We all make financial mistakes, and they add up.
Consider: From 1986 to 2005, the Standard & Poor's 500 returned 12% annually, but thanks to overzealous trading, the average investor in stock mutual funds made just 4%, according to Dalbar, a Boston-based financial-services research firm. Homeowners pay high insurance premiums to keep deductibles low, but only 7% report claims each year. And 74% of Americans overpaid their taxes in 2005 -- essentially giving the government an interest-free loan.
Why? A developing discipline known as behavioral economics seeks to answer that question, but it boils down to this: Academic research tells us that emotions and experiences can distort our financial decisions. While our mistakes are rarely the result of a single mental error, our feelings can make us fumble. Below, seven big financial mistakes and the psychology behind them.
1. Saving with the right hand and spending with the left
DIAGNOSIS: Mental accounting
SYMPTOMS: Keeping a savings account that pays 5% interest while paying Visa 15%; thinking a tax refund equals mad money; obsessing over the price of a new car, but failing to monitor the weekly grocery bill.
Another way to think of "mental accounting" is separating money into buckets, each with a different purpose. It's not always a mistake -- it is the premise behind budgeting, for example -- but looking at your finances in parts without seeing the whole picture can hide costs and charges you could otherwise avoid. Consider a $5,000 tax refund. Woo-hoo! Right? Wrong. If you put your overpayments in a high-interest savings account throughout the year, you would net about $135 in interest instead of giving an interest-free loan to Uncle Sam.
2. Playing it too safe
DIAGNOSIS: Loss aversion
SYMPTOMS: Quick to sell winning stocks but slow to sell losing ones; putting too much cash in money-market funds and not enough in stocks; reluctance to trade away what you already have, even for something more valuable.
No one likes losing money -- a truism that economists call "loss aversion." Because we can avoid only losses that we recognize, we tend to focus on immediate costs, while ignoring more subtle costs and even savings. For example, we should recognize that getting a $4 discount is worth as much as avoiding a $4 surcharge. But most of us would rather avoid that surcharge. By being "loss averse," investors open the door to a more insidious cost, the toll that inflation will take on their savings.
3. Looking into a cloudy crystal ball
DIAGNOSIS: Misunderstanding risk
SYMPTOMS: Putting too much of your savings in your company's stock; having very low insurance deductibles; thinking small-cap stocks will rise forever.
More than two-thirds of adult Americans have life insurance. The bad news is that many are neglecting a bigger risk. People between 35 and 64 years old are six times more likely to be injured badly enough to miss an extended amount of work than they are to die. So why do fewer than a third of us have disability coverage? That error reflects what economists and psychologists sometimes call "the availability bias," a mental shortcut we use to gauge risk. It all adds up to what University of Chicago researcher Cass Sunstein calls probability neglect. "We tend to ask what's the worst -- or best -- that could happen," he says. "Instead, we should be asking, 'What's likely to happen?'"
4. Living in the moment
DIAGNOSIS: Procrastination
SYMPTOMS: Failing to enroll in a 401(k) plan; not coming up with a monthly budget; waiting until the last minute to make your IRA contribution.
The propensity to procrastinate, behavioral economists say, is one reason nearly half of employees don't participate in their 401(k) plan or contribute enough to get the full company match -- essentially turning down free money. "There is a tendency to value immediate costs and immediate rewards much more than delayed costs and delayed rewards," says David Laibson, an economics professor at Harvard. To be fair, some households can't afford to give up any of the paycheck to savings, even if the company will automatically pony up too. Laibson, however, studied employees who could contribute to 401(k) plans, get the match and still have access to the money in short order. About half still weren't contributing enough to get the full match, and of that half, most weren't enrolled at all.
5. Throwing good money after bad
DIAGNOSIS: Sunk-cost effect
SYMPTOMS: Hanging on to a lagging mutual fund because you paid an upfront sales charge; making repairs that cost more than your car is worth; making decisions about how to spend time or money based on how much time and money you've already spent.
The upfront money we spend to make an investment -- the "sunk cost" -- colors the way we see its prospects for the future. Mutual fund sales charges are sunk costs. Of course, you hope your investment pays off and the fund outperforms. But when it comes to reevaluating -- whether to sell the mutual fund -- a "rational" economic perspective tells us the sunk costs shouldn't matter. They're gone. We'd be better off making the decision by weighing future gains and losses.
6. Letting your ego get in the way
DIAGNOSIS: Overconfidence
SYMPTOMS: Frequent trading; concentrating picks among a handful of "surefire winners"; thinking you're an above-average driver.
Studies show that we often tend to overestimate our abilities. Of course, confidence and optimism aren't necessarily bad. But in the stock market, overconfidence leads people to believe that they can beat the market when, more often than not, they can't. The consequences are high-risk investments, overtrading and under-diversification, all of which chip away at long-term returns. In their study "Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth," University of California professors Brad Barber and Terrance Odean found that individual investors who trade actively trailed the overall market by 3.7 percentage points a year. Odean says that while many people believe they can identify winners, they not only miss the mark but also rack up a lot of commissions and other trading costs.
7. Following the crowd
DIAGNOSIS: Herding
SYMPTOMS: Buying ethanol stocks because everyone says they're the next big thing; dumping your stock fund after a steep market decline; taking stock tips from family and friends.
