Mindfulness

Published 17.01.2024 | By Йосиф

Mindfulness

You are alive only in proportion to how aware you are. Mindfulness is the difference between life and death. You are not alive just because you breathe, you are not alive just because your heart is beating. Physiologically, you can be kept alive in a hospital, without any consciousness.

Become more awakened and you will become more alive. And life is God – there is no other God. Therefore Buddha talks about life and awareness. Life is the goal, awareness is the methodology, the technique to achieve it.

The only thing you need to learn is observation. Watch! Watch every action you take. Observe every thought that passes through your mind. Observe every desire that comes over you. Observe even minor gestures – how you walk, talk, eat, take a bath. Continue to observe, in everything, everywhere. Let everything become an opportunity to observe.
Don’t eat mechanically, don’t just go on stuffing yourself with food – be very observant. Chew carefully and observantly… and you will be surprised at how much you have missed until now, because each bite will bring great satisfaction. If you eat mindfully, the food will taste better.

Inhale the smell, feel the touch, feel the gust of wind and the sun’s rays. Look at the moon, and become just a silent reservoir of observation, and the moon will be reflected in you in immeasurable beauty.

Move through life while remaining completely observant. Again and again you will forget. Don’t become unhappy because of this; it `s naturally…

Remember one thing: when you remember that you forgot to observe, do not regret, do not repent; otherwise you will waste your time. Don’t feel unhappy: “I missed out again.” Don’t start feeling, “I am a sinner.” Don’t start judging yourself, because this is a complete waste of time. Never repent of the past! Live in this moment.

The first step in mindfulness is to become very aware of your body. Little by little one becomes alert in every gesture, in every movement. As you become more aware, a miracle begins to happen: many things that you did before simply disappear. Your body becomes more relaxed, more in tune, deep peace reigns in your body, subtle music pulsates in your body.

Then begin to be aware of thoughts – the same must be done with thoughts. They are thinner than the body and, of course, much more dangerous. And when you become aware of thoughts, you will be surprised by what is happening inside you.

And the miracle of mindfulness is that you don’t have to do anything except become aware. The very act of seeing this changes everything. Little by little the madman disappears. Little by little thoughts begin to follow a certain pattern: their chaos is no longer there, they become more and more cosmos. And then a deeper peace reigns.

This is the thinnest layer and the most difficult, but if you can be aware of thoughts, it is just one step further. All you need is a little more intense awareness, and you will begin to reflect your moods, emotions, feelings.

Once you become aware of all these three layers, they combine into one phenomenon. And when these three layers become one, begin to act in complete harmony, vibrate together, you can feel the music of all three: they become an orchestra – and then the fourth thing happens. You cannot do this – it happens by itself, it is a gift of the whole. This is the reward for those who take these three steps. The fourth is extreme awareness, which makes a person awakened. A person becomes aware of his own awareness – this is the fourth thing. This makes one a buddha, an awakened one. And only in such awakening does a person learn what bliss is. Bliss is the goal, awareness is the path to it.

Act, speak with full awareness, and you will find a huge change in yourself. The very fact that you are aware changes all your actions. Then you cannot commit sin. It’s not that you have to control yourself, no! Control is a surrogate for awareness, a very poor substitute; he is of little help. If you are aware, you don’t need to control your anger; in mindfulness anger never arises. Anger and awareness cannot exist together; their coexistence is impossible. In mindfulness, jealousy never arises. In mindfulness many things simply disappear – all things that are negative.

Whatever you do, keep constantly doing one thing inside: be aware that you are doing it. You eat – be aware of yourself. You walk – be aware of yourself. You listen, you speak – be aware of yourself. When you are angry, be aware that you are angry. At the very time when anger comes, realize that you are angry. This constant remembering of yourself creates subtle energy in you, very subtle energy.

Awareness is what makes you the master – and when I say master, I don’t mean that you are in control. When I say be the master, I mean be present—always present. Whatever you do or don’t do, one thing should always be in your consciousness: that you are.

You have to fight anger, greed, sex because you are weak. So actually the problem is not anger, greed and sex, the problem is weakness. Once you begin to be strong within and you have a sense of inner presence – that you are – your energies begin to become concentrated, crystallized at one point, and the “I” is born. Remember, it is not the ego that is born, but the self.

Be relaxed. Don’t try hard, because it is in relaxation that you can be aware, not in trying hard. Be calm, quiet, silent.

What’s your tension? Your identification with all kinds of thoughts, fears – death, ruin, the fall of the dollar and all kinds of things. These are your tensions, and they affect the body. Your body becomes tense because the body and mind are not two separate entities. The body-mind is one system, so when the mind becomes tense, the body becomes tense.

A person of awareness and understanding acts. A person who is unconscious, unconscious, mechanical, robotic, reacts.

Someone insults you, presses a button, and you react. You feel angry, you lash out – and you call it action? This is not an action, mind you, this is a reaction. He manipulates you, and you are a puppet. He pressed the button and you turned on like a machine. Just like you press a button to turn a light on or off, that’s what people do to you. They turn you on and off.

Someone comes and praises you, inflates your ego, and you feel great. Then someone comes and stabs you, and you just deflate and fall to the ground. You are not your own boss. Anyone can insult you and make you sad, angry, irritated, nervous, violent, crazy. And anyone can praise you and make you feel on top, feel like the greatest of people, in comparison with whom Alexander the Great pales. You act according to the manipulations of others. This is not real action.

