For the First
Time
by Osho
SEE AS
IF FOR THE FIRST TIME
A BEAUTEOUS PERSON OR AN
ORDINARY OBJECT.
Some basic
things first; then you can do this technique. We
look at things always with old eyes. You come to
your home; you look at it without looking at it.
You know it -- there is no need to look at it.
You have entered it again and again for years
together. You go to the door, you enter the
door; you may unlock the door. But there is no
need to look. This whole process goes on
robot-like, mechanically, unconsciously. If
something goes wrong, only if your key is not
fitting into the lock, then you look at the
lock. If the key fits, you never look at the
lock.
Because of
mechanical habits, repeatedly doing the same
thing again and again, you lose the capacity to
look; you lose the freshness to look. Really,
you lose the function of your eyes -- remember
this. You become basically blind, because eyes
are not needed.
Remember the
last time you looked at your wife. The last time
you looked at your wife or at your husband may
have been years ago. For how many years have you
not looked? You just pass, giving a casual
glimpse, but not a look.
Go again and
look at your wife or at your husband as if you
were looking for the first time. Why? Because if
you are looking for the first time, your eyes
will be filled with a freshness. They will
become alive. You are passing through a street,
and a beautiful woman passes. Your eyes become
alive -- lighted. A sudden flame comes to them.
This woman may be a wife to someone. He will not
look at her; he may become as blind as you have
become seeing your wife. Why?
For the first
time eyes are needed, the second time not so
much, and the third time they are not needed.
After a few repetitions you become blind.
We live
blindly. Be aware. When you meet your children,
are you looking at them? You are not looking at
them. This habit kills the eyes; the eyes become
bored -- repeatedly there is the old again and
again. And nothing is old really, it is just
that your habit makes you feel that it is so.
Your wife is not the same as she was yesterday,
she cannot be; otherwise she is a miracle.
Nothing can be the same the next moment.
Life is flux,
everything is flowing, nothing is the same. The
same sunrise will not happen again. In a sense
also, the sun is not the same. Every day it is
new; basic changes have occurred. And the sky
will not be the same again; this morning is not
going to come again. Every morning has its own
individuality, and the sky and the colors, they
will not gather in the same pattern again. But
you go on moving as if everything is just the
same.
They say
nothing is new under the sun. Really, nothing is
old under the sun. Only the eyes become old,
accustomed to things; then nothing is new. For
children everything is new: that is why
everything gives them excitement. Even a colored
stone on a beach, and they become so excited.
You will not be excited even seeing God himself
coming to your house. You will not be so
excited! You will say, "I know him, I have read
about him."
Children are
so excited because their eyes are new and fresh.
And everything is a new world, a new dimension.
Look at children's eyes -- at the freshness, the
radiant aliveness, the vitality. They look
mirror-like, silent, but penetrating. Only such
eyes can reach within. So this technique says,
SEE AS IF FOR THE FIRST TIME
A BEAUTEOUS
PERSON OR AN ORDINARY OBJECT.
Anything will
do. Look at your shoes. You have been using them
for years, but look as if for the first time and
see the difference: the quality of your
consciousness suddenly changes.
I wonder
whether you have seen Van Gogh's painting of his
shoe. It is one of the rarest things. There is
just an old shoe -- tired, sad, as if just on
the verge of death. It is just an old shoe, but
look at it, feel it, and you will feel what a
long, boring life this shoe must have passed
through. It is so sad, just praying to be taken
away from life, tired completely, every nerve
broken, just an old man, an old shoe. It is one
of the most original paintings. But how could
Van Gogh see it?
You have even
more old shoes with you -- more tired, more
dead, more sad, depressed, but you have never
looked at them, at what you have done to them,
how you have behaved with them. They tell a life
story about you because they are your shoes.
They can say everything about you. If they could
write, they would write a most authentic
biography of the person they had to live with --
every mood, every face. When their owner was in
love he behaved differently with the shoes, when
he was angry he behaved differently. And the
shoes were not concerned at all, and everything
has left a mark.
