It Was a Dream – Osho

A few years ago through yoga and meditation I experienced some peaks of prayer. My whole being felt the bliss of it—all was divine love, and thankfulness. For some reason I came out of it and now I find myself back in the dark valley. Somewhere things went wrong. It feels guilty and so arduous to stand up again. Please comment.

If your silence and your bliss is caused by anything, it is bound to disappear. That which is caused cannot be eternal. You managed it through yoga and meditation, but it was not a natural happening. It was artificial, it was arbitrary. It was as arbitrary as you can manage through chemical drugs, but the drug will wear off.

You have taken a certain quantity of LSD and you will feel blissed-out, and all is blissful and all is joy and life has immense beauty and splendor and trees are more green and roses are more red and every face looks radiant. Life is luminous, psychedelic. But the LSD is going to wear off. The next morning you will look and the trees are dusty again; that greenness is not there, that luminosity is not there. They are not illumined from within. You will see people’s faces—those dull, boring faces again. All is dusty, all is ordinary.

The same can happen through Yoga, the same can happen through fasting, the same can happen through any technique whatsoever. Techniques are good to give you a glimpse, but they can only give you a glimpse; it cannot become your state of affairs, it cannot become your consciousness.

So there is not a problem in it, it is simple. It was going to be lost, nothing is wrong with you. The only wrong thing is your attitude. You were thinking that through yoga and meditation you would be able to create something eternal. That is not possible. The eternal cannot be created. Anything that is created will fall one day or other, sooner or later.

The eternal comes to you uncreated. The eternal happens, is not done. When you have gone beyond techniques and methods, when you have dropped all techniques and all methods, when you have come to see one thing—that just to be is enough, nothing else is needed, that there is no need to make any arrangement, that all beings are Buddhas from the very beginning…. When you have understood this—that you are not to grow into something, that you are already there, it is already the case—then you relax.

And the relaxation should not be a method. You should not relax through a yoga posture. This very understanding is relaxing, this very understanding is relaxation. You relax, effort disappears. You live your ordinary life—you chop wood and you carry water from the well and you cook food and you eat and you sleep and you love and you live ordinarily with no hankering and no desire for anything extraordinary.

And then one day it is there, not of your making. One day it is suddenly there. One day you open your eyes and it is there—and then it never leaves. But it has to come on its own. Otherwise, managed by you, it will come and leave; it will be only a glimpse.

You ask: “A few years ago through Yoga and meditation I experienced some peaks of prayer.” They were created peaks, they were dreams and imaginations that you managed to have. “My whole being felt the bliss of it.” But you were there. You felt the bliss of it but you were there. You had not disappeared. “All was divine.” This is an interpretation.

The mind was functioning, the mind was saying, “All is divine”. You must have heard, you must have read. Your mind was interpreting—all is divine love and thankfulness. These were ideas floating in the mind.

But you were there, the memory was there, the past was there. Otherwise who would say ‘All is divine’? If all is really divine then what is the point of saying all is divine? If all is divine all is divine, there is no need to say even. Saying simply says that you know that all is not divine. Saying simply says that you are posing, imposing.

Yes, there must have been a kind of happiness created by meditation and yoga, there must have been a kind of joy, and on that joy you imposed your whole philosophy—that this is what God is, that this is divineness, that this is love and thankfulness. And for a few days you enjoyed your dream—it was a dream.

“For some reason I came out of it.” Not for some reason, it is very simple. You had to come out of it, you could not have lived in a dream forever—nobody can live in a dream forever. A dream is never forever, otherwise what will be the distinction between reality and dream? A dream is only for the moment. Sooner or later you wake up, you open your eyes and the dream is not there and the ordinary life is there.

“I came out of it and now I find myself back in the dark valley.” You were there at those sunlit peaks and you are there in the dark valleys. One thing is similar: you. Dark valleys or sunlit peaks, it does not matter; all that matters is you—the ego is there. The ego is in the dark valley, the ego is at the peak, and the ego goes on creating dreams.

Let me tell you one thing: even the dark valley is your dream and your imposition, your idea. There are no dark valleys. If all is divine, how can there be dark valleys? And if there are dark valleys, how can all be divine? There are neither dark valleys nor sunlit peaks; it is just the game of the ego. It goes on moving in polarities, from one point to another. When you see it—that the sweet dream is a dream, so is the nightmare, both are dreams—wake up and drop both the dreams. Then for the first time you have contact with reality.

But remember, in that moment when reality is there, you are not. That is the only criterion to understand, no other criterion exists. The only criterion is, if the experience is of reality you will not be found there, you cannot be found there. You will be utterly absent. Bliss will be there but you will not be there. There will be nobody to say “I am feeling bliss.” God will be there but you will not be there. There will be nobody to say “All is divine.” Let that be remembered.

-Osho

Excerpt from The Diamond Sutra, Discourse #6

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

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