Do you really want to be free ? - Osho on Freedom

He asked me again, “ Do you really like to be free?.....are you free from your place, from your parents, from your profession, from your lover….? ”  …and I kept silent….i realised where I was and it was the second time in recent times I have been confronted with these questions. The previous time was in the Shivapuri mountain during my dialogue with Om baba and this time Tathagat swami , one of my dearest friends, teachers was asking me, looking at my eyes….as he was asking I was witnessing in my mind, my bondages, some material and alive and some abstract and unseen…..i started asking myself, why was I living….if the purpose was to learn few more things, earn few more money, buy some house, fall in love with some women, have kids with her, go out on vacations, go out on meditation camps once in a while and let myself drift slowly towards the destination which is death , then i am already a  living dead.....a corpse waiting for my cremation...

For experiencing even a glimpse of meditation tremendous energy is needed. For those who have never come across the futility of this kind of life which is a slow drift towards death, the question of seeking , of meditation never arises. They live their lives, and they are happy with their families, with their job, with having to earn and then spend on the pleasures of life and on the difficulties of life that come interspersed with the occasional pleasures...…for those who see the transiency in these shades of life, those who get bored with the repeating routines of life start their inner journey. But even with that inner search , there are laws, as the whole journey is about energy and energy moves with certain laws. Many of us who spend our valuable time out of our busy schedule, in doing some kind of meditation never take care of these subtle laws of bio-energy. We spend months , get nothing but some peace, some good relaxation and then either drop it or change to other techniques. There are two basic things to know- one is to accumulate energy inside us so much that it becomes a dynamic bomb inside us and next thing is to stop the wastage of energy thru many holes in our being, that we have managed to create for ourselves.

We get energy from food some of which goes to our physical body and some of which goes to our vital body . We breathe in air and prana which nourishes our vital body. There are many ways by which we lose this energy. It is lost by wrong exercise, wrong thinking, wrong feeling.....all in all a wrong way of life…When energy is accumulated in the body thru right awareness, right exercise, right thoughts and right feelings, this energy needs to move, i.e. either flow up or flow down…and this is when the intensity of the seeker comes in….the question whether one really wants freedom , really wants to realise the truth becomes pertinent …if the fire , the thirst is there then the energy will explode…but most of us are bondaged in our own ways….and many of us in the West still take meditation as a tool to make our lives balanced, joyful and to add to the harmony they have with their family and with animals and with the nature…….meditation surely will do that for them….but it is like using an aeroplane as a bicycle to ride on the road…..the flight of the body to bodylessness and the flight of mind to thoughtless Samadhi is simply in the myth books as far as the Western views on meditation is concerned…

I take a deep sigh. I close my eyes and see my mom who still thinks that I have ruined my life not settling down with someone and have a stable life…I see my father who is happy that his son became a doctor and not a painter or a musician writing and singing for the little money to get food and shelter….i see my friends who are waiting for me know what subject I will take after 3 yrs for specialisation, as if not studying after Masters degree is a crime against oneself. ….I look at myself who has been away for months, from someone I was was in love with and still fall sleep remembering her every night.....I feel chains all around and they seem to be, all created by me and for me …….and then I look at my Master , his luring eyes , telling me , urging me, scratching me from inside , to take the jump, to die and never come back as the old me.…I am gathering courage, I know if I am brave it can happen now and here , but still I feel like that little bird who just opened her eyes through the cracked egg-shell,watching the sky, so vast, but has no courage to spread her wings and fly….i still ask myself, do i really want to be free ?