Conscience is a trick that others play on you – others tell you what is right and what is wrong. They impose their ideas on you, and have been constantly imposing them since childhood. When you are so innocent, so vulnerable, so delicate that you can leave an imprint, a trace, they condition you – from the very beginning. This conditioning is called “conscience”, and this conscience continues to rule your whole life. Conscience is a strategy of society aimed at enslaving you.

Buddhas teach consciousness. Consciousness means that you do not learn from others what is right and what is wrong. You don’t need to learn from anyone else, you just need to go within. And the inner journey is enough – the deeper you go, the more consciousness is released. When you reach the center you are so full of light that this darkness disappears.

The only sin is unawareness, and the only virtue is awareness. What cannot be done without unconsciousness is sin. What can only be done with awareness is virtue. It is impossible to kill if you are aware; no violence at all is possible if you are aware. It is impossible to rape, steal, torture – all this is impossible if there is awareness. It is only when unconsciousness reigns that in its darkness all sorts of enemies enter into you.

And remember, I say everything, no matter what you do – even your virtues will not be virtues if you are unconscious. How can you be virtuous if you are not aware? Behind your virtue there will be a huge, gigantic ego – it is inevitable.

Even your holiness, developed and instilled with great difficulty and effort, is in vain. Because it will not bring simplicity and modesty, it will not bring that great experience of divinity that only happens when the ego disappears. You will live the respectable life of a saint, but you will remain as poor as anyone else – rotten inside, you will lead a meaningless existence.

A “good person” is not necessarily conscious. He makes great efforts to be good, he fights against bad qualities – lying or theft, untruth, dishonesty, violence. They are present in a good person, but in a suppressed form, and can erupt at any moment.

A good person can turn into a bad one very easily, without any effort – because all these bad qualities are there, but they are only curtailed, suppressed by effort. If he eliminates the effort, they will immediately erupt into his life. And these good qualities are only developed, not natural. He tries with all his might to be honest, sincere, not to lie – but it is an effort, it is tiring.

A good person is always serious because he is afraid of all the bad qualities that he has suppressed. And he is serious because deep down he wants to be respected for his goodness, to be rewarded. He craves respectability.

A good man must make immense efforts to do good and avoid bad; the bad remains a constant temptation for him. This is a choice: every moment he must choose the good, not choose the bad.

A good person is in constant conflict. His whole life is not a life of joy; he cannot laugh with all his heart, he cannot sing, he cannot dance. In everything and always he makes judgments. His mind is full of judgment and judgment – and because he himself is trying so hard to be good, he judges others by the same criteria. He cannot accept you as you are; he can accept you only if you satisfy his requirements and are good. And since he cannot accept people as they are, he condemns them… These are not the qualities of a truly religious person. In a truly religious person there is no judgment, no condemnation.

There is only one way to go beyond being a “good person”: to bring more awareness into your being. Mindfulness is not something that needs to be instilled; it is already there, you just need to wake it up.

Religions have decided to remain only moral codes. These are ethical codes; they are useful for society, but not useful for you, not useful for the individual. These are amenities created by society. Naturally, if everyone starts stealing, life will become impossible; if everyone starts lying, life will become impossible; if everyone is dishonest, you will not be able to exist at all. Therefore, at the lowest level, morality is needed by society, it is social convenience, but not a religious revolution.

Go beyond the normal concept of a good person. You won’t be good, you won’t be bad. You will simply be alert, conscious, aware, and then whatever follows will be good. In other words, I can say that in total awareness you will acquire the quality of divinity, and good is just a small by-product of divinity.

Religions taught you to be good so that one day you could find God. This is impossible – no good person has ever found divinity. I teach just the opposite: find divinity and good things will come naturally. And when good things come naturally, they have beauty, grace, simplicity, modesty. It does not ask for reward either here or in the other world. It is a reward in itself.

I would like you to become able to be in the marketplace and at the same time remain meditative. I would like you to communicate with people, to love, to move into millions of relationships because they enrich you – and yet remain able to close the doors and sometimes take a break from all relationships… so that you communicate with your beings too.

Communicate with others, but also communicate with yourself. Love others, but love yourself too. Go outside! – the world is beautiful and full of adventures; It’s a challenge, it’s enriching. Don’t waste the opportunity – every time the world knocks on your door and calls you, go out. Walk fearlessly – there is nothing to lose and everything to gain. But don’t get lost. Don’t go on endlessly and get lost; sometimes come home. Sometimes forget the world – these are moments of meditation. Every day, if you want to be in balance, you must balance the external and internal. They should have the same weight so that you never become one-sided inside.

The old Tibetan scriptures say that God comes many times, but never finds you where you are. He knocks on doors, but the owner is not at home – he is always somewhere else. Are you in your house, are you at home or somewhere else? How can God find you? You don’t have to go to him, just be at home and he will find you. He is looking for you just as much as you are looking for him. Just be home so that when he comes, he can find you. He comes, he knocks a million times, he waits at the door, but you are never home.

Osho

https://nashaplaneta.su/blog/osoznannost/2024-01-16-54106