Inside, there is something that I cannot look at, I can only be it. And then I am at the center of experiencing my mind, my body, and what comes to my senses. This feels ecstatic, yet is very subtle, and easily disappears when I again identify with what is experienced. Is this my mind entering by a back door, or am I going in the right direction?
Prem Vijen, the experience that you are going through happens to everyone when he first comes into contact with his being. Our whole experience of the past is of identification. When you are full of anger, you don’t say, “I see anger in my mind,” you say “I am angry.” In fact you are not angry, you are just a watcher. The anger is on the screen of the mind.
But identification is the greatest spiritual disease. We get very easily identified because for centuries that has been our habit. So when for the first time you get out of identification, you become centered, naturally you cannot see your being, just as you cannot see your eyes.
To see your eyes you need a mirror and to see your being you need a master, or someone who is already totally centered. In his presence you may be able to see reflected – just as in a mirror things are reflected – your being. But you cannot see directly your being.
I have been telling you many functions of the master. This is one of the most subtle and perhaps the last function. The master is already settled. You are wavering: one moment you are at the center, then you can see your body and your mind and your thoughts and feelings. There is a gap between you and your body-mind system. But the gap is very small and very fresh, and the habit of being identified is very old and very strong.
So one moment you feel you are the being . . . but the very desire to see the being disturbs the whole thing. You cannot see it. You need a mirror to see it, and no ordinary mirror will do. You need a mirror of consciousness… And then too you will not be seeing your being, just the reflection of it.
In the completely silent and settled lake of somebody’s consciousness, you may be able to see a reflection of your being. But to try to see your being alone is not possible; it just is not in the nature of things. You can be the being – you are the being. You can experience the ecstasy of being there at the very center; you can feel immense joy, fulfillment, contentment. But the moment the desire to see it arises you have already slipped out of it, you have come back into the mind.
Because the gap is very small you will not even be aware when you are slipping. But it is a tremendously significant experience that you are going through. If the gap is small today, tomorrow it may be bigger. If the gap has already happened, the day is not far away when the desire to see yourself will disappear.
You will simply be yourself, full of ecstasy. And as you become centered, everything else – your body, your mind, your thoughts – will go on becoming farther away from you. Just a little patience, and just a little awareness . . .
You say, “It is very subtle and easily disappears when I again identify with what is experienced.”
Being is never experienced. Experience means a memory, it is already past. Being is always a process of experiencing.
Perhaps the word experiencing does not exist in the dictionaries, but that’s exactly the existential situation. It is always a process which goes on deepening. You can never come to a moment when you can say, “I have experienced.” That will be the moment when you have fallen out of the flow of experiencing.
“Is this my mind,” you are asking, “entering by a back door, or am I going in the right direction?”
Both are true. When you are centered within yourself and feeling ecstatic, you are going in the right direction. The moment you start thinking about it, what this experience is, how to see it, the mind is coming from the back door.
You have to avoid the mind completely. As far as you are concerned, there is no enemy in the whole world except mind. Mind is your enemy for the simple reason that your whole experience of past is accumulated there.
And you have always experienced identification . . . You say, “I am thirsty, I am hungry,” without ever thinking what you are saying. Just look at the process: are you really hungry, or are you aware that there is hunger in your body? Are you really thirsty, or can you experience the thirst in your throat, in your body?
But because of the language which has been made up by people who are not enlightened . . . There exists no enlightened language in the world yet – and perhaps never will exist – for the simple reason that language is needed for communication.
There are only three possibilities of communication. Two ignorant persons can communicate very easily; they are in the same boat. They are surrounded by the same darkness, their identifications are same.
Secondly, communication is a little difficult, but can happen, between an enlightened person and one who is ignorant. The difficulty is created by the ignorant person, because he knows the language of ignorance but he does not know the language of enlightenment; hence, constant misunderstanding.
But the enlightened people of the world have tried their hardest somehow to reach you. They have succeeded in reaching a few people only. The task seems to be immensely difficult.
And there is a third possibility – two enlightened people. But they will sit in silence, that is their communication. So I don’t see any possibility that there will ever be an enlightened language.
The language that we have created is basically faulty. For example, when you say “the tree,” you make a noun of a process. The tree is not static; it is treeing, it is growing. Even when you see with your own eyes a river flowing, you don’t use the word rivering, you use the word river. River makes it something static. It never is – not even for a single moment. It is constantly flowing; that’s its intrinsic nature.
