“You will have to take 100 percent responsibility. And whenever you accept 100 percent responsibility, you become free, and then there is no bondage in this world. In fact, anger is a kind of bondage. I cannot be angry, because I am not in bondage. I have not been angry with anybody for years, because I don’t make anybody else responsible. I am free, so why should I be angry? If I want to be sad, it is my freedom. If I want to be happy, it is my freedom. Freedom cannot be afraid, freedom cannot be angry. Once you know that you are your world, you have penetrated into a different kind of understanding. Then nothing else matters—all else is games and excuses.”
Osho, Everyday Osho (Page 318)
“The real bravery, the real fight, is not outside. The real fight is inside, it is an inner conquest. Although Alexander may have been a great warrior, as far as his own instincts were concerned, he was a slave. Napoleon may have been a great soldier, but as far as his own anger, lust, and possessiveness were concerned, he was just as ordinary as anybody else. The really brave ones are Jesus, Buddha, Patanjali—these types of people. They have overcome themselves. Now no desire can pull them here and there, now no unconscious instinct can have any power over them. They are masters of their own lives.”
Osho, Everyday Osho (Page 317)
“We spend our lives lost in thought. The question is, what should we make of this fact? In the West, the answer has been ‘Not much.’ In the East, especially in contemplative traditions like those of Buddhism, being distracted by thought is understood to be the very wellspring of human suffering. From the contemplative point of view, being lost in thoughts of any kind, pleasant or unpleasant, is analogous to being asleep and dreaming. It’s a mode of not knowing what is actually happening in the present moment. It is essentially a form of psychosis. Thoughts themselves are not a problem, but being identified with thought is. Taking oneself to be the thinker of one’s thoughts—that is, not recognizing the present thought to be a transitory appearance in consciousness—is a delusion that produces nearly every species of human conflict and unhappiness. It doesn’t matter if your mind is wandering over current problems in set theory or cancer research; if you are thinking without knowing you are thinking, you are confused about who and what you are.”
Sam Harris, Waking Up (Page 101)
“Even if your life depended on it, you could not spend a full minute free of thought. This is a remarkable fact about the human mind. We are capable of astonishing feats of understanding and creativity. We can endure almost any torment. But it is not within our power to simply stop talking to ourselves, whatever the stakes. It’s not even in our power to recognize each thought as it arises in consciousness without getting distracted every few seconds by one of them. Without significant training in meditation, remaining aware—of anything—for a full minute is just not in the cards.”
Sam Harris, Waking Up (Page 100)
