Drowning

Osho, you tell me to float, but my body is so heavy with a dead-weight mind that I feel I will drown if I float. So I keep swimming in panic.

And just as the wretched soul jumped into the pit, a whistle blew and a voice called out: "All right, everybody! Tea break's over -- stand on your heads!" If you choose you choose hell. Choice is hell. That's how you have created your hell all around you -- by choosing. When you choose you don't allow God to choose for you. Krishnamurti goes on insisting for choicelessness. That is just one end of the whole story. The other end is: if you arc choiceless God chooses for you. That is only half of the story -- become choiceless -- just the beginning. The moment you are choiceless life continues. You will not be there -- life will continue. And you are nothing but a hell. Once you don't stand between you and God he chooses. He has been always choosing for you. There is a proverb which says, "Man…

Beloved Osho, "there is so much magnificence in the ocean... Waves are coming in, waves are coming in...." and once again I seem to be desperately running for dry land! My sweet Osho, how about yet another intensive lesson on drowning?

Mulla was a little afraid. He said, "I can see small children learning, but I am not a small child." And out of nervousness and fear he slipped on the stone steps before he could enter the river. He fell down and he got up and started running without saying a single word to the teacher. The teacher said, "Mulla Nasruddin, what happened?" He said, "It is enough. I will first learn to swim and then I will come close to the water; otherwise, I am not going to take the risk." But how are you going to learn swimming on your bed? You can throw your hands and your legs around. It may give you some fracture or something, but it will not give you the art of swimming. Only water has that capacity to revive in you a hidden secret which you already know. One Japanese professor has…

Osho, a woman cannot reach without love. A woman only knows how to drown. And it can only happen by drowning in you. Please drown me and carry me across.

Pratibha, the question is not of woman and man. Without drowning, no one has ever arrived, nor will anyone ever arrive. The soul is neither woman nor man. The differences of woman and man are extremely superficial—like differences of clothing; they go no deeper. They are differences of skin, of bone and flesh. What abides within you is beyond both woman and man. And when that drowns, the boat reaches the far shore. Do not think that a woman cannot reach without love. No one can reach without love. Love is the doorway to the divine. The consummation of love is the experience of the divine. When the flower of love fully blossoms, the fragrance that arises—that very fragrance is what we call the divine. The divine is not a person. The divine is an experience—the fragrance arising from your innermost being. And this will not happen without drowning. What…

Osho, indulgence, love, meditation, understanding, surrender—none of these seems to be helping me. Yet you accepted me; that grace itself is immense. Now, you alone know! Swami Mohan Bharati has asked. So this is exactly what I say: Mohan, plunge in!

If you can do even this much, everything will happen. If you can simply let go, everything will happen. If you can trust at least this much, have this much faith, everything will happen. For faith is a great alchemy, a great revolution. Do not end the story upon finding love; let the plot swell with a rising tide. Ferry the boat of love and then drown; lengthen the life of memories and drown. If you reached the goal on the very first campaign, what was gained? If you never stumbled or strayed, tell me—did you truly walk? Walk in such a way that the goal is proud of you, that your footprints, after you, are honored like lamps. You’ve long been enamored of the storm; after so many blows, you are already wounded. Bedeck the current with anklets—and drown; raise the last gale—and drown. What can I say? Your…