kagablog

Have you heard anything like that - “Don’t be consistent”? When you
hear it for the first time or read it for the first time, you will
think that there has been some mistake, maybe a proof mistake or
something. Because your so-called saints have been telling you just
the opposite: “Don’t be inconsistent”, they say. “Be consistent.”

It is here that Atisha is superb. He says:

DON’T BE CONSISTENT

Why? What is consistency? Consistency means living according to the
past. With what will you be consistent? If you want to be consistent
you can have only one reference, and that is the past. To be
consistent means to live according to the past, and to live according
to the past is not to live at all. To live according to the past is to
be dead. Then your life will be just a repetition.

To be consistent means that you have already decided that now there is
no more to life, that you have already come to a full stop; you don’t
allow life to have anything new to give you, you have closed your
doors. The sun will rise, but you will not allow its rays to enter
your room. And the flowers will bloom, but you will remain unaware of
their fragrance. Moons will come and go, but you will remain stagnant.
You have stopped being a river.

A river cannot be a consistent phenomenon. Only a pond can be
consistent, because it is non-flowing.

..

The consistent man is a logical man, his life is one-dimensional…
And the logical man is the poorest man in the world, because life
consists not only of logic, but of love, too. And love is illogical.
Only a very small part of life is logical, the superficial part. The
deeper you go, the more and more you move into the illogical, or to be
more accurate, the supralogical.

..

Atisha is giving you something tremendously valuable. Live all the
moods of life, they are your own and they all have something to
contribute to your growth. Howsoever comfortable and cozy it looks,
don’t become confined to a small space. Be an adventurer. Search and
seek all the facets of life, all the aspects of life.

..

Live, and allow all that is possible. Sing, dance, cry, weep, laugh,
love, meditate, relate, be alone. Be in the marketplace, and sometimes
be in the mountains.

..

The consistent man is a very poor man. Of course the society respects
the consistent man, because the consistent man is predictable. You
know what buttons to push and how he will act. He is a machine; he is
not truly a man. The society respects the consistent man; the society
calls consistency “character”… A real man cannot afford character,
because character can be afforded only at the cost of life.

The saint has character, hence he is respected. The sage has no
character, hence it is very difficult to recognize him. Socrates is a
sage, Lao Tzu is a sage - but they are very difficult to recognize,
almost impossible, because they don’t leave any trace behind them.
They don’t fit into any mold, they are pure freedom. They are like
birds flying in the sky, they don’t leave any footprints.

It is only for a very few sensitive souls to find a sage as a Master,
because the mediocre follow the saint. Only very very intelligent
people attune themselves to a sage, because the sage has no character
and he cannot fulfill any of your expectations. He is bound to offend
you, he is bound to disappoint you, he is bound to shake you and
shatter you in many many ways.

Slowly, slowly, he will make you as free as he himself is.

From The Book of Wisdom : Discourses on Atisha`s Seven Points of Mind
Training, by Osho