Osho on Negative Phase and decisions

[A sannyasin, who is leaving says: I want to stay open to you. Osho checks his energy.]

Osho – It will be difficult for you to remain open always and continuously. Sometimes you will be open and sometimes you will be closed. But that is nothing to be worried about. That is a rhythm, a rhythm just like day and night. Just as in the day the flowers open and in the night they close, just like inhalation, exhalation, you inhale and then you exhale, so you cannot remain open twenty-four hours a day. And don’t long for it, otherwise that will create misery and in misery you will become more closed. Misery always closes.

So a deep understanding is needed about this rhythm. One opens, closes, opens, closes; one has to accept it. In fact they are hot opposites but complementaries. The closing prepares you to open again, and the opening prepares you to close again, otherwise you will be tired. Just think of eyes unblinking: for how long can you do that? You will become tired. Your eyes go on working because they go on blinking. We don’t pay any attention – they are constantly closing, opening. That keeps them fresh, keeps them young, untired, vital.

And it is a constant process of cleansing too. When you are open some dust gathers, tiredness settles, you become weary. When one is closed, in rest, silence, one becomes revitalised. Yes, there is a kind of opening that remains twenty-four hours a day too, but that is not part of the mind – that is something beyond the mind.

Right now you will have to settle with your mind, then one day that too will become possible, but that is transcendental. Then there is no rhythm: it is always the same. You cannot even call it opening – it is meaningless to call it openness because there is no closing any more. It is a totally different kind of phenomenon. One simply is – neither open nor closed. That too comes, that will come, but don’t long for it. Right now what is needed, what is a must, is to accept the rhythm of the positive and the negative.

Sometimes you will find yourself very close to me and sometimes you will find yourself very far away. Sometimes you will be coming, coming, coming, so close and so happy and so blissful, and sometimes you will become so far away, so withdrawn, so unhappy about it. But once you understand that this is a rhythm, a natural phenomenon of the mind, then there is no problem in it – you relax.

One thing more to be remembered: never decide anything when you are in the negative phase, that’s all. Never decide anything when you are in the negative phase and then you will never repent; there will be no need to repent.

Decision has to be made only when one is in a positive phase. Mm, just as you decide in the day not in the night when you are deep asleep – then you don’t decide – always decide when you are happy, open, flowing. Then your decisions will be right; you cannot decide wrongly, it is impossible to be wrong in those moments. When you are negative, withdrawn, sad, depressed, remember only one thing: no decision. Let this pass. Accept it – it is part of nature – but don’t decide in these moments.

The lucky people are those who have learned the knack of deciding in the positive moment, and unlucky are those who have somehow fallen into the trap of deciding in the negative moment. That is the only difference between the lucky and the unlucky. And anybody can become lucky. It is just a change, just a small change. It is a very little difference, but it makes a lot of difference in life – the difference that makes the difference.

Source – Osho Book “Don’t Look Before You Leap”

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