The art of living

“Be poets of life, singers, musicians, dancers, lovers…”

The first principle is the art of living. Be life-affirmative. Life is synonymous with God. You can drop the word god – life is God. Live with reverence, with great respect and gratitude. You have not earned this life, it has been a sheer gift from the beyond. Feel thankful and prayerful, and take as many bites of it as possible and chew it well and digest it well.

Make your life an aesthetic experience. And not much is needed to make it an aesthetic experience; just an aesthetic consciousness is needed, a sensitive soul. Become more sensitive, more sensuous, and you will become more spiritual.

Priests have almost poisoned your body into a state of death. You are carrying paralyzed bodies and paralyzed minds and paralyzed souls – you are moving on crutches. Throw away all those crutches! Even if you have to fall and crawl on the ground, that is better than clinging to crutches.

And experience life in all possible ways – good-bad, bitter-sweet, dark-light, summer-winter. Experience all the dualities. Don’t be afraid of experience, because the more experience you have, the more mature you become. Search for all possible alternatives, move in all directions, be a wanderer, a vagabond of the world of life and existence. And don’t miss any opportunity to live.

Don’t look back. Only fools think of the past – fools who do not have the intelligence to live in the present. And only fools imagine about the future, because they don’t have the courage to live in the present. Forget the past, forget the future, this moment is all. This moment has to become your prayer, your love, your life, your death, your everything. This is it.

And live courageously, don’t be cowards. Don’t think of consequences; only cowards think of consequences. Don’t be too result-oriented; people who are result-oriented miss life. Don’t think of goals, because goals are always in the future and far away, and life is herenow, close by.

And don’t be too purposive. Let me repeat it: don’t be too purposive. Don’t always bring in the idea, “What is the purpose of it?” because that is a strategy created by your enemies, by the enemies of humanity, to poison your very source of life. Ask the question, “What is the purpose of it?” and everything becomes meaningless.

It is early morning, the sun is rising and the east is red with the sun, and the birds are singing and the trees are waking up, and it is all joy. It is a rejoicing, a new day has happened again. And you are standing there asking the question, “What is the purpose of it?” You miss, you miss it totally. You are simply disconnected.

A roseflower is dancing in the wind, so delicate and yet so strong, so soft yet fighting with the strong wind, so momentary yet so confident. Look at the roseflower. Have you ever seen any roseflower nervous? So confident, so utterly confident, as if it is going to be here forever. Just a moment’s existence, and such trust in eternity. Dancing in the wind, whispering with the wind, sending out its fragrance – and you are standing there asking the question, “What is the purpose of it?”

You fall in love with a woman and ask the question, “What is the purpose of it?” You are holding the hand of your beloved or your friend, and asking the question, “What is the purpose of it?” And you may still be holding hands, but now life has disappeared, your hand is dead.

Raise the question, “What is the purpose?” and everything is destroyed. Let me tell you, there is no purpose in life. Life is its own purpose; it is not a means to some end, it is an end unto itself. The bird on the wing, the rose in the wind, the sun rising in the morning, the stars in the night, a man falling in love with a woman, a child playing on the street… there is no purpose. Life is simply enjoying itself, delighting in itself. Energy is overflowing, dancing, for no purpose at all. It is not a performance, it is not a business. Life is a love affair, it is poetry, it is music. Don’t ask ugly questions like, “What is the purpose?” because the moment you ask it, you disconnect yourself from life. Life cannot be bridged by philosophical questions. Philosophy has to be put aside.

Be poets of life, singers, musicians, dancers, lovers, and you will know the real philosophy of life: Philosophia Perennis.

Osho, The Book of Wisdom, Ch 14, Q 1 (excerpt) (Reviewed by Helen Walker)