Relaxation is Just Being Natural

Osho,
How can one get out of the trap the mind creates of never being quite blissful in the moment, and be patient, letting the grass grow by itself? I'm always wanting to move faster, to push the river, and missing the beauty of it taking me in its own time.

It is one of the eternal questions. The East has come up with something very close to the truth. There are religions born in India and religions born outside India; the religions born outside all believe in one life ? that is, seventy years. Naturally, one is in a hurry; one has to be in a hurry ? such a small life and so much to do, so much to experience, so much to explore. That's why the Western mind is speedy, wanting to do everything faster and faster, quickly, because his conception of life is too small. You cannot blame him.

The religions born in India have an eternal expanse ? life after life. There is no hurry, there is no haste. But man is so stupid that you solve one question, and out of the solution a thousand other questions will arise.

The idea of many lives was really to help you to relax: there is no hurry; the eternity is yours, so don't run, just walk the way you go for a morning walk ? at ease, relaxed.

That was the idea of the people who gave the conception of reincarnation, but people are such that rather than becoming relaxed, they became lazy. They said, "There is no hurry, so why bother even to walk? Running is out of question but even to go for a morning walk, what is the need? Eternity is ours ? you can go any time for your morning walk."

The East became poor because of this, because no technology was evolved. Technology is just to make things quickly, to produce things faster than man can do with his own hands. The people remained poor, went on becoming poorer. The idea was good, but the consequences proved not to be good.

The West has just the opposite idea ? of a small life. It created great tension and anxiety, but it created technology, scientific developments, richness, comfort, luxuries; it created everything. But the man inside was lost, because he was always running. He was never where he was; he was always going for something else. And that goal where you can stop never comes. So in the West people have means of speed, and they are going fast. But don't ask them, "Where are you going?" Don't waste their time in asking such stupid questions! All that matters is that they are going fast; it does not matter where they are going and why they are going.

Both ideas have failed.

Eastern religions have not been of help; Western religions have not been of help. They both tried to give you an idea, but they never gave you an insight into your own being.

That's where I differ.

For example, your question is that you understand, "Relax and let the grass grow by itself," but still you go on pushing.

No, you don't understand. The first thing for you to understand is that you don't understand the meaning of the grass growing by itself. If you understand that, the pushing, the forcing, will disappear. When I say it will disappear, I am not saying it will stop. It will differ with different people.

If you understand what it means that the grass grows by itself... such a vast universe is going so silently, so peacefully; millions of solar systems, millions of stars moving day in, day out, from eternity to eternity... If you understand that existence is happening, it is not doing, then if pushing is your nature you will accept it. It is not a question of stopping it, because that will be again doing. You simply understand that things are happening, that this is how you are: that you push, that you force. Then there is a great acceptance of it, and in that acceptance, the tension disappears.

For a few others the pushing may disappear ? if it is not part of their nature, if they are imitating somebody else, if they are competing with somebody else and because everybody else is pushing, they are pushing. It may stop, understanding that things are happening, and you need not unnecessarily bother about them; you can enjoy silently the way things are happening. You can contribute without any anxiety anything that comes naturally to you; but not beyond that.

So each individual will have different things happening out of the same understanding. If pushing is your nature, then there is nothing wrong in it.

Enjoy it, push as much as you can ? but with a song and with a dance, and without being worried that you are pushing. This is you. This is your grass, and it grows this way. There are grasses and grasses.

Just one thing has to be remembered, that anything that you are doing is joyfully done, rejoicingly done ? that's enough. Different people will be doing different things, and the world needs that different people should do different things. It is the richness of the world, that all are not alike, and should not be alike. But on one point they should meet; and that is the cosmic center of being relaxed.

In Japan they have developed strange things for meditative purposes... Japan has done a tremendous service to humanity. Meditation was developed in India, but it remained a very limited phenomenon ? just sitting in a lotus posture witnessing your thoughts, becoming silent. It did the work, but Japan tried different dimensions, strange dimensions: swordsmanship, but with meditation. Two swordsmen bent upon killing each other have to remain centered in themselves without tension, without fear, without anger, without revenge, just playful.

To the observer it is a question of life and death, but to those two meditators it is playfulness. And a strange thing has been observed again and again: if both the meditators are of the same depth in meditation, nobody wins, nobody is killed. Even before one person raises the sword to hit the other person at a certain point ? even before he has done that ? just that idea of his has reached to the other, and his sword is ready to protect him.

It is impossible to declare who is the winner. Ordinarily it is difficult to think of swordsmanship and meditation, aikido and meditation, jujitsu and meditation, wrestling and meditation. But in Japan they have tried every dimension possible, and they have found that it doesn't matter what you are doing; what matters is, are you centered?

If you are centered then you can do anything and it will not create any tension; your relaxation will remain the same.

So don't be worried about pushing. Just try to understand that we are so small compared to this immense universe; what we do or don't do makes no difference to existence. We are not to be serious about it. I was not here and existence continued; I will not be here, and existence will continue. I should not take myself seriously.

That is a fundamental understanding of a meditator ? that he does not take himself seriously. Then relaxation comes automatically. And with relaxation, whatsoever is natural to you continues, and whatsoever is not natural to you falls on its own accord.

Osho, Come, Come, Yet Again Come, Number 12