Going Into Fear

Whenever there is fear, never try to escape from it In fact, take hints from fear. Those are the directions in which you need to travel. Fear is simply a challenge. It calls you: 'Come!'

Whenever something is really good, it is also scary, because it brings you some insights. It forces you toward certain changes. It brings you to a brink from where, if you go back, you will never forgive yourself. You will always remember yourself as a coward. If you go ahead, it is dangerous. That's what is scary.

Whenever there is some fear, always remember not to go back, because that is not the way to solve it. Go into it. If you are afraid of the dark night, go into the dark night because that is the only way to overcome it. That is the only way to transcend the fear. Go into the night; there is nothing more important than that. Wait, sit there alone, and let the night work. If you fear, tremble.

Let the trembling be there, but tell the night, 'Do whatever you want to do. I am here.' After a few minutes you will see that everything has settled. The darkness is no longer dark, it has come to be luminous. You will enjoy it. You can touch it the velvety silence, the vastness, the music. You will be able to enjoy it, and you will say, 'How foolish I was to be afraid of such a beautiful experience!'"

Everyday Meditations

Osho

There is nothing to fear..

There is nothing to fear, because we dont have anything to lose.

All that can be robbed from you is not worthwhile, so why fear, why suspect, why doubt?

These are the real robbers: doubt, suspicion, fear.

They destroy your very possibility of celebration. So while on earth, celebrate the earth. While this moment lasts, enjoy it to the very core. Because of fear we miss many things.

Becuase of fear we cannnot love, or even if we love it is always half-hearted, it is always so-so. It is always upto a certain extent and not beyond that. We always come to a point beyond which we are afraid, so we get stuck there. We cannot move deeply in friendship because of fear. We cannot pray deeply because of fear.

Be conscious but never be cautious. The distinction is very subtle. Consciousness is not rooted in fear. Caution is rooted in fear. One is cautious so that one might never go wrong, but then one cannot go very far. The very fear will not allow you to investigate new lifestyles, new channels for your enerty, new directions, new lands. You will always tread the same path again and again, shuttling backward and forward - like a freight train!
- Osho

That which we are seeking...

Those moments when you feel that what you are doing is foolish are very rare moments of wisdom.

To be seeking is foolish, because that which we are seeking we already have. To meditate is foolish, because meditation is a state of nondoing. To ask is foolish, because the answer cannot come from the outside - it can only come from your own heart. In fact, it cannot come as an answer, it will come as a growth. It will be a blossoming, a blooming of your being.

But those moments when you feel that what you are doing is foolish are rare moments of wisdom. You cannot always feel foolish, otherwise you will become enlightened! In the Zen tradition this incident is repeated again and again, in every age with every master: Somebody comes and says he wants to know how to become a Buddha and the master hits him very hard - because the question is foolish.

Sometimes it has happened, if he is really ready and on the Verge, that with the first hit of the master the person has become enlightened. He was able to see in that hit that it was foolish to ask how to be a Buddha, because he was one already!

These things are going to happen to every seeker by and by. While you are meditating, suddenly there is a ray of light and you see that it is foolish. But those are very rare moments of wisdom. It is only a wise man who can feel foolish.

Fools never feel that they are foolish; they think they are wise. That is the definition of a foolish man: he thinks he is wise. And a wise man is one who has come to know that everything is foolish.


Page 205, Everyday Meditations, Osho