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Annihilation of the Mind – Meher Baba

May 25, 2012 by premG

The following is an excerpt from Meher Baba’s Discourse on Manonash

Mind is never transformed. Ego is transformed once only. “Ego” means Astitva, which means your very Being as the Real “I.” The transformation should clearly be understood.

Today you feel that you are a man. Tomorrow you die and then your mental impressions give you the feeling that you are a woman. All this is false. Mind’s attitude is changed according to circumstances, but mind remains mind, whether it is lifted up or goes down. Mind can be happy, and it can be miserable. It is the attitude of the mind which thus changes. Mind creates worlds, delusions, illusions, ad infinitum – but mind remains as mind.

Mind cannot be transformed. Why? Because it is not One itself. Mind survives by desires and thoughts, and it is made up of impressions. Ego is One in itself, but this Real Ego – the Real “I” – is now bound by the mind. And this mind which is made up of false impressions makes the Real “I” think itself false. Mind makes you think of birth, death, happiness, misery, et cetera, as real things, but nothing can be more false than this. You are now here, alive in the body, in your senses, and why? Because you always were.

Have you any impression of how you were born and how your birth took place? No. Because you were not born at all! Mind gives you this impression that you are here, there, and so forth. It is the mind which gives you the impression according to which you say: “She is my wife,” or “He is my husband,” and so forth.

Mind always keeps you hopping at a tap dance! If you knew that your wife, children, et cetera, are One, and if you knew that you never die, never suffer, you are then All in all.  But the mind is there to baffle you!

Mind says: “Beware, she is your wife; they are your children; these are your things,” ad infinitum. Mind creates such types of impressions.

Therefore mind, which is made up of false impressions, makes the Real “I” think itself false. To think I am the body, I am young, old, I am a man, a woman, I am this or that – are all impressions created by the mind. It never makes itself feel “I am God.” Mind might make you say “I am God,” but it cannot make you feel “I am God.

So long as mind is there, ego cannot be transformed from its false attitude to its real state. Mind thus also makes you say that you are infinite, all-powerful, and so forth, but you do not feel it. Why? Because mind, which is made up of false impressions, makes you feel the “I” as small, limited I.

Now what has happened? If the false ego is to have its real, original state, the mind must go. As long as the mind is there, although its outlook is changed, the real “I-am-God” state cannot be experienced.

In sound sleep, mind has temporarily gone. Ego is there, and the impressions again make the mind wake up, and mind again makes the ego feel false. And so, in innumerable lives and forms, the ego is there. The mind is there, but the mind’s impressions change and so, accordingly, body changes – and also accordingly, experience changes. Therefore, for the false “I” to become Real “I” the mind must go.

The real goal of life is not death of the ego, but of the mind! Therefore when Muhammad or Zarathustra or Jesus talked of being born once or dying once, they meant the death of the mind. Mind is born from the very beginning, even before the stone state. This birth is once, and also the death of the mind takes place only once.

When the mind dies, the false ego is transformed into Reality. Real Ego is never born and never dies. Ego is always real but due to the mind, it feels and acts as limited and false “I.”

Now mind goes on taking bodies according to its good and bad impressions. This taking and leaving the body is not the death either of the mind or the ego. After physical death the mind remains with its impressions. It is the impressions which make the mind take bodies, in order that the impressions might be wiped out. Consequently, the mind takes bodies according to the impressions, and the ego witnesses this. When one body is discarded, another comes up and forms, though there is a certain amount of time lag between the giving up of one body and taking up another.

This jadu (magical spell) of sanskaras has bound you so tight that the more you try to come out, the more you get bound. Because mind has to be destroyed from its root, and who is to destroy it? Mind has to destroy itself. That is an impossible task. The very process of destroying itself creates impressions of trying to destroy it, and so one gets more bound.

As Hafiz has said:

“You yourself are the veil, O Hafiz!

And so remove your self!”

Now, how to remove you self? The very process of removing creates fresh sanskaras.

Thousands have thought of destroying the mind – the main methods being those of action, meditation, knowledge and LOVE. These ways have been chalked out by the Perfect Masters for the purpose of destroying the mind while remaining consciousness.

Now, the path of Action (Karma Yoga), which is meant for this goal of Manonash, which transforms the false “I” into the Real “I,” has to be considered – because the main activity of mind through the body is of actions. The Perfect Masters saw that actions which have false ego and an impression-filled mind as its background, instead of destroying the mind, feed it. They saw that everyone has to do actions. Even the laziest of men has to do actions, such as eating, drinking, sleeping, et cetera. Therefore, the Masters thought of “actionless actions.” That means to do actions, but to do them in such a way that the effect is as if no action was done. If this is done, the past impressions of actions get spent up mentally by experiences of happiness or misery, but no new impressions are created.

Suppose you do an action of helping someone without any thought of self-interest, and while doing so, you are beaten, and the police, on the other hand, arrest you and put you in jail. These happenings spend up some of your old sanskaras, but since you had no self-interest, no fresh sanskaras are formed. This process, however, is so long and complicated that one can attain Manonash through action only after yugas (cycles of time).

So, Perfect Masters wanted actions to kill actions; that is, actions done in such a way that the effect of the impressions becomes impotent – hence no result, no binding. For example, a scorpion by nature wags its tail and stings anyone who comes near it. Now, suppose the scorpion’s dangerous stinger is broken and removed. The scorpion goes on wagging its tail and continues to behave as before. But the action is rendered impotent in the matter of its dangerous results; that is, the bad effect of actions is remove. If actions have to be without binding, the effect leading to the binding has to be eliminated.

