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Famous Osho Quotes

“Don't think that relationship is coming from the past - it is coming from the past, but don't think about it because then you will get more complicated. Make things easier. It is going on - from your past lives things have a continuity, so I don't deny the fact, but don't get burdened by it. It will continue in the future, but don't think about it. The present is more than enough. Munch the cake and say: THIS cake is delicious. Don't think of the past and don't think of the future; they will take care of themselves. Nothing is discontinuous. You have been in relationships in the past. You have loved, you have hated, you have made friends and you have made enemies. That continues, known, unknown to you, it is always there. But if you start brooding about it, you will miss the present moment. So think as if there is no past, and think as if there is no future. THIS moment is all that is given to you. Work it out, as if this moment is all. Behave as if this moment is all and work out how you can transform your energies into a loving phenomenon - this very moment. People come to me and they want to know about their past lives. They HAD past lives, but it is irrelevant. Why this inquiry? What are you going to do about the past? Nothing can be done now. The past is past and it cannot be undone. You cannot change it. You cannot go back. That's why nature, in its wisdom, doesn't allow you to remember past lives. Otherwise you would go mad. You may be in love with a girl. If you suddenly become aware that that girl was your mother in your past life, things will become very complicated. Then what to do? And when that girl has been your mother in a past life, making love to her now will create guilt. Not making love to her will also create guilt, because you love her. That's why I say nature in its wisdom never allows you to remember your past lives - unless you come to a point where it can be allowed, when you become so meditative that nothing disturbs you, then the gates open and all your past lives are before you. It is an automatic mechanism, though sometimes the mechanism doesn't work. Through accidents some children are born who can remember.”

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Book:My Way: The Way of the White Clouds
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“Meditation is a flower and compassion is its fragrance. Exactly like that it happens. The flower blooms and the fragrance spreads on the winds in all directions, to be carried to the very ends of earth. But the basic thing is the blooming of the flower. Man is also carrying a potentiality for flowering within him. Until and unless the inner being of man flowers, the fragrance of compassion is not possible. Compassion cannot be practiced. It is not a discipline. You cannot manage it. It is beyond you. If you meditate, one day, suddenly, you become aware of a new phenomenon, absolutely strange -- from your being compassion is flowing towards the whole of existence; undirected, unaddressed, it is moving to the very ends of existence. Without meditation, energy remains passion; with meditation, the same energy becomes compassion. Passion and compassion are not two energies, they are one and the same energy. Once it passes through meditation, it is transformed, transfigured; it becomes qualitatively different. Passion moves downwards, compassion moves upwards; passion moves through desire, compassion moves through desirelessness; passion is an occupation to forget the miseries in which you live, compassion is a celebration, it is a dance of attainment, of fulfillment...you are so fulfilled that you can share. Now there is nothing left; you have attained the destiny that you were carrying for millennia within you like an unflowered potentiality, just a bud. Now it has flowered and it is dancing. Now what will happen to the energy? You start sharing. The same energy that was moving through the dark layers of passion, now moves with light rays upwards, uncontaminated by any desire, uncontaminated by any conditioning. It is uncorrupted by any motivation -- hence I call it fragrance. The flower is limited but not the fragrance. Once compassion happens, it is not rooted; it simply moves and goes on moving. Buddha has disappeared but not his compassion. The flower will die but the fragrance that has been released will remain forever and forever.”

