In The Man Who Loved Seagulls, Osho discusses essential stories and parables from the world's great wisdom traditions of Zen, Taoism, Christianity, and Judaism. Osho – himself a master storyteller – interprets the stories in this collection and applies them to the concerns of modern day life. The valuable lessons they impart are both timely and universal. The stories encourage meditation as they are meant to be told and studied again and again, in order to discover new layers of meaning with each reading.

Ideas and topics include:
The futility of chasing happiness
The journey from fear to freedom
The Zen approach to death and dying
The extraordinary intelligence of innocence

Yes, only in deep friendliness can something be asked.
And only in deep friendliness can something be answered.
Between the Master and the disciple there is a deep friendship. It is a love affair. And the disciple has to wait for the right moment and the Master has also to wait for the right moment; when the friendship is flowing, when there is no hindrance, then things can be answered. Or even, sometimes, without answering them, they can be answered; even without using verbalisation the message can be delivered.
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Life is possible only through challenges. Life is possible only when you have both good weather and bad weather, when you have both pleasure and pain, when you have both winter and summer, day and night. When you have both sadness and happiness, discomfort and comfort. Life moves between these two polarities.
Moving between these two polarities you learn how to balance. Between these two wings you learn how to fly to the farthest star.
If you choose comfort, convenience, you choose death. That's how you have missed real happiness: you have chosen convenience instead. It is very convenient to follow the parental voice, convenient to follow the priest, convenient to follow the church, convenient to follow the society and the state. It is very easy to say yes to all these authorities -- but then you never grow. You are trying to get life's treasure too cheap. It requires that you have to pay for it.
Be an individual and pay for it. In fact, if you get something without paying for it, don't accept it -- that is insulting to you. DON'T accept it; that is below you. Say: "I will pay for it -- only then will I accept it." In fact, if something is given to you without your being ready for it, without your being capable for it, without your being receptive for it, you will not be able to possess it for long. You will lose it somewhere or other. You will not be able to appreciate its value.
 

ONLY THE GOLD:
MAKING THE CHOICE BETWEEN HAPPINESS AND UNHAPPINESS

Once there was a man of ch'i who wanted gold.
At dawn he put on his coat and cap and set out for the market.
He went to the stall of a dealer in gold, snatched his gold, and made off.
The police caught him and questioned him. "Why did you snatch somebody else's gold, and in front of so many people?"
The man replied:
"At the time when I took it I did not see the people -- I only saw the gold."

LET ME tell you first one small anecdote:
"My doctor insisted that I came to see you." the patient told the psychiatrist. "Goodness knows why -- I am happily married, secure in my job, lots of friends, no worries..."
"Hmmm." said the psychiatrist, reaching for his notebook, "and how long have you been like this?"

HAPPINESS IS UNBELIEVABLE. It seems that man cannot be happy. If you talk about your depression, sadness, misery, everybody believes it. It seems natural. If you talk about your happiness nobody believes you -- it seems unnatural.
Sigmund Freud, after forty years of research into the human mind, working with thousands of people, observing thousands of disturbed minds, came to the conclusion that happiness is a fiction: man cannot be happy. At the most, we can make things a little more comfortable, that's all. At the most we can make unhappiness a little less, that's all. But happy man cannot be.
Looks very pessimistic -- but looking at the modern man it seems to be exactly the case, it seems to be a fact.
Buddha says that man can be happy, tremendously happy. Krishna sings songs of that ultimate bliss -- satchitanand. Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God. But how can you believe so few people, who can be counted on the fingers, against the whole mass, millions and millions of people down the centuries, remaining unhappy, growing more and more into unhappiness,.their whole life a story of misery and nothing else? And then comes death! How to believe these few people?
Either they are lying or they are deceived themselves. Either they are Lying for some other purpose, or they are a little mad, deceived by their own illusions. They are living in a wish-fulfillment. They wanted to be happy and they started believing that they were happy. It seems more like a belief, a desperate belief, rather than a fact. But how did it come to happen that very few people ever become happy?
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These birds chirping in the trees, they are happy! not because they have chosen to be happy -- they are simply happy because they don't know any other way to be. Their happiness is unconscious. It is simply natural.
Man can be tremendously happy, and tremendously unhappy -- and he is free to choose. This freedom is hazardous. This freedom is very dangerous -- because you become responsible. And something has happened with this freedom, something has gone wrong. Man is somehow standing on his head.
You have come to me seeking meditation. Meditation is needed only because you have not chosen to be happy. If you have chosen to be happy there is no need for any meditation. Meditation is medicinal: if you are ill then the medicine is needed. Buddhas don't need meditation. Once you have started choosing happiness, once you have decided that you have to be happy, then no meditation is needed. Then meditation starts happening of its own accord.
Meditation is a function of being happy. Meditation follows a happy man like a shadow: wherever he goes, whatsoever he is doing, he is meditative. He is intensely concentrated.
The word 'meditation' and the word 'medicine' come from the same root -- that is very significant. Meditation is also medicinal. You don't carry bottles of medicines and prescriptions with you if you are healthy. Of course, when you are not healthy you have to go the doctor. Going to the doctor is not a very great thing to brag about. One should be happy so the doctor is not needed.
So many religions are there because so many people are unhappy. A happy person needs no religion; a happy person needs no temple, no church -- because for a happy person the whole universe is a temple, the whole existence is a church. The happy person has nothing like religious activity because his whole life is religious.
Whatsoever you do with happiness is a prayer: your work becomes worship; your very breathing has an intense splendor to it, a grace. Not that you constantly repeat the name of God -- only foolish people do that -- because God has no name, and by repeating some assumed name you simply dull your own mind. By repeating His name you are not going to go anywhere. A happy man simply comes to see God is everywhere. You need happy eyes to see Him.
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Down the centuries, parents have been destroying people. They were destroyed by their parents, and so on and so forth. It seems to be a chronic state. Your parents were not happy; whatsoever they knew made them only more unhappy and more unhappy -- and they trained you for it, and they have made a replica of themselves in you.
Arthur Koestler has coined a beautiful word for this whole nonsense. He calls it 'bapucracy'. 'Bapu' means father -- it is an Indian term. Indians used to call Mahatma Gandhi, 'bapu'. This word 'bapucracy' is perfect. India suffers more than any other country from bapucracy. The Indian leadership is still suffering from its bapu, Mahatma Gandhi.
Each child is destroyed by the bapus. Of course, they were destroyed by their bapus. So I am not saying that it is their responsibility; it is an unconscious, chronic state that perpetuates itself. So there is no need of complaining against your parents -- that is not going to help. The day you understand it, you have to consciously drop it and come out of it.
Be an individual if you want to be happy. If you want to be happy, then start choosing on your own. There are many times when you will have to be disobedient -- be! There are many times when you will have to be rebellious -- be! There is no disrespect implied in it. Be respectful to your parents. But remember that your deepest responsibility is towards your own being.
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Osho trakteert je hier in overvloed op...lees verder wat Ma Donna over The Man who loved Seagulls schrijft

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