The world and its activities are really speaking worthless. Actions continue, whether they are good or bad, and therefore the Perfect Masters said: “Act in such a way that the actions do not bind you and impressions are not created.” This is almost an impossible task, as about to be explained. There are three ways by which actions can be done without creating impressions and the consequent bindings: First: To act, but having absolutely no thought that you are acting. This must be a continuous process. That means that the ego does not give even one moment to the mind to exert its influence. In fact, you act for others, and not for yourself. This selfless action, which is also called selfless service, is also almost impossible because the moment you think: “I am serving others, I must help, I must uplift a certain cause,” you are caught. And for leaders it is very risky, unless this thought about themselves is given up one hundred percent continuously.

This point may be explained further. If a leader asks others to sacrifice everything for some cause with the best of motives and with no self-interest, but fails to do so himself continuously one hundred percent, without any thought of self, then the result is disastrous. All the sanskaras of the whole group fall on him, and even his followers are caught in the impressions, even though they might have acted with the best of intentions. A similar disaster occurs in the case of a guru and disciple if there is any thought of self on either side. Even pity for others should not be there. In short, when action has to be effectless, then it must be done without self-interest, which is almost impossible.

The second way is that whatever you do, good or bad, you dedicate it to God, or your Master. This is also almost impossible, because the dedication has to be continuous, without a moment’s break. If you are able to do so, then the impressions are not created by actions. But if there is a break, even once, the reaction is disastrous, and all the sanskaras gather on you.

The third way is to do whatever you are asked to do by One who is free from impressions and whose mind is destroyed. Such actions do not bind you. This too is most difficult. You must have one hundred percent unflinching faith in the Master; even a moment’s doubt is fatal. Krishna had to convince Arjuna that he was in every being, and that none died – all were dead already. Then, what Arjuna did was “action without action.”

These three ways are thus almost impossible to attain. So how should one act? To be involved in mere “sansar” (worldly matters) with your wife, children, business, et cetera, and to act, results in getting bound with hooks of iron. But submissive, weak and loose impressions are created by actions which are done without self-interest, even if at times thoughts of helping or pitying others come into the mind, as mentioned. Mind’s part is to make the ego, through the body, feel false and to experience the sanskaras. But when the mind sees that the false ego is not so ready to accept its dictatorship, then the impressions formed by actions of this type are weak. Such actions are therefore eventually of help toward attaining Manonash.

Some Perfect Masters chalked out ways of destroying the mind through mind itself – through meditation and concentration. When mind becomes concentrated, its further function is weakened, and the impressions wipe out themselves, because impressions are like worms and exhaust themselves. But this process of meditation and concentration makes Manonash almost impossible because mind has its habit of getting impressions spent. When the mind feels frustrated, it gets more desperate. The moment you sit for meditation, sometimes thoughts which you never did think before come to you, and eventually one of the following three things happens:

1st: You get fed up because you cannot concentrate; or 2nd: You get sleepy or dreamy; or 3rd: More bad thoughts enter your mind, and you have to give up your attempts. But if you have a brave heart and patiently persist, then, in a very few cases, the mind is temporarily stilled. Now, this results in one of two things: one either enters into a trance or samadhi. This trance (hal) and samadhi are not Manonash. Samadhi becomes a profession, in some cases; and trance becomes like a dope – one gets addicted to it. One enjoys the trance, but it is temporary. There have been cases of those going into samadhi and, while coming down to normal consciousness, their first thought is the same thought which they had while going into samadhi. Thus, if they had thought of money before entering into samadhi, they get the same thought of money while coming out of it.

Some Perfect Masters thought that the best way was to forget oneself and to give the mind no chance of having new impressions. The question is one of how to forget oneself. The answer is: through Devotion (Bhakti Yoga). When one is devoted one hundred percent, then one forgets oneself. But this is also practically impossible, because such devotion and forgetfulness have to be continuous.

Hafiz has said:

“If you want the presence of the Beloved,

do not absent yourself from the memory of the Beloved.”

You must not be, even for one moment, without this devotion, without this self-forgetfulness, which is almost an impossibility. This is the path of Devotion, or Bhakti Marg. Therefore, one Perfect Master has said: “One moment with the Master is better than one hundred years of sincere piety.”

Some Perfect Masters thought that the mind must be diverted if it is to be killed. Mind makes the ego say: “I am body.” Therefore, make the mind say: “I am not the body, I am not this, I am not that, I am God!” Now, this too is almost impossible, because mind has false impressions, and to make this false mind say what it feels to be false is like a hypocritical act. Thus, for example, the mind knows that it is “Mr. So-and-so.” Now, if this person’s mind says: “I am not a human being, but I am God,” then, at that very moment, the mind feels that it is lying. The result is that this tires out the heart, emotions and any love. The mind cannot do actionless actions since it says: “I am God. What have I to act for?” Mind cannot forget itself in devotion because it says: “I am God. To whom to pray?”

So, Manonash is impossible. But if selfless action, even if not perfect, is persistently done, a stage is reached when mind is permanently at peace. It sees God, but it is not yet destroyed. If through bhakti yoga a stage of devotion is reached by which constant devotion is attained, then this peace of mind and seeing of God comes. So, if one says: “I am God; I am not the body,” and persists in this saying with one hundred percent faithfulness at the cost of everything, then this peace of mind is achieved. But for Manonash there is always one thing. One who is free can uproot the minds of others, even of the masses. Even the past Prophets and Avatars had to have the help and grace of the Perfect Ones in order to achieve the annihilation of their minds.

