Everything Changes – Except the Awareness That Everything Changes

7 min read

Osho,
In these times of uncertainty, many people are feeling very disturbed and afraid of change. What would you say to them?

“There are no ‘times of uncertainty’ because time is always uncertain.

It is the difficulty with the mind: mind wants certainty – and time is always uncertain.

“So when just by coincidence mind finds a small space of certainty, it feels settled: a kind of illusory permanence surrounds it. It tends to forget the real nature of existence and life, it starts living in a kind of dream world; it starts mistaking appearance for reality.
“It feels good to the mind because mind is always afraid of change for the simple reason: who knows what change will bring – good or bad? One thing is certain, that change will unsettle your world of illusions, expectations, dreams.
“Mind is just like a child playing on the seashore, making palaces in the sand. For a moment it seems that the palace is ready – but it is made of shifting sands. Any moment just a small breeze, and it will be shattered to pieces. But we start living in that dream palace. We start feeling that we have found something which is going to remain with us always.
“But time continuously goes on disturbing the mind. It looks hard but it is really very compassionate of existence to always remain with you. It does not allow you to make realities out of appearances. It does not give you a chance to accept masks as your real face, your original face.
“So whenever time strikes one of your cherished illusions, it feels that it brings out the worst and the best in peoples’ lives. It simply brings out what was hidden behind the false permanence, behind a dream that you had taken for granted to be real. It simply takes away your mask.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Don’t Search for a Home, Search for Yourself

What is the source of this disturbance that change provokes?

You go on seeing that everything is constant change, but there seems to be a fear deep down in the human heart: the fear is death.

“If change is there, then death is bound to happen. Change brings death in.
“So we want to believe in something permanent, absolutely permanent. It may be truth, it may be God, it may be soul, but something is needed for the fearful heart to cling to so that death can be defied. At least one can believe, ‘There is something permanent in which I can have a shelter, which can become my security.’”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Life Cannot Be Reduced to Any Answer

So, all our attempts at finding something to cling to can never provide the certainty we seem to want?

“In this life, where everything is constantly changing, you cannot remain certain.
“So these three things are constantly creating misery, grief: life, death, mutability….
“What is people’s grief? What is their misery? Their misery is: they have created an ego. They had to create it – because they don’t know their self, and one cannot live without a self. They don’t know who they are, and one cannot live, cannot exist, without knowing who one is. So what to do? They have created a false self.
“To search for the real seems to be arduous. To create a synthetic, artificial, plastic self seems to be very easy.

We have created the ego as a substitute. It is a false center that gives us a feeling that we know who we are.

“But this false self is constantly in danger. It is false – it has to be continuously supported.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: The Opening of Your Inner Core

If we could accept that everything changes, would that allow us to find that reality?

“The irony is that deep inside there is a space which is eternal, which never changes. There is a space in you which is timeless, is never affected by any changes in time, through time; remains transcendental, beyond. There is a space in you which is life, pure life, and knows nothing of death. There is a space in you which is pure love! And you are afraid of love and you are afraid of life and you are afraid of death and you are afraid of change.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: The Opening of Your Inner Core
“As I see it…. I see a very significant psychological fact in it. The psychological fact is that we don’t want to be a stream, we want to be here and now, forever. Seasons change, morning comes, evening comes, day changes into night, night changes into day. Everything around us goes on changing; we just remain the same. Our fear of change, our fear of the unknown… because the change may take you into the unknown; it is bound to take you into the unknown.
“We also see childhood changes, youth changes, middle age changes, old age changes, but we do not pay much attention to this kind of change, because this is our identity. So we know perfectly well we are changing – we are in a flux – but we are afraid to become conscious of it.

A true meditator is one who becomes conscious of the change that is happening in his body, in the world.

“He has to become aware of everything that changes. Your mind goes on changing, your feelings go on changing – is there something which does not change? We have called that innermost core of your being the center of your cyclone, your soul, which does not change.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Time Remains Where It Is

Can you say more about the flux that life is?

“Zarathustra was a contemporary of Heraclitus and Gautam Buddha. It is a strange coincidence that all these three great teachers have basically given a single approach to life: life is a flux, everything is constantly changing, and that which does not change is dead.