The same is true about everything that we have made static. You are growing, even this very moment. When you came this morning to see me you were younger; now you are a little older. By the time you will be going, you will be very much older.
Existence consists not of nouns and pronouns; existence consists only of processes. Hence, we cannot use the word experience; we can only use the word experiencing. We cannot use the word love; we can only use the word loving. We cannot use the word friendship, we can only use the word friendliness.
But then talking with people will become impossible: “I am coming from rivering. On the way I saw many people becoming old . . . ” People will think you have gone cuckoo. In fact you are stating the actual facticity, the very existential nature of things, beings. Everything is always in constant movement; howsoever slow, the movement is there.
You have to learn something very basic that in the inward world, please, don’t use the wrong language. The wrong language is not only a mistaken language; it becomes your mind also. And your mind is full of all wrong identifications of the past.
You are entering into a totally new territory of your being. This territory belongs to no language, it belongs only to silence. So when it happens, remain utterly silent and relish it. Rejoice in it, feel it, taste it, but don’t try to see it. Don’t try to figure out what is happening. Don’t bring your logic in and don’t bring your old intellectual acumen to try to understand something which is beyond intellect.
Soon the gaps will become bigger, and a day finally comes, Vijen, when you are settled and nothing can distract you from your being. You will see your mind and you will see your body, but on the periphery. And even when they are taken away, killed and destroyed, you will not be affected because you are no more identified.
It is the identification that has to be understood.
A man had a very beautiful house that even the king wanted to purchase. He had made it with such love – he himself was an architect – and the king was jealous because even his palace was not so beautiful. All sorts of rich people had offered that whatever money he wanted he could have, but the man always refused. The palace that he had made was a small palace, hidden in a thick garden, with shrubs, rosebushes. One day he had gone out and when he came home there was a vast crowd and his house was on fire. Either it may have been the conspiracy of the king or the conspiracy of other people who were very jealous of his house. He was an old man, but tears started flowing from his . . . eyes. It was not just a house for him, it was his very creativity. He was so identified with it, as if it was not the house burning but him. Such a deep attachment . . .
And then his son came running and told him, “Father, you need not cry for that house. Last night I sold it to the king. He was offering any price we want and there was no question of any negotiation, so I asked three times the price. We can make a house three times bigger, and then the king will know . . . It is already old and you have so many new ideas, it is a good opportunity.”
The moment he heard that the house was sold, tears disappeared. In fact he started laughing – this is a great coincidence. He started talking with son and with his neighbors, “Perhaps I may purchase the land back, because what is the king going to do with the land? And I will make a three times bigger and more beautiful palace.” He started already dreaming about the future, and the palace was burning.
His second son came running and he told him, “Yes, my older brother is right. We had agreed to sell, but it was only verbal. Neither had the money been given to us, nor had even a sales deed been written. We were waiting for you.” Again the tears came – because now the king is not going to purchase it, he is not going to give the money. He forgot all about the palace three times bigger and he was again crying like a small child. What happened?
The attachment . . . the identification . . . the moment you are unidentified with your body, even if the body is on the funeral pyre there will be no problem for you. It is as if somebody else is being burned.
You can also stand by the side in the crowd and nobody will see you.
To be in the being, more and more one has to learn un-identification with everything. Use everything but don’t get attached. I have been telling you to be in the world but don’t be of the world. Be in the world, but don’t let the world enter in you. I have been saying the same thing in other words. Don’t be identified. Use this whole existence, but don’t be possessive. Remain aloof, aware and silently watching.
A man had been bitten by a dog, but did not give it much thought until he noticed that the wound was taking a remarkably long time to heal. Finally he consulted a doctor who took one look at the wound and ordered the dog brought in.
Just as the doctor suspected, the dog had rabies. Since it was too late to give the patient a serum the doctor felt he had to prepare him for the worst.
The poor man sat down at the doctor’s desk and began to write. The physician tried to comfort him.
“Perhaps it won’t be so bad,” he said. “You needn’t make out your will right now.”
“I’m not making out my will or anything,” replied the man. “I’m just writing out a list of people I’m
going to bite.”
This is awareness. Even in such a bad situation he is not identified with the body or death or anything. He is calm and cool and writing a list of the people in the city, all of whom at least he will bite before dying. A very alert mind, a very centered being.
-Osho
From Satyam Shivam Sundram, Discourse #25
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how does one describe WOW!!