In short, there are all these ways to attain Manonash and to make you feel that you are God, Infinite, Eternal. But it is rightly said that:

“When you cannot step out of your nature,

how can you aspire to enter the threshold of the Beloved?”

Following different paths, different people encounter different difficulties. Some who do not know the technique of meditation become mad. Some say that they should not see even a woman. They get so nervous about sex.

The fact is that we are God, but we are misled by this shameless mind. The mind is so shameless that the more you wish to get rid of it, the more you become entangled in it – just as when you try to take out one foot from the mud, your other foot gets more deeply stuck. All the same, you have to get rid of this trouble.

Manonash is real samadhi (bliss) for the mind. Mind is uprooted and then its death occurs and the ego immediately feels: “I am everything, and have no concern with the body.” At that moment, either the shock is too strong and the body falls, or the momentum keeps the body for some time, and then it falls, as in the case of the majzoobs.

Real Ego is the Goal. Some who reach the Manonash stage and have to perform certain duties continue to remain in their body with an impressionless mind to help others in seeing themselves in everyone.

Call it “Impressionless Mind,” call it “Real I,” call it “Transformed Ego,” or call it “Real Mind” – it is One and the same Infinite Truth, beginningless and endless. You are All in all. All that you need is emancipation from all that is false which has fallen to your lot.

-Meher Baba

Excerpt from Meher Baba’s Discourse on Manonash

Published in Lord Meher, the 20-volume biography of Avatar Meher Baba.

The entire 20 volume biography can be viewed at:   http://www.lordmeher.org/index.jsp

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A Single Solution to All the Problems – Osho

May 20, 2012 by premG

Osho, you say that your main concern is our spiritual not our psychological growth. What is the difference between them?

Deva Yachana,

Man is a three-storied building: one body, the mind and the soul. The body contains only the body. The mind contains body and mind both. And the soul contains all the three. The higher implies the lower, but not vice versa: the lower does not imply the higher.

This is one of the fundamental laws to be remembered. If you work on the higher, the lower will be automatically solved. If you work on the lower, the higher will not be automatically solved.

Spirit contains all the three dimensions of your being. That’s why I say my concern is your spiritual growth — because it contains your totality. To be concerned with your psychological growth will leave the most essential and the highest part of you outside. And then there are many more problems.

Mind is a multiplicity; mind means the many. Millions of problems are there. If you start solving each single problem it will take millions of lives — even then you cannot be certain that you have solved the mind problems.

Greed is there, anger is there, lust is there, jealousy is there… and so on and so forth. If you solve one it will take years and years; and even then nothing is solved. If you try to solve your anger, if you want to grow beyond your anger, at the psychological stage what can you do? At the most you can repress it — because awareness belongs to the spiritual realm. At the psychological level you can only fight. You can choose: you can repress one part against the other, but the repressed part is not dying. In fact, the more it is repressed, the more alive it will become — because it will be going closer and closer to the source of your energies and it will be getting more nourishment. And you can repress anger, but it will find some outlet from the backdoor. You cannot transform this way.

That’s where Western psychology is lost — lost in a chaos. Small problems are not being solved, very small problems. It takes years and years of psychoanalysis… then too nothing is solved. At the most you can do only a kind of window-dressing, a whitewashing. You give the patient a better mask to wear, but his original face remains the same.

Western psychology has failed.

The Eastern approach goes far deeper. It does not try to cut the foliage of a tree: it cuts the very roots. And to cut the very roots is to destroy the tree. If you go on pruning the leaves — that’s what psychological work means: pruning the leaves — you are not going to destroy the tree at all. On the contrary, the more you prune it, the thicker the foliage will become. You cut one branch and three branches will come — because the tree will take the challenge that you are going to destroy it. Each and everything tries to survive. And when there is danger, the tree will make every effort to survive. That’s what happens.

If you want to drop your anger, you become angrier than before. If you want to drop your sexuality, you become more and more sexual than before. That’s what has happened to millions of people. They want to get out of the prison of sex; they make all kinds of efforts. Their desire is good; they are sincere people, but misguided. They start fighting with sex, and sexuality retaliates with a vengeance. These people become more sexual than ordinary people, their whole mind becomes full of sex. They think of sex, they dream of sex, and they are continuously fighting. The more they fight, the more they give energy to the enemy — because the more and more they become focused on the enemy. They cannot be off-guard.

This has happened down the centuries. You can see the monks, your so-called mahatmas, your so-called saints — their minds are ugly. And the reason is not that they are not sincere people; the reason is that they have started from a wrong end.

“I think we should treat not the symptoms but the real problem.” This was the approach of the Southern planter just after the Civil War. This gentleman of the old school found his wife in the arms of her lover and, mad with rage, killed her with his revolver.

A jury of his Southern peers had brought in a verdict of justifiable homicide, and he was about to leave the courtroom a free man when the judge stopped him. “Just a point of personal curiosity, sir, if you are willing to clear it up.”

In reply, the gentleman bowed.

“Why did you shoot your wife instead of her lover?”

“Sir,” he replied, “I decided it was better to shoot a woman once than a different man each week.”

If you try to change your mind, you will have to shoot a different man each week. It is better to shoot the woman and be finished with it.

That’s why I say my concern is not your psychological growth but your spiritual growth.

Spiritual growth means growth of awareness; it means nothing else. Becoming more and more alert. Becoming a light unto yourself. And when you are a light unto yourself, darkness starts disappearing of its own accord.

The man of awareness cannot be angry — that is impossible, because to be angry the basic requirement is to be unaware. Try it, and you will be very much surprised. Try to be angry AND aware — you will not be able to manage; nobody has ever been able to manage it. It is impossible. It is not in the very nature of things.

