When something seems bad, it’s actually saving you from bigger trouble and guiding you toward a better path—so use it to grow and celebrate.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Another friend has asked: Osho, what is the relationship between the method of meditation and jati-smaran (recollection of past lives)?
But the one who becomes skilled in this—who can fully awaken any day’s memory up to the age of five—will find that the memories begin to awaken completely. And you should test it. As today passes, note down some events and lock them up. After two years, try to recall today. Most of it will have been forgotten. Then remember—and after remembering, break the lock and compare whether what you recalled matches what you had written. You will be amazed—astonished—that besides what you wrote, many more details have come back which you did not even note at the time. They will all be there in memory. Buddha called this alaya-vijnana. There is a corner of the human mind he called the storehouse of consciousness. Like a junk room in the house where we keep all the odds and ends, there is a storehouse that collects memories—where everything from birth after…
We are absolutely responsible for whatsoever we are. By becoming a sannyasin this is the first thing to accept, that 'Whatsoever I am is my responsibility.' But in it there is freedom. In the beginning it hurts because the ego feels badly shattered: 'Is it my own responsibility? So I have made this whole mess, this whole chaos that I am?' It hurts the ego, but if we understand it then it can become the beginning of a new life. And just a few strokes and the sad face can become a smiling face. Just a few strokes, just little bits of changes here and there and the ugly painting can become a beautiful painting. Sannyas is the art of painting rightly, meditatively, so that life can be a continuously growing love, bliss, dance. Unless it becomes the very crescendo of joy, one has failed.
Osho, in a letter you wrote: Do not remain in indecision; do not look back. The temple doors are wide open. After thousands of years such an opportunity descends upon the earth. And know that these doors will not remain open forever. It can be missed easily. Therefore I keep calling: come and enter! I stand at the door, knocking and knocking. And I knock because in some other birth and another age I had given a promise.
At night a chariot arrived. The sound of wheels at the door. In his sleep the head priest felt, He has come. He said, Listen, does anyone hear a chariot? The other priests said, Stop this nonsense. All day you plagued us; will you not stop now? Your head has gone bad. No chariot is coming; it is thunder. They went to sleep. Then someone alighted from the chariot, climbed the steps, knocked at the door. One of the priests muttered in his sleep, Seems someone is knocking. The suspicion was there, the mind wavered—perhaps the dream was true! The chief priest said, This is the limit! It isn’t only I who am entangled in dreams—you are too. It’s just a gust of wind rattling the door. Who will knock at midnight? And is God a thief, to come at midnight? God comes in broad daylight, under the sun. Now…
Osho, you often say that the very thing that brings a person happiness also brings sorrow; whatever brings profit also brings loss. So please tell us: what is the ratio here between happiness and sorrow, profit and loss? Is it perhaps fifty-fifty, canceling each other out so that a perfect zero is all that remains in one’s hands?
In the world there is only one pain: that the seed does not become a tree; that what you were born to bring forth is not coming forth from you; that the seed keeps lying like a knot, like a stone. What you are hiding cannot find expression. A seed falls into the soil— Its meaning is simple: Behold, its destiny has opened. What royal secret it kept in its heart, Now it has permission to unfold Bud, sprout, leaf, and blossom— To speak in the language it longs for. With just one shove of time That iron chain of helplessness, Solid and strong, cracks apart. But what time does for a seed, you must do for yourself; time will not do it for you. With just one shove of time That iron chain of helplessness, Solid and strong, cracks apart. What time does for the seed, you must do…
Osho, I love even your anger; I accept even your blows. Whether you give happiness or sorrow—give, Creator, and I will gladly receive. Be it your sunshine or your shade, I accept both. I like everything that is yours; I do not refuse even your “no.”
Auspicious—this very mood is the mood of a devotee. And one in whom this feeling of acceptance has arisen, who has gained the capacity to accept even nonacceptance; in whose “no” there is no sting; in whose defeat no thorns prick; who receives both pleasure and pain as gifts from the Divine, as prasad—his destination is not far. His feet have begun to draw near the goal; his path is nearing completion. Guard this state of feeling. Deepen it slowly. Let it soak into every pore of your being. Let it settle into every heartbeat. Those whom I find happy and rejoicing in every condition— in their garden I find a spring without autumn. Those who are happy in every circumstance—spring comes to their life, and fall never arrives. Blessed the eye they call the yearning eye; blessed the heart that remains captive in love. If such a mood of…