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Author:Osho
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“When I say celebrate, I mean become more and more sensitive to everything. In life, dance should not be apart. The whole life should become a dance; it should be a dance. You can go for a walk and dance. Allow life to enter into you, become more open and vulnerable, feel more, sense more. Small things filled with such wonders are lying all around. Watch a small child. Leave him in the garden and just watch. That should be your way also; so wonderful, wonder-filled: running to catch this butterfly, running to catch that flower, playing with mud, rolling in the sand. From everywhere the Divine is touching the child. If you can live in wonder you will be capable of celebration. Don't live in knowledge, live in wonder. Life is surprising; everywhere, it is a continuous surprise. Live it as a surprise, an unpredictable phenomenon: every moment is new. Just try, give it a try! You will not lose anything if you give it a try, and you may gain everything. But you have become addicted to misery. You cling to your misery as if it is something very precious. You become cruel because you don't know how to become compassionate. It is a negative state. The same energy that is cruelty will become compassion. With an unalert mind the energy becomes violence; with an alert mind the same energy becomes compassion. In sleep the same energy becomes torture, either of yourself or of somebody else. When you are awake, the same energy becomes love, for yourself and for others also. You are already where you need to be, you are already in that space which you are seeking. Just make a little effort to come out of your clinging to misery. Don't invest in misery; invest in celebration. You take one step towards life and life takes one thousand towards you. Just take one step out of your clinging to misery. The mind will go on pulling you backwards. Just be indifferent to the mind and tell the mind, 'Wait, I have lived enough with you, now let me live without mind.' That's what a child is: living without mind, or, living with no mind.”

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Book:Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega Volume 4
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“All that the mind can do cannot be meditation—it is something beyond the mind, the mind is absolutely helpless there. The mind cannot penetrate meditation; where mind ends, meditation begins. This has to be remembered because in our life, whatsoever we do, we do through the mind; whatsoever we achieve, we achieve through the mind. Then, when we turn inward, we again start thinking in terms of techniques, methods, doings, because the whole of life’s experience shows us that everything can be done by the mind. Yes. Except meditation, everything can be done by the mind; everything is done by the mind, except meditation.”

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Author:Osho
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“The worry simply means: you are clinging with something which is no more and you are avoiding that which is. That is worry. You know deep down that it is no more, it is gone and you know deep down that the new has come. But still you want to pretend, you want to deceive yourself. And one can deceive oneself; millions of people are deceiving themselves. But that deception simply destroys all the possibilities of being blissful, of being alive, of being celebrating. One creates great anxiety and a great split.”

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Book:Let go!: A darshan diary
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“People are bound to remain anxious if there is a "should" in life. If there is an ideal that has to be fulfilled, how can you be at ease? How can you be at home? It is impossible to live anything totally because the mind is hankering for the future. And that future never comes—it cannot come. By the very nature of your desire it is impossible. When it comes you will start imagining other things, you will start desiring other things. You can always imagine a better state of affairs. And you can always remain in anxiety, tense, worried—that's how humanity has been living for centuries.”

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Book:Intimacy: Trusting Oneself and the Other
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“From this moment, start looking at everything as a blessing. And when I say everything, I mean everything. Even when you sometimes feel pain it is a blessing. You may not understand, but it is a blessing. One day you will understand and you will see that it was a blessing, that it was needed, absolutely needed, that it helped your growth. Even suffering is a blessing. It cleanses, it helps you to become integrated, it takes away childishness, it helps you to become mature. A certain ripeness arises out of suffering. A man who has never suffered remains childish, juvenile, superficial. He can’t understand life’s deeper things. He thinks that life is just a merry-go-round, so he goes on moving from one sensation to another. He is continuously greedy and hankering for all kinds of toys. But they are toys. A man who has suffered enough becomes mature. He can see that toys are toys — not worth the labor, not worth the worry. He can understand the depth and can see other people’s lives with more sympathy, with more compassion, with more love. Because he has suffered, he knows what suffering is. That makes him more human. So suffering too is a blessing. Watch, observe and try to find a blessing everywhere. Sometimes it is in disguise and sometimes not so disguised, sometimes utterly nude. But if you watch, you will find it is always there; in success, in failure, in pain, in pleasure, in life, in death too. It is there in summer, it is there in winter, it is there in youth, it is there in old age. It is there in health, it is there in illness. I call that person religious who can see blessings everywhere, who cannot find any place, any point which is not a blessing.”