When you are aware, anger will disappear. If you lose awareness, anger will appear. Both are not possible — just as light and darkness cannot exist together; they cannot have a coexistence.

Why can light and darkness not exist together? Because darkness has no substance in it; darkness has no existence in it. It is nothing but the absence of light, so how can absence and presence exist together? If light is there then absence cannot exist.  If absence exists, light cannot be present there.

Awareness is a single solution to all the problems.

Greed cannot exist when you are aware — why? Because when you are aware, you are aware that you are the ultimate bliss, that you have the whole kingdom of God within you. What more can you desire, what greed? It will be utterly stupid. Greed exists in the person when he is not aware of his own kingdom, when he is not aware that he is a born emperor, and lives like a beggar.

The moment that you become aware that you have all the treasures of the world in you, that nothing is missing, how can greed exist? Greed means you know your inner poverty and you go on accumulating. Greed means you know that you are poor and you have to be rich.

The man of awareness becomes alert that he is rich already! and there is no possibility of becoming richer. He is divine! Greed cannot exist when you know that you are divine.

How can anger exist with a man who is aware? From where does anger come? Anger is a wound in the ego. When your ego is hurt, you become angry. But the man of awareness knows there is no ego at all — now, how can wounds happen to something which is found no more?

You escape from a rope in the night thinking it is a snake; you run, you are frightened to death. And then somebody laughs, takes hold of you — tells you, “It is not a snake, it is a rope! Come with me and we will take a lamp and we will see.” You go with the person, still afraid, still ready to escape in case it is not a rope but a snake. But the closer you come, the better you see… you start laughing. Now, can you be afraid when you have seen that it is a rope?

And it is not that when you had thought it was a snake your fear was unreal — it was absolutely real. It was almost like a heart attack. You were trembling, suffocating, out of breath. You might have died of fear, it was so real. But there was no real snake!

An unreal snake can create real fear. And that’s how it is happening: an unreal ego can create real anger. You feel offended and anger arises. When the light of awareness is inside you, you know there is no ego — there is no snake. Simply anger disappears. And how can you be afraid when you are aware? In awareness it is known that you will never die because you were never born, that birth and death are just on the surface, at the deepest core of your being you are deathless. Then fear disappears.

Yachana, you became worried when I said that I am not concerned with your psychological growth — because what is psychological growth? Helping you not to be angry, helping you not to be an egoist, helping you not to be afraid — that is psychological growth.

Spiritual growth means: helping you to be aware. And a single medicine cures all the illnesses.

And if we go on working on the surface, it may appear that you are changing, but deep down you remain unchanging. It may appear that you are attaining to some psychological maturity, but it will be only skin-deep. Scratch a little and you will find the same old man there.

Once a patient was treated by a psychoanalyst because he thought he was a popcorn.

Finally, after years of intensive analytic work, success was there. In the final session, the psychoanalyst asked him once who he was and he replied, “A man, of course!”

Five minutes after he had left the office, the patient came rushing in, terrified. “Doctor, doctor, you should have told me that there are chickens outside. I barely escaped them!

“But you know you are not a popcorn, don’t you?”

“Sure I do — but what about the chickens?”

All your psychological work will be just on the surface. You will appear as if you have changed, but that will be only an appearance. Any real situation will bring your real face Lack again. This is not transformation: this is just consolation. And I am not concerned with consoling you.

My effort here is to transmute you to let you become something utterly new that you have never dreamt about yourself. Something immensely valuable is hidden in you – that has to be discovered. That is your soul.

And unless you discover that hidden source of all life, you will only be playing games — psychological games, physiological games. Yoga got lost in physiological games. Your so-called yogis are only doing physiological exercises. They have their own benefits, I cannot deny it. They will make you healthier, but that health remains of the body. And the body will be gone when death comes, and with the body all your yoga postures too! And the whole effort that you had made will be lost.

Psychology and psychoanalysis have become too much focused on the mind of man.

Mind is not your real core. It is just a bridge between the body and the soul, and a very fragile bridge it is. It is a very non-substantial phenomenon, because it consists only of thoughts. Behind the mind there is your reality — you can call it soul, spirit, God or whatsoever you will.

My concern here is to help you to penetrate to that core. Once you have known that everything will settle in your life — because with that awareness you will be watchful of the body and you will be watchful of the mind, and all that is ugly will simply disappear.

That is the miracle of spiritual experiences: all that is ugly simply disappears, and all that is beautiful is enhanced. The evil disappears and the good is enhanced. The world and the worldly desires are no more relevant to you — a totally new dimension opens up.

-Osho

From Philosophia Perennis, V.2, Chapter Five

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

An audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

A PDF file of this book can be downloaded from Osho World.

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For Ayn Rand There Was No Mystery – Osho

May 18, 2012 by premG

Ayn Rand, the originator of objectivism philosophy, went mad and committed suicide. How could this happen to such a rare, logical mind?

Precisely! It happened because of such a logical, rational mind. The rational mind cannot go beyond suicide and madness. That is the ultimate that has to happen. If some logical person is not mad it simply means that he is not logical enough. If some logical person has not committed suicide yet, it simply means that he is mediocre. He has not touched the pinnacle of logicality. If you reach to the pinnacle of logicality, life loses all meaning – because logic cannot give any meaning. Logic takes away all meaning. Logic is destructive, poisonous.

