth. That precious moment cannot be managed; you cannot plan for it, you cannot prepare for it, there is no need. You simply live a natural life. Don't fight with nature, float with it, and one day suddenly you will see that grace has descended on you. A tremendous urge has arisen in your being, a new LOVE towards existence -- call it God. Because when love arises, existence becomes personal. Then it is no more 'it'; it becomes 'thou'. Then it is a relationship between 'I' and 'thou'.

Hasidism simply says don't be unnatural and prayer will be born on its own accord. It has no techniques. And that's the beauty of it.

If you have missed the natural flowering of prayer -- then techniques are needed. Meditation is a substitute for prayer; it is second to prayer. If you have missed prayer then meditation is needed but if prayer has arisen in you then there is no need for any meditation. Prayer is spontaneous meditation; meditation is prayer with effort. Prayer with technique is meditation; meditation without technique is prayer.

Hasidism is the religion of.prayer, that's why in Hasidism there is no renunciation. A Hasid lives the natural life that God has conferred on him. Wherever God has placed him, he lives, he loves; he enjoys the small pleasures of life. And once you start enjoying the small pleasures, the total cumulative effect is a great bliss in your being.

This has to be understood. Don't wait for some great bliss to descend on you. It never happens. Great bliss is nothing but small pleasures accumulating in your being. The total of all the small pleasures is the great bliss. Eating, enjoy it. Drinking, enjoy it. Taking a bath, enjoy it. Walking, enjoy it. Such a beautiful world, such a beautiful morning, such beautiful clouds...what else do you need to celebrate? The sky full of stars...what more do you need to be prayerful? The sun rising from the east...what more do you need to bow down? And amidst a thousand and one thorns a small roseflower arises, opening its buds, so fragile, so vulnerable, yet so strong, so ready to fight with the wind, with the lightning, with the thunderings. Look at the courage...what more do you need to understand trust?

Techniques are needed when you have missed these small openings towards God. If you go on looking in the small openings, the total effect is a great-door. And suddenly you start seeing what prayer is. Not only seeing, you start living it.

Hasidism is a totally different approach to Tantra. And Hasidism is far superior to any Tantra, because it is the natural Tantra, it is the natural way. It is the way of Tao.

 

- Osho, "The Art of Dying, #4, Q2"