I Have No Name – Osho

An old poem of J. Krishnamurti:

I have no name,
I am as the fresh breeze of the mountains.

I have no shelter;
I am as the wandering waters.

I have no sanctuary, like the dark gods;
Nor am I in the shadow of deep temples.

I have no sacred books;
Nor am I well-seasoned in tradition.

I am not in the incense
Mounting on the high altars,
Nor in the pomp of ceremonies.

I am neither in the graven image,
Nor in the rich chant of a melodious voice.

I am not bound by theories,
Nor corrupted by beliefs.

I am not held in the bondage of religions,
Nor in the pious agony of their priests.

I am not entrapped by philosophies,
Nor held in the power of their sects.

I am neither low nor high,
I am the worshipper and the worshipped.

I am free.

My song is the song of the river
Calling for the open seas,
Wandering, wandering,
I am Life.

I have no name,
I am as the fresh breeze of the mountains. 

Truth has no name, and truth is not confined in any system of thought. Truth is not a theory, a theology, a philosophy. Truth is the experience of that which is. Truth is not intellectual or emotional; truth is existential.

These are the three layers of human consciousness. The first is the intellectual: it theorizes, it spins and weaves beautiful words but with no meaning at all. It is a very cunning part, very deceptive. It can make you believe in words as if they have some substance. It talks about God, truth, freedom, love, meditation, but it only talks; it is just words and words and words. Those words are empty shells; if you look deep down into them, they are hollow.

This part goes on decorating; it uses big jargon to hide its inner emptiness. And our whole education – social, religious, cultural – consists only of words. It only cultivates the intellectual part of our being, which is the most superficial. Through the intellect you cannot reach to the divine, through the, intellect you will be lost in the jungle of words. That’s how millions of people are lost. Between you and God the greatest barrier is your so-called intellect. Remember, your intellect is not intelligence. Intelligence is a totally different matter.

Intellect is a pseudo coin; it pretends to be intelligence but it is not. And because you don’t know the real you are easily deceived by the unreal, by the pseudo. Beware of the intellectual layer of your being, which is the most developed; that is the danger. The most superficial is the most cultivated. The most superficial is the most nourished. From the school to the university, the superficial is being nourished, strengthened. And slowly, slowly you get caught up in it, you become entrapped. Then people think about love; they don’t feel, they only think.

Krishnamurti relates an incident which happened when he was travelling in a car. The car accidentally knocked down a poor animal, but two persons inside the car did not notice what had happened because they were engrossed in a conversation on how to be aware!

This is the situation of the majority of humanity.

God is present everywhere. Wherever you turn, He is. Open your eyes, He is, close your eyes and He is – because nothing else exists. God means isness.

Anything that participates in existence is divine. But you don’t see; you go on talking about God, discussing. You have become so clever in hair-splitting, in logic-chopping. You have become so full of rubbish, which you call knowledge, because you can repeat the Vedas, the Koran, the Bible, like parrots.

You have to be aware of this dangerous layer that surrounds you like a hard shell.

Krishnamurti is right when he says, “I have no name . . .”

The word “God” is not God, and the word “love” is not love either. If you become too much engrossed in the word “god” you will go on missing God forever. If you become too much intrigued by the word “love” then you can go to the library, you can consult all the books – and there are millions written about love by people who don’t know anything about love – you can collect great information about love, but to know about love is not to know love. Knowing love is a totally different dimension.

Knowledge about love is very simple; you can become a walking encyclopedia. You can know all the theories of love without ever testing any theory in your experience, without ever living a single moment of love, without any taste of what love is.

I am as the fresh breeze of the mountains . . .

God is neither old nor new, or, God is the most ancient and as fresh as the dewdrops in the early morning sun – because only God is. God is non-temporal; it does not belong to the dimension of time. Hence you cannot call it old or new – it is fresh, virgin. You need not go into the scriptures. You certainly have to go into the breeze that is passing through the pine trees; you certainly have to go into the fragrance that is being released by the flowers. Now . . .! You have to go into this moment with your total being, you have to relax here-now, and all the scriptures will be revealed to you. The Vedas and the Gitas and the Korans will be sung in [the] deepest core of your being. Then you will know that all the scriptures are true; but first your own inner scripture has to be known, understood.

I have no shelter;
I am as the wandering waters.

God is life – hence God is movement, hence God is constant change; that is the paradox of existence. It is something that never changes and yet constantly changes. At the innermost core everything remains the same, but on the circumference, nothing is ever the same. God is change and no-change. God is eternity and flux.

If you look at the world, you look at the manifest God, which is constant change – it is like a river moving and moving – but if you look at the unmanifest, then God is always the same. God is both.

This world is not separate from God. You need not go in search of Him anywhere else; He is hidden here; He is playing hide-and-seek here.

