You are alive only in proportion to how aware you are. Mindfulness is the difference between life and death. You are not alive just because you breathe, you are not alive only because your heart is beating. Physiologically, you can sustain life in a hospital, without any consciousness.
Become more awake and you will become more alive. And life is God - there is no other God. Therefore, Buddha talks about life and awareness. Life is a goal, awareness is a methodology, a technique to achieve it.
The only thing to learn is observation. Watch! Observe every action you take. Observe every thought passing through the mind. Watch every desire that grips you. Observe even the smallest gestures - how you walk, talk, eat, take a bath. Keep watching, in everything, everywhere. Let everything become an opportunity to observe.
Don't eat mechanically, don't just keep stuffing yourself with food - be very observant. Chew carefully and observantly … and you will be amazed at how much you have missed so far, because each piece will be very satisfying. If you eat observantly, the food tastes better.
Breathe in the scent, feel the touch, feel the wind and the rays of the sun. Look at the moon, and become just a silent reservoir of observation, and the moon will be reflected in you in immense beauty.
Move through life while remaining fully observant. Over and over you will forget. Do not become unhappy about it; it is natural…
Remember one thing: when you remember that you forgot to watch, do not regret, do not repent; otherwise you will waste your time. Don't feel unhappy, "I missed again." Don't start feeling, "I am a sinner." Don't start judging yourself, because this is a sheer waste of time. Never repent of the past! Live in this moment.
The first step in awareness is to become very attentive to your body. Little by little, a person becomes alert in every gesture, in every movement. As you become more aware, a miracle begins to happen: many of the things you've done before just disappear. Your body becomes more relaxed, more attuned, deep peace reigns in your body, subtle music pulsates in your body.
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Then begin to be aware of thoughts - the same must be done with thoughts. They are thinner than the body and, of course, much more dangerous. And when you become aware of thoughts, you will be surprised by what is happening inside you.
And the miracle of being aware is that you don't have to do anything but become aware. The very phenomenon of observing this changes everything. Little by little the madman disappears. Little by little, thoughts begin to follow a certain pattern: their chaos is no more, they become more and more cosmos. And then a deeper peace reigns.
It is the thinnest layer and the most difficult, but if you can be aware of thoughts, it is only one step further. You just need a little more intense awareness, and you will begin to reflect your moods, emotions, feelings.
As soon as you become aware of all these three layers, they are combined into one phenomenon. And when these three layers become one, begin to act in complete harmony, vibrate together, you can feel the music of all three: they become an orchestra - and then the fourth happens. This you cannot do - it happens by itself, it is the gift of the whole. This is a reward for those who have taken these three steps. The fourth is ultimate awareness that makes a person awake. A person realizes his own awareness - this is the fourth. This makes a person a buddha, awakened. And only in such awakening does a person know what bliss is. Bliss is the goal, awareness is the path to it.
Act, speak with full awareness, and you will find a huge change in yourself. The very fact that you are aware changes all your actions. Then you cannot commit sin. Not that you have to control yourself, no! Control is a surrogate for awareness, a very poor substitute; little help from him. If you are aware, you do not need to control anger; in awareness, anger never arises. Anger and awareness cannot exist together; their coexistence is impossible. Jealousy never arises in awareness. In awareness, many things just disappear - all things that are negative.
Whatever you do, keep constantly doing one thing inside: be aware that you are doing this. You eat - be aware of yourself. You go - be aware of yourself. You listen, you say - be aware of yourself. When you are angry, realize that you are angry. At the same time that anger comes, realize that you are angry. This constant remembering of yourself creates a subtle energy in you, a very subtle energy.
Mindfulness is what makes you a master - and when I say “master,” I don't mean that you are in control. When I say be the master, I mean presence - constant presence. Whatever you do or don't do, one thing must be constantly in your mind: what you are.
You have to fight anger, greed, sex, because you are weak. So the problem is not really anger, greed and sex, the problem is weakness. As soon as you start to be strong inside and you have a feeling of inner presence - that you are - your energies begin to become concentrated, crystallized at one point, and “I” is born. Remember, it is not the ego that is born, but the self.
Relax. Don't try your best, because it is in relaxation that you can be aware, not in hard effort. Be calm, quiet, silent.
What's your stress? Your identification with all kinds of thoughts, fears - death, ruin, the fall of the dollar and all kinds of things. These are your tensions, and they also affect the body. Your body becomes tense because body and mind are not two separate entities. The body-mind is one system, so when the mind becomes tense, the body also becomes tense.
A person of awareness, understanding acts. A person who is unconscious, unconscious, mechanical, like a robot, reacts.
Someone insults you, presses a button, and you react. You get angry, you pounce on it - and you call it action? This is not an action, mind you, this is a reaction. He manipulates you, and you are a puppet. He pressed the button and you turned on like a car. Just like you press a button to turn the lights on or off, that's what people do to you. They turn you on and off.
Someone comes and praises you, puffs up your ego, and you feel great. Then someone comes and punctures you, and you just deflate and fall to the ground. You are not your own master. Anyone can insult you and make you sad, angry, irritated, agitated, violent, insane. And anyone can praise you and make you feel at your best, feel like the greatest of people, in comparison with which Alexander the Great pales. You act in accordance with the manipulation of others. This is not real action.
