We start making every child ambitious, and ambition means you cannot love; ambition is anti-love. Ambition needs fight, ambition needs struggle, ambition needs you to use others as a means.
RajneeshRead
When this awareness grows, dreaming stops, by and by. When this awareness grows, the wheel moves slower and slower, because there is no point. You never move, so what is the point of travelling the whole earth? You remain the same; then desires slow down. One day it happens: the wheel is as silent, as unmoving as the hub. That is the point when enlightenment happens.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the nature of enlightenment and the cessation of desires as one becomes more aware.
In this quote, Rajneesh suggests that true enlightenment is reached when an individual's awareness evolves to a point where desires and the relentless pursuit of external experiences diminish. He conveys that as one becomes more self-aware, the cyclical nature of life—represented metaphorically by a wheel—slows down, leading to a stillness where enlightenment can be found. This highlights the idea that fulfillment is not about constant movement or achieving one's desires, but rather about finding peace within oneself.
Themes
AwarenessEnlightenmentDesiresStillnessPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a meditation workshop to encourage self-reflection.
More from Rajneesh
All quotes →The technique of positive thinking is not a technique that transforms you. It is simply repressing the negative aspects of your personality. It is a method of choice. It cannot help awareness; it goes against awareness. Awareness is always choiceless.
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Only those persons who have lived, really lived, are ready, welcoming, receptive, thankful to death. Then death is not the enemy. Then death becomes the fulfillment.
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Creativity has two possibilities. One is that it arises out of your silence, love, understanding, your clarity of vision, your intimate friendliness with existence - then creativity is healthy. But if it does not arise out of meditation, out of silence and peace and understanding and love, then there is a danger. It may be arising out of your confused mind. It may be arising out of your insanity.
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There is no separate art of life. If you know how to allow poetry, if you know how to allow dance, if you know how to allow love - if you know how to ALLOW, then you know the art of life. In the allowing, in the let-go, in the surrender, is the art of life. How not to be and to let God be - that is the only art of life.
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Love is not a relationship, love is a state of being; it has nothing to do with anybody else. One is not "in love", one is love. And of course when one is love, one is in love – but that is an outcome, a by-product, that is not the source. The source is that one is love.
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