Nearly two decades after the stock market crash of 1987, the debate continues about what really caused a 23% plunge in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and massive drops in stock markets around the world. Theories range from cascading electronic trades to a windstorm in London. Behavioral economists, however, see investors acting like lemmings. The sellers couldn't resist the pull of the crowd even though it was pushing them in precisely the wrong direction.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Saturday, June 02, 2007
The Goose Called Awareness - Emotion by Osho
I often panic, and worry that I might go mad.
“The basic thing to be understood is that you are not the mind — neither the bright one nor the dark one. If you get identified with the beautiful part, then it is impossible to disidentify yourself from the ugly part; they are two sides of the same coin. You can have it whole, or you can throw it away whole, but you cannot divide it.
“The whole anxiety of man is that he wants to choose that which looks beautiful, bright; he wants to choose all the silver linings, leaving the dark cloud behind. But he does not know that silver linings cannot exist without the dark cloud. The dark cloud is the background, absolutely necessary for silver linings to show.
“Choosing is anxiety.
“Choosing is creating trouble for yourself.
“Being choiceless means: the mind is there and it has a dark side and it has a bright side — so what? What has it to do with you? Why should you be worried about it?
“The moment you are not choosing, all worry disappears. A great acceptance arises, that this is how the mind has to be, this is the nature of the mind — and it is not your problem, because you are not the mind. If you were the mind, there would have been no problem at all. Then who would choose and who would think of transcending? And who would try to accept and understand acceptance?
“You are separate, totally separate.
“You are only a witness and nothing else.
“But you are being an observer who gets identified with anything that he finds pleasant — and forgets that the unpleasant is coming just behind it as a shadow. You are not troubled by the pleasant side — you rejoice in it. The trouble comes when the polar opposite asserts — then you are torn apart.
“But you started the whole trouble. Falling from being just a witness, you became identified. The biblical story of the fall is just a fiction. But this is the real fall — the fall from being a witness into getting identified with something and losing your witnessing.
“Just try once in a while: Let the mind be whatever it is. Remember, you are not it. And you are going to have a great surprise. As you are less identified, the mind starts becoming less powerful, because its power comes from your identification; it sucks your blood. But when you start standing aloof and away, the mind starts shrinking.
“The day you are completely unidentified with the mind, even for a single moment, there is the revelation: mind simply dies; it is no longer there. Where it was so full, where it was so continuous — day in, day out, waking, sleeping, it was there — suddenly it is not there. You look all around and it is emptiness, it is nothingness.
“And with the mind disappears the self. Then there is only a certain quality of awareness, with no ‘I’ in it. At the most you can call it something similar to ‘am-ness,’ but not ‘I-ness.’ To be even more exact, it is ‘is-ness’ because even in am-ness some shadow of the ‘I’ is still there. The moment you know its is-ness, it has become universal.
“With the disappearance of the mind disappears the self. And so many things disappear which were so important to you, so troublesome to you. You were trying to solve them and they were becoming more and more complicated; everything was a problem, an anxiety, and there seemed to be no way out.
“I remind you of the story The Goose is Out. It is concerned with the mind and your is-ness.
“The master tells the disciple to meditate on a koan: A small goose is put into a bottle, fed and nourished. The goose goes on becoming bigger and bigger and bigger, and fills the whole bottle. Now it is too big; it cannot come out of the bottle’s mouth — the mouth is too small. And the koan is that you have to bring the goose out without destroying the bottle, without killing the goose.
“Now it is mind-boggling.
“What can you do? The goose is too big; you cannot take it out unless you break the bottle, but that is not allowed. Or you can bring it out by killing it; then you don’t care whether it comes out alive or dead. That is not allowed either. “Day in, day out, the disciple meditates, finds no way, thinks this way and that way — but in fact there is no way. Tired, utterly exhausted, a sudden revelation...suddenly he understands that the master cannot be interested in the bottle and the goose; they must represent something else. The bottle is the mind, you are the goose...and with witnessing, it is possible. Without being in the mind, you can become identified with it so much that you start feeling you are in it!
“He runs to the master to say that the goose is out. And the master says, “You have understood it. Now keep it out. It has never been in.”
“If you go on struggling with the goose and the bottle, there is no way for you to solve it. It is the realization that, “It must represent something else; otherwise the master cannot give it to me. And what can it be?” — because the whole function between the master and the disciple, the whole business is about the mind and awareness.
“Awareness is the goose which is not in the bottle of the mind. But you are believing that it is in it and asking everyone how to get it out. And there are idiots who will help you, with techniques, to get out of it. I call them idiots because they have not understood the thing at all.
“The goose is out, has never been in, so the question of bringing it out does not arise.
“Mind is just a procession of thoughts passing in front of you on the screen of the brain. You are an observer. But you start getting identified with beautiful things — those are bribes. And once you get caught in the beautiful things you are also caught in the ugly things, because mind cannot exist without duality.
“Awareness cannot exist with duality, and mind cannot exist without duality.
“Awareness is non-dual, and mind is dual. So just watch. I don’t teach you any solutions. I teach you the solution: Just get back a little and watch. Create a distance between you and your mind.
“Whether it is good, beautiful, delicious, something that you would like to enjoy closely, or it is ugly — remain as far away as possible. Look at it just the way you look at a film....
