The Chinese Mystic's Last Surprise by Osho

Laughter is eternal, life is eternal, celebration continues. Actors change but the drama continues. Waves change but the ocean continues. You laugh, you change--and somebody else laughs--but laughter continues. You celebrate, somebody else celebrates, but celebration continues.

Existence is continuous, it is a continuum. There is not a single moment's gap in it. No death is death, because every death opens a new door--it is a beginning. There is no end to life, there is always a new beginning, a resurrection.

If you change your sadness to celebration, then you will also be capable of changing your death into resurrection. So learn the art while there is still time.

I have heard about three Chinese mystics. Nobody knows their names now, and nobody ever knew their names. They were known only as the "Three Laughing Saints" because they never did anything else; they simply laughed.

These three people were really beautiful--laughing, and their bellies shaking. And then it would become an infection and others would start laughing. The whole marketplace would laugh. When just a few moments before, it was an ugly place where people were thinking only of money, suddenly these three mad people came and changed the quality of the whole marketplace. Now they had forgotten that they had come to purchase and sell. Nobody bothered about greed. For a few seconds a new world opened.

They moved all over China, from place to place, from village to village, just helping people to laugh. Sad people, angry people, greedy people, jealous people--they all started laughing with them. And many felt the key--you can be transformed.

Then, in one village it happened that one of the three died. Village people gathered and they said, "Now there will be trouble. Now we have to see how they laugh. Their friend has died; they must weep."

But when they came, the two were dancing, laughing and celebrating the death. The village people said, "Now this is too much. When a man is dead it is profane to laugh and dance."

They said, "The whole life we laughed with him. How can we give him the last send-off with anything else?--we have to laugh, we have to enjoy, we have to celebrate. This is the only farewell that is possible for a man who has laughed his whole life. We don't see that he is dead. How can laughter die, how can life die?"

Then the body was to be burned, and the village people said, "We will give him a bath as the ritual prescribes." But those two friends said, "No, our friend has said, 'Don't perform any ritual and don't change my clothes and don't give me a bath. You just put me as I am on the burning pyre.' So we have to follow his instructions."

And then, suddenly, there was a great happening. When the body was put on the fire, that old man had played the last trick. He had hidden many fireworks under his clothes, and suddenly there was a festival! Then the whole village started laughing. These two mad friends were dancing, then the whole village started dancing.

It was not a death, it was a new life.

Living Totally by Osho

"When Alexander the Great was coming to India, he met one strange man, Diogenes. It was a winter morning, a cool breeze was blowing, and Diogenes was lying on the riverbank, taking a sunbath, naked. He was a beautiful man--when there is a beautiful soul, a beauty arises which is not of this world.

He had nothing, not even a begging-bowl, because one day when he was going toward the river with his begging bowl to get some water to drink, he saw a dog rushing to the river. The dog jumped in the river and drank--Diogenes laughed and he said, "This dog has taught me a lesson. If he can live without a begging bowl, then why can't I?" He threw the begging-bowl, he also jumped like the dog in the river and drank. Since then he had had nothing.

Alexander had never seen such a graceful man, such utter beauty, something from the unknown.... He was in awe and he said, "Sir..." He had never said "Sir" to anybody in his life. He said, "Sir, I am immensely impressed by your being, and I would like to do something for you. Is there something that I can do for you?

Diogenes said, "Just stand to the side because you are blocking the sun--that's all. Nothing else do I need."

Alexander said, "If I have another chance to come to the earth I will ask God, instead of making me Alexander again, to make me Diogenes."

Diogenes laughed and he said, "Who is preventing you right now? You can become a Diogenes. Where are you going? For months I have seen armies moving and moving--where are you going? and for what?"

Alexander said, I am going to India to conquer the whole world."

"And then what are you going to do?" Diogenes asked.

And Alexander said, "Then I will rest."

