Sunday, May 30, 2010

Morning meditation - Keeping it real growing up


"I have always had the idea that the first phase of education is the preparation for life and the second phase of education should be the preparation for death."

Osho

"We can make the second part so beautiful that people who are still in the first part will feel jealous, will feel, 'How long will it take for me to be retired? - because those old guys are really enjoying it. We are working, earning, they are simply relaxing, taking sun baths on different beaches around the world, with different women."

Osho

"In fact, it has to be more beautiful than the first phase, because the first phase was only a preparation for the second. And the second is preparation for the eternal."

Osho

I love Osho. He puts it right out there. He looks at things that other people are afraid to look at and names it in a positive constructive way.

Are you afraid to grow old? Are you afraid to die? I am.

But then I start thinking about it and experiencing it and it isn't so bad. Not as scary as I was afraid it would be.

Osho makes a distinction between growing old which is a horizontal process, and growing up which is a vertical process. We talk with children about growing up to adulthood. We ask, "What would you like to be when you grow up?" We laugh when we say that to a 40 or 50 year old, but I find that the question is often still a good one to ask.

We all are growing older every minute, every day, every week, every month, every year, every decade. And yet many of us stop growing up and this is the phenomenon which Osho is pointing to.

Growing up involves coming to know oneself. Who was it that said, "Above all else know thyself." Growing up involves paradoxically going inward and reflecting more on one's inner space that the outer space that surrounds us.

How does one prepare for death? By taking risks in living. It is a regret to die if one has never really lived. What use is a candle unless it is burned up?

The shame in life is never to have used one's talents and abilities to their maximum. Unfortunately, in the first phase of our education we loose touch with our truer selves, our truer talents and abilities because the State tells us what we must learn and what talents and abilities we must develop in order to be what they have determined is a productive citizen. This prescribed curriculum may not fit for us. Our conditioning may alienate us from ourselves instead of empowering us.

In the first phase of life we have to pay our dues. We have to do what our society and culture tell us to do. In the second phase of life we get to do our own thing. If only we know what our own thing is. It is in doing our own thing that we begin to finally grow up if we haven't been doing so already.

Growing up entails becoming conscious of and attending to our real self. I hope that you are more and more, as you are growing up, keeping it real.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Print Friendly and PDF