“Identification is the root cause of your misery. And every identification is identification with the mind.
“Just step aside, let the mind pass.
“And soon you will be able to see that there is no problem at all — the goose is out. You don’t have to break the bottle, you don’t have to kill the goose either.”
“The basic thing to be understood is that you are not the mind — neither the bright one nor the dark one. If you get identified with the beautiful part, then it is impossible to disidentify yourself from the ugly part; they are two sides of the same coin. You can have it whole, or you can throw it away whole, but you cannot divide it.
“The whole anxiety of man is that he wants to choose that which looks beautiful, bright; he wants to choose all the silver linings, leaving the dark cloud behind. But he does not know that silver linings cannot exist without the dark cloud. The dark cloud is the background, absolutely necessary for silver linings to show.
“Choosing is anxiety.
“Choosing is creating trouble for yourself.
“Being choiceless means: the mind is there and it has a dark side and it has a bright side — so what? What has it to do with you? Why should you be worried about it?
“The moment you are not choosing, all worry disappears. A great acceptance arises, that this is how the mind has to be, this is the nature of the mind — and it is not your problem, because you are not the mind. If you were the mind, there would have been no problem at all. Then who would choose and who would think of transcending? And who would try to accept and understand acceptance?
“You are separate, totally separate.
“You are only a witness and nothing else.
“But you are being an observer who gets identified with anything that he finds pleasant — and forgets that the unpleasant is coming just behind it as a shadow. You are not troubled by the pleasant side — you rejoice in it. The trouble comes when the polar opposite asserts — then you are torn apart.
“But you started the whole trouble. Falling from being just a witness, you became identified. The biblical story of the fall is just a fiction. But this is the real fall — the fall from being a witness into getting identified with something and losing your witnessing.
“Just try once in a while: Let the mind be whatever it is. Remember, you are not it. And you are going to have a great surprise. As you are less identified, the mind starts becoming less powerful, because its power comes from your identification; it sucks your blood. But when you start standing aloof and away, the mind starts shrinking.
“The day you are completely unidentified with the mind, even for a single moment, there is the revelation: mind simply dies; it is no longer there. Where it was so full, where it was so continuous — day in, day out, waking, sleeping, it was there — suddenly it is not there. You look all around and it is emptiness, it is nothingness.
“And with the mind disappears the self. Then there is only a certain quality of awareness, with no ‘I’ in it. At the most you can call it something similar to ‘am-ness,’ but not ‘I-ness.’ To be even more exact, it is ‘is-ness’ because even in am-ness some shadow of the ‘I’ is still there. The moment you know its is-ness, it has become universal.
“With the disappearance of the mind disappears the self. And so many things disappear which were so important to you, so troublesome to you. You were trying to solve them and they were becoming more and more complicated; everything was a problem, an anxiety, and there seemed to be no way out.
“I remind you of the story The Goose is Out. It is concerned with the mind and your is-ness.
“The master tells the disciple to meditate on a koan: A small goose is put into a bottle, fed and nourished. The goose goes on becoming bigger and bigger and bigger, and fills the whole bottle. Now it is too big; it cannot come out of the bottle’s mouth — the mouth is too small. And the koan is that you have to bring the goose out without destroying the bottle, without killing the goose.
“Now it is mind-boggling.
“What can you do? The goose is too big; you cannot take it out unless you break the bottle, but that is not allowed. Or you can bring it out by killing it; then you don’t care whether it comes out alive or dead. That is not allowed either. “Day in, day out, the disciple meditates, finds no way, thinks this way and that way — but in fact there is no way. Tired, utterly exhausted, a sudden revelation...suddenly he understands that the master cannot be interested in the bottle and the goose; they must represent something else. The bottle is the mind, you are the goose...and with witnessing, it is possible. Without being in the mind, you can become identified with it so much that you start feeling you are in it!
“He runs to the master to say that the goose is out. And the master says, “You have understood it. Now keep it out. It has never been in.”
“If you go on struggling with the goose and the bottle, there is no way for you to solve it. It is the realization that, “It must represent something else; otherwise the master cannot give it to me. And what can it be?” — because the whole function between the master and the disciple, the whole business is about the mind and awareness.
“Awareness is the goose which is not in the bottle of the mind. But you are believing that it is in it and asking everyone how to get it out. And there are idiots who will help you, with techniques, to get out of it. I call them idiots because they have not understood the thing at all.
“The goose is out, has never been in, so the question of bringing it out does not arise.
“Mind is just a procession of thoughts passing in front of you on the screen of the brain. You are an observer. But you start getting identified with beautiful things — those are bribes. And once you get caught in the beautiful things you are also caught in the ugly things, because mind cannot exist without duality.
“Awareness cannot exist with duality, and mind cannot exist without duality.
“Awareness is non-dual, and mind is dual. So just watch. I don’t teach you any solutions. I teach you the solution: Just get back a little and watch. Create a distance between you and your mind.
“Whether it is good, beautiful, delicious, something that you would like to enjoy closely, or it is ugly — remain as far away as possible. Look at it just the way you look at a film....
“Identification is the root cause of your misery. And every identification is identification with the mind.
“Just step aside, let the mind pass.