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Book:First in the Morning: 365 Uplifting Moments to Start the Day Consciously
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“Happiness lacks depth. That is why happy people also lack depth, they have a superficiality about them. Suffering has great depth and it lends its depth to those who suffer. There is a depth in the life of people who go through suffering, there is a depth in their eyes, in their look, in their whole demeanor. Suffering cleanses and chastens you, it gives you a sharpness. Suffering has great depth which is utterly lacking in happiness.”

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Book:Krishna: The Man and his Philosophy
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“To see this mysterious existence, to feel it in the deepest core of your heart, and immediately a prayer arises—a prayer that has no words to it, a prayer that is silence, a prayer that doesn’t say anything but feels tremendous, a prayer that arises out of you like fragrance, a prayer that is like music with no words, celestial music, or what Pythagoras used to call “the harmony of the stars,” the melody of the whole. When that music starts rising in you, that’s what the Secret of the Golden Flower is all about: suddenly a flower bursts open in you, a golden lotus. You have arrived, you have come home.”

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Book:The Secret of Secrets
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“Question : IF LIFE IS A BLISSFUL COSMIC PLAY, THEN WHY ARE ALL BEINGS SUFFERING? Osho : You, please, forget about all beings. You don't know. I'm not suffering. You may be suffering; don't talk about all beings. You don't even know yourself. How can you know the other? Just talk about yourself, because things are already much too complicated. When you start talking about all, you will make it almost impossible for yourself to understand the thing. Just you will do. Say only this: "Why am I suffering? If life is a blissful cosmic play, then why am I suffering?" -- only this much will do. Forget about all beings -- that is none of your business. If they want to suffer let them suffer. You, please, decide only for yourself. Even that is too much, not easy. Why are you suffering? The ego suffers. The whole is a cosmic play; it is beautiful. It is a tremendous celebration -- moment to moment, moving to higher and higher peaks. You are suffering because you are not part of it. The ego is never part of the whole; the ego tries to be separate. The ego tries to have its own plans, to have its own ideas, to have its own goals. That's why you are suffering. If you become part of the whole there is no suffering. Suddenly you start floating with the stream. You are no longer moving upstream. You are no longer even swimming, because then too there is effort. You are just floating with the stream: wheresoever it leads, there is the goal. You have dropped private goals; you have accepted the destiny of the whole. Then you live easily, you die easily. There is no resistance. Resistance is suffering -- and you cannot win against the whole. So every moment you resist you fail, you suffer. Try to live without your ego, and there is no more suffering. Suffering is an attitude; it is not an actuality. You fall ill: you immediately start fighting with illness; suffering arises. If you accept it, suffering disappears. Then you know that God wills this; there must be some point in it. It must be needed for your growth. You ask me if life is a blissful cosmic play, then WHY... then why is there suffering. There is suffering because you are still not part of the cosmic play. You have your own small drama, and you want to play it. You are not part of the whole; you are trying to create a small world of your own. Every ego creates its own world, that's the problem. Float with the whole, and suffering disappears. Suffering is symptomatic: it shows you must be fighting the whole, that's all. You are not suffering for your sins committed in the past; you are suffering for the sin that you are continuing right now, committing right now. The sin is simple: to fight, not to accept. The word "sin" is beautiful. It comes from a root which means "to separate." The word "sin" itself comes from a root which means to separate: you are separated, that is the only sin. Just the opposite is the concept of Patanjali -- He insists on "yoga," to be joined together. ..sin means to be separate; yoga means to be joined together again. If you are joined together again with the whole, there is no suffering. The more you go far away from the whole, the more you suffer. The more you are, the more you will suffer.”

