Wounds

First, a few questions. Somebody has asked: I heard you say that we sometimes carry other people's wounds. What does this mean? Is another person's wound simply their thought pattern that we adopt? If we can so easily accept someone else's wound then why is it so difficult to accept our own buddhahood?

Don't keep the past burning you. You have come into an open space, now learn the ways of freedom and love and friendliness. And you all have the capacity; there is no question of being miserable for any reason. No reason is valid to make anyone miserable. In fact, we have to search for a valid reason to be miserable. Otherwise people will ask, "Are you mad? Without any reason and you are miserable?" So somehow you go on inventing reasons. But remember, those are only invented reasons. Nobody asks you when you are happy, "Why are you happy?" There is no reason to be happy. Happiness is our nature. To be joyful needs no reason, no cause. This commune has to be a commune of understanding, awareness, looking into one's own mind patterns and remembering that they are not yours. You are simply the watcher, and the watcher is…

Osho, in the ongoing Es Dhammo Sanantano discourse series you described women’s tendency to display suffering in such grand and vast terms that now, even if we truly are in pain, we won’t be able to express it. Please tell us: for this self-suppression—for our self-suppression—who will be responsible?

What is the point of expressing pain? Whether the pain is false or true, what difference does it make! Why this urge to display it? What need is there to go around showing your wounds? Why open your wounds in the marketplace? All right, true. But what is the use of distinguishing between true and false? The purpose is the same. I did not say to you: don’t show false wounds; if they’re real, then show them—I did not say that. Why this craving to display wounds? And if you must display wounds, are you seeking real ones merely in order to display them? Then just show false ones—why take the trouble of real wounds? But the relish in showing is only this: through the wound you are asking for sympathy. Wanting someone to join you in your suffering is a morbid desire. Share your joy instead. Even if someone…

12. Whether fulfilled in the present or the future, karmic experiences have their roots in the five afflictions. 13. As long as the roots remain, karma is fulfilled in rebirth through class, span of life, and types of experiences.

14. VIRTUE BRINGS PLEASURE; VICE BRINGS PAIN. That is the whole method of prati-prasav: how to move from the effect to the cause, how to go backwards and find the cause, from where it is coming up. Whatsoever happens to you -- you feel sad, just close your eyes and watch your sadness. Follow where it leads, go deeper into it. Soon you will come to the cause. Maybe you will have to travel long, because this whole life is involved; and not only this life, but many other lives are involved. You will find many wounds in you which hurt, and because of those wounds you feel sad; they are sad. Those wounds have not gone dry yet; they are alive. The method of prati-prasav, the method of going back to the source, from the effect to the cause, will heal them. How does it heal? Why does it…

Osho, why can I not forget my past? Even though in my past there is nothing but suffering.

Perhaps for precisely that reason. Man keeps scratching at his sorrows to remember them—because there is a certain pleasure in suffering. You will be surprised. You will say, “Pleasure in suffering? What kind of pleasure?” There is a pleasure in suffering: suffering is the food of the ego. In a state of bliss the ego dissolves; in a state of suffering the ego becomes very dense. People have not chosen suffering for nothing; they have chosen it cleverly, knowingly. People are not miserable by accident; they are miserable because only in suffering does the ego survive. “I am somebody!”—this remains only in pain. The moment a wave of bliss comes, you are swept away; the ego cannot remain. So people talk about bliss, but they do not want to be blissful; they are afraid. If they become blissful, this sense of “I” will not survive. That is why all the…