“And soon you will be able to see that there is no problem at all — the goose is out. You don’t have to break the bottle, you don’t have to kill the goose either.”
Growing Old or Growing Up? - by Osho
Growing Old or Growing Up?
I’m feeling loving towards people, feeling warmth, but I don’t feel very sexual. I don’t know if my sexuality is slightly repressed or if it’s okay.
There’s no need to feel sexual — and there is no need to be worried about it. Just feel loving and warm. That one has to remember, that one should not become cold. If one starts feeling cold, then it is a problem. And if sex disappears completely, there is no problem; warmth should not disappear.
It almost always happens together. When people’s sex disappears, their warmth disappears. When their warmth comes, their sexuality comes. That’s why people think that sexuality and warmth are two aspects of the same energy. They are not.
It is a good experience to be warm and non-sexual. Then you are growing; then you are really growing. Just to grow older is not real growth. To be grown is not to be a grown up. Growing up means exactly what it says: growing up, growing upwards. And this is a beautiful step — that one retains the warmth, and sex by and by disappears. Sex is beautiful because of its warmth; there is nothing else. So if you can retain the warmth when sex disappears, perfectly good; as it should be. Then the goal is preserved, and only the non-essential is gone. Never lose sight of warmth. Sex is not an essential thing; warmth is essential.
So everything is going well. Don’t force sexuality on yourself, otherwise that will be a destructive step. Be more and more warm. There is no need to become anti-sexual. There is no need to repress sexuality. If sometimes just your warmth takes you into sex, it’s okay, it’s beautiful. But if you go into it because of the warmth, then the motive is warmth, not sex. It happens, but it is the periphery. The center remains your loving heart, your warmth.
The Passion for the Impossible
I’m feeling loving towards people, feeling warmth, but I don’t feel very sexual. I don’t know if my sexuality is slightly repressed or if it’s okay.
There’s no need to feel sexual — and there is no need to be worried about it. Just feel loving and warm. That one has to remember, that one should not become cold. If one starts feeling cold, then it is a problem. And if sex disappears completely, there is no problem; warmth should not disappear.
It almost always happens together. When people’s sex disappears, their warmth disappears. When their warmth comes, their sexuality comes. That’s why people think that sexuality and warmth are two aspects of the same energy. They are not.
It is a good experience to be warm and non-sexual. Then you are growing; then you are really growing. Just to grow older is not real growth. To be grown is not to be a grown up. Growing up means exactly what it says: growing up, growing upwards. And this is a beautiful step — that one retains the warmth, and sex by and by disappears. Sex is beautiful because of its warmth; there is nothing else. So if you can retain the warmth when sex disappears, perfectly good; as it should be. Then the goal is preserved, and only the non-essential is gone. Never lose sight of warmth. Sex is not an essential thing; warmth is essential.
So everything is going well. Don’t force sexuality on yourself, otherwise that will be a destructive step. Be more and more warm. There is no need to become anti-sexual. There is no need to repress sexuality. If sometimes just your warmth takes you into sex, it’s okay, it’s beautiful. But if you go into it because of the warmth, then the motive is warmth, not sex. It happens, but it is the periphery. The center remains your loving heart, your warmth.
The Passion for the Impossible
Friday, May 25, 2007
The Book of Understanding - Creating Your Own Path to Freedom ( By Osho )
Excerpt 1
Learned and Natural: Reclaiming the self you were born with
In the past, all over the world, people were pagans -- simple nature-worshippers. There was no concept of sin, there was no question of guilt. Life was accepted as it is. There was no evaluation, no interpretation -- reason had not interfered yet.
The moment reason starts interfering, condemnation comes in. The moment reason enters, division starts and man becomes split. Then you start condemning something in your being -- one part becomes higher, another part becomes lower, and you lose balance. But this had to happen; reason had to come in, this is part of growth. As it happens to every child, it had to happen to the whole of humanity too.
When the child is born he is a pagan. Each child is a born pagan, he is happy the way he is. He has no idea what is right and what is wrong; he has no ideals. He has no criteria, he has no judgment. Hungry, he asks for food. Sleepy, he falls asleep. That’s what Zen masters say is the utmost in religiousness -- when hungry eat, when feeling sleepy go to sleep. Let life flow; don’t interfere.
Each child is born as a pagan, but sooner or later he will lose that simplicity. That is part of life; it has to happen. It is part of our growth, maturity, destiny. The child has to lose it and find it again. When the child loses it he becomes ordinary, worldly. When he regains it he becomes religious.
The innocence of childhood is cheap; it is a gift from existence. We have not earned it and we will have to lose it. Only by losing it will we become aware of what we have lost. Then we will start searching for it. And only when we search for it and earn it, achieve it, become it -- then we will know the tremendous preciousness of it.
Excerpt 2
Outer and Inner: In search of where the twain shall meet
There have been many civilizations before ours that have reached high peaks, but destroyed themselves because they grew in a deep imbalance. They developed great technologies, but they forgot that even the greatest technological progress is not going to make people more blissful, more peaceful, more loving, more compassionate.
Our consciousness has not grown at the same pace as our scientific progress, and that has been the cause of many civilizations destroying themselves. We have created monsters as far as machines are concerned, and at the same time we have remained retarded, unconscious, almost asleep. And it is very dangerous to give so much power to unconscious people.
