2,217 Quotes by Rajneesh

Hell and heaven are within you, both gates are within you. When you are behaving unconsciously there is the gate of hell; when you become alert and conscious, there is the gate of heaven.

But people find it very difficult to be a loving person, so they create a relationship - and befool that way that 'Now I am a loving person because I am in a relationship.' And the relationship may be just one of monopoly, possessiveness, exclusiveness.

In reality, everything is within; the outer is just a projection. Fear is within you; it is projected as a hell. Hell is just a projected image on the screen - of the fear that is within you, of the anger, of the jealousy, of all that is poisonous in you, of all that is evil in you. Heaven is, again, a projected image on the screen - of all that is good and beautiful, of all that is blissful within you.

The desire for total happiness and for ultimate freedom lies dormant in everyone. It is in the form of a seed. It is like a seed that contains a tree within it. In the same way, the fulfillment of man's ultimate desire is hidden in his very nature. In its perfectly developed state, it is our nature to be happy, to be free. Our real nature is the only thing that is true, and only perfecting it can bring complete satisfaction.

Be a loving person rather than in a love relationship - because relationships happen one day and disappear another day. They are flowers; in the morning they bloom, by the evening they are gone.

The total absence of desire brings happiness. It also brings freedom and liberation, because whenever something is lacking there are both limits and dependency. Only when nothing at all is lacking is there the possibility of total freedom. Freedom brings happiness. And happiness is salvation.

Heaven and hell are not geographical. If you go in search of them you will never find them anywhere. They are within you, they are psychological. The mind is heaven, the mind is hell, and the mind has the capacity to become either. But people go on thinking everything is somewhere outside. We always go on looking for everything outside because to be inwards is very difficult. We are outgoing. If somebody says there is a god, we look at the sky. Somewhere, sitting there, will be the divine person.

If he loves, he wants to make a relationship out of it immediately! He wants to get married. He wants to create a certain conditioning. He wants to make it a contract. Or he enters a church, or he enters a political party, or he enters into any club and he wants to be structured, he wants to know where he stands in the hierarchy, in what relationship. He wants to have an identity - that 'I am this.' He does not want to remain uncertain. And life is uncertain. Only death is certain.

Whatever you are doing, if there is contentment and a feeling that this whole existence is nothing but the manifestation of godliness, that we are traveling on holy earth, that whomever you are meeting, you are meeting God - there is no other way; only faces are different, but the inner reality is the same - all your tensions will disappear. And the energy that is involved in tensions will start becoming your grace, your beauty.