Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself

Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself
Insights for a New Way of Living
Book — Also available in other formats: eBook

In a culture infatuated with youth, and determined to avoid old age at all costs, this book dares to raise a question that has been all but forgotten in the age of Viagra and cosmetic surgery. What benefits might lie in accepting the aging process as natural, rather than trying to hold on to youth and its pleasures all the way to the grave?

Osho takes us back to the roots of what it means to grow up rather than just to grow old. Both in our relationships with others, and in the fulfillment of our own individual destinies, he reminds us of the pleasures that only true maturity can bring. He outlines the ten major growth cycles in human life, from the self-centered universe of the pre-schooler to the flowering of wisdom and compassion in old age.

A unique sense of humor runs like a thread through the book, along with a profound compassion and understanding of how easy it is to be distracted from the deeper meaning and purpose of our lives – which is, ultimately, to flower into our own individual uniqueness and maturity with an attitude of celebration and joy.
Chapter Titles
    #1: Foreword The Art of Living
    #2: Definitions
    #3: From Ignorance to Innocence
    #4: Maturity and Aging
    #5: Maturity of Spirit
    #6: The Seven-year Cycles of Life
    #7: The Mature Relationship
    #8: Dependence, Independence, Interdependence
    #9: Needing and Giving, Loving and Having
    #10: Love and Marriage
    #11: Parent and Child
    #12: Love plus Awareness Equals Being
    #13: Standing at the Crossroads
    #14: When Eternity Penetrates Time
    #15: The Laws of Aging
    #16: Symptoms
    #17: The Stranger in the Drawing Room
    #18: Menopause - It?s Not Just a "girl Thing"
    #19: The Dirty Old Man
    #20: Bitterness
    #21: Transitions
    #22: From No to Yes
    #23: Integration and Centering
    #24: When Birth and Death Become One
    #25: Dropping out of the Game
    #26: Puzzles
    #27: Justifiable Homicide
    #28: Life without Attitude
    #29: From Sex to Sensuality
Details
In a culture infatuated with youth, and determined to avoid old age at all costs, this book dares to raise a question that has been all but forgotten in the age of Viagra and cosmetic surgery.

Excerpt from: Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself, Chapter 1
"There are two ways to live: one, to live in a deep sleep – then you age, every moment you become old, every moment you go on dying, that’s all. Your whole life consists of a long, slow death. But if you bring awareness to your experiences – whatsoever you do, whatsoever happens to you, you are alert, watchful, mindful, you are savoring the experience from all the corners, you are trying to understand the meaning of it, you are trying to penetrate the very depth of it, what has happened to you, you are trying to live it intensely and totally – then it is not just a surface phenomenon. Deep down within you something is changing with it. You are becoming more alert. If this is a mistake, this experience, you will never commit it again.

"A mature person never commits the same mistake again. But a person who is just old goes on committing the same mistakes again and again. He lives in a circle; he never learns anything." Osho
"This wise and witty book is the baby boomers’ bible! It offers hot tips on maturity as the path to wisdom, the art of transcending problems rather than having to solve them, and the secret of transforming a mid-life crisis into a creative explosion."
-Margot Anand, author of The Art of Sexual Ecstasy and The Art of Everyday Ecstasy.

Details
More Information
Type    Compilations
Publisher    St. Martins Press, USA
ISBN-13    312205619
Dimensions (size)    137 x 206 mm
Number of Pages    192