That’s what is happening now. Politicians are of the lowest kind as far as consciousness is concerned. They are clever, they are cunning. They are mean, too, and they make every effort for a single goal, which is to be more powerful. Their only desire is for more power -- not for more peace, not for more being, not for more truth, not for more love.
What do you need more power for? -- to dominate others, to destroy others. All the power accumulates in the hands of unconscious people. So on the one hand, politicians in all the civilizations that have developed and died -- it would be better to say committed suicide -- had all the power in their hands. On the other hand, the genius of human intelligence was searching for more and more technology, scientific improvements, and all they discovered finally had to go into the hands of the politicians.
The destruction of our earth will not come from some other planet -- we are preparing our own graves. We may be aware, we may not be aware, but we are all gravediggers and we are digging our own graves. Right now there are only a few nations in possession of nuclear weapons. Soon many more nations will also be nuclear powers. It is going to be beyond control, with so many nations having so much destructiveness that a single nation could destroy the whole earth. A single crazy person, a single politician, just to show his power, can destroy the whole of civilization and you will have to begin from ABC. And the destruction is not only of humanity. With humanity will die all the companions of humanity -- the animals, the trees, the birds, the flowers. Everything could disappear, everything that is alive.
The reason is an imbalance in our evolution. We go on developing scientific technology without bothering at all that our consciousness should also evolve in the same proportion. In fact, our consciousness should be a little ahead of our technological progress.
If our consciousness were in the state of enlightenment.... In the hands of a Gautam Buddha nuclear power would no longer be dangerous. In the hands of a Gautam Buddha nuclear power would be turned towards some creative force -- because force is always neutral; either you can destroy with it or you can find ways to create something. But right now our powers are great and our humanity is very small. It is as if we have put bombs in the hands of children to play with.
Human beings have gone through this struggle since the very beginning. It is the imbalance between the inner and the outer.
The outer is easier, and the outer is objective. For example, one man, Thomas Alva Edison, creates electricity and the whole of humanity uses it; there is no need for everyone to discover it again and again. Inner growth is a totally different phenomenon. A Gautam Buddha may become enlightened but that does not mean that everybody else becomes enlightened. Each individual has to find the truth by himself or herself. So whatever happens on the outside goes on accumulating, piling up; all the scientific progress goes on piling up because each scientist is standing on the shoulders of other scientists. But the evolution of consciousness does not follow the same law. Each individual has to discover it by himself; he cannot stand on the shoulders of somebody else.
Anything objective can be shared, can be taught in the schools, colleges, universities. But the same is not true about subjectivity. I may know everything about the inner world; still I cannot hand that over to you. It is one of the fundamental laws of existence that the inner truth has to be discovered by each individual through his or her own efforts. It cannot be purchased in the marketplace nor can it be stolen. Nobody can give it to you as a gift. It is not a commodity, it is not material; it is an immaterial experience.
One can give evidence for this immaterial experience by one’s individuality, by one’s presence, compassion, love, silence. But these are only indications that something has happened inside a person. That person can encourage you, can tell you that you are not going inside in vain: “You will find treasures, as I have found.” Each master is nothing but an argument, evidence, an eyewitness. But the experience remains individual.
Science becomes social, technology becomes social; the subjective realm remains individual. That is the basic problem, how to create a balance.
Excerpt 3
Shepherd and Sheep: Cutting yourself loose from the puppeteer
The very idea of God gives you a sense of relief – that you are not alone, that somebody is looking after affairs; that this cosmos is not just a chaos, it is really a cosmos; that there is a system behind it, there is logic behind it; that it is not an illogical jumble of things, that it is not anarchy. Somebody rules it; the sovereign king is there looking after each small detail – not even a leaf moves without his moving it. Everything is planned. You are part of a great destiny. Maybe the meaning is not known to you, but the meaning is there because God is there. God brings a tremendous relief. One starts feeling that life is not accidental; there is a certain undercurrent of significance, meaning, destiny. God brings a sense of destiny.
There is no God – it simply shows that man knows not why he is here. It simply shows man is helpless. It simply shows that man has no meaning available to him. By creating the idea of God he can believe in meaning, and he can live this futile life with the idea that somebody is looking after it.
Just imagine: you are on an airplane flight and somebody comes and says, “There is no pilot.” Suddenly there will be a panic. No pilot?! No pilot simply means you are doomed. Then somebody says, “The pilot must be there – invisible, we may not be able to see the pilot, but he is there; otherwise how is this beautiful mechanism functioning? Just think of it: Everything is going so beautifully – there must be a pilot! Maybe we are not capable of seeing him, maybe we are not yet prayerful enough to see him, maybe our eyes are closed, but the pilot is there. Otherwise, how is it possible? This airplane has taken off, it is flying perfectly well; the engines are humming. Everything is proof that there is a pilot.”
If somebody can convince you, you can relax again into your chair. You close your eyes, you start dreaming again – you can fall asleep. The pilot is there, you need not worry.
The pilot exists not – it is a human creation. Man has created God in his own image. It is man’s invention. God is not a discovery, it is an invention. And God is not the truth – it is the greatest lie there is.
