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Awareness: The Key to Living in Balance is a book about mindfulness by the controversial spiritual teacher Osho. Windows server 2003 r2 standard.
If you haven’t read anything of Osho yet, you’re in for a treat. His stuff is funny, insightful, provocative, and very polarizing. People either think he was a genius or a complete nutjob. Me, I’m in the former camp. Almost everything this man said makes a ton of sense to me. I’ve probably had more insights reading his book or watching YouTube videos from him than with anyone else.
His books aren’t actually written by him. The content is instead taken from the countless lectures he gave to his followers.
Awareness, as the book title suggests is all about living life with more awareness, mindfulness, watchfulness – call it whatever you want. If you’re not familiar with Osho’s work or spiritual reading in general, some things may come across as weird and you’ll probably get a lot of question marks. That’s normal. If you can identify with some of what he says, great. And if not, then it’s maybe not for you.
And don’t be put off by the tag “spiritual.” I used to be very skeptical about it, but spiritual books aren’t what they’re made out to be. What they actually teach you is to give less of a fuck about the small stuff in life.
Who Is Awareness for?
This communion–this celebration, this choiceless awareness, this nonbusinesslike attitude–I call meditation. The festivity is in the moment, in the act, not in the bothering about the results, not in achieving something. There is nothing to be achieved, so you can enjoy that which is here and now.
1. The Normal State of Humanity: Sleepwalking
“You sleep when you sleep, but you also sleep while you are awake… Even right now you are dreaming within. A thousand and one thoughts continue and you are not conscious of what is happening, you are not aware of what you are doing, you are not aware of who you are. You move as people move in sleep.”
“We go on living absolutely inattentive to what is happening around us. Yes, we have become very efficient in doing things. What we are doing, we have become so efficient in doing that we don’t need any awareness to do it. It has become mechanical, automatic. We function like robots.”
According to Osho and other spiritual gurus like Lao Tzu or Buddha, most of us move through life like sleepwalkers, never really present in what we’re doing, never fully alert to our environment, and never even aware of what motivates us to do and say the things we do.
We live mechanical, automatic, unconscious lives. While we’re asleep, we simply act out our conditionings, habits, and impulses. That’s what sleepwalking means: acting mechanically, habitually, automatically, impulsively, unconsciously. When we’re sleepwalking, we’re not really there – we’re absent, lost in our thoughts about the future or the past, but not present.
If you look at other people, you can see this quite well. People are never really here-now, never really alert and conscious. They are always asleep, either worrying about the future or thinking about the past. They are absent. And so are you. And so am I.
That’s simply the current state of humanity. The opposite of that state is being present, what Osho calls awareness.
2. What Is Awareness?
“Awareness means that whatsoever is happening in the moment is happening with complete consciousness; you are present there.”
Awareness means being present to the moment. It means being fully alert, fully conscious, fully here-now. It means inhabiting the present moment with all five senses. You are simply taking in everything the moment has to offer.
When you’re washing the dishes, awareness means washing the dishes and not being occupied with anything else. Not thinking about yesterday. Not thinking about tomorrow. Just washing the dishes. Smelling the soap. Feeling the warm water running down your hands and arms. Seeing the ceramic of the dishes getting cleaner and cleaner.
3. Another Word for Awareness: Watchfulness
“The only thing that has to be learned is watchfulness. Watch! Watch every act that you do. Watch every thought that passes in your mind. Watch every desire that takes possession of you. Watch even small gestures – walking, talking, eating, taking a bath. Go on watching everything. Let everything become an opportunity to watch.”
“Don’t eat mechanically, don’t just go on stuffing yourself – be very watchful. Chew well and watchfully… and you will be surprised how much you have been missing up to now, because each bite will give you tremendous satisfaction…”
Being watchful, being aware, being alert – those are all the same things. We can also call it mindfulness, a term which you may be more familiar with.
Mindfulness is defined as the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.
Another definition: Mindfulness isa mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.
Awareness, mindfulness, watchfulness. Call it what you like. The book is all about growing this skill.
4. Two Ways out of Suffering
“People are living in suffering. There are only two ways out of it: They can become meditators – alert, awake, conscious… that’s an arduous thing. It needs guts. Or the cheaper way is to find something that can make you even more unconscious than you are, so you cannot feel the misery. Find something that makes you utterly insensitive, some intoxicant, some painkiller that makes you so unconscious that you can escape into that unconsciousness and forget all about your anxiety, anguish, meaninglessness.”
People are living in suffering. If you’re familiar with Buddhism, you know this is the first of four noble truths: Life is suffering.
