Which image of our human potential, of our dignity as human beings, do I see emerging from his tales? asks Shanti. (Part 3 of 5)
Meeting Osho, being with him and listening to his poetry in his presence, and nowadays in his books, tapes and videos on the Internet, has inspired me to find the right words to dare to portray an image of our dignity as human beings, a portrait of our potential that does full justice to ‘what we may be.’
Osho’s tales that I have chosen out of the 1001 stories he told us, are serving here as hints at our dignity of being human and as a satisfying answer to my quest for a portrait that does full justice to that ‘human being’ I feel alive inside and notice around me.
In order to avoid the awkward-looking ‘he/she’ and ‘him/her’, let’s call this portrait ‘she’. But ‘he’ doesn’t have to feel left out, because as everyone can see, in ’she’ he is included!
Which image of our human potential, of our dignity as human beings, do I see emerging from his tales?
A hymn to honour our human dignity in 3 stanzas or places to pause:
I. She is living her own experience. She is flowering from her own being.
She is living her own experience, her own awareness, her reverence for life and her own intuition, instead of living according to commandments, ideologies, rules, scriptures, maps, authorities, experts, media or other people’s morality or convictions.
Knowledge is that which is not based on your own experience; wisdom is that which is based on your own experience. She relies only on that which she has experienced. Because unless you enquire on your own, you will never find what life is all about, what truth is.
Unlike flowers and fish, truth cannot be purchased from the marketplace.
She is not a revolutionary, but a rebel. She drops all that nonsense which has been put inside her. She is not on a search for an answer and a philosophy, but on a quest to discover her own being. She doesn’t believe – she knows.
She is a light unto herself, enquiring on her own, naked of all beliefs and free of all idols, aware that existence never copies itself, that it depends on her; it depends totally on her! Whether she lives in heaven or hell, she lives in her own creation.
Her morality arises out of her own love, out of her own reverence for life. It is her own; it has her signature. It cannot be a blind belief; it cannot be a duty that she has been conditioned to fulfil. It is her freedom.
II. She lives like a child, innocently, without repressions or the past interfering.
She is living like a child, without masks, pretensions, prejudices, imaginations, interpretations, clinging, attachments, double standards or addictions.
She is living her natural instincts too, without repressing or projecting anything.
She is living without greed, fictions or the past interfering.
She avoids esotericism: she eats her breakfast and has a good sleep!
III. She remembers; she is aware of her innate perfection.
She knows that the door to her innate ‘imprisoned splendour’ is always open, that ‘the kingdom of heaven within’ is available always and everywhere, that her ‘original face’ has never left her and that there is no need to postpone living it.
So, instead of circling around the Kaaba, she happily takes seven rounds around herself!
Her spiritual search has proven to be illusory, because she had taken one thing for granted: that something is missing… and nothing is missing!
She is aware that divinity is divinity – whether it is reflected in a very beautiful
or in a very ordinary mirror – that the divine resides in everyone.
IV. She is aware of the limits of words and human logic.
She is aware of the limits of words and human logic that are reducing multidimensional beauty into ordinary words, turning knowing into knowledge.
She understands the sense of what is said, not only the words. Just as a real painting is more than only a few colors and a canvas: that ‘more’ is the meaning.
She knows that thinking is always about, never direct. ’About’ means indirect. So she prefers seeing and touching: seeing is direct, touching is direct – thinking is indirect. That’s why thinking misses. A lover can know the reality, even a dancer can know it, a singer can feel it, but a thinker goes on missing it.
Reality is more than our logic. It’s far more than our logic. Our logic is just a small piece of ground that we have cleared and cleaned, and reality is this great jungle of infinity.
That’s why she understands that all philosophies, all that can be said, are just like the porch of a palace… that all greatness comes from beyond the mind, beyond the head. So, in order to understand, she is even ready to behead herself!
V. She is watching, witnessing, aware of each act and her essence is at ease.
She is watching, witnessing, aware to whom everything is happening, and remains centred there. She doesn’t do anything, except watching. Whatsoever is going on in her mind, she doesn’t interfere, she doesn’t try to stop it. She lets everything pass, without judging, condemning or evaluating. She remains a witness. Her essence is at ease. She is doing whatsoever she is doing, but at the deepest core she remains at ease, cool, calm, centred, enjoying the exquisite grace of the sound of silence.
If just the outside noise, stopping for one minute, gives you such stillness, such sweet silence, what will happen when your inside mind stops making noise?
Being rooted in her own Self, she has created a centre which can promise.
She doesn’t separate her meditation from her life but lets them be together. She is bringing awareness to each act: taking a shower, she just takes the shower.
VI. She is unidentified with any role or name or form. She is a host to existence.
She is free from the roles she may play, and she is also free of the ego. She is aware of the subtle ways of the ego as well.
Whether she is a king or a beggar – and everyone in between these two extremes – she doesn’t get identified! She realizes that she is not what the world thinks of her.
She is like a hollow bamboo, unidentified with any name or form: there is nobody who is born, and there is nobody who is dying.
Melting down like ice into the ocean of this great divineness all around, she is a host to existence; she knows the beauty of vastness.
She has wings; she is using her potential in its totality; she is part of existence.
To be continued…
Read the whole series
- A portrait of human dignity by Shanti
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