Diogenes laughed again and he said, "You are mad--because I am resting now, and I have not conquered the world. I don't see the necessity of it. Who has told you that before resting, you have to conquer the world? And I tell you: if you don't rest now, then you never will. Something or other will always remain to be conquered... and time is fleeting. You will die in the middle of your journey--everybody dies in the middle of the journey."

And Alexander died in the middle. When he was moving back from India, he died on the way. And that day he remembered Diogenes. Only Diogenes was in his mind--he could never rest in his life, and that man rested."

The Woman on the Bus by Osho

I have heard that an old woman was traveling on a bus, and she was anxious, worried, and continuously asking what stop it was. The stranger sitting by her side said, "Relax, don't be worried. The conductor will go on announcing what stop it is, and if you are too worried I will call him here. You can tell him where you want to get off so he can keep a note of it. And you can relax!"

He called the conductor and the woman said, "Please remember, I don't want to miss my stop. I have to reach somewhere very urgently."

The conductor said, "Okay, I will make a note of it--although even without your asking I will be announcing each stop. But I will make a note of it and I will come to you particularly and tell you whenever your stop comes. But you relax, don't be so worried about it!"

She was perspiring and trembling and looked so tense. So she said, "Okay, you note it down--I have to get off at the bus terminus."

Now if it is the bus terminus, why should you worry? How can you miss it? There is no way of missing it! The moment you rest, the moment you relax, you know that existence is already going, moving, reaching towards higher peaks. And you are part of it. You need not have separate ambitions.

This is relaxation--resting, dropping all private goals, dropping the whole achieving mind, all the ego projections. And then life is a mystery. Your eyes will be full of wonder; your heart will be full of awe.

We are not to become something--we are already it. This is the whole message of all the awakened ones: that you are not to achieve something, it has already been given to you. It is God's gift. You are already where you should be, you can't be anywhere else. There is nowhere to go, nothing to achieve. Because there is nowhere to go and nothing to achieve, you can celebrate. Then there is no hurry, no worry, no anxiety, no anguish, no fear of being a failure. You can't fail. In the very nature of things it is impossible to fail, because there is no question of success at all.

A Little Dino

A little dinosaur bared her teeth at me.

She did not say, "Grr!"

Nor did she say, "Gah!"

but she smiled with her ice cream covered lips, and said sunnily, "Hullo!"

And I smiled back a shiny smile and said, "Hi!"

I asked. "How are you?"

The little dino said, fine thank you. And her other dino friends giggled.

"Why are you in a dinosaur suit?"

The little dino replied "No reason."

And I grinned, "You are amazing."

I wished I'd asked them to sing me a birthday song. It would have been so cool to have an army of little dino girls piping up a happy song on my birth day. But I was in a hurry to help the Heartbroken Fish escape.

It is/was/always will be a very happy happy day.

déjà vu

"the experience of feeling that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously." [en.wikipedia.org]

Have you had one of those?

You walk along a street and you're suddenly enveloped with the feeling of déjà vu. You've been there. You've done that. You've seen her. But the strange fact is, you've never.

How is it you've met that girl with the beautiful hazel eyes when you've never seen her in all your life? Or walked past that tree, post box, yellow bee-striped car, when you haven't?

What if déjà vus are second chances? What if some of us had the opportunity to re-live our lives again for a second time? You know how you say things like: "I wish I could turn back time." or "If I had the chance to do it all over again..." So what if we got what we wanted but forgot we made that wish? Would we really do things any differently?

Maybe some of us have died and God in all his wisdom decided we deserved another go. Would we be happier? Would we live life fuller? Would we cry less, love more, talk less, listen more, eat less, have more fun? What are we doing with our second chances now that we have our second chances? Would we still say, 'What if'?

Would we still say, 'Could have...', 'Should have...', 'Would have...'? Because if déjà vus were second chances, it seems to me, we need triple, quadruple takes in order to get things right-er, better, more accurately significantly happier.
Which means humankind are pretty much blardy slow learners.