It is impossible to live without experiencing some kind of suffering. We endure physical suffering like injury, exhaustion, sickness, old age, and eventually death. And we endure psychological suffering like fear, frustrations, loneliness, embarrassment, disappointment, the death of loved ones, and so on.
There’s no doubt about this: Life is suffering. So, how do you get out of it? According to Osho, there are two ways.
The first way out of suffering is meditation, awareness, mindfulness. Of course, this is the way Osho and other spiritual masters recommend. It’s a difficult path. One that requires patience, hard work, and persistence.
The second way to alleviate suffering is to simply cover it up by becoming unconscious. This is what most of us do all the time. When we feel the slightest itch of negative emotions, we turn on the television, play video games, read the news, hop on Facebook, or check our emails.
This second way has become a real way of life for most of us. We dread even a moment of being alone with ourselves and our emotions. We have a desperate need to stay unconscious, so that we are unaware of our suffering.
David R. Hawkins, another spiritual teacher, put it well in his book Letting Go: “People are desperate to stay unconscious. We observe how often people flick on the television set the minute they enter a room and then walk around in a dream-like state, constantly being programmed by the data poured into them. People are terrified of facing themselves. They dread even a moment of aloneness. Thus the constant frantic activities: the endless socializing, talking, texting, reading, music playing, working, traveling, sightseeing, shopping, overeating, gambling, movie-going, pill-taking, drug-using, and cocktail-partying.”
We are so terrified of being with ourselves, most of us can’t even go to the toilet without our cellphones.
5. The Miracle of Awareness
“And the miracle of awareness is that you need not do anything except become aware. The very phenomenon of watching it, changes it.”
“Act, speak, with full awareness and then you will find a tremendous change in you. The very fact that you are aware changes your acts.”
“And when you watch, a clarity arises. Why does clarity arise out of watchfulness? Because the more watchful you become the more all your hastiness slows down. You become more graceful. As you watch, your chattering mind chatters less, because the energy that was becoming chattering is turning and becoming watchfulness – it is the same energy! Now more and more energy will be transformed into watchfulness, and the mind will not get its nourishment. Thoughts will start becoming thinner, they will start losing weight. Slowly, slowly, they will start dying. And as thoughts start dying, clarity arises. Now your mind becomes like a mirror.”
So, how exactly does awareness reduce suffering? How does it improve your life? How does it make you happier? What’s the point, basically?
The first thing to understand is that you don’t need to do anything in the process. You don’t need to try to change your thoughts, emotions, or your behavior. All you have to do is become more aware. Pay more attention. Be more alert, watchful.
The way positive change will happen is by the mere act of watching. Florida drivers license requirements renewal. As you watch something, it automatically starts changing for the better.
When you watch negative thoughts, they lose their power over you, they don’t disturb you so much anymore, and one day they’ll just disappear. When you watch negative emotions, the same thing happens. They lose their power over you and then they disappear.
When you watch your positive emotions, a different phenomenon happens. They grow stronger. As you keep watching them, you start experiencing them more and more often. In the scientific literature, this process of watching positive emotions is called savoring and it’s been shown to improve people’s happiness.
When you watch your behavior, something else happens. You will become aware that anger always makes you and everyone around you miserable. You will see that holding a grudge is a silly thing – all it does is make you miserable. Once you see what you get out of your behavior patterns, they will start dropping automatically. If you truly see that insulting people is silly, then you will automatically stop doing it. That’s the promise of awareness.
Here's another example Osho gives of the process:
“If you are carrying stones in your hand thinking that they are diamonds, I will not tell you to renounce those stones. I will simply say, ‘Be alert and have another look!’ If you yourself see that they are not diamonds, is there any need to renounce them? They will fall from your hands of their own accord. In fact, if you still want to carry them, you will have to make a great effort, you will have to bring great will, to still carry them. But you cannot carry them for long; once you have seen that they are useless, meaningless, you are bound to throw them away.”
6. Many Illnesses, One Prescription
“When people would ask Buddha, ‘What should we do not to be angry, or what should we do not to be greedy, or what should we do not to be so much obsessed with sex or food?’ his answer was always the same: be aware. Bring awareness to your life.”
“If two thousand persons fall asleep, they will have two thousand dreams. But if you come to me and ask how to get rid of this dream, the medicine will remain the same: wake up! It is not going to be different; the prescription is going to be the same. You can call it awareness, you can call it witnessing, you can call it remembering, you can call it meditation – these are different names for the same medicine.”
According to Osho, there’s only one cure for all the psychological troubles we’re facing: awareness.
If you struggle with anxiety, the cure is awareness. Watch your anxiety, be alert when it arises, pay attention to it. Be curious. See it for what it is. If you keep watching it long enough, it will eventually drop by itself.