Conscience is a trick that others play with you - others tell you what is right and what is wrong. They impose their ideas on you, and they constantly impose them from childhood. When you are so innocent, so vulnerable, so delicate that they can leave an imprint on you, a trace, they condition you - from the very beginning. This conditioning is called "conscience," and this conscience continues to govern your entire life. Conscience is a society's strategy to enslave you.
Buddhas teach consciousness. Consciousness means that you do not learn from others what is right and what is wrong. You don't need to learn from anyone else, you just need to go inward. And the inner journey is enough - the deeper you go, the more consciousness is released. When you reach the center, you are so full of light that this darkness disappears.
The only sin is unawareness, and the only virtue is awareness. What cannot be done without unconsciousness is sin. What can only be done in awareness is virtue. It is impossible to kill if you are aware; no violence at all is possible if you are aware. It is impossible to rape, steal, torture - all this is impossible if there is awareness. Only when unconsciousness reigns in its darkness all kinds of enemies enter you.
And remember, I say whatever you do - even your virtues will not be virtues if you are unconscious. How can you be virtuous if you are unaware? There will be a huge, giant ego behind your virtue - this is inevitable.
Even your holiness, worked out and instilled with great labor and effort, is in vain. Because it will not bring simplicity and modesty, it will not bring that great experience of divinity that happens only when the ego disappears. You will live the respectable life of a saint, but you will remain as poor as anyone else - rotten inside, you will lead a meaningless existence.
The "good person" is not necessarily conscious. He makes great efforts to be good, he fights against bad qualities - lies or theft, lies, dishonesty, violence. They are in a good person, but in a suppressed form, and can erupt at any moment.
A good person can turn into a bad one very easily, without any effort - because all these bad qualities are there, but only curtailed, suppressed by effort. If he removes the effort, they will immediately erupt into his life. And these good qualities are just developed, not natural. He tries his best to be honest, sincere, not to lie - but it is an effort, it is exhausting.
A good person is always serious because he is afraid of all the bad qualities that he has suppressed. And he is serious because deep down he wants to be honored for his good, to be rewarded. He craves respectability.
A good person must make an immense effort to do good and avoid bad; the bad remains a constant temptation for him. This is a choice: every moment he must choose the good, not choose the bad.
The good person is in constant conflict. His whole life is not a life of joy; he cannot laugh with all his heart, he cannot sing, he cannot dance. In everything and always, he makes judgments. His mind is full of judgment and judgment - and because he himself struggles to be good, he judges others by the same criteria. He cannot accept you as you are; he can accept you only if you satisfy his requirements and are good. And since he cannot accept people as they are, he condemns them … These are not the qualities of a truly religious person. In a truly religious person there is no judgment, no judgment.
There is only one way to go beyond the "good person": to bring more awareness into your being. Mindfulness is not something to be grafted into; it is already there, you just need to wake it up.
Religions have decided to remain only moral codes. These are codes of ethics; they are good for society, but not good for you, not good for the individual. These are the conveniences created by society. Naturally, if everyone starts stealing, life will become impossible; if everyone starts to lie, life becomes impossible; if everyone is dishonest, you cannot exist at all. Therefore, at the lowest level, society needs morality, it is social convenience, but not a religious revolution.
Go beyond the usual concept of a good person. You won't be good, you won't be bad. You will simply be alert, conscious, aware, and then everything that follows will be fine. In other words, I can say that in total awareness you will acquire the quality of divinity, and good is just a small by-product of divinity.
Religions taught you to be good so that one day you could find God. This is impossible - no good person has ever found divinity. I teach just the opposite: find divinity and good will come naturally. And when good comes by itself, there is beauty, grace, simplicity, modesty in it. It does not ask for a reward, either here or in the next world. It is a reward in itself.
I would like you to be able to be in the marketplace and at the same time remain meditative. I would like you to connect with people, love, move into millions of relationships because they enrich you - and yet remain able to close doors and sometimes take a break from all relationships … so that you communicate with your beings.
Communicate with others, but also communicate with yourself. Love others, but love yourself. Go outside! - the world is beautiful and full of adventure; it is a challenge, it enriches. Don't waste the opportunity - every time the world knocks on your door and calls you, go outside. Go fearlessly - there is nothing to lose, but you can get everything. But don't get lost. Don't go on endlessly and don't get lost; come home sometimes. Sometimes forget the world - these are moments of meditation. Every day, if you want to be in balance, you must balance the external and the internal. They should have the same weight so that you never get one-sided inside.
Old Tibetan scriptures say that God comes many times but never finds you where you are. He knocks on doors, but the owner is not at home - he is always somewhere else. Are you in your house, are you at home or somewhere else? How can God find you? You don't need to go to him, just be at home and he will find you. He is looking for you just like you are looking for him. Just be at home so that when he comes he can find you. He comes, he knocks a million times, he waits at the door, but you are never at home.
Osho - Mindfulness. Keys to Living in Balance