“Life repeats itself mindlessly – unless you become mindful, it will go on repeating like a wheel. Thats why Buddhists call it the wheel of life and death, the wheel of time. It moves like a wheel: birth is followed by death, death is followed by birth; love is followed by hate, hate is followed by love; success is followed by failure, failure is followed by success. Just see! If you can watch just for a few days, you will see a pattern emerging, a wheel pattern. One day, a fine morning, you are feeling so good and so happy, and another day you are so dull, so dead that you start thinking of committing suicide. And just the other day you were so full of life, so blissful that you were feeling thankful to God, that you were in a mood of deep gratefulness, and today there is great complaint and you don’t see the point why one should go on living…. And it goes on and on, but you dont see the pattern. Once you see the pattern, you can get out of it.

Listening is one of the basic secrets of entering into the temple of God. Listening means passivity. Listening means forgetting yourself completely – only then can you listen. When you listen attentively to somebody, you forget yourself. If you cannot forget yourself, you never listen. If you are too self-conscious about yourself, you simply pretend that you are listening – you dont listen. You may nod your head; you may sometimes say yes and no, but you are not listening. When you listen, you become just a passage, a passivity, a receptivity, a womb: you become feminine. And to arrive one has to become feminine. You cannot reach God as aggressive invaders, conquerors. You can reach God only…or it will be better to say God can reach you only when you are receptive, a feminine receptivity. When you become yin, a receptivity, the door is open – and you wait. Listening is the art for becoming passive.

Looking at a sunset, just for a second you forget your separateness: you are the sunset. That is the moment when you feel the beauty of it. But the moment you say that it is a beautiful sunset, you are no longer feeling it..”

~ Osho ~