Learned and Natural: Reclaiming the self you were born with
In the past, all over the world, people were pagans -- simple nature-worshippers. There was no concept of sin, there was no question of guilt. Life was accepted as it is. There was no evaluation, no interpretation -- reason had not interfered yet.
The moment reason starts interfering, condemnation comes in. The moment reason enters, division starts and man becomes split. Then you start condemning something in your being -- one part becomes higher, another part becomes lower, and you lose balance. But this had to happen; reason had to come in, this is part of growth. As it happens to every child, it had to happen to the whole of humanity too.
When the child is born he is a pagan. Each child is a born pagan, he is happy the way he is. He has no idea what is right and what is wrong; he has no ideals. He has no criteria, he has no judgment. Hungry, he asks for food. Sleepy, he falls asleep. That’s what Zen masters say is the utmost in religiousness -- when hungry eat, when feeling sleepy go to sleep. Let life flow; don’t interfere.
Each child is born as a pagan, but sooner or later he will lose that simplicity. That is part of life; it has to happen. It is part of our growth, maturity, destiny. The child has to lose it and find it again. When the child loses it he becomes ordinary, worldly. When he regains it he becomes religious.
The innocence of childhood is cheap; it is a gift from existence. We have not earned it and we will have to lose it. Only by losing it will we become aware of what we have lost. Then we will start searching for it. And only when we search for it and earn it, achieve it, become it -- then we will know the tremendous preciousness of it.
Excerpt 2
Outer and Inner: In search of where the twain shall meet
There have been many civilizations before ours that have reached high peaks, but destroyed themselves because they grew in a deep imbalance. They developed great technologies, but they forgot that even the greatest technological progress is not going to make people more blissful, more peaceful, more loving, more compassionate.
Our consciousness has not grown at the same pace as our scientific progress, and that has been the cause of many civilizations destroying themselves. We have created monsters as far as machines are concerned, and at the same time we have remained retarded, unconscious, almost asleep. And it is very dangerous to give so much power to unconscious people.
That’s what is happening now. Politicians are of the lowest kind as far as consciousness is concerned. They are clever, they are cunning. They are mean, too, and they make every effort for a single goal, which is to be more powerful. Their only desire is for more power -- not for more peace, not for more being, not for more truth, not for more love.
What do you need more power for? -- to dominate others, to destroy others. All the power accumulates in the hands of unconscious people. So on the one hand, politicians in all the civilizations that have developed and died -- it would be better to say committed suicide -- had all the power in their hands. On the other hand, the genius of human intelligence was searching for more and more technology, scientific improvements, and all they discovered finally had to go into the hands of the politicians.
The destruction of our earth will not come from some other planet -- we are preparing our own graves. We may be aware, we may not be aware, but we are all gravediggers and we are digging our own graves. Right now there are only a few nations in possession of nuclear weapons. Soon many more nations will also be nuclear powers. It is going to be beyond control, with so many nations having so much destructiveness that a single nation could destroy the whole earth. A single crazy person, a single politician, just to show his power, can destroy the whole of civilization and you will have to begin from ABC. And the destruction is not only of humanity. With humanity will die all the companions of humanity -- the animals, the trees, the birds, the flowers. Everything could disappear, everything that is alive.
The reason is an imbalance in our evolution. We go on developing scientific technology without bothering at all that our consciousness should also evolve in the same proportion. In fact, our consciousness should be a little ahead of our technological progress.
If our consciousness were in the state of enlightenment.... In the hands of a Gautam Buddha nuclear power would no longer be dangerous. In the hands of a Gautam Buddha nuclear power would be turned towards some creative force -- because force is always neutral; either you can destroy with it or you can find ways to create something. But right now our powers are great and our humanity is very small. It is as if we have put bombs in the hands of children to play with.
Human beings have gone through this struggle since the very beginning. It is the imbalance between the inner and the outer.
The outer is easier, and the outer is objective. For example, one man, Thomas Alva Edison, creates electricity and the whole of humanity uses it; there is no need for everyone to discover it again and again. Inner growth is a totally different phenomenon. A Gautam Buddha may become enlightened but that does not mean that everybody else becomes enlightened. Each individual has to find the truth by himself or herself. So whatever happens on the outside goes on accumulating, piling up; all the scientific progress goes on piling up because each scientist is standing on the shoulders of other scientists. But the evolution of consciousness does not follow the same law. Each individual has to discover it by himself; he cannot stand on the shoulders of somebody else.
Anything objective can be shared, can be taught in the schools, colleges, universities. But the same is not true about subjectivity. I may know everything about the inner world; still I cannot hand that over to you. It is one of the fundamental laws of existence that the inner truth has to be discovered by each individual through his or her own efforts. It cannot be purchased in the marketplace nor can it be stolen. Nobody can give it to you as a gift. It is not a commodity, it is not material; it is an immaterial experience.
One can give evidence for this immaterial experience by one’s individuality, by one’s presence, compassion, love, silence. But these are only indications that something has happened inside a person. That person can encourage you, can tell you that you are not going inside in vain: “You will find treasures, as I have found.” Each master is nothing but an argument, evidence, an eyewitness. But the experience remains individual.
Science becomes social, technology becomes social; the subjective realm remains individual. That is the basic problem, how to create a balance.