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Likewise, if you struggle with depression, the cure is watching the depression. If you struggle with insecurities, the cure is witnessing the insecurities. If you struggle with anger, the cure is becoming more aware of the anger. If you struggle with addictions, the cure is paying more attention to your addictive patterns.
7. The Goal: Living With as Much Awareness as You Can Muster
“Whatsoever you are doing – walking, sitting, eating, or if you are not doing anything, just breathing, resting, relaxing in the grass – never forget that you are a watcher.
You will forget it again and again. You will get involved in some thought, some feeling, some emotion, some sentiment – anything will distract you from the watcher. Remember, and run back to your center of watching.
Make it an inner process, continuously… You will be surprised at how life changes its whole quality. I can move my hand without any watchfulness, and I can also move my hand absolutely watching from inside the whole movement. The movements are totally different. The first movement is a robot movement, mechanical. The second movement is a conscious movement. And when you are conscious, you feel that hand from within; when you are not conscious, you only know the hand from without.”
This is kind of Osho’s core message: Live your life with as much awareness, alertness, mindfulness as possible.
You can be aware in any and every of your day’s activities: When you’re taking a shower, feel the water as it hits your body and smell the scent of your soap. When you’re walking to the gym, listen attentively to the sound of the wind hushing by. When you’re taking a nap, feel every part of your body lying there and pay attention to the fact that you’re slowly, slowly entering into a state of sleep.
If we realize and accept that awareness changes us for the better (see point five), then it makes sense to spend as much time as possible living with awareness. The more aware we become, the more we will grow as a person, the more we will let our miseries and past conditionings behind, and the happier and more fulfilled we will be.
Of course, all of this is easier said than done. Being mindful throughout our day-to-day lives is an incredibly difficult endeavor.
8. “It Is Arduous, It Is Difficult, But It Is Not Impossible.”
“Act mindfully. It is a long, arduous journey, and it is difficult to be aware even for a single moment; the mind is constantly flickering. But it is not impossible. It is arduous, it is difficult, but it is not impossible. It is possible – for everyone it is possible.”
The first thing to realize when embarking on a path of mindfulness is that it’ll be a long and arduous journey.
Our normal lives are the complete opposite of what we’re trying to do here. For our entire lifetimes, we have been asleep. We have lived mechanical, habitual, unconscious lives. Naturally, it will be difficult to change our ways. If you have lived a certain way for 20, 30, 40, 50, 60+ years, then changing will be a challenge. Microsoft ole db provider.
And so, we will miss many times. What matters is not that we miss. What matters is how we react when we miss…
9. You Will Miss Many Times
“Move in life remaining continuously watchful. Again and again you will forget. Don’t become miserable because of that; it is natural. For millions of lives you have never tried watchfulness, so it is simple, natural, that you go on forgetting again and again. But the moment you remember, again watch.
Remember one thing: when you remember that you have forgotten watching, don’t become sorry, don’t repent; otherwise, again you are wasting time. Don’t feel miserable: ‘I missed again.’ Don’t start feeling ‘I am a sinner.’ Don’t start condemning yourself, because this is a sheer waste of time. Never repent for the past! Live in the moment. If you had forgotten, so what? It was natural – it has become a habit, and habits die hard. And these are not habits imbibed in one life; these are habits imbibed in millions of lives. So if you can remain watchful even for a few moments, feel thankful. Even those few moments are more than can be expected.”
“So remember one thing: whenever you realize that you have gone to the past or into the future, don’t create a problem out of it. Simply come to the present, not creating any problem. It’s okay! Simply bring back your awareness. You will miss millions of times; it is not going to happen right now, immediately. It can happen, but it cannot because of you. It is such a long, long, fixed mode of behavior that you cannot change it right now. But no worry, existence is not in a hurry. Eternity can wait eternally. Don’t create a tension about it.
Whenever you feel you have missed, come back, that’s all. Don’t feel guilty; that’s a trick of the mind, now it is again playing a game. Don’t repent: ‘I again forgot.’ Just when you think, come back to whatsoever you are doing. Taking your bath, come back; eating your food, come back; going for a walk, come back. The moment you feel you are not here and now, come back – simply, innocently. Don’t create guilt. If you become guilty, then you miss the point.”
Let’s say you decide to bring more mindfulness to your life. What will inevitably happen is that you forget being mindful over and over again. You are mindful for a moment, but then you get distracted. And then it may take you a few minutes, hours, or even days until you realize, “Oh, I haven’t been mindful. I forgot!”
