Birthday of American Singer Song Writer Bob Dylan Bob Dylan is one of the most influential singer-songwriters of the 20th century. Born in 1941 in Duluth, he became famous in the 1960s for songs that combined folk music with powerful poetic and social commentary. His music spoke about war, freedom, politics, love, and human existence, making him a voice of a generation during times of social change. Some of his most famous songs include “Blowin’ in the Wind”, “The Times They Are a-Changin’”, “Like a Rolling Stone”, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and many more.&nbsp; Dylan constantly reinvented his style — moving from folk to rock, blues, country, and spiritual music — and influenced countless musicians worldwide. In 2016, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature for creating “new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition,” becoming the first songwriter to win the award. Osho says, “THE songwriter, Bob Dylan, gives us a modern parable that expresses quite well what I wish to say to you. On the backside of his album, JOHN WESLEY HARDING, we read of three kings who visit a man named Frank. The first king explains their mission to Frank: "Mr. Dylan has come out with a new record. This record, of course, feature's none but his own songs, and we understand that you are the key." "That's right," said Frank, "I am." "Well then," said the king in a bit of excitement, "could you please open it up for us?" Frank, who all this time had been reclining with his eyes closed, suddenly opened them both as wide as a tiger. "And just how far would you like to go in?" he asked. The chief of the kings replied, "Not too far, but just enough so we can say that we have been there." Even when people are seeking God, they want only to go this far -- so that they can say to the world that they have seen Him. But they don't want to go far enough -- because if you go far enough into God, you never come back. They don't want to take another step -- because if you go deep, then there comes a point of no return. They only want to go a little bit, so that they can come back into the world and say to people that, "We have seen God also." But their whole interest is in the world and the respectability that the world can give to them. They have a big bank balance, they have a big palace today; now they even possess God in their homes. This parable is beautiful.”<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="width:100%;height:1px;background:#00000036;margin:10px 0;"></div></div>HOW BLIND I HAVE BEEN! THERE ARE SO MANY SIGNPOSTS I HAVE MISSED, AND NOW I AM WONDERING ABOUT THOSE WHO WROTE THE SIGNS. THESE DAYS I'M DISCOVERING SO MANY TRACES OF HOW REALITY TRULY IS THROUGH WORDS OF OTHERS AND ASK, "WHERE WERE THEY?" ESPECIALLY SOME OF THE ENGLISH POETS, SHAKESPEARE AND BOB DYLAN. DID THEY REALIZE WHAT THEY WERE SAYING? ARE THEY CONSCIOUSLY SHARING THEIR GLIMPSES? (T.S. ELIOT, LEWIS CARROLL) Pradeepa, this is a complex question. A few things will have to be understood before you can have an understanding of it. The mystic lives in the other reality, the separate reality. His abode is there. The poet only has glimpses. Only sometimes the door opens and he sees something, and the door closes. He has no understanding of what is happening, he can't figure it out himself. It remains mysterious. He has no explanation about it, from where it comes, why it comes; it is all from the blue. He's possessed by it. In some moments he's utterly possessed; in those moments he starts saying things which he will not be able to explain later on. It is said about a great poet that once a man came to ask him the meaning of a certain poem that he had written twenty years before. The poet said, "It is too late. When I had written it, two persons knew the meaning. Now, only one knows." The man said, "Then that one must be you." And the poet said, "I am not that one. When I wrote this poetry, or, to be more true, when this poetry was written by me or this poetry wrote itself through me, God knew the meaning and I knew the meaning. Now I don't know, only God knows." The poet is not in a state of meditation, he's not in awareness. He's vulnerable to the unknown. He has certain openings towards the unknown, and the unknown penetrates him, stirs his heart, resounds in his being, sometimes becomes a song or a painting or a dance, but the poet is utterly unaware of what is happening from where it all comes. And it comes like lightening, and then disappears. He has to write it, he has an obligation to write it. Unless he writes it, it persists inside. It goes on hammering him. A poet writes it because it becomes too heavy if he doesn't write. He unburdens himself by writing. The poetry is a catharsis. The poet feels good once he has written something that was persistently there asking for attention. The mystic is enlightened -- not that he has lightning experiences. The other world, the unknown -- call it God, NIRVANA, or anything you like -- has become his abode. It is his reality; he lives there. It is not something from the blue: he's part of it, he vibrates with it. The separation is dropped. He knows what he is saying. So there are two kinds of art: the ordinary art -- Shakespeare, Dylan, Carroll, Eliot -- this is subjective art. Much imagination is involved in it. It is not pure gold. Then there is another kind of art: the Upanishads, the Bible, the caves of Ajanta and Ellora, the pyramids, the statues of Buddha, the Taj Mahal, Khajuraho, Konarak; this is a totally different kind of art, objective art.&nbsp; The people who created the caves of Ajanta and Ellora knew exactly what they were doing. They were not simply possessed by an idea, they were creating something very deliberately, for some deliberate results. Picasso is painting in a kind of dream, and the dream is not even very beautiful -- it is nightmarish, it is a nightmare. He has to paint it, otherwise it will drive him crazy. Just think! If Picasso were prevented from painting, what would happen to him? He would have gone mad. He would not have been able to contain all these nightmares. When he painted these nightmares he was finished; it was a kind of self-psychoanalysis. That is the very foundation of psychoanalysis. What happens in psychoanalysis? You bring all that is hidden in your unconsciousness to the surface, you relate it to the psychoanalyst. He listens attentively, passively, patiently. Once you have related it from all the possible angles it evaporates from your being, you are unburdened.