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Optimistic state of mind*

So I say to you, for these three days maintain a very optimistic state of mind. Tonight, when you go to bed, fall asleep filled with optimism. And sleep with the assurance that tomorrow morning when you get up something will happen, something can happen, something can be done.

Have an optimistic attitude, and along with it I would also like to say this: after many years of experience I have come to the conclusion that man’s negativity can be so strong that even if he begins to achieve something, he may not be able to see it because of his negativity.

  

Some time ago a man used to come to me, and he would bring his wife. The first time we met he told me that his wife could not sleep. He described her condition to me: “She cannot get any sleep without medicines, and even with medicine she can only sleep for three or four hours. And my wife is afraid; strange fears seem to trouble her. She is afraid to step out of the house, and if she is in the house she is afraid that the house will collapse. If there is no one around she is afraid that if she is alone she will die, so she constantly needs someone around. At night she keeps all her medicines close to her just in case there is an emergency.”

I suggested that she start doing a small meditation that would be helpful. She began to do the experiment. After seven days I met him and I asked him, “What happened? How is your wife?”

He said, “There has not been much progress – she just sleeps better.”

After a week I met him again and asked him, “Any change?”

And he said, “Her condition has not changed very much, but she is a bit less afraid.”

I met him again after another seven days and asked him, “Has anything happened?”

“Nothing significant,” he said. “She manages to get some sleep now, is less fearful and doesn’t keep the medicines close to her anymore – nothing much.”

I call this a negative outlook. Even if this man were to experience something he would not be able to see it, to recognize it. And this outlook is built into this person. It means that a negative person will not experience anything, and even if he does experience something he will not be able to recognize it – and much that might otherwise be possible will be obstructed.

In addition to having a positive approach, I also suggest that during these three days you think only about what is happening to you – don’t try to think about what is not happening. In these three days whatsoever happens, watch. And forget about what does not happen, what could not happen. Just remember what you did experience. If you have even a little taste of peace, of silence, nourish that. It will give you hope and it also will push you forward. Because if you nourish something that didn’t happen your momentum will be lost, and what actually did happen will also be destroyed.

So in these three days, in your experiments with meditation, pay attention to every little thing you experience and make that the basis for your progress. Don’t give any energy to what doesn’t happen.

Man has always been unhappy because he forgets what he has and tries to get what he cannot get. To have this kind of basis for life is absolutely wrong. Be someone who understands what he has and live on the basis of that.

I read somewhere that one man was complaining to another, “I am a very poor man, I don’t have anything.”

So the second man said, “If you are that poor you can do one thing: I want your right eye. I will give you five thousand rupees for it. Take these five thousand rupees and give me your right eye.”

And the first man said, “That is very difficult. I cannot give my right eye.”

So then the other man offered, “I will give you ten thousand rupees for both of your eyes.”

Again the first man replied, “Ten thousand rupees! But still, I cannot give my eyes.”

At which point the other man offered, “I will give you fifty thousand rupees if you will give me your life.”

At this the first man said, “But that is impossible! I cannot give my life.”

The first man said, “This shows you have many valuable things. You have two eyes which you will not sell for ten thousand rupees, and you have your life – and you were saying that you don’t have anything!”

I am talking about this kind of person and this kind of thinking. Value what you have, and also what you experience through meditation, even the small things. Think about it, talk about it, because whether or not you will experience more depends on this way of thinking – and your optimism will create more. And what you don’t get….

A woman used to come to me – she was well educated, a professor in a college, a Sanskrit scholar. She was attending a seven-day meditation camp, and on the first day of the camp after the meditation she came out and said to me, “Forgive me, but I did not have any communion with the divine.”

It was just the first day of the experiment and she said she did not meet with the divine!

So I said, “If you had met the divine it would have been dangerous, because if you could meet the divine so easily you would not value it.” And I also said, “A person would have to be really stupid to think that by sitting silently with his eyes closed for ten minutes, he will then be ready to know the divine.”

So if you experience even the smallest ray of silence, consider that you have seen the whole sun because even the smallest experience of light will help you to reach to the sun. If I am sitting in a dark room and I see a thin ray of light, there are two ways I can relate to it. One way would be to say, “What is this small ray of light compared to the deep darkness surrounding me? What can one small ray of light do? – there is so much darkness all around me.”

The other way would be to think, “In spite of all this darkness, there is at least one ray of light available to me, and if I go towards that ray of light I may reach the source where the sun is.” This is why I am telling you not to think about all the darkness; if there is even the faintest, the tiniest ray of light, concentrate on that. It will give rise to a positive vision in you.

Usually, your life is just the opposite. If I show you a rosebush you might say, “What is there to see? Existence is so unfair, there are only three or four roses and thousands of thorns.” This is one approach: to see a rosebush and say, “Existence is so unfair! There are thousands of thorns and only a few roses.” This is one way of perceiving, one approach. Another way would be to say, “Existence is so mysterious: amidst those thousands of thorns it creates a rose.” You could also see it like this and say, “A rose among all those thorns…. Isn’t this a mysterious world! It really seems like a miracle, the possibility of a rose blooming amongst all those thorns.”

So I would like to ask you to take the second approach. In these three days make your foundation from the slightest ray of hope that you see in your meditation, and let it become stronger.

 

  * - excerpt from OSHO. The Path of Meditation.

 

Updated on 11-03-2019







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