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Chapter 1 - The Hidden Harmony
not understood at all. He became more and more separate from the main current of Western thinking and the Western mind.
Heraclitus was like Gautam Buddha or Lao Tzu or Basho. The Greek soil was absolutely not good for him. He would have been a great tree in the East: millions would have profited, millions would have found the way through him. But for Greeks he was just outlandish, eccentric, something foreign, alien; he didn't belong to them. That's why his name has remained just on the side, in a dark corner; by and by he has been forgotten.
At the moment when Heraclitus was born, precisely at that moment, humanity reached a peak, a moment of transformation. It happens with humanity just as with an individual: there are moments when changes happen. Every seven years the body changes, and it goes on changing -- if you live for seventy years, then your total bio-physical system will change ten times. And if you can use those gaps when the body changes, it will be very easy to move in meditation.
For example, at fourteen for the first time sex becomes important. The body goes through a biochemical change, and if at that moment you can be introduced into the dimension of meditation, it will be very, very easy to move because the body is not fixed, the old pattern has gone and the new has yet to come in -- there is a gap. At the age of twenty-one, again deep changes happen, because every seven years the body completely renovates itself: all the old cells drop and the new cells come in. At the age of thirty-five again it happens, and this goes on. Every seven years your body comes to a point where the old goes and the new settles --
and there is a transitory period. In that transitory period everything is liquid. If you want some new dimension to enter into your life, that is precisely the moment.
In the same way exactly it happens also in the history of humanity as a whole. Every twenty-five centuries there comes a peak -- and if you can use that moment, you can easily become enlightened. It will not be so easy in other times because at that peak the river itself is flowing in that direction; everything is fluid, nothing is fixed.
Twenty-five centuries ago there were born in India, Gautam Buddha, Mahavira the Jaina; in China, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu; in Iran, Zarathustra; and in Greece, Heraclitus. They are the peaks. Never before were such peaks attained, or if they were attained they are not part of history, because history starts with Jesus.
You don't know what happened these twenty-five centuries ago. Again the moment is coming, we are again in a fluid state: the old is meaningless, the past doesn't have any significance for you, the future is uncertain -- the gap is here. And again humanity will achieve a peak, the same peak as there was in Heraclitus' time. And if you are a little aware, you can use this moment -- you can simply drop out of the wheel of life. When things are liquid, transformation is easy. When things are fixed, then transformation is difficult.
You are fortunate that you are born in an age when things are again in a state of liquidity.
Nothing is certain, all old codes and commandments have become useless. New patterns have not settled in. They will settle soon; man cannot remain forever unsettled, because when you are unsettled there is insecurity. Things will settle again, this moment will not last for ever; it is only for a few years.
If you can use it, you can reach a peak which will be very, very difficult to reach in other times. If you miss it, the moment is missed for twenty-five centuries again.
Osho - The Hidden Harmony 3
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