It is love that gives meaning to life, it is love that blooms and flowers, it is love that sings and dances; it is love that becomes celebration. A logical mind by and by loses all possibility of loving – because love is so illogical it cannot exist with logic. They prohibit each other, they exclude each other. If you love, you become illogical; if you are very logical, you become unloving. And without love, what is there to live by, to live with, to live for? What is there?

Ayn Rand was a very egoistic, rationalistic, realistic woman. Her philosophy is that of absolute selfishness. If you are absolutely selfish, how can you be loving? It is impossible. Her philosophy is absolutely realistic, materialistic. When there is only matter, what is there to bloom into? There is no soul. All search disappears. Life is flat and dull. There is no mystery. With the soul enters mystery and life. With mystery there is joy, because there is a possibility to enquire, to explore, to expand.

There is a possibility that something may happen, can happen.

Man is more than he knows. You are more than you know. Not only that, you are more than you can ever know, because your intrinsic reality remains mysterious, always remains unknown, unknowable.

You can go on knowing more and more and more but that does not reduce your mystery. That’s what we mean by soul – utterly mysterious. For Ayn Rand there was no mystery. When there is no mystery, how can there be life? Then what is there to live for? Suicide seems to be the logical conclusion. And if you don’t commit suicide, then madness is the conclusion. Those seem to be the two alternatives. Either go mad – mad means go illogical, drop your rational mind – or commit suicide, drop this useless life.

Jean-Paul Sartre has said: ‘Man is a useless passion.’ Now my feeling is that Sartre is not very, very logical, otherwise he would have committed suicide. If man is a useless passion, if there is no meaning in it, if life is meaninglessness, then why go on living? Why think of tomorrow – that you would like to exist tomorrow? That is very irrational. If nothing is going to happen, if nothing has ever happened, if nothing happens in the very reality, then why go on living? Why go on eating and why go on sleeping and getting up again and again? It is nauseating.

Another book of Sartre’s is Nausea. But it seems it is still philosophical, he has not taken it existentially – otherwise suicide would be the logical conclusion to the philosophy. Beware. These possibilities are in you too. If you become too logical, madness or suicide or both will be the conclusion.

That’s why I teach you love not logic, feeling not reasoning, heart not mind. Then life has such beauty, such beatitude, such joy, that one cannot contain it. It is so much, it is so over-flowing, so overwhelming.

You ask me: Ayn Rand, the originator of objectivism philosophy, went mad and committed suicide. How could this happen to such a rare, logical mind?

I say ’Precisely. ’

-Osho

From Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol. 2, Chapter Ten

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

An audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

A PDF file of this book can be downloaded from Osho World.

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What Is Meditation – Osho

May 14, 2012 by premG

Meditation is a state of no-mind. Meditation is a state of pure consciousness with no content. Ordinarily, your consciousness is too full of rubbish, just like a mirror covered with dust. The mind is a constant traffic: thoughts are moving, desires are moving, memories are moving, ambitions are moving – it is a constant traffic! Day in, day out. Even when you are asleep the mind is functioning, it is dreaming. It is still thinking; it is still in worries and anxieties. It is preparing for the next day; an underground preparation is going on.

This is the state of no meditation. Just the opposite is meditation. When there is no traffic and thinking has ceased, no thoughts move, no desire stirs, you are utterly silent – that silence is meditation. And in that silence truth is known, and never otherwise. Meditation is a state of no-mind.

And you cannot find meditation through the mind, because mind will perpetuate itself. You can find meditation only by putting the mind aside, by being cool, indifferent, unidentified with the mind; by seeing the mind pass, but not getting identified with it, not thinking that I am it.

Meditation is the awareness that I am not the mind. When the awareness goes deeper and deeper in you, slowly, slowly, a few moments arrive – moments of silence, moments of pure space, moments of transparency, moments when nothing stirs in you and everything is still. In those still moments you will know who you are, and you will know the mystery of this existence. A day comes, a day of great blessings, when meditation becomes your natural state.

Mind is something unnatural; it never becomes your natural state. But meditation is a natural state – which we have lost. It is a paradise lost, but the paradise can be regained. Look into the child’s eyes, look and you will see tremendous silence, innocence. Each child comes with a meditative state, but he has to be initiated into the ways of the society – he has to be taught how to think, how to calculate, how to reason, how to argue; he has to be taught words, language, concepts. And, slowly, slowly, he loses contact with his own innocence. He becomes contaminated, polluted by the society. He becomes an efficient mechanism; he is no more a man.

All that is needed is to regain that space once more. You have known it before, so when for the first time you know meditation, you will be surprised – because a great feeling will arise in you as if you have known it before. And that feeling is true: you have known it before. You have forgotten. The diamond is lost in piles of rubbish. But if you can uncover it, you will find the diamond again – it is yours.

It cannot really be lost: it can only be forgotten. We are born as meditators, then we learn the ways of the mind. But our real nature remains hidden somewhere deep down like an undercurrent. Any day, a little digging, and you will find the source still flowing, the source of fresh waters. And the greatest joy in life is to find it.

-Osho

Excerpt from Philosophia Perennis, Volume 2, Chapter Five

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

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No-Mind is Not Against Mind – Osho

May 11, 2012 by premG

I have been thinking all day of a way to ask the question: How to stop thinking?

Thinking cannot be stopped—not that it does not stop, but it cannot be stopped. It stops of its own accord. This distinction has to be understood; otherwise you can go mad chasing your mind.

No-mind does not arise by stopping thinking. When the thinking is no more, no-mind is.

The very effort to stop will create more anxiety, it will create conflict, it will make you split. You will be in a constant turmoil within. This is not going to help.

