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Chapter 10 - Enlightenment is not an experience
"And living in this glory of the full moon... you can understand me, and forgive me. I forgot all about food. In fact, I was wondering, when the sun started rising
-- what am I doing here? So I returned to my tree, from where sunset, sunrise, both have such a divine splendor."
The guest said, "You will kill me! I am going."
Ryokan said, "But at least listen to my few haikus. They are not mine, truly. Some are given by the full moon, some are given by the rising sun, some are given by the birds singing in the trees. And life has been so rich and I was so nourished by it that even the idea of food never crossed my mind."
The guest left. He said, "You seem to be a madman!" But a man like Ryokan cannot have greed.
Each moment is so full of blessings, each moment is such an eternity of joy, each moment is such a dance of beauty. Greed arises, Vanshi, only because you don't know how to live herenow.
Greed is a postponement of life.
It is one of the most stupid things one can do, because it will land you in death and nowhere else.
And a man who lives totally in the moment -- his heart full of songs, his presence radiating joy -- how can he feel jealous? The whole world may feel jealous of him, but he cannot feel any jealousy. These are your wrong approaches to life, that greed and jealousy arise in you and create dark valleys. And then comes self-condemnation, because you know deep down that you are the creator of your greed, of your jealousy. But self-condemnation does not help. it makes things worse: you become depressed, you start feeling unworthy of life. You start feeling that you don't deserve even a single breath more, and that gives great pain.
You have not lived life at all.
Each moment has gone empty.
It is great pain, great anguish -- but remember it is your creation.
When you become tired, and out of the tiredness there is a little relief, then you feel clean.
No condemnation, no pain, no jealousy, no greed -- but no energy either. You have spent all your energy in those idiotic fantasies. Because there is no energy, for a few moments, a few hours, you are left alone. It is peaceful. But this peace is not the authentic peace. It is the peace that rains on the graveyard; it is not the peace of the garden, full of songs and full of flowers.
And as you gather energy again, the old companions are back.
This wheel will go on rotating unless you understand and jump out of it. And the only way to jump out of it is to live each moment so totally that it brings such contentment, such fulfillment that you cannot be greedy. And you cannot be jealous, and you cannot be in self-condemnation, and you cannot feel pain.
Existence gives you one moment by one moment.
So if you know to live one moment totally, you know the whole secret of life.
An Irish worker used to take tunafish sandwiches to work every day, but a fellow worker noticed that each day he would take one bite and throw the rest away in disgust.
Osho - The Hidden Splendor 107
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