What is the Difference Between No-Mind and My Mind? – Osho

What is the difference between no-mind and my mind?

Milarepa, the difference between no-mind and my-mind is the difference between your mind and my mind.

Just drop the “my” and there is no difference between no-mind and mind. “My” mind creates the boundary. Take the boundary away, and mind becomes no-mind, infinite, unbounded. You are an imprisoned splendor. Just take the prison away . . . And the prison is not much; it is of I, my, mine. Just be without these words surrounding you, and no-mind will give you the whole existence as an inheritance. Mind has poisoned you, but it has been able to poison you because you have become identified with it. You start calling it my-mind. Drop the my and you are separate from the mind — that was the bridge.

Separate who you are from the mind — just a pure presence, an utter silence, unmoving stillness . . . and in this space happens all that deep down you are all looking for, knowingly or unknowingly.

Three mice walked into a bar, sat down and began some serious drinking. All three became thoroughly drunk and in due course, each began to boast about how brave he was.

“I’m going to tell that dumb Ronald Reagan in the White House about some of his policies,” said the first mouse.

“That’s nothing,” sneered the second mouse. “I’m going over to the Kremlin and tell them just what I think about them.”

They both turned to the third mouse who was sitting there dreaming.

“Well, what are you going to do?” they demanded.

“Me, I’m going to screw the cat.”

This is your mind. Just drop the identity with the mind and you will be surprised beyond your wildest expectations what a tremendous treasure you have, inexhaustible. And when I am saying this, I am not saying it within quotation marks. When I am saying this, I am saying this on my own authority.

I am not authoritative, remember — one can get confused. The authoritative person is a person who wants to dominate. I am not an authoritative person, I have no desire to dominate; but what I am saying is with absolute authority. I am not quoting any scriptures; I am saying only what I have encountered within myself. The day I dropped the identity with the mind I became the no-mind. No-mind is the highest state of your consciousness.

Paddy and Sean were sitting in the bar when Paddy said, “You know, Sean, I have read so much lately about how smoking can ruin your health that I have finally decided to do something about it.”

“So, you are going to give up smoking?” asked Sean.

“Heavens no,” cried Paddy, “I am going to give up reading.”

So just be very alert. I am saying to drop the idea of my, mine — the identity. But you can misunderstand me, because misunderstanding does not need much intelligence. You can go on being identified with the mind. Your mind is capable of giving you the sense that you have arrived, that this is no-mind. It is so easy to deceive yourself that you have to be alerted again and again not to deceive yourself.

Just the other day I have received again a letter from a German sannyasin. Now he is asking for my blessings because he has become enlightened. Germans are very strong people, and once they get an idea, it is very difficult to change them. And this is not the first case!

It has happened before with another German sannyasin, Gunakar. He became at least six times enlightened and finally he dropped it. Whenever he would go to Germany he would become enlightened and from there — and he was rich, he had a beautiful castle in the mountains — he would write letters to all the presidents, to all the prime ministers of the world, to all the members of the U.N., “I have become enlightened. If you need any advice I am available.”

His letter would come to me also, “Osho, I thank you, you were right that enlightenment is our nature. I have become enlightened. I just need a recognition from you because nobody else believes in me.”

So I had to call him again and again. And when he would come and sit in front of me, and

I would say, “Gunakar, are you really enlightened?” he would say, “No.” He would say,

“It is strange. When I come to you I become unenlightened, and when I go back to

Germany I become enlightened again!”

This happened six times. Gautam Buddha became enlightened only once. In fact, people have never become enlightened even twice — once is more than enough. But mind is very cunning, it can give you all kinds of ideas.

Beware of your own mind.

If you can remain alert and not allow the mind to disturb your silence, your peace, slowly, slowly the mind stops bothering you. And the day the mind feels completely frustrated that you are no more listening to it, it evaporates. Its whole life is the life of a parasite. If you get identified with it, you are giving life to it, you are giving nourishment to it.

Just get unidentified. Let the mind be there, but remember, you are not it. Just this simple remembrance: I am not the mind. Not that you have to repeat it — because repetition will be done by the mind, that is the problem. Just a wordless awareness, I am not the mind . . . and no-mind will start opening its doors to you. And that is the beginning of the transformation.

-Osho

From The Osho Upanishad, Discourse #7

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