:: CREATIVITY ::

THE ART OF LIVING

“Men who know the art of living do not give shelter to defeatism and gloom. From the sands of time they manage to squeeze out the elixir of life. In every moment they discover reason for laughter. These men alone are alive and kicking in the real sense of the word. The rest; those who darken the present moment by the shadow of yesterdays and fear of tomorrows are dead even when alive.”

Osho says that there is no separate art of life. If one knows how to “allow”, be it poetry or dance or love -- if one knows how to allow, then one knows the art of life. “In the allowing, in the let-go, in the surrender, is the art of life. How not to be and to let God be -- that is the only art of life.”

Read on as Osho brings out the essence of living……..

“Be life-affirmative. Life is synonymous with God. You can drop the word god -- life IS God. Live with reverence, with great respect and gratitude. You have not earned this life, it has been a sheer gift from the beyond. Feel thankful and prayerful, and take as many bites of it as possible and chew it well and digest it well.

Make your life an aesthetic experience. And not much is needed to make it an aesthetic experience; just an aesthetic consciousness is needed, a sensitive soul. Become more sensitive, more sensuous, and you will become more spiritual.

Priests have almost poisoned your body into a state of death. You are carrying paralyzed bodies and paralyzed minds and paralyzed souls -- you are moving on crutches. Throw away all those crutches! Even if you have to fall and crawl on the ground, that is better than clinging to crutches.

And experience life in all possible ways -- good-bad, bitter-sweet, dark-light, summer-winter. Experience all the dualities. Don't be afraid of experience, because the more experience you have, the more mature you become. Search for all possible alternatives, move in all directions, be a wanderer, a vagabond of the world of life and existence. And don't miss any opportunity to live.

Don't look back. Only fools think of the past -- fools who do not have the intelligence to live in the present. And only fools imagine about the future, because they don't have the courage to live in the present. Forget the past, forget the future, this moment is all. This moment has to become your prayer, your love, your life, your death, your everything. This is it.

And live courageously, don't be cowards. Don't think of consequences; only cowards think of consequences. Don't be too result-oriented; people who are result-oriented miss life. Don't think of goals, because goals are always in the future and far away, and life is herenow, close by.

And don't be too purposive. Let me repeat it: don't be too purposive. Don't always bring in the idea, "What is the purpose of it?" because that is a strategy created by your enemies, by the enemies of humanity, to poison your very source of life. Ask the question, "What is the purpose of it?" and everything becomes meaningless.

It is early morning, the sun is rising and the east is red with the sun, and the birds are singing and the trees are waking up, and it is all joy. It is a rejoicing, a new day has happened again. And you are standing there asking the question, "What is the purpose of it?" You miss, you miss it totally. You are simply disconnected.

A roseflower is dancing in the wind, so delicate and yet so strong, so soft yet fighting with the strong wind, so momentary yet so confident. Look at the roseflower. Have you ever seen any roseflower nervous? So confident, so utterly confident, as if it is going to be here forever. Just a moment's existence, and such trust in eternity. Dancing in the wind, whispering with the wind, sending out its fragrance -- and you are standing there asking the question, "What is the purpose of it?"

You fall in love with a woman and ask the question, "What is the purpose of it?" You are holding the hand of your beloved or your friend, and asking the question, "What is the purpose of it?" And you may still be holding hands, but now life has disappeared, your hand is dead.

Raise the question, "What is the purpose?" and everything is destroyed. Let me tell you, there is no purpose in life. Life is its own purpose; it is not a means to some end, it is an end unto itself. The bird on the wing, the rose in the wind, the sun rising in the morning, the stars in the night, a man falling in love with a woman, a child playing on the street... there is no purpose. Life is simply enjoying itself, delighting in itself. Energy is overflowing, dancing, for no purpose at all. It is not a performance, it is not a business. Life is a love affair, it is poetry, it is music. Don't ask ugly questions like, "What is the purpose?" because the moment you ask it, you disconnect yourself from life. Life cannot be bridged by philosophical questions. Philosophy has to be put aside.
Be poets of life, singers, musicians, dancers, lovers, and you will know the real philosophy of life: PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS.

And if you know how to live... and it is a simple art. The trees are living and nobody is there to teach them. In fact they must be laughing; seeing that you have asked such a question, they must be giggling -- you may not be able to hear their giggle.

The whole existence is nonphilosophical. If you are philosophical, then a gap arises between you and existence. Existence simply is, for no purpose. And the person who really wants to live has to get rid of this idea of purpose. If you start living without any purpose, with intensity, totality, love and trust, when death comes, you will know how to die -- because death is not the end of life, but only an episode in life.

If you have known other things, if you have lived other things, you will be able to live death too. The real man of understanding lives his death as much as he lives his life, with the same intensity, with the same thrill.”

THE BOOK OF WISDOM
#14, Other Gurus and Etceteranandas