The Third Eye and “Who am I” – Osho

The other night, following the energy between by eyes, I went into myself, looking for “Who am I?” At a certain point I found myself immersed in great nothingness. The sensation was very strong. I couldn’t go on; I felt so afraid of this emptiness that I stopped. Osho, what is this energy that is felt between the eyes? Is it the so-called “third-eye”? If this was the right way, why was I so afraid and trembling?

Ramaprem, this is the right way. That’s why you became so afraid, because the right way means a certain death, the death of your ego, the death of your personality as you have known it, and the beginning and the birth of your essential self. But the death comes first, hence the fear and trembling. The resurrection comes later.

You have been in a very beautiful space. This is the third eye that in the East has been talked about for at least ten thousand years. It is only symbolic. You have two eyes to see the world of duality – the day and night, the beautiful and the ugly, the true and the false. The whole world consists of dualities. The third eye is a poetic and symbolic expression that your two eyes have become one, that all duality has disappeared.

For the outside world two eyes are needed, for the inside world only a single clear vision – because inside there is no duality, there is only oneness.

Your question is, “The other night, following the energy between my eyes, I went into myself looking for ‘Who am I?’ At a certain point I found myself immersed in great nothingness.” These are the spaces if you go inside. But this nothingness is not negative; just a little more acquaintance with it and you will be surprised: it appeared as nothingness because there was nothing that you have ever known before or even dreamt before. But once you become acquainted with the nothingness you start feeling an immense fulfillment, an overflowing energy. This nothingness is the beginning of fullness and wholeness.

“The sensation,” you say, “was very strong. I couldn’t go on; I felt so afraid of this emptiness that I stopped.” Just be a little more intelligent.

The nothingness was surrounding you, but you were not nothing. You were witnessing it; you were separate from it. The emptiness may be surrounding you; it may be vast and may create trembling in you, but you are not it; otherwise who will become afraid and who will stop going forward? Who will turn back?

Your being is totally separate from the nothingness and emptiness that you have felt. If you had remembered only this much, “I am not it,” the fear would have disappeared. Perhaps next time, remember that you cannot be anything that you come across. You cannot come across yourself; you cannot meet yourself. So whatever you come across is separate from you. There is no need to be afraid.

But Ramaprem, it happens to almost everybody. You are alone, surrounded by nothingness, emptiness, and a deep fear arises that perhaps you are coming close to death, because in our minds the association with nothingness and emptiness is with death. But even death is not you. You pass through it; it is a passage. And if you are alert, you can pass through without any fear. On the contrary, you can enjoy the silence, the peace, the immensity, the infinity that is surrounding you. You are almost in an oceanic state of consciousness.

But now you know the door, the third eye. Travel more into it so that you become more and more acquainted, and nothingness, rather than making you afraid, will make you dance, because it is not destructive. It will give you individuality, it will give you freedom, and if you go on and on you will reach to your innermost center, which is life.

Death always happens to the body, but never to you.

And if you have found the deathless in you, all your fears, forever will disappear – and a man without fear is truly and authentically dignified. You will be proud that you have found the right path.

Very few people have traveled inwards because of this fear. As they move in, the fear stops them and they turn back into the mundane world where everything is ephemeral, where everything is going to die, where all that you possess is going to be taken away by death.

Death is impotent only against a person who knows himself. But before you can know yourself, you will have to pass through this beautiful space of nothingness, emptiness, aloneness. So rejoice and be grateful that a great experience has happened to you.

A Catholic priest visited a Catholic family. There was a little boy sitting very happily beside his cat, which had just given birth to six kittens.

The priest asked, “Why are you so happy?”

The boy said, “Because all the kittens happen to be good Catholics.” Very satisfied, the priest went home.

Two weeks later he visited the family again. As soon as the little boy saw him, he began crying desperately. “What’s the matter?” asked the priest. “Why are you so sad?”

The boy replied, sobbing, “The kittens are no longer Catholic.”

“How can you say that?” asked the priest.

The little boy replied, “They have all opened their eyes.”

The moment your inner eye starts opening, you will not be a Catholic, you will not be a Protestant, you will not be a Hindu, you will not be a Mohammedan, you will not be a Jew – you will be simply yourself; hence, all the organized religions have been avoiding the very subject.

The science of how to enter into yourself has been known for thousands of years, but no religion wants you to enter into yourself. They want you to look upwards at the sky for a fictitious God. If your inner eye remains closed, you are going to remain a Catholic, a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a communist, but once the inner eye opens, you start becoming free of all these fetters and all these imprisonments.

Every person has the potential, but you have been diverted into looking for God outside yourself – and He is sitting inside you. All the priests of the world are against God, because once you know that God is within you, the whole profession of the priesthood is finished. Churches will be empty, mosques will be empty, temples and synagogues will be empty, and the whole politics of numbers and the power that it brings to the priests will be gone.

You are only an individual without any adjective.

The world will be immensely beautiful if there are only individuals, not belonging to any religion or any political ideology, but belonging to their own inner self. That’s enough, more than enough. Belonging to life itself is the only true religion, the only truth that has to be discovered. And it is not far away, just a little fear has to be dropped.

And if you go on trying, as you will become acquainted with the beauties of nothingness, the fear is going to disappear automatically. You have accidentally found the right path – now don’t lose it.

Don’t become again a Catholic. Keep the eye open.

-Osho

From The Razor’s Edge, Discourse #30

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

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