If you stop listening to the scared mind and simply trust each moment, life feels safe, easy, and joyful.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, life is so exciting when I am open to each moment and not asking where it is going to take me next. The problems disappear and nothing can harm me. The moment my mind comes in saying, "watch out!" the fear arises and life looks dangerous, and I take only calculated steps. How can I remain with the relaxed, joyful, and trusting experience?
Indradhanu, mind is a coward. Those who listen to it become utterly cowardly. Mind is not an adventurer, it is very cautious. It takes every step with long thinking and calculation until it is certain that there is no risk, till it has seen others taking the step and there has been no danger; hence, listening to the mind is the most disturbing phenomenon in your growth. Everything is going good with you, but immediately the mind comes in and says, "Watch out!" Once and for all say to the mind, "Shut up! I am watching in; why should I watch out?" Because you listen to it, "Fear arises and life looks dangerous, and I take only calculated steps." You stop living. Mind is a mechanism, dead. Do you know that the mind can be taken out of your skull and kept separately? Only oxygen and necessary nourishment has to…Read the full discourse →
Can you talk about facing the death of each moment and letting go?
In the West now, there is a craze about how to prolong life. That simply shows that somewhere life is being missed. Whenever a country or a culture -- starts thinking about how to prolong life, it simply shows one thing -- that life is not being lived. If you live life, then even a single moment is enough. A single moment can be equal to eternity. It is not a question of length, it is a question of depth; it is not a question of quantity, it is a question of quality. Just think: would you like one moment of Buddha's life or would you like a thousand years of your own life? Then you will be able to understand what I mean about the quality, the intensity, the depth. In a single moment fulfillment is possible: you can bloom and blossom. But you may not bloom for one…Read the full discourse →
Beloved Osho, being here with you, I find myself more and more often in moments of let-go. It seems that in these moments my mind loses all its power, and I can watch overwhelming waves of energy vibrating within my body. I suddenly become aware of the earth beneath my feet, and it feels as if I am connected with existence itself, as if I am one with existence. Beloved master, would you please talk to us again about the state of let-go and melting into existence.
"I have only been waiting for the morning so that I can see you for the last time and bless you for the last time; otherwise in the middle of the night I was evaporating. Now it is not a meaningful question to ask. So come close to me, receive my blessings; Bokoju is going, and from tomorrow this room will be empty to the ordinary eyes -- but to those who had loved me, it will be still full of my presence. And those who have loved me totally, they may even hear every morning a sound coming from nowhere, `Bokoju are you still here?' -- `Yes, sir.'" And the story is that only two disciples were able to hear it after he was dead, disposed of, but many felt his presence. Those two disciples became enlightened very soon. Even when you are becoming one with existence, it does…Read the full discourse →
Can cowardice and hypocrisy also be beautiful? Can I accept even my cowardice, my hypocrisy, my miserliness and a tendency towards privacy that you yourself have called "idiocy"? And if I accept such tendencies, all of which tend to bottle me up, how will I get free?
See the beauty of fear, see the alchemical work of fear. It is simply trying to prepare you for the situation so that you can accept the challenge. But rather than accepting the challenge, rather than understanding fear, you start rejecting it. You say, "Ashoka, you are such a great man, a great sannyasin, and you are trembling? Remember what Osho used to say, that there is no death, that the soul is immortal. An immortal soul, and trembling? Remember what Krishna said: 'Death cannot destroy you, fire cannot burn you, weapons cannot penetrate you.' Remember! And don't tremble: hold yourself in control!" Now you are creating a contradiction. Your natural process is that of fear, and you are bringing in an unnatural process to contradict fear. You are bringing ideals to interfere in the natural process. There will be pain, because there will be conflict. Don't bother whether the…Read the full discourse →
Beloved Osho, I am seeing a certain helplessness arising in me. It is a feeling that I had feared and always tried to avoid in the past. Yet, as it begins to overwhelm me, it brings a sense of freedom I have seldom, if ever, experienced before. Beloved master, does this helplessness have something to do with what you call "let-go"?
The rabbi finished quickly -- rabbis are very efficient people -- and he came in his Cadillac, but the bishop was still in the confession booth. It has a small window, and the bishop or the pope or anybody who is representing God is on one side, and on the other side, the person who confesses. A device that the person does not feel awkward, embarrassed; he is not seen by the priest. But there was a long queue. So from the other side, the rabbi entered the cabin and said to the bishop, "It is getting late, and I don't see that you will be able to finish till Judgment Day! Because the queue is so long... and you don't seem to be very efficient. You don't know business." The bishop said, "I am doing it as quickly as possible, but these idiots are such that they don't confess…Read the full discourse →