The other day, Sarito asked about writing beautiful words about you that she felt she had no right to say, and you encouraged us to express ourselves in the world. Beloved Master, I am not a speaker or writer of beautiful words, still, many times I have experienced sharing myself with people in the world, sharing you, sharing your vision. For that moment of sharing, I become what I am expressing. For that moment I radiate your light flowing through me, as if each time I myself am experiencing you newly and fresh. Beloved Osho, can you please talk about the magic of sharing?
Prem Komal, there is only one magic in the world, and that is the magic of sharing. All else in the name of magic is simply trickery; but sharing belongs to the ultimate truth. Sharing is possible only if you have experienced – in absolute depth – love, blissfulness, ecstasy, and these are not just words to you but your very heartbeat, your very breathing. Then the magic happens. There is no magician, just the magic. You don’t do it, it simply overwhelms you. If there is somebody to receive, open and vulnerable, thirsty and longing, then something invisible starts flowing between the two.
You cannot see it, but you can feel that a connection has happened which is beyond the reach of the mind. Neither can anybody else see it, but if people of understanding are around you, they can see the effects of it. The person who becomes overwhelmed is immediately no longer a person but only a presence, no longer a flower but only a fragrance, no longer a dancer but only a dance.
You cannot catch hold of him, but you can enjoy to the fullest. And the person who has become connected starts melting and merging. There are no longer two persons; there are two bodies and one soul.
In fact, without our knowing there is only one soul of the whole universe. The trees and the birds and the animals, and all that is living, has a universal soul. We are simply parts of it, and our ignorance consists of our thinking of ourselves as separate. That’s what is called the ego.
The idea of separation is ego. The moment that false idea disappears, your whole life becomes a continuous experience of mysteries, miracles, and magic. And without your knowing, those who are thirsty start coming towards you, those who are searching suddenly start feeling a magnetic pull, a charisma, irresistibly. They may not even like to come, but they have to come; it is beyond their capacity to prevent themselves. Once they have felt something of the beyond, then they have no power to go against the flow; then they have to be just part of the flow and allow it to take them wherever it is going.
In a gathering like this, that magic happens every day. You may not give it the name “magic” … because that word has become very contaminated by wrong usage; otherwise it is one of the most beautiful words. There are thousands of eyes here, but suddenly one seeing; thousands of hearts, but suddenly one beating … one harmony, and a silence as if there is nobody. This is the only magic there is.
Prem Komal, you don’t have to learn it; it is not an art. It is not within your capacity to learn it. What is within your capacity is to allow existence to flow through you. You should not stand in the way, that is the only art; you should not block the radiation. You should simply stand aside and let the universal consciousness flow through you, and reach as far as there are people who can receive it.
When we are meeting here – and not just meeting in the ordinary sense but actually meeting, heart to heart, being to being – this overwhelming experience goes around the earth, to all the sannyasins wherever they may be. They may not understand what is happening, why suddenly they have become silent, why suddenly they have started singing or playing on the flute, why suddenly a deep urge has arisen in them to dance. They may not be aware of what is happening. So this gathering is not only the gathering of those few who are actually present here, it is a gathering of all those who have loved me and who have received my love. Wherever they may be, dead or alive, they are part of this gathering, and they will rejoice and sing and dance, and feel grateful to existence.
A great Zen master was getting on in years. Finally, one day a few of his disciples gathered around him, and with long faces asked, “Master, your death is approaching – you have told us that. Now we must ask where would you like us to bury you?”
The old man looked up, and with a twinkle in his eye said, “Surprise me!”
These are the real people, the real magicians. Even death cannot make them sad. They can make fun even of death. What a beautiful man this old Zen master must have been, who could say,
“Surprise me. Let me see what you do when I die. I am not leaving any instructions, I will wait and see. Do something that has never been done. Surprise me – just don’t be repetitive.”
I don’t know what happened later on, because I cannot think myself how to surprise. Whatever you do must have been done thousands of times. The old man has left his disciples in a state of koan – that was his whole life’s teaching.
These people are so strange that even when they are dying they cannot forget their teaching. That was his teaching: giving koans to the disciples. Koans are puzzles which cannot be solved, whatever you do; it doesn’t matter. It is not a question of intelligence, it simply is not possible to solve them.
The moment you realize it, that all your efforts have failed and now you cannot see anything else that is possible, a great silence descends on you. In that silence you are no more. The puzzle remains, but you are solved.
And that’s the whole purpose of a koan. The puzzle will always remain – that’s why the same koan goes on being used for thousands of years, because no koan can ever be solved. But it solves the person. All his problems and doubts and questions and everything disappear. In that utter failure of his mind to solve a small puzzle, the mind stops. It has tried every way; there is no way out. And the moment the mind fails, you encounter yourself … beyond mind, beyond words.
That old man has again given them a koan. He will be gone and they will be sitting there trying to solve the puzzle. How to surprise the old man? Whatever you can think of must have been done before. Millions of people have died and thousands of masters have died. Everything must have been tried; surprise is almost impossible. That was the meaning of the twinkle in his eye – he knows that he is putting you in trouble.
Perhaps you will not be able to surprise him, but in the very effort to find a way out, you may find a way in, you may come to know yourself. His death may become a resurrection for you. In his death you may come to know the eternal, the immortal.
This is the only magic I know of: to have a taste of the eternal and to allow people to share the taste. Those who are ready and ripe, those who are mature and of age, they will immediately start growing. And those who are not yet ripe will have to wait a little.
There is no harm in waiting a little, because time is without any beginning and without any end. It does not matter whether you become enlightened on Monday … because there are only seven days – you can choose any day. These seven days have been chosen because of the seven colors of the rainbow. These are the seven colors of the rays of the sun. These seven days are named after light and color.
Enlightenment is the most psychedelic experience. There is nothing more colorful than enlightenment. There is nothing else that is more of light and more full of delight.
-Osho
From The New Dawn, Discourse #25
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Sat Sangha Salon 