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Book:Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega Volume 10
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“Question : WHAT IS LOVE? Osho : It depends. There are as many loves as there are people. Love is a hierarchy, from the lowest rung to the highest, from sex to superconsciousness. There are many many layers, many planes of love. If you are existing on the lowest rung, you will have a totally different idea of love than the person who is existing on the highest rung. Adolf Hitler will have one idea of love, Gautam Buddha another; and they will be diametrically opposite, because they are at two extremes. At the lowest, love is a kind of politics, power politics. Wherever love is contaminated by the idea of domination, it is politics. Whether you call it politics or not is not the question, it is political. And millions of people never know anything about love except this politics - the politics that exists between husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. It is politics, the whole thing is political: you want to dominate the other, you enjoy domination. You talk about love but the deep desire is to exploit the other. And I am not saying that you are doing it deliberately or consciously - you are not that conscious yet. You cannot do it deliberately; it is n unconscious mechanism. Hence so much possessiveness and so much jealousy become a part, an intrinsic part, of your love. That's why love creates more misery than joy. Ninety-nine percent of it is bitter; there is only that one percent of sugar that you have coated on top of it. And sooner or later that sugar disappears. This is the lowest form of love. Nothing is wrong with it if you can use it as a stepping-stone, if you can use it as a meditation. If you can watch it, if you try to understand it, in that very understanding you will reach another rung, you will start moving upwards. Only at the highest peak, when love is not a relationship any more, when love becomes a state of your being, the lotus opens totally and great perfume is released - but only at the highest peak. At its lowest, love is just a political relationship. At its highest, love is a religious state of consciousness. When I talk about love, I am talking about love as a state. It is unaddressed: you don't love this person or that person, you simply love. You are love. Rather than saying that you love somebody, it will be better to say you are love. So whosoever is capable of partaking, can partake. Whosoever is capable of drinking out of your infinite sources of being, you are available - you are available unconditionally. That is possible only if love becomes more and more meditative. 'Medicine' and 'meditation' come from the same root. Love as you know it is a kind of disease: it needs the medicine of meditation. If it passes through meditation, it is purified. And the more purified it is, the more ecstatic. Everybody has their own idea of love. And only when you come to the state where all ideas about love have disappeared, where love is no more an idea but simply your being, then only will you know its freedom. Then love is God. Then love is the ultimate truth. Let your love move through the process of meditation. Watch it: watch the cunning ways of your mind, watch your power-politics. And nothing else except continuous watching and observing is going to help. When you say something to your woman or your man, look at it: what is the unconscious motive? Why are you saying it? Is there some motive? Then what is it? Be conscious of that motive, bring it to consciousness - because this is one of the secret keys for transforming your life.... And when love is unmotivated, then love is the greatest thing that can ever happen to anybody. Then love is something of the ultimate, of the beyond. Love is the process of alchemical change in your consciousness.”

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Author:Osho
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“That’s what meditation is all about, to be capable of being alone. And remember, aloneness is not loneliness. Loneliness is the state of the person who cannot live alone; loneliness means you are dependent on the crowd, on the other. Aloneness means you are happy with yourself, you are not dependent on anybody. The moment you are not dependent you are an emperor, you are a god, a goddess. Now you have something to share, you can go into the world.”

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Author:Osho
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“The English word anxiety comes from a Latin root which means narrowing down, and in the beginning the word was used for the entry of a soul into a womb. So the first anxiety is felt when a soul enters a womb, because everything is narrowed down; an infinite soul becomes a small body. This is the most painful process possible, as if the whole sky has been forced to enter into a seed. You don't know it because it is so painful that you become totally unconscious. There are two painful processes. You may have heard Buddha's saying, "Birth is pain, death is pain." These are the greatest pains, the greatest anguishes possible. When the infinite becomes finite in the womb, it is painful, it is anxiety; and when the infinite is taken out of the body again there is anguish and pain. So whenever someone dies consciously, he disappears. Then there is no more entry into the body. Then there is no more anxiety, because anxiety is the consequence of desire; then you need not be narrowed down because there is no desire to be fulfilled. You can remain infinite; there is no need to enter a vehicle because now you are going nowhere.”

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Book:Bird on a Wing
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“Shiva is saying: the body is a product of nature and your will to do. The nature is merely the source, the womb. Your ego functions like a seed in it. Your will to do this or that, to achieve this or that, to become this or that – acts like a seed. And the moment the art of your doing meets the womb of nature, a body is formed. Therefore, buddhas say: ”Give up all desires, only then will you be liberated.: If you desired for heaven, you will become an angel, but that won’t be liberation either. Because as long as desires persist, there can never be any liberation. All desires lead to the formation of bodies.”