Aloneless

Somedays can be a little confusing. A mix muddle of information that channels into your life and become clutter. So on days like that all you want to do is to be alone. You can call it running away. Some may call it hiding. But whatever the words, being alone can be healing. It heals the soul, coats it with comfort, blankets your mind and soothes it to rest. There are times in life we must rest. Rest from tiresome thoughts, tiresome people, tiresome activities and just be ... quiet.

We are our very own best company. I've told my friends many times that we've come in this world alone and we'll leave this world alone. There are books written, articles published, talk show hosted on the importance of alone-ness. You know it and I know it. But many don't follow it. Quiet moments should be used on reflecting and looking deep into our hearts and listen what we don't usually listen. Who better but us to listen to our hearts?

And people become often lost, listless and disconnected because they've forgotten to reconnect to their very hearts. The one thing they should listen to but don't because there are always someone out there that have a better idea what they should be doing with their lives. But really, who better than you to know? Who better to tell you to dance, when your heart feels like dancing? Who better to tell you to sing, when your heart feels the music? Who better to tell you to love, when your heart is soaring to love?

Your Self.

Give yourself the gift of your company this Christmas. Look into the window of soul and see. Look carefully and say with all honesty, are you happy? Ask you that simple three-worded question: Am I happy? And if you can respond with a sharp resounding confident Yes, then you truly are. But if you hesitate within just a breath of a second, you are... faking it.

Don't fake it darlings. Don't fall for your own lies. If you aren't happy, don't be afraid to say you're not. Because the moment you know you aren't, all that there is now, is to go up; grow up. You deserve better.

Look into your hearts this new year and every new year to be alone. To heal. To comfort. To love your self. To re-connect with your soul. Listen to what your heart tells you and follow it. Trust yourself because who better but yourself?

If anyone told you...

You couldn't do it. Ask them why.

If that anyone was to be you. Ask yourself why. Because there is no reason to why you cannot succeed in something you believe so strongly, so passionately, so vividly about.

What you imagine yourself to be. You can be.

What you think yourself to be. You will be.

What you see yourself to be. You shall be.

You must not, should not, will not give the meaning to the phrase 'I can't'. If you do, you are merely acting as your own executioner.

"You were born to win, but to be a winner you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win." – Zig Ziglar

Melbourne Underground

Brain Feed by Jim Rohn

"The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get.

When Andrew Carnegie died, they discovered a sheet of paper upon which he had written one of the major goals of his life: to spend the first half of his life accumulating money and to spend the last half of his life giving it all away. And he did!

Some people are disturbed by those tough days because all they have is the days. They haven't designed or described or defined the future.

Goals. There's no telling what you can do when you get inspired by them. There's no telling what you can do when you believe in them. And there's no telling what will happen when you act upon them.

We all need lots of powerful long-range goals to help us past the short-term obstacles.

The ultimate reason for setting goals is to entice you to become the person it takes to achieve them.

Don't set your goals too low. If you don't need much, you won't become much.

If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us.

We all have two choices: We can make a living or we can design a life."

Footprints Cast in Stone

Every one we meet leaves some sort of impact in our lives. It can be the size of Yamagata or a sting of a bee. But either way, they always always leave an impression. I've met some people, known them for years but can't remember anything rich from that experience. I've also had the pleasure of meeting people for a few minutes and I feel like I've been hit by lighting. Some people are a waste of time and energy, some people you just can't get enough of. But however minute their own significance are, I strongly feel that we are all interconnected and placed together at one place and one time for some reason because Nothing is a Coincidence.

Some time ago or most recently, one person left a happy mark in my life. And though it was brief, it was never short of interesting. And though he was imperfectly perfect, he was gone like the spring wind. The good things in life are fleeting because it is in their transcient existence that makes it somewhat enjoyable. It's like a fast fading beauty of a flower. We treasure what little time it has with us.