Lent Continues

I’m reading Osho’s And the Flowers Showered.  Here is Osho on information, a prophet to the information age:

When we accumulate knowledge, what do we do?  Nothing changes inside; the being remains absolutely unaffected.  Just like dust, information gathers around you — just like dust gathering around a mirror.  The mirror remains the same, only it loses its mirroring quality…

Mind is a parrot.  I have heard – it happened in the days of Joseph Stalin – a man, a very prominent communist, came to the Moscow police station and reported that his parrot was missing.  Because this man was a very prominent communist, the chief at the police station inquired about the parrot, for it was significant and had to be searched for.  In his inquiries he asked, “Does the parrot talk?”  The communist, the comrade, felt a slight fear, and then he said, “Yes, he talks.  But not it down:  whatever political opinions he has, they are completely his own.”…

But how can a parrot have opinions of its own?  A parrot cannot have opinions of its own – and neither can the mind, because the mind is a mechanism.  … You become original only when you transcend mind.  When the mind is dropped, and the consciousness faces existence directly, immediately…

This is true of my writing practices, more disciplined I’m afraid than my prayer practice.  When I’m stuck I meditate, clear my mind of everything, empty myself, and then the truth of my characters comes to me.  She has brown eyes; he wouldn’t say that.  He wouldn’t say anything but instead would turn away.  It seems absolutely true, what comes to me as fiction when I shut up and empty my mind of what I think – when I let the characters simply be.  This is not me being original, but rather my characters being original.

Religious people are used to thinking of ourselves as God’s creatures; maybe we can experience our freedom more authentically as God’s characters, original, playing in this fictional space that we call creation.

3 Replies to “Lent Continues”

  1. Hello there! This blog post could not be written much better!
    Reading through this article reminds me of my previous roommate!
    He always kept preaching about this. I will forward this information to him.

    Fairly certain he’ll have a great read. Many thanks for sharing!

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