And even if you succeed in stopping it forcibly for a few moments, it is not an achievement at all—because those few moments will be almost dead, they will not be alive. You may feel a sort of stillness, but not silence, because a forced stillness is not silence. Underneath it, deep in the unconscious, the repressed mind goes on working.

So, there is no way to stop the mind. But the mind stops—that is certain. It stops of its own accord.

So what to do?—the question is relevant. Watch. Don’t try to stop. There is no need to do any action against the mind. In the first place, who will do it? It will be mind fighting mind itself; you will divide your mind into two: one that is trying to be the boss, the top dog, trying to kill the other part of itself—which is absurd. It is a foolish game. It can drive you crazy. Don’t try to stop the mind or the thinking—just watch it, allow it. Allow it total freedom. Let it run as fast as it wants. You don’t try in any way to control it. You just be a witness.

It is beautiful! Mind is one of the most beautiful mechanisms. Science has not yet been able to create anything parallel to mind. Mind still remains the masterpiece, so complicated, so tremendously powerful, with so many potentialities. Watch it! Enjoy it!

And don’t watch like an enemy, because if you look at the mind like an enemy, you cannot watch. You are already prejudiced; you are already against. You have already decided that something is wrong with the mind—you have already concluded. And whenever you look at somebody as an enemy you never look deep, you never look into the eyes; you avoid!

Watching the mind means look at it with deep love, with deep respect, reverence—it is God’s gift to you! Nothing is wrong in mind itself. Nothing is wrong in thinking itself. It is a beautiful process as other processes are. Clouds moving in the sky are beautiful—why not thoughts moving into the inner sky? Flowers coming to the trees are beautiful—why not thoughts flowering into your being. The river running to the ocean is beautiful—why not this stream of thoughts running somewhere to an unknown destiny? Is it not beautiful? Look with deep reverence. Don’t be a fighter — be a lover.

Watch  the subtle nuances of the mind, the sudden turns, the beautiful turns, the sudden jumps and leaps; the games that mind goes on playing; the dreams that it weaves—the imagination, the memory; the thousand and one projections that it creates. Watch! Standing there, aloof, distant, not involved, by and by you will start feeling… The deeper your watchfulness becomes, the deeper your awareness becomes, and gaps start arising, intervals. One thought goes and another has not come, and there is a gap. One cloud has passed, another is coming and there is a gap.

In those gaps, for the first time you will have glimpses of no-mind, you will have the taste of no-mind—call it the taste of Zen, or Tao, or Yoga. In those small intervals, suddenly the sky is clear and the sun is shining. Suddenly the world is full of mystery, because all barriers are dropped; the screen on your eyes is no more there. You see clearly, you see penetratingly. The whole existence becomes transparent.

In the beginning, these will be just rare moments, few and far in between. But they will give you glimpses of what samadhi is. Small pools of silence—they will come and they will disappear. But now you know that you are on the right track. You start watching again. When a thought passes, you watch it; when an interval passes, you watch it. Clouds are also beautiful; sunshine also is beautiful. Now you are not a chooser. Now you don’t have a fixed mind: you don’t say, “I would like only the intervals.” That is stupid – because once you become attached to wanting only the intervals, you have decided again against thinking. And then those intervals will disappear. They happen only when you are very distant, aloof. They happen, they cannot be brought. They happen; you cannot force them to happen. They are spontaneous happenings.

Go on watching. Let thoughts come and go—wherever they want to go. Nothing is wrong! Don’t try to manipulate and don’t try to direct. Let thoughts move in total freedom. And then bigger intervals will be coming. You will be blessed with small satoris. Sometimes minutes will pass and no thought will be there; there will be no traffic—a total silence, undisturbed.

When the bigger gaps come, you will not only have clarity to see into the world – with the bigger gaps you will have a new clarity arising—you will be able to see into the inner world. With the first gaps you will see into the world—trees will be more green than they look right now. You will be surrounded by an infinite music — the music of the spheres. You will suddenly be in the presence of godliness—ineffable, mysterious. Touching you, although you cannot grasp it. Within your reach and yet beyond. With the bigger gaps, the same will happen inside. God will not only be outside, you will be suddenly surprised—he is inside also. He is not only in the seen; he is in the seer also—within and without. By and by…

But don’t get attached to that either. Attachment is the food for the mind to continue. Non-attached witnessing is the way to stop it without any effort to stop it. And when you start enjoying those blissful moments, your capacity to retain them for longer periods arises. Finally, eventually, one day, you become master. Then when you want to think, you think; if thought is needed, you use it; if thought is not needed, you allow it to rest. Not that mind is simply no longer there—mind is there, but you can use it or not use it. Now it is your decision. Just like legs: if you want to run you use them; if you don’t want to run you simply rest. The legs are there. In the same way, mind is always there.

When I am talking to you I am using the mind—there is no other way to talk. When I am answering your question I am using the mind—there is no other way. I have to respond and relate, and mind is a beautiful mechanism. When I am not talking to you and I am alone, there is no mind—because it is a medium to relate through. Sitting alone it is not needed.

You have not given it a rest; hence, the mind becomes mediocre. Continuously used, tired, it goes on and on and on. Day it works; night it works—in the day you think; in the night you dream. Day in, day out, it goes on working. If you live for seventy or eighty years it will be continuously working.

Look at the delicacy and the endurability of the mind — so delicate! In a small head all the libraries of the world can be contained; all that has ever been written can be contained in one single mind. Tremendous is the capacity of the mind—and in such a small space! And not making much noise. If scientists someday become capable of creating a parallel computer to mind… computers are there, but they are not yet minds. They are still mechanisms, they have no organic unity; they don’t have any center yet. If some day it becomes possible—and it is possible that scientists may someday be able to create minds—then you will know how much space that computer will take, and how much noise it will make.