Change is the very spirit of life; permanency is part of death….

“They were saying something against the mob, against the whole long past, against all the thinkers and against a certain desire in man’s psychology: man wants things to be permanent. And this point has to be remembered. Man is afraid of change. He is afraid of change because nobody knows what the change will bring.
“You are acquainted with that which is permanent; you know how to deal with it. You have learned everything about it. You feel at ease with it; it is no longer strange, unfamiliar.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Of Old and New Law Tables Part 2

What happens when life just washes away our illusions of permanence?

“If life is going to be a constant flux, a moment-to-moment change, that means you are always going to encounter the unknown. That creates a deep fear, because you will not be ready to face it beforehand. You will have to respond spontaneously. This is the problem.
“Spontaneousness needs alertness, needs a certain depth of consciousness – because if every moment life is changing, then every moment you have to be ready to respond to the unknown, to the unfamiliar, to the strange. You cannot be prepared for it because you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. You cannot have a rehearsal; it is not a drama….

Anything that remains unchanging loses all significance – it is of no use to life, it has to be removed from the path. Then only one thing emerges, and that is awareness.

“You have to be very aware of all the changes that are going on around you, so that you don’t lag behind. With your awareness, with every change, you change also. You don’t act out of fixed ideals; you act out of your awareness of the moment.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Of Old and New Law Tables Part 2

So, everything changes except our awareness that everything changes? Is that right?

“The body goes on changing, the mind goes on changing, but there is one thing in you which is unchanging, absolutely unchanging; that is your awareness. It was exactly the same when you were a child and it will remain exactly the same when you are an old man. It was the same when you were born and it will be the same when you die. It was the same before your birth, it will be the same after your death. It is the only thing in existence which is eternal, unchanging, the only thing that abides.
“And only this eternal awareness can be the true home, nothing else, because everything else is a flux. And we go on clinging to the changing; then we create misery, because it changes and we want it not to change. We are asking for the impossible, and because the impossible cannot happen we fall into misery again and again.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: The State of No-Mind

Can you say more about this?

“Identifying yourself with the body, you become the body. Then you are a mortal. Then there is fear of death. Non-identifying with the body, you are just a watcher, you are just a pure consciousness, a no-mind. And there is no death and there is no disease and there is no old age. As far as your witnessing is concerned, it is eternal and it is always fresh and young and the same.
“The authentic religion does not teach you to worship. The authentic religion teaches you to discover your immortality, to discover the godliness within you….
“And that’s what Bodhidharma is saying… His advice is very simple, but it never fails. He is advising not to get identified with any appearance: the body is an appearance, the mind is an appearance, the world is an appearance.

The only thing that is absolutely real is your consciousness. Everything else goes on changing.

“That which goes on changing is an appearance – don’t get identified with it. You are the unchanging divine, you are the unchanging godliness.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Understanding Comes in Mid-sentence
“This means that there is only one thing which is significant, and that is: how to be more conscious, so that you need not fall out of tune with life, so that your heartbeat remains harmonious with the heartbeat of the universe. This is the only religion – your heartbeat in accord with the heartbeat of the universe. This is the only spirituality.
“And this will bring you, every day, new insights, fresh values. It will keep you always sensitive, to your very last breath. You will remain young. Your body may become old, but your consciousness will be refreshing itself every moment – just as the river goes on moving, flowing and refreshing itself; it never becomes dirty.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Of Old and New Law Tables Part 2
“A true meditator is one who becomes conscious of the change that is happening in his body, in the world. He has to become aware of everything that changes. Your mind goes on changing, your feelings go on changing – is there something which does not change? We have called that innermost core of your being the center of your cyclone, your soul, which does not change….

If one percent of human beings are changed towards, turned on to meditation, we will be able to change the whole world consciousness… just one percent. And a totally new consciousness can come into being. The world needs it now — it has never been in so much need.

“It is really passing through a tremendous crisis. It has never been so; there have been crises before, but never of such proportion. So work hard!”
Osho, Blessed Are the Ignorant, Talk #4
END
 
To read more about what Osho says about change or any other subject you are interested in you can go to the OSHO Online Library.
It contains all the Osho books in English and Hindi which can be read and searched.

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