so simple

“What is so simple as eating an apple? And yet, what could be more sacred or profound? When we eat an apple we are not just eating an apple as a separate thing. The apple enters us, dissolves within us, contributes to us, and becomes us. Each apple is a manifestation of so much more! We are eating the rain and the clouds and of all the trees that have gone before to bring this tree into manifestation, and of the tears, sweat, bodies, and breaths of countless generations of animals, plants, and people that have become the rain and soul and wind that feed the apple tree.

When we look into an apple, we see the entire universe. All the planets and stars, our sun and moon, the oceans, rivers, forests, fields, and creatures are in this apple. The tree is a manifestation of an infinite web of life, and for the tree to exist, every component of the web is vital. The apple is the gift of the tree and of the infinite universe propagating and celebrating itself through the apple. The seeds fall to become new trees, or are eaten by humans or bears or birds and thus distributed more widely, spreading and benefiting the tree and the whole system, unfolding in utter vastness, complexity, and perfection.

If we become aware of this when we eat an apple, we will know we are loved and nourished, and that we are part of something greater, a mystery so immense and benevolent and exciting that we can only be touched by the sense of sacredness.

We humans, eating apples, are in a true sense apples eating apples. The whole universe is not only in every apple but in every one of us. In eating, we see that there are no fundamentally separate things at all, but only processes. All things partake of each other, ever changing, and are eventually eaten by the process and by time, the great devourer. Food is the source and metaphor of the flow of life into death and of death into life”

-The World Peace Diet

Excerpt from "The Book of Understanding"

No religion has been courageous enough to say, "We know this much, but there is much we don't know; perhaps in the future we may know it. And beyond that, there is a space which is going to remain unknowable forever."

A true religion will have the humbleness to admit that only a few things are known, much more is unknown, and something will always remain unknowable. That "something" is the target of the whole spiritual search. You cannot make it an object of knowledge, but you can experience it, you can drink of it, you can have the taste of it - it is existential.

All these religions have been against doubt. They have been really afraid of doubt. Only an impotent intellect can be afraid of doubt; otherwise doubt is a challenge, an opportunity to inquire.

There is doubt, and doubt is not destroyed by believing. Doubt is destroyed by experiencing.

They say, believe. I say, explore. They say, don't doubt; I say, doubt to the very end, till you arrive and know and feel and experience. Then there is no need to repress doubt; it evaporates by itself. Then there is no need for you to believe.

You have to be again innocent, ignorant, not knowing anything, so that the questions can start arising again. Again the inquiry becomes alive, and with the inquiry becoming alive you cannot vegetate. Then life becomes an exploration, an adventure.

-OSHO