Is Anyone Not in a Prison?

Osho visits a jail and talks to its inmates:
“My friends, do not be under the illusion that you alone are in fetters. Those outside this prison, who are apparently free, are also in chains, though their shackles are of a different kind. Their desires are their chains; their ignorance is their imprisonment.

Man’s bondage is of man’s own making. Man himself labors at making the walls and bars for his prison. Though what I say may surprise you, the truth is that most of us spend our lives creating prisons for ourselves.

“Thinking from another angle about this, I would say: he who does not seek religiousness, knowingly or unknowingly lives in irreligiousness, and irreligiousness is bondage. Those who do not travel in the direction of light gradually go deeper and deeper into the abyss of darkness, and this darkness is suicidal.

The person who has no thirst for the truth cannot be free. Truth leads to freedom; nay, more correctly, truth is freedom.

“And please remember that godliness is not for the one who is not free. In the soil of a consciousness that is not free, the plants of godliness cannot grow. For these plants to grow, to blossom and to bear fruits, the soil needed is freedom, the manure needed is simplicity, the water needed is purity; and the seed required is nothingness. But above all, there should be the care of the gardener whose name is awareness.

The person who shows the courage to fulfill the above conditions finds himself free from all bondage. From within his being, the latent fire of godliness burns brightly, because the ashes of bondage have been blown away.

“And in that fire, misery and dissatisfaction, pain and turmoil – all are burnt out completely and the very same fire then gives birth to the flowers of bliss and eternity and immortality.
“Friends, I invite you to participate in this wonderful search. The moment your heart reverberates with this invitation of mine, you will be transformed into a new being. The being of who hears the call of existence no longer heeds any calls from lesser or baser sources. The calls from below are heard only as long as the call from on high is disregarded. The call from on high, from above, is a challenging call.

The ways of the beast exist only because ones gaze has not yet turned towards existence. Only those who do not dream of soaring to celestial heights are tied to the mundane and the terrestrial.

“Raise up your eyes and see how vast, how immense and limitless is the sky available for the soul’s flight, and also how close by it is! Isn’t it the height of folly – a sort of insult to our intelligence – that we remain earthbound worms crawling in the mud, despite having the wings to fly to the most distant horizons and a soul that can encompass the sky?
“This soul is mysterious: it can be as small or as large as it wills itself to be. It can be smaller than the tiniest atom, and more immense than the skies. It can be an animal, and it can be also a god. And it all depends on itself. It is its own creation. Hence, those who focus on the lowly, become lowly, whereas those who yearn to soar in the infinite realms become the infinite.

I appeal to you: if you wish to desire, desire godliness. And if you have to be in bondage, let those bonds be with the limitless firmament.

“And if you wish to create a prison for yourself, then any prison smaller than the whole is too small for man. If you must create limits, let these be of the frontiers of freedom because they will not bind you and will go on freeing you further and further. And if you must seek a noose, then seek the noose of love because love is not a noose, it is ultimate freedom.”
Osho, Lead Kindly Light, Talk #20
For more on this you can search the OSHO Online Library: osho.com/library

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