This is natural and it’s bound to happen a lot. In those moments, our natural response is to feel guilty and beat ourselves up, “Why am I so bad at this? I can’t even stay mindful for a few minutes! I’m terrible! I’m the worst!”
This isn’t helpful. In fact, it’s just more unconsciousness, more sleepwalking.
Instead of condemning yourself or creating guilt, simply accept it and come back to the present moment. Don’t waste time worrying about the fact that you’ve missed. Just come back. Simply. Innocently.
10. The Only Real Change Is a Change in Consciousness
“How can you escape yourself? Wherever you go, you will be with yourself. Wherever you go, you will behave in the same way. Situations may be different, but how can you be different? Heroes gods and monsters chapters. You will be asleep in the Himalayas. What different does it make whether you sleep in Pune or in Boston, or you sleep in London or in the Himalayas? Wherever you are, you will be dreaming. Drop dreaming! Become more alert. Suddenly dreams disappear, and with dreams all miseries disappear.”
People keep trying to change their lives by changing externals. We buy new cars, new clothes, new furniture. We get a new job. We move to a new place. We get a new wife or husband.
We can keep changing externals all we want. The key factor in how we feel is ourselves. Even with the new car, new job, new spouse, new place… we will remain the same person with the same conditioning, with the same thought patterns, with the same emotional problems.
If we want real change in life, we need a change in consciousness. Eckhart Tolle puts this nicely in The Power of Now: “You may win $10 million, but that kind of change is no more than skin deep. You would simply continue to act out the same conditioned patterns in more luxurious surroundings. Humans have learned to split the atom. Instead of killing ten or twenty people with a wooden club, one person can now kill a million just by pushing a button. Is that real change?”
Further Reading
If you enjoyed this, you’ll probably enjoy other books about mindfulness and spirituality as well. Here are three suggestions:
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Preview — Awareness by Osho(Osho Insights for a new way of living )
Underlying all meditation techniques, including martial arts-and in fact underlying all great athletic performances-is a quality of being awake and present to the moment, a quality that Osho calls awareness. Once we can identify and understand what this quality of awareness is, we have the key to self-mastery in virtually every area of our lives.
According to great masters..more
Published December 10th 2001 by St. Martin's Griffin
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If you want to fully understand the purpose to life and meditation, this book is an absolute keeper. A great book by a great man, he might have been dead for over a decade but his words are still as relevant today as before.
This book is great on the idea of witnessing and watching your own actions. Osho is a wonderful teacher and I am so happy I came across this book.
It is such an extraordinary book which written by on of the most influential philosophers in twenty first century. You will be shocked many times, you will feel like if you have not learned anything in this life. Osho will show you how to be aware, alert and live your moment as it comes, and get rid of ego tricks that make you a prisoner of the past or the future which not yet come..
You will enjoy reading it..
The first book that I read from Osho.
extremely deep for a short book one of oshos best . take your time with it you wont be let down
This books is a culmination of all OSHO , ZEN, Tao and spiritual teachings. Read this book and you are done. No need to read any other books.
The Basic is AWARENESS.
Jan 14, 2015Andreea Loredana rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
'You live only to the extent that you are consciously aware of the difference between death and life.'
'Love is beautiful when you're tall through it and becomes dirty and ugly when you fall through it.' 'The more you are unconscious, the better you are away from yourself. The more you are aware of so you get closer to you. When you're in the center is total awareness. When the degree of awareness is lower, you are closer the periphery. you can move to the periphery when you move to the unconsciou..more
May 27, 2017Ryan Phung rated it it was amazing
Short book but quite hard for me to go through because I have to pause on every page when I realize something interesting. You have to read with an open-mind though because his style is quite abrasive and confrontational; and a lot of stuffs that he says are symbolic and exaggeration for effect, that's just his style. But overall, I still think it's a good book. For me there are new insights every few pages.
Dec 13, 2009Mark W. Cole rated it it was amazing
This book is full of insights.
Apr 27, 2017Eleanore rated it really liked it
I hate that my reading patterns are so off these days that it's taking me seemingly forever to finish anything, and yet here we are. That said, though it's not the title of his I'm come away from the most enriched by, it has some important lessons about centering the mind and mindfulness, which can only be of use to someone like me with an anxiety disorder to deal with 24/7. Reading Osho in itself is actually somewhat meditative; his sentence structure and writing style are very calming to read.
This book helped me find the deepest mindfulness or living in the present I have found.. Maybe it can help you on your journey too! It's not a good first book on these topics, I'd read Eckhart Tolle for that but this takes it deeper.. I'll read it again soon! Big fan and I don't say that about just any book, I quit reading two others half way before this one because they were not impactful.