Excerpt 3
Shepherd and Sheep: Cutting yourself loose from the puppeteer
The very idea of God gives you a sense of relief – that you are not alone, that somebody is looking after affairs; that this cosmos is not just a chaos, it is really a cosmos; that there is a system behind it, there is logic behind it; that it is not an illogical jumble of things, that it is not anarchy. Somebody rules it; the sovereign king is there looking after each small detail – not even a leaf moves without his moving it. Everything is planned. You are part of a great destiny. Maybe the meaning is not known to you, but the meaning is there because God is there. God brings a tremendous relief. One starts feeling that life is not accidental; there is a certain undercurrent of significance, meaning, destiny. God brings a sense of destiny.
There is no God – it simply shows that man knows not why he is here. It simply shows man is helpless. It simply shows that man has no meaning available to him. By creating the idea of God he can believe in meaning, and he can live this futile life with the idea that somebody is looking after it.
Just imagine: you are on an airplane flight and somebody comes and says, “There is no pilot.” Suddenly there will be a panic. No pilot?! No pilot simply means you are doomed. Then somebody says, “The pilot must be there – invisible, we may not be able to see the pilot, but he is there; otherwise how is this beautiful mechanism functioning? Just think of it: Everything is going so beautifully – there must be a pilot! Maybe we are not capable of seeing him, maybe we are not yet prayerful enough to see him, maybe our eyes are closed, but the pilot is there. Otherwise, how is it possible? This airplane has taken off, it is flying perfectly well; the engines are humming. Everything is proof that there is a pilot.”
If somebody can convince you, you can relax again into your chair. You close your eyes, you start dreaming again – you can fall asleep. The pilot is there, you need not worry.
The pilot exists not – it is a human creation. Man has created God in his own image. It is man’s invention. God is not a discovery, it is an invention. And God is not the truth – it is the greatest lie there is.
When the Shoe Fits - Stories of the Taoist mystic Chuang Tzu - by Osho
History always remembers foolish people because fools make history and fools write it.
Chuang Tzu makes no history, because easy is right. How can you make history if you are easy? If you win a war and kill millions of people you make history. If you just brush your teeth in the morning how can you make history? And easy is right! You take a bath, and you sing a little song...how can you make history? You eat your food and you silently go to sleep without any dreams–how can you make history? No, history takes no notice of persons who are easy and natural. History takes notice of people who are mad, obsessed with something, who create trouble in some way or other.
Difficult is wrong, easy is right. Be easy and don’t try to be in history. Leave it for fools and mad people, you just stay out of it…because you cannot have both. Either you can have life or you can be remembered in history. If you have life, you will be just an easy and simple person doing simple and small things and enjoying them. You will not create any trouble for anybody; nobody will take any notice of you. You will exist as if you never existed. That is what easy is–existing as if you are not existing, existing as if you are not. Not in anyone’s way, nobody will know about you, but there is no need. You will enjoy; you will attain to the highest peak of ecstasy. Easy is right.
When the Shoe Fits uses ten stories from the life of Chuang Tzu as starting points to explore what "Easy is right" really means. The title of the book is taken from the first story: "When the shoe fits," says Chuang Tzu, "the foot is forgotten. When the belt fits, the belly is forgotten. And when the heart is right, ’for’ and ’against’ are forgotten." In commenting on these ten beautiful and paradoxical stories, Osho invites us to explore what the ego is, and how it gets in our way; what true self-acceptance really means; why drawing up rules of conduct for people to follow never seems to work - and much, much more. Chuang Tzu’s perspective, in Osho’s hands, becomes absolutely relevant to live in the 21st century.
Chuang Tzu makes no history, because easy is right. How can you make history if you are easy? If you win a war and kill millions of people you make history. If you just brush your teeth in the morning how can you make history? And easy is right! You take a bath, and you sing a little song...how can you make history? You eat your food and you silently go to sleep without any dreams–how can you make history? No, history takes no notice of persons who are easy and natural. History takes notice of people who are mad, obsessed with something, who create trouble in some way or other.
Difficult is wrong, easy is right. Be easy and don’t try to be in history. Leave it for fools and mad people, you just stay out of it…because you cannot have both. Either you can have life or you can be remembered in history. If you have life, you will be just an easy and simple person doing simple and small things and enjoying them. You will not create any trouble for anybody; nobody will take any notice of you. You will exist as if you never existed. That is what easy is–existing as if you are not existing, existing as if you are not. Not in anyone’s way, nobody will know about you, but there is no need. You will enjoy; you will attain to the highest peak of ecstasy. Easy is right.
When the Shoe Fits uses ten stories from the life of Chuang Tzu as starting points to explore what "Easy is right" really means. The title of the book is taken from the first story: "When the shoe fits," says Chuang Tzu, "the foot is forgotten. When the belt fits, the belly is forgotten. And when the heart is right, ’for’ and ’against’ are forgotten." In commenting on these ten beautiful and paradoxical stories, Osho invites us to explore what the ego is, and how it gets in our way; what true self-acceptance really means; why drawing up rules of conduct for people to follow never seems to work - and much, much more. Chuang Tzu’s perspective, in Osho’s hands, becomes absolutely relevant to live in the 21st century.