&nbsp; Now psychoanalysis has found this too -- that art can be a good therapy, therapy through art. In fact, that has always been so. Picasso would have gone mad if he had not painted. That's exactly what happened to van Gogh, another great painter. He went mad, because he was so poor he could not manage to purchase canvases, colors, brushes to paint. He was given enough money from his brother so that he could live, exactly enough so that he could live, not a single pai more. And what was he doing for years? -- for four days of the week he would eat and three days he would fast and save money to paint. He went mad. He could not paint all that was clamoring, boiling in his being; he was sitting on a volcano. Lightnings were happening to him, and he could not unburden himself. They went on being accumulated inside. First he went mad, then finally he committed suicide. It was too much to live. And that has been felt by poets, painters, sculptors down the ages -- that they feel possessed by a demon, by some unknown spirit which forces them to write. They have to write; they cannot deny it, they cannot escape from it. Unless they fulfill it they will not feel free. This is subjective art. A mystic also creates. Buddha creates by speaking; he sculpts in words. He creates parables, stories, weaves stories within stories, brings insight into the world, but this is not a kind of possession. He is perfectly at ease. He can be silent if he decides so, he will not go mad. And he knows exactly what he is doing; that's why it is called objective art. He knows what he is doing, he knows what it will do to people. He knows if this particular thing is meditated upon, this will be the consequence of it. It is utterly scientific. If you meditate on a Buddha-statue, you will suddenly feel yourself becoming cool, silent, tranquil. You will suddenly feel a kind of balancing happening -- just by meditating on the Buddha-statue. Or, if you meditate on the Taj Mahal on a full-moon night -- it is a Sufi work of art, it was created by Sufis; it is a message of love -- if you go on a full-moon night and simply sit there, not thinking about the Taj Mahal, not saying stupid things like "How beautiful!" just meditating, absorbing, you will feel a great insight happening to you. As the night deepens, something will deepen in you. As the moon starts rising, something will start rising in you too . As the noises of the city disappear, your noisy mind will start disappearing.&nbsp; You can have a great meditative experience through the Taj Mahal. And it will not be only meditative -- that is the difference between the Taj Mahal and Ajanta. When meditation happens you will feel overflowing with love. In Ajanta, love will not happen, only meditation will happen. That was created by Buddhist mystics who believe in awareness and in nothing else. Sufis believe in love; meditation is part of it. Objective art means it has been created deliberately by one who knows what he is doing, who brings something from the other dimension into this world, some form. Just watching that form, a form will arise in you, a song. Just singing that song, you will become something else, a mantra. But if you start meditating you will be surprised: many times you will find beautiful lines from the poets. What I would like to remind you of is that sometimes you can find something in Eliot which he himself was not aware of. If you meditate, if you go deep in meditation, then even from subjective art you can find a thousand and one beautiful experiences. That may not have been so for the creator himself, because the creator was in a kind of dream-state when he created it. That's why it is always wise never to go and see the painter if you love the painting, never to go and see the poet if you love his poetry, because that may be a kind of disillusionment. You will find the poet very ordinary, because the poet is not a poet for twenty-four hours. Once in a while he is a poet, when the door opens. And he does not know how it opens and how it closes; he has no keys in his hand. He cannot open it on demand. He's utterly helpless and impotent; it happens when it happens. When it happens he shares the being of a mystic, for a moment. For a split second a drop of the unknown falls into his being, a seed sinks into his heart, then he is ordinary. Then for the remaining time he is just as ordinary, as ignorant as you -- sometimes even more so. Because that glimpse gives him a very, very egoistic idea about himself, he starts thinking about himself that he's superb, something great. That's why you will find poets, painters, very vain, egoistic people.&nbsp; You will not find ordinary people so egoistic as you will find the artists to be. They are creators, and they have some reason to be egoistic: look what great poetry they have done, what great paintings they have done. Those paintings are not done by them, those poems are not done by them. Something mysterious has been happening to them. They have become instrumental, they have been mediums. But a mystic is not a medium, he is the source. Sometimes in Eliot you will find words which are as beautiful as Buddha's words or Jesus' words, but there is a qualitative difference between them: Eliot is not aware of what he is doing; Jesus is fully aware of what he is doing, of what he wants to do. Each of his statements is deliberate, conscious. But if you start meditating, then from many sources you will be able to recognize, and then even poets start looking like mystics. Source: Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link. Discourse Series: <a href="wisdom-of-the-sands-vol-2-05" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Wisdom of the Sands, Vol 2, Chapter #5</a> Chapter title: Allow the Heart 6 March 1978 am in Buddha Hall References: Osho has spoken on distinguished poets like Byron, Coleridge, D.H. Lawrence, Ghalib, Heinrich Heine, John Ruskin, Kahlil Gibran, Kalidas, Keats, Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain, Milton, Oscar Wilde, Rabindranath Tagore, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Rumi, Rudyard Kipling, Shakespeare, Shelley, William Blake, Wordsworth and many more in His discourses. Some of these can be referred to in the following books/discourses: 1. The Book of Wisdom 2. The Sword and The Lotus 3. Returning to the Source&nbsp; 4. Light on the Path 5. The Secret 6. The Hidden Splendour 7. The New Dawn 8. Beyond Enlightenment 9. From Bondage to Freedom 10. The Golden Future 11. Take It Easy, Vol 1 12. The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 4, 5 13. Theologia Mystica &nbsp;