I have no sanctuary, like the dark gods;
Nor am I in the shadow of deep temples.

I have no sacred books;
Nor am I well-seasoned in tradition.

Religion has nothing to do with tradition or sacred books, religion has something to do with existential experience. Your first layer is intellectual – that has nothing to do with religion. You have to bypass it; you have to take a jump out of it.

Your second layer is emotional, the layer of feeling, where intuitions arise, visions are revealed, dreams of the unknown descend; where poetry is born, and the dance, and the song. It is closer to God. The intellectual layer is perfectly good for the mundane world, for the marketplace. It is calculation, mathematics; it can become science, technology. It has its uses – use it, but don’t be used by it. The second layer is closer to God; it is the layer of feeling.

The first layer is masculine, the second layer is feminine. The first layer is aggressive, the second layer is receptive. The first layer believes in action, the second layer is a tremendous passivity. It is like a womb. It is an open door; it is a deep welcome. The first goes in search for truth in a very aggressive way; it thinks in terms of conquering.

Even a man like Bertrand Russell writes a book, Conquest of Nature. Bertrand Russell remained confined to the first layer. He had the intrinsic capacity to go far deeper into reality, but he remained concerned with words, logic, mathematics. He thought in terms of conquering nature: how the part could conquer the whole, how the drop could conquer the ocean, how the leaf could conquer the tree. It is utter nonsense! The very idea of conquest is ugly, but that’s how the male part of your being thinks. It is aggressive, it is violent, it is destructive, it is coercive, it is possessive, it is imperialistic.

The second layer is intuitive: that of feeling, that of dreaming. The second layer is poetic, aesthetic, of deep sensitivity. It is totally different; its approach is different – it does not analyze. The first part believes in analysis, the second part synthesizes.

Sigmund Freud remained with the first part, Assagioli moved to the second. Hence Sigmund Freud could create psychoanalysis; Assagioli could introduce a totally new concept, of psychosynthesis. But Sigmund Freud will look more scientific, obviously, more logical, rational. Assagioli will look like a visionary, a poet, but Assagioli goes deeper.

Poetry always goes deeper than prose. Singing always goes deeper than syllogism.

Become aware of the second layer in you, help it to revive. The society has repressed it; the society does not want it to function. The society is afraid of the second layer because the second layer is irrational, uncontrollable, unpredictable, because the second layer cannot be reduced to mechanical manipulations. The first layer is easily available for the politician, for the priest to dominate. It is easily available for the educators, the pedagogues to condition, to hypnotize. The second is not available.

The second is so deep that the hands of the priest and the politicians and the pedagogues cannot reach to it.

You will have to help your second layer to become more prominent. The emphasis has to shift from the first to the second. And the second is not the last; the second is only the door. The third is the last.

The third layer is that of being.

The first is intellectual, the second is emotional, the third is existential. With the first you think, with the second you feel, with the third you are. With the third, thinking disappears, feeling disappears. Only a kind of witnessing remains, a pure consciousness, an awareness. That’s what meditation is all about.

All sacred scriptures are in the head, and all your rituals, religions, are in the head. Your rituals, your religions, your theologies, don’t even reach to the second. If you want to reach to the second you will have to learn from the painters and the poets and the singers, musicians, dancers. You will have to go into the world of art. But if you want to go to the third – and without going to the third you will never know what God is – you will have to go into a deep communion with a Master.

Only a mystic can make you attuned with your own innermost being. Only one who is in at-onement with his own being can infect you. Religion is something like a contagious disease. It is not disease, it is health, ultimate health, but health can become as contagious as any illness can ever become.

Religion has to be learned only in the vicinity of a Master. It cannot be learned from traditions, from scriptures. You will need somebody alive so that you can be in love, somebody alive who can by his presence trigger a process in your being. It cannot be taught; it can only be caught.

I am not in the incense
Mounting on high altars,
Nor in the pomp of ceremonies.

I am neither in the graven image,
Nor in the rich chant of a melodious voice.

I am not bound by theories,
Nor corrupted by beliefs.

I am not held in the bondage of religions,
Nor in the pious agony of their priests.

I am not entrapped by philosophies,
Nor held in the power of their sects.

I am neither low nor high,
I am the worshipper and the worshipped. 

That statement is of tremendous value: I am the worshiper and the worshiped. You are the seeker and the sought, you are the devotee and the deity, you are the temple and the Master of the temple. You need not go anywhere. If you need go anywhere it is only inwards, into your own interiority.

I am neither low nor high,
I am the worshipper and the worshipped.

I am free.

My song is the song of the river
Calling for the open seas,
Wandering, wandering,
I am Life.

-Osho

From The Guest, Discourse #10

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

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