Emotional Wellness -Transforming Fear, Anger, and Jealousy into Creative Energy - by Osho
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About: Emotional Wellness
How do we reconcile our need to express our emotions with our desire to get along with others? Far too often we find ourselves trapped in this dilemma of “expression” versus “repression.” We fear that by expressing our true feelings, we will hurt and alienate those close to us. But by repressing our emotions—even in the benevolent guise of “self-control”—we only risk hurting ourselves.
Here, Osho provides a practical and comprehensive approach to dealing with this conflict effectively. Emotional Wellness leads us to understand the roots of our emotions, to respond to situations in a way that can teach us more about ourselves and others, and to navigate life’s inevitable ups and downs with greater confidence and equilibrium.
Includes:
o The impact that fear, anger, and jealousy have on our lives
o How emotions like guilt, insecurity, and fear are used to manipulate us
o How to break out of unhealthy patterns of dealing with strong emotions
o How to transform destructive emotions into creative energy
o The role of society and culture on our individual emotional “styles”
Excerpt from Emotional Wellness
Emotions cannot be permanent. That’s why they are called “emotions”—the word comes from “motion,” movement. They move; hence, they are “emotions.” From one to another you continually change. This moment you are sad, that moment you are happy; this moment you are angry, that moment you are compassionate. This moment you are loving, another moment full of hatred; the morning was beautiful, the evening is ugly. And this goes on. This cannot be your nature, because behind all these changes something is needed like a thread that holds all of them together. Just as in a garland you see flowers, you don’t see the thread, but the thread is what is holding all the flowers, in the same way these emotions are all flowers. Sometimes anger flowers, sometimes happiness, sometimes pain sometimes anguish. But these are all flowers, and your whole life is the garland. There must be thread; otherwise you would have fallen apart long ago. You continue as an entity—so what is the thread, the polestar? What is permanent in you? - Osho, Emotional Wellness
About: Emotional Wellness
How do we reconcile our need to express our emotions with our desire to get along with others? Far too often we find ourselves trapped in this dilemma of “expression” versus “repression.” We fear that by expressing our true feelings, we will hurt and alienate those close to us. But by repressing our emotions—even in the benevolent guise of “self-control”—we only risk hurting ourselves.
Here, Osho provides a practical and comprehensive approach to dealing with this conflict effectively. Emotional Wellness leads us to understand the roots of our emotions, to respond to situations in a way that can teach us more about ourselves and others, and to navigate life’s inevitable ups and downs with greater confidence and equilibrium.
Includes:
o The impact that fear, anger, and jealousy have on our lives
o How emotions like guilt, insecurity, and fear are used to manipulate us
o How to break out of unhealthy patterns of dealing with strong emotions
o How to transform destructive emotions into creative energy
o The role of society and culture on our individual emotional “styles”
Excerpt from Emotional Wellness
Emotions cannot be permanent. That’s why they are called “emotions”—the word comes from “motion,” movement. They move; hence, they are “emotions.” From one to another you continually change. This moment you are sad, that moment you are happy; this moment you are angry, that moment you are compassionate. This moment you are loving, another moment full of hatred; the morning was beautiful, the evening is ugly. And this goes on. This cannot be your nature, because behind all these changes something is needed like a thread that holds all of them together. Just as in a garland you see flowers, you don’t see the thread, but the thread is what is holding all the flowers, in the same way these emotions are all flowers. Sometimes anger flowers, sometimes happiness, sometimes pain sometimes anguish. But these are all flowers, and your whole life is the garland. There must be thread; otherwise you would have fallen apart long ago. You continue as an entity—so what is the thread, the polestar? What is permanent in you? - Osho, Emotional Wellness
I Am the Gate - by Osho
Excerpt from I Am the Gate, Third Edition
“Open to trust. Then there is chain reaction; then you come into touch. And the touch is not a touch — it becomes part and parcel of your being.
"Really, we are not as isolated as we feel. All the isolation is because of the closing attitude of the ego. Otherwise there is no separation, no isolation. You are not so different from me. You are not so separate from me. If you are, it is only the isolating ego. If the ego is not there…. And the miracle of trust is that if you trust, you will not be an ego. These both cannot exist simultaneously: if you trust you cannot be an ego, if you doubt you cannot be other than an ego. If you trust then you are not an ego – the isolation is lost. You are open. That opening….
"Then it is not that you are taking anything from me. There is no ’me’ as such. It is not that you are taking something from someone else. It is only that you yourself are reflected — in your own self. It just looks separate because of the ego. If you are open then the chain can continue for centuries.”
“Open to trust. Then there is chain reaction; then you come into touch. And the touch is not a touch — it becomes part and parcel of your being.
"Really, we are not as isolated as we feel. All the isolation is because of the closing attitude of the ego. Otherwise there is no separation, no isolation. You are not so different from me. You are not so separate from me. If you are, it is only the isolating ego. If the ego is not there…. And the miracle of trust is that if you trust, you will not be an ego. These both cannot exist simultaneously: if you trust you cannot be an ego, if you doubt you cannot be other than an ego. If you trust then you are not an ego – the isolation is lost. You are open. That opening….
"Then it is not that you are taking anything from me. There is no ’me’ as such. It is not that you are taking something from someone else. It is only that you yourself are reflected — in your own self. It just looks separate because of the ego. If you are open then the chain can continue for centuries.”
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