Mind is making almost no noise; goes on working silently, and such a servant!—for seventy, eighty years. And then, too, when you are dying your body may be old but your mind remains young. Its capacity remains yet the same. Sometimes, if you have used it rightly, it even increases with your age—because the more you know, the more you understand, the more you have experienced and lived, the more capable your mind becomes. When you die, everything in your body is ready to die—except the mind.

That’s why in the East we say mind leaves the body and enters another womb, because it is not yet ready to die. The rebirth is of the mind. Once you have attained the state of samadhi, no-mind, then there will be no rebirth. Then you will simply die. And with your dying, everything will be dissolved—your body, your mind—only your witnessing soul will remain. That is beyond time and space. Then you become one with existence; then you are no more separate from it. The separation comes from the mind. But there is no way to stop it forcibly—don’t be violent. Move lovingly, with a deep reverence, and it will start happening of its own accord. You just watch, and don’t be in a hurry.

The modern mind is in much hurry. It wants instant methods for stopping the mind.

Hence, drugs have appeal. You can force the mind to stop by using chemicals, drugs, but again you are being violent with the mechanism. It is not good. It is destructive. In this way you are not going to become a master. You may be able to stop the mind through the drugs, but then drugs will become your master—you are not going to become the master. You have simply changed your bosses, and you have changed for the worse. Now the drugs will hold power over you, they will possess you; without them you will be nowhere.

Meditation is not an effort against the mind. It is a way of understanding the mind. It is a very loving way of witnessing the mind—but, of course, one has to be very patient. This mind that you are carrying in your head has arisen over centuries, millennia. Your small mind carries the whole experience of humanity—and not only of humanity: of animals, of birds, of plants, of rocks. You have passed through all those experiences. All that has happened up to now has happened in you also.

In a very small nutshell, you carry the whole experience of existence. That’s what your mind is. In fact, to say it is yours is not right: it is collective; it belongs to us all. Modern psychology has been approaching it, particularly Jungian analysis has been approaching it, and they have started feeling something like a collective unconscious. Your mind is not yours — it belongs to us all. Our bodies are very separate; our minds are not so separate. Our bodies are clearly separate; our minds overlap—and our souls are one.

Bodies separate, minds overlapping, and souls are one. I don’t have a different soul and you don’t have a different soul. At the very center of existence we meet and are one. That’s what God is: the meeting-point of all. Between the God and the world—the “world’ means the bodies—is mind.

Mind is a bridge: a bridge between the body and the soul, between the world and God. Don’t try to destroy it!

Many have tried to destroy it through Yoga. That is a misuse of Yoga. Many have tried to destroy it through body postures, breathing—that too brings subtle chemical changes inside. For example, if you stand on your head in shirshasan, in the headstand, you can destroy the mind very easily. Because when the blood rushes too much, like a flood, into the head—when you stand on your head that’s what you are trying to do. The brain mechanism is very delicate. You are flooding it with blood, the delicate tissues will die. That’s why you never come across a very intelligent yogi. No—yogis are, more or less, stupid. Their bodies are healthy, that’s true, strong—but their minds are just dead. You will not see the glimmer of intelligence. You will see a very robust body, animal-like, but somehow the human has disappeared.

Standing on your head, you are forcing your blood into the head through gravitation. The head needs blood, but in a very, very small quantity; and slowly, not floodlike. Against gravitation, very little blood reaches to the head, and that, too, in a very silent way. If too much blood is reaching into the head it is destructive.

Yoga has been used to kill the mind. Breathing can be used to kill the mind—there are rhythms of breath, subtle vibrations of breath, that can be very, very drastic to the delicate mind. The mind can be destroyed through them. These are old tricks. Now the latest tricks are supplied by science: LSD, marijuana, and others; more and more sophisticated drugs will be available sooner or later.

I am not in favor of stopping the mind. I am in favor of watching it. It stops of its own accord—and then it is beautiful when something happens without any violence it has a beauty of its own, it has a natural growth. You can force a flower and open it by force; you can pull the petals of a bud and open it by force, but you have destroyed the beauty of the flower. Now it is almost dead. It cannot stand your violence. The petals will be hanging loose, limp, dying. When the bud opens by its own energy, when it opens of its own accord, then those petals are alive.

The mind is your flowering—don’t force it in any way. I am against all force and against all violence, and particularly violence that is directed towards yourself.

Just watch—in deep prayer, love, reverence—and see what happens! Miracles happen of their own accord. There is no need to pull and push.

You ask: How to stop thinking? I say: Just watch, be alert. And drop this idea of stopping; otherwise it will stop the natural transformation of the mind. Drop this idea of stopping! Who are you to stop?

At the most, enjoy. And nothing is wrong—even if immoral thoughts, so-called immoral thoughts, pass through your mind, let them pass. Nothing is wrong. You remain detached, no harm is being done. It is just fiction; you are seeing an inner movie. Allow it its own way and it will lead you, by and by, to the state of no-mind. Watching ultimately culminates in no-mind.

No-mind is not against mind: no-mind is beyond mind. No-mind does not come by killing and destroying the mind: no-mind comes when you have understood the mind so totally that thinking is no longer needed—your understanding has replaced it.

-Osho

From A Sudden Clash of Thunder, Chapter Two

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

An audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

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Listening and Watching – Ilie Cioara

May 7, 2012 by premG

Listening and Watching

Be still, stop, be attentive – an all-encompassing attention!