Feb 21, 2016Sameer Deshpande rated it it was amazing
If you want to understand the awareness approach as proposed by Buddha and Upanishads, this is a very useful book. It is written in simple and lucid style. Osho adds his usual persuasive perspective to play to seduce the reader to embrace this panacea to life's problems.
There are more than a few moments when I wonder is Osho was misanthropic. Many other moments, absolute guru-ic genius.
Every book of Osho is a gem.There are so many matters which are most important for good living and simple living. I will read the book once again. every single line in the book resonates with the truth.
one of the best reading experience in this year, the resembles are still there in the heart :) thank you osho, you are great .
Jul 08, 2016Mallikarjun Yelameli rated it it was amazing
Buddha's mindful meditation is the greatest gift to the world. Being aware every moment is the most important thing. Meditation can only make one aware. Osho says, meditation is the only true religion. Life has no goal no purpose, life itself is the goal and purpose, awareness is the technique to attain it. Awareness is the difference between death and life.
Buddha's one of the most important teaching is being aware every moment. By practicing mindful meditation, one reaches, to his or her inner..more
Nov 25, 2012Chicky Kadambari rated it really liked it
Osho Awareness Pdf Download
A strong and much needed book in today's stressful living conditions.
Here's the complete review of Awareness - The Key to Living in Balance, by Osho. In this book, Osho teaches the essence of meditation and living in the present moment. He shows how, with practice, we can avoid being entrapped in the vicious circle of our thoughts. He explains the techniques for relaxing our mind and body, and letting go of all tensions. He points out the difference between religion and spirituality, between c..more
I guess we are so bombarded with enlightenment and knowledge quotes that it somehow makes these types of books and all quotes in general seem like everyone else has all the answers except me..
I might get back to this. I just need to detox from the fast feeding on enlightenment, self-awareness, and being the best a person can be. One step at a time.
I wish I could manage to do it one day and to find the balance everytime I loose it..Thanks for lending me your book my friend, you know who you're ;)
'Cuanto mas consciente se vuelve uno, mas se recuerda a si mismo, con mas cautela actúa, mas alerta esta, mas heridas empiezan a desaparecer, hay menos brotes de ira, menos odio, menos celos y menos sentimientos posesivos'. Osho
this book will blow your mind across a deeper meditation about yourself, your feelings and a soul without ego. as such, Osho isn't a philosopher but he's going to the most deep space from your inner and lift up a new consciousness to live flying above the things happend to you. you wont just improve a new vision for the world, you'll get new eyes.
Osho one of the last great mystics shares his knowledge with his characteristic style ,one of deep understanding along with a brilliant sense of humor.
Feb 06, 2016Prashanth rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Sep 13, 2012Shawn added it
was ok not the best read
Essence of all sprituality in one word!
I love all of his books
The provokes your mind and keep your mind from wandering to wonder, The best book who wants to explore what is truth and happiness
Jul 12, 2015Kayla Noel Jaeckel rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Great book
Amazing book for spiritual growth and development. Brings light and balance into your every day life. I really recommend this book.
All books by OSHO are a journey to awareness and inner peace! Can't get enough of it :)
My personal favorite of the Insights series of Osho books.
It is an another good book to my life.When i was studying i felt the relaxxxxx..
Mar 31, 2008Muthukumar added it
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Mar 21, 2018Lyubina Yordanova rated it it was amazing
Inwardly, you were already talking. Now you have uttered something outwardly, but as far as you are concerned nothing has changed, nothing has happened. But when someone else utters something, for you something new has happened. He was silent before and now he has uttered something. If you yourself are talking within, then when you utter something you will not be aware. Someone else may become aware that now you have broken silence. You are aware of others because inwardly you are constantly tal..more
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Rajneesh (born Chandra Mohan Jain, 11 December 1931 – 19 January 1990) and latter rebranded as Osho was leader of the Rajneesh movement. During his lifetime he was viewed as a controversial new religious movement leader and mystic.
In the 1960s he traveled throughout India as a public speaker and was a vocal critic of socialism, Mahatma Gandhi, and Hindu religious orthodoxy. Rajneesh emphasized the..more
Osho Insights for a new way of living (1 - 10 of 13 books)
“Act,speak with full awareness and then you will find a tremendous change in you. The very fact that you are aware changes your acts.”
“Mind is basically the beginning of madness. And if you are too much in it, it will drive you mad. More quotes…
Mind has no certainity about anything. If you are betweeen two polarities of the mind,in a limbo--always to do or not to do,you will go crazy. You are crazy! Before it happens,jump out and have a look from outside at the mind. Mind is basically indecisive and awareness is basically decisive.So any act of awareness is total,full without repentance.” Comments are closed.
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