Look at Van
Gogh's painting, and then you will see what he
could see in the shoes. Everything is there -- a
whole biography of the person who was using
them. But how could he see? To be a painter, one
has to regain the child's look, the freshness.
He can look at everything -- at most ordinary
things even. He can look!
Cezanne has
painted a chair, just an ordinary chair, and you
may even wonder... why paint a chair? There is
no need. But he worked on that painting for
months together. You may have stopped for a
single moment to look at it, and he worked for
months on it because he could look at a chair. A
chair has its own spirit, its own story, its own
miseries and happinesses. It has lived! It has
passed through life! It has its own experiences,
memories. They are all revealed in Cezanne's
painting.
But do you
look at your chair? No one looks at it, no one
feels it. Any object will do. This technique is
just to make your eyes fresh -- so fresh, alive,
radiantly vital, that they can move within and
you can have a look at your inner self.
SEE AS IF FOR
THE FIRST TIME. Make it a point to see
everything as if for the first time, and
sometime, suddenly, you will be surprised at
what a beautiful world you have been missing.
Suddenly
become aware and look at your wife as if for the
first time. And it will be no wonder if you feel
again the same love you felt the first time, the
same surge of energy, the same attraction in its
fullest. But look as if for the first time at a
BEAUTEOUS PERSON OR AN ORDINARY OBJECT.
What will
happen? You will regain your eyesight. You are
blind. Just now, as you are, you are blind. And
this blindness is more fatal than physical
blindness, because you have eyes and still you
cannot look.
Jesus says
many times, "Those who have eyes, let them see.
Those who have ears, let them hear." It seems
that he was talking to blind men or to deaf men.
But he goes on repeating it. What was he -- a
superintendent in some institute for the blind ?
He goes on
repeating, "If you have eyes, look." He must be
talking with ordinary men who have eyes. But why
this insistence on, "If you have eyes, look"? He
is talking about the eyes which this technique
can give you.
Look at
everything you pass as if for the first time.
Make it a continuous attitude. Touch everything
as if for the first time. What will happen?
If you can do
this, you will be freed from your past. The
burden, the depth, the dirtiness, the
accumulated experiences -- you will be freed
from them. Every moment, move from the past. Do
not allow it to enter within you; do not allow
it to be carried -- leave it. Look at everything
as if for the first time.
This is a
great technique to help you to be freed from the
past. Then you are constantly in the present,
and by and by you will have an affinity with the
present. Then everything will be new. Then you
will be able to understand Heraclitus' saying
that you cannot step twice in the same river.
You cannot see a person twice -- the same person
-- because nothing is static. Everything is
river-like, flowing and flowing and flowing.
If you are
freed from the past and you have a look which
can see the present, you will enter the
existence. And this entry will be double: you
will enter into everything, into its spirit, and
you will enter into yourself also because the
present is the door.
All
meditations in one way or the other try to get
you to live in the present.
So this
technique is one of the most beautiful
techniques -- and easy. You can try it, and
without any danger. If you are looking afresh
even when passing through the same street again,
it is a new street. Meeting the same friend as
if he is a stranger, looking at your wife as you
looked for the first time when she was a
stranger, can you really say that he or she is
not still a stranger? You may have lived for
twenty years or thirty years or forty years with
your wife, but can you say that you are
acquainted with her? She is still a stranger:
you are two strangers living together. You know
the outer habits of each other, the outer
reactions, but the inner core of the being is
unknown, untouched.
Look freshly
again, as if for the first time, and you will
see the same stranger. Nothing, nothing has
become old; everything is new. This will give a
freshness to your look.
Your eyes
will become innocent.
Those
innocent eyes can see.
Those
innocent eyes can enter into the inner world.
 This
article was excerpted
from
The
Book of Secrets,
by Osho.
Reprinted with permission of
Osho
International Foundation. ©Osho
International Foundation. All rights reserved.
For info. or to order
this book.
Also available in
cassette format (abridged).
Copyright © Osho International Foundation
1998
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