Neither past nor future, be with the present moment;

Between you and what you listen to, let thoughts, images disappear,

Be just pure listening, a whole being, boundless.

The divine instrument – observation – alive and crystal clear,

You listen and watch, outside and inside yourself;

The whole thinking is mute – a tomb-like silence,

There are no expectations, no ideal projections.

All these will create in you a perfect order,

Body and mind, the whole being, in a direct relationship,

Able to understand any life phenomenon

In a certain, real and profound way, as ephemeral as it may be.

Such a simple meeting is pure meditation,

Practice this all the time, in every circumstance;

Start and end with a total silence,

The whole being in harmony – in a timeless state.

This peace gives you an ever-renewing mind,

Completely detached from the old, integrating in the present;

Psychologically, you are without center, boundless, you are Immensity itself,

Able to embrace the Eternity of the moment.

Through these simple meetings, the old man starts to crumble,

A crack appears in the egoic structure,

Through it, the accumulated energies start to leak and disappear,

They were holding you prisoner from times immemorial.

The Liberation started thus is continued, in time, until in the end,

When the “ego”, the sad conditioning, perishes,

The Spark – the Sacred within us – returns to the Source,

Sooner or later this is everyone’s fate: total Liberation.

Here lies the whole secret of knowing oneself,

Mystery intertwined with spontaneous action;

The only one which transforms, and finally liberates

The conditioned being from its degrading “ego”.

Always remember that knowledge keeps you prisoner,

Be quick to understand its unintelligent nature;

Give all your respect to the moment – meet it with humbleness,

Through it, wonders open into the Infinite world.

-Ilie Cioara

From The Silence of the Mind: Experiencing the Mystery of the Present Moment, page 3

This book is available from Amazon.

There are more postings from Ilie Cioara here.

You can read an interview about  the Romanian Sage, Ilie Cioara here.

And there is more to be found on clearsightblog.

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Buddha’s Way was Vipassana – Osho

May 5, 2012 by premG

Buddha’s way was VIPASSANA — vipassana means witnessing. And he found one of the greatest devices ever: the device of watching your breath, just watching your breath. Breathing is such a simple and natural phenomenon and it is there twenty-four hours a day. You need not make any effort. If you repeat a mantra then you will have to make an effort, you will have to force yourself. If you say, “Ram, Ram, Ram,” you will have to continuously strain yourself. And you are bound to forget many times. Moreover, the word ‘Ram’ is again something of the mind, and anything of the mind can never lead you beyond the mind.

Buddha discovered a totally different angle: just watch your breath — the breath coming in, the breath going out. There are four points to be watched. Sitting silently just start seeing the breath, feeling the breath. The breath going in is the first point. Then for a moment when the breath is in it stops — a very small moment it is — for a split second it stops; that is the second point to watch. Then the breath turns and goes out; this is the third point to watch. Then again when the breath is completely out, for a split second it stops; that is the fourth point to watch. Then the breath starts coming in again… this is the circle of breath.

If you can watch all these four points you will be surprised, amazed at the miracle of such a simple process — because mind is not involved. Watching is not a quality of the mind; watching is the quality of the soul, of consciousness; watching is not a mental process at all. When you watch, the mind stops, ceases to be. Yes, in the beginning many times you will forget and the mind will come in and start playing its old games. But whenever you remember that you had forgotten, there is no need to feel repentant, guilty — just go back to watching, again and again go back to watching your breath. Slowly, slowly, less and less mind interferes.

And when you can watch your breath for forty-eight minutes as a continuum, you will become enlightened. You will be surprised — just forty-eight minutes — because you will think that it is not very difficult… just forty-eight minutes! It is very difficult. Forty-eight seconds and you will have fallen victim to the mind many times. Try it with a watch in front of you; in the beginning you cannot be watchful for sixty seconds. In just sixty seconds, that is one minute, you will fall asleep many times, you will forget all about watching — the watch and the watching will both be forgotten. Some idea will take you far, far away; then suddenly you will realize… you will look at the watch and ten seconds have passed. For ten seconds you were not watching. But slowly, slowly — it is a knack; it is not a practice, it is a knack – slowly, slowly you imbibe it, because those few moments when you are watchful are of such exquisite beauty, of such tremendous joy, of such incredible ecstasy, that once you have tasted those few moments you would like to come back again and again — not for any other motive, just for the sheer joy of being there, present to the breath.

Remember, it is not the same process as is done in yoga. In yoga the process is called pranayam; it is a totally different process, in fact just the opposite of what Buddha calls vipassana. In pranayam you take deep breaths, you fill your chest with more and more air, more and more oxygen; then you empty your chest as totally as possible of all carbon dioxide. It is a physical exercise — good for the body but it has nothing to do with vipassana. In vipassana you are not to change the rhythm of your natural breath, you are not to take long, deep breaths, you are not to exhale in any way differently than you ordinarily do. Let it be absolutely normal and natural. Your whole consciousness has to be on one point; watching.

And if you can watch your breath then you can start watching other things too. Walking you can watch that you are walking, eating you can watch that you are eating, and ultimately, finally, you can watch that you are sleeping. The day you can watch that you are sleeping you are transported into another world. The body goes on sleeping and inside a light goes on burning brightly. Your watchfulness remains undisturbed, then twenty-four hours a day there is an undercurrent of watching. You go on doing things… for the outside world nothing has changed, but for you everything has changed.

-Osho

From The Dhammapada, Volume 5, Chapter One.

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

An audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

A PDF file of this book can be downloaded from Osho World.

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