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Book:Bliss: Living beyond happiness and misery
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“So as long as you have not attained to desirelessness, as long as you have not renounced desires completely, you will go on taking births and wandering in different bodies. And howsoever different the forms of the body may be, their basic condition is always the same. The ills of the body are the same, regardless whether it’s a bird’s body or man’s. There is no difference in their miseries, because the fundamental misery is only one: the soul becoming confined in the body, the entering of the soul into the prison of body. A prison after all is a prison; it makes no difference whether its walls are circular or angular no matter what you think.”

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Book:Bliss: Living beyond happiness and misery
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“When I say maturity, I mean an inner integrity. And this inner integrity comes only when you stop making others responsible, when you stop saying that the other is creating your suffering, when you start realizing that you are the creator of your suffering. This is the first step towards maturity: I am responsible. Whatsoever is happening, it is my doing. You feel sad. Is this your doing? You will feel very much disturbed, but if you can remain with this feeling, sooner or later you will be able to stop doing many things. This is what the theory of karma is all about. You are responsible. Don’t say society is responsible, don’t say that parents are responsible, don’t say the economic conditions are responsible, don’t throw the responsibility onto anybody. YOU are responsible.”

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Book:The Empty Boat: Talks on the Sayings of Chuang Tzu
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“Question : OSHO, I AM VERY IMPATIENT, I WANT TO KNOW GOD, BUT I DON'T WANT TO WASTE MY TIME IN SEARCH OF HIM. CAN YOU SHOW ME A SHORT CUT? Osho : Patience is the only way, and if you are absolutely patient you can find right now. This is the ultimate paradox of religious inquiry, of the search for truth, for God, for NIRVANA: if you are impatient you will have to wait for eternity. And patience means love because only love can be patient. Love can wait - love knows how to wait. It can wait forever, and because it can wait forever it becomes capable of receiving the gift right now.”

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Author:Osho
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“..in existence everything moves eternally -- the summer comes, the rains come, the winter comes, and the summer again; everything moves like a wheel -- life is not an exception. Death is the end of one wheel and the beginning of another. Again you will be a child, and again you will be young, and again you will be old. It has been so since the beginning, and it is going to be so to the very end -- until you become so enlightened that you can jump out of the vicious circle and can enter into a totally different law. From individuality, you can jump into the universal. So there was no hurry, and there was no clinging. ..you have lived many times, and you will live many times more. Hence, live each moment as totally as possible; there is no hurry to jump to another moment. Time is not money, time is inexhaustible; it is available to the poor as much as to the rich. The rich are not richer as far as time is concerned, and the poor are not poorer. Life is an eternal incarnation. ..there is nothing to be afraid of in death. It is a beautiful sleep, a sleep that is needed for you to move into another body, silently and peacefully. It is a surgical phenomenon; it is almost like anesthesia. Death is a friend, not a foe. Once you understand death as a friend, and start living life without any fear that it is only a very small time span of seventy years -- if your perspective opens to the eternity of your life -- then everything will slow down; then there is no need to be speedy.”

