Osho on Aloneness
LIFE is a mystery, but you can reduce it to a problem. And once you make a mystery a problem you will be in difficulty, because there can be no solution to it. A mystery remains a mystery; it is insoluble — that’s why it is called a mystery. Life is not a problem. And that is one of the most basic mistakes we all go on committing: we immediately put a question mark. And if you put a question mark on a mystery, you will be searching for the answer your whole life and you will not find it, and naturally it brings great frustration. Rather than making it a problem, rejoice! Not to belong is one of the greatest experiences of life. To be utterly an outsider, never feeling to be a part anywhere, is a great experience of transcendence.
An American tourist went to see a Sufi Master. For many years he had heard about him, had fallen in deep love with his words, his message. Finally he decided to go to see him. When
he entered his room he was surprised — it was an utterly empty room! The Master was sitting; there was no furniture at all! The American could not conceive of a living space
without any furniture. He immediately asked, “Where is your furniture, sir?” And the old Sufi laughed and he said, “And where is yours?”
And the American said, “Of course I am a tourist here. I cannot go on carrying my furniture!” And the old man said, “So am I a tourist for only just a few days, and then I will be gone, just as you will be gone.”
This world is just a pilgrimage — of great significance, but not a place to belong to, not a
place to become part of. Remain a lotus leaf, as Kabir says. This is one of the calamities that has happened to the human mind: we make a problem out of everything. Now this should be something of immense joy to you. Don’t call yourself a ‘loner’. You are using a wrong word, because the very word connotes some condemnation.
You are alone, and the word ‘alone’ has great beauty. You are not even lonely. To be lonely means you are in need of the other; to be alone means you are utterly rooted in yourself, centered in yourself. You are enough unto yourself. You have not yet accepted this gift of God, hence you are unnecessarily suffering. And this is my observation: millions of people go on suffering unnecessarily.
Look at it from another perspective. I am not giving you an answer, I never give any
answers. I simply give you new perspectives to see, new angles. Think of yourself as a born meditator who is capable of being alone, who is strong enough to be alone, who is so centered and rooted that the other is not needed at all. Yes, one can relate with the other, but it never becomes a relationship. To relate is perfectly good. Two persons who are both alone can relate, two persons who are both alone cannot be in relationship…
My approach always is: whatsoever God has given to you must be a subtle necessity of your soul, otherwise it would not have been given in the first place. Think more of aloneness. Celebrate aloneness, celebrate your pure space, and great song will arise in your heart. And it will be a song of awareness, it will be a song of meditation. It will be a song of an alone bird calling in the distance — not calling to somebody in particular, but just calling because the heart is full and wants to call, because the cloud is full and wants to rain, because the flower is full and the petals open and the fragrance is released… unaddressed. Let your aloneness become a dance.
And I am not saying don’t love. In fact, only a person who is capable of being alone is
capable of love. Lonely persons cannot love. Their need is so much that they cling — how can they love? Lonely persons cannot love, they can only exploit. Lonely persons pretend to
love; deep down they want to get love. They don’t have it to give, they have nothing to give.
Only a person who knows how to be alone AND joyous is so full of love that he can share it.
He can share it with strangers.
I am giving you a perspective, a vision. Dissolve your problem! Accept it as a gift of God, with great gratitude, and live it. And you will be surprised: what a precious gift, and you have not even appreciated it yet. What a precious gift, and it is lying there in your heart,
unappreciated. Dance your aloneness, sing your aloneness, live your aloneness!
Source:
Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.
Discourse Series: The Guest Chapter #11
Chapter title: Let your Aloneness become a Dance
6 May 1979 am in Buddha Hall
References:
Osho has spoken on ‘Aloneness, Loneliness, Celebration, Meditation, Awareness, Life ’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourse titles:
- Come, Come, Yet Again Come
- The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 2
- The Book of Wisdom
- Come Follow To You
- Bodhidharma: The Greatest Zen Master
- The New Dawn
- The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty
- Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2