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Author:Osho
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“Time is not running short. Time is eternal; there is no hurry. Existence moves in a very lethargic way. Existence moves very slowly, just like the Ganges flows in the plains -- slow, as if not flowing at all. Still it reaches the ocean. Time is not short, don't be in a panic. Time is enough. You relax. If you relax, even the longest path will become the short est. If you are in a panic, even the short path will become very long -- because in panic, meditation is impossible. When you are in a panic, in a hurry, the very hurry is the barrier. When I say, 'Take the jump' -- and you can take the jump immediately -- I am not talking about shortcuts or longcuts. I am not talking about the way at all, because a jump is not a way. A jump is a courageous moment -- it is a sudden phenomenon. But I don't mean that you can do it right now. I will go on insisting, 'Take the jump immediately, as soon as possible.' This insistence is just to help you to prepare for it. Some day you may be ready. Somebody may be ready right now -- because you are not new; for many lives you have already been working. When I say, 'Take the immediate jump,' there may be someone who has been working for many lives, and just standing on the brink, on the abyss, and afraid. He may gather courage and take the jump. Somebody who is very far away, thinking that the immediate jump is possible, will gather hope and start walking. When I say something, it is a device to help many sorts of people in many sorts of situations. But my path is not a short cut, because no path can be a shortcut. The very word is deceptive. Life knows no shortcuts because life has no beginning. God knows no shortcuts. God is not in a hurry -- eternity is there. You can work it out slowly. And the more patiently, the more slowly, the more unhurriedly you work, the sooner you will reach. If you can be so patient, so infinitely patient that you are not worried about reaching at all, you may reach right now.”

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Book:Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega Volume 4
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“You have certain ideas about what should happen... expectations. And if life is not moving that way, something is wrong. Nothing is going wrong! Life is going on its own, on,!y you have some fixed ideas. So drop those fixed ideas. Life is never going to follow you... you have to follow life. So if it is muddled, be muddled. What can you do?”

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Book:Beloved of my heart: A Darshan diary
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“Accept whatsoever is there, and once you accept unconditionally, then everything is beautiful. One should simply go on enjoying whatsoever comes on the way. Non-asking will give you a state of non-desire. Not complaining will make you more contented. This moment is all. Never go beyond this moment, but whatsoever happens, be true to it. Be authentic to it.”

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Author:Osho
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“He accepts life in all its facets, in all its climates and colors. He alone does not choose he accepts life unconditionally. He does not shun love; being a man he does not run away from women. As one who has known and experienced God, he alone does not turn his face from war. He is full of love and compassion, and yet he has the courage to accept and fight a war. His heart is utterly non violent, yet he plunges into the fire and fury of violence when it becomes unavoidable. He accepts the nectar, and yet he is not afraid of poison.”

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Book:Krishna: The Man and his Philosophy
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“Has it ever occurred to you that the last thought before your falling asleep at night becomes the first thought on waking up in the morning? All night long, while you remain asleep, the thought stays within you in a seed form. And so, that which is the last thing at night becomes first in the morning. At the moment of your death all your desires will come together and become a seed. That very seed will consequently be the new life in the womb. You start fresh from where you left off. Whatsoever you are is of your own making. Don’t blame others. As a matter of fact, there is no one whom you can blame. Basically it is the cumulative effect of your own actions. Whatsoever you are – beautiful or ugly, happy or unhappy, man or a woman – it is all a result of your actions. You are the architect of your life. Don’t blame on your stars – you’ll be simply fooling yourself. This way you are dumping the responsibility on to someone else. No need to say God has sent you – don’t dump the responsibility on God. That’s just a strategy to avoid your own responsibility. You alone are the cause for being imprisoned in this body. One who understands perfectly that he himself is responsible for being in this world, a transformation takes place in his life.”

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Book:Bliss: Living beyond happiness and misery
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“Your body is made of two things: your will to do, your ego, and the physical form you have received from the prakriti, the nature. If the will to do is present within you, then the nature will go on providing you with an appropriate body. This is how you have been born again and again. Sometimes you were an animal, sometimes a bird, a tree some other time, and sometimes a man. Whatsoever you wished to achieve, it has happened. Your desire to achieve becomes the actuality; thoughts become real things. So beware when you desire, because all desires are fulfilled – sooner or later. If you are of the habit of watching the birds fly in the sky and wonder, ”How free the birds are, I wish I were a bird.” it will not be long before you become a bird. You see dogs mating, and if that moment a thought arises in you, ”What freedom! What happiness!” – soon you will become a dog. Whatever desire you keep within you, it becomes a seed.”

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Book:Bliss: Living beyond happiness and misery
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