Category: Enlightenment

The Atomic Moment – Osho

Remember two words which will be very important to understand this strange but immensely valuable book, The Secret of the Golden Flower: one word is “essence,” the other word is “personality.”

“Personality” comes from a root, persona which means a mask. In ancient days, the actors in Greek dramas used to wear masks. Persona means a mask. “Personality” comes from persona. The actors used to wear one mask, you are wearing many, because for different situations you need different masks. When you are talking to your boss you need one kind of mask. And when you are talking to your servant, of course, you need another kind of mask. […]

You have to use many masks, and you have many faces, and you go on changing them as circumstances change. Your personality consists only of false faces.

And what is essence? Essence is your original face, without any masks. Essence is that which you brought into the world when you were born. Essence is that which was with you in the womb.

Essence is that which has been given to you by God – or whatsoever you call totality, the whole, existence. Essence is a gift from existence to you.

Personality is a gift of the society, parents, school, college, culture, civilization. Personality is not you; it is pseudo.

And we continue to polish this personality, and we have completely forgotten the essence. And unless you remember the essence, you will have lived in vain because real life consists of essence. A real life is the life of essence. You can call it “soul,” or “God within you,” or whatsoever you will. But remember the distinction.

You are not your clothes – not even your psychological clothes. […]

Essence is that which you bring into the world. The personality is that which the world imposes upon the essence. The world is very afraid of the essence because the essence is always rebellious, the essence is always individualistic. And the world does not need any individuals, it needs sheep. It does not need rebellious people, it does not need people like Buddha, Krishna, Lao Tzu, no; these people are dangerous. It wants people who are obedient – obedient to the status quo, obedient to the vested interests, obedient to the organized church, obedient to the state and the stupid politicians.

But society requires obedience, and society requires efficiency. The more mechanical you are, the more efficient you are. When you are more alive, you cannot be so efficient. A machine is more efficient than man. The society’s effort is to reduce every man into a machine. And how to reduce a man into a machine? Make him more and more unconscious, make him more and more robot-like. Let his essence completely disappear from his consciousness. Let him become perfectly pseudo. Let him be a husband, let her be a wife; a servant, a boss, this and that, but never let him be his essential self. Don’t allow that because that essential self is not obedient to anybody except to God. It has no other commitment. Its sole commitment is to the source. It knows no other masters. […]

The moment you encounter your essence […] You will have to put off all that is hiding your essence. That is revolution, metanoia. That is the turning point in a life: the society disappears and you become an individual. And only individuals can relate with God.

But a great consciousness will be needed. […]

Now the sutras.

Master Lu-tsu said:

Only the primal spirit and the true nature overcome time and space.

What I have been telling you about essence, Master Lu-tsu calls the primal spirit. The primal spirit is your essential soul, that which you have brought from God, untaught, unconditioned – as you were in your mother’s womb. How did you exist in your mother’s womb? Nothing was taught to you, you had no mind, you existed in a state of no-mind, hence the blissfulness of it.

Psychologists say that because of the experience of the mother’s womb – those nine months – man has been searching for God because of that nine months’ experience. The memory haunts him. Those nine months were the most beautiful that you have known. Maybe you have forgotten consciously, but deep down in the very cells of your body, in the very fibers of your being, those days are still pulsating. Those days are still carried by your existence. They may not be conscious in your mind, but they are there. Just as when in the night you fall into deep sleep, you don’t know where you go and what happens to you, but in the morning, you feel the relaxation, the freshness, the joy. Life has again happened to you. All the dust that you had gathered has disappeared. You are again fresh, you are rejuvenated.

Your body carries the feeling. Your body is calm and quiet and remembers something. The remembrance is not in the brain; you don’t know what happened exactly – where you had gone. Only a buddha knows where he goes in his deep sleep, because even in his deep sleep he remains alert. You are not alert even when you are aware, the so-called awareness. You are not alert when you are in that so-called wakeful state. Your eyes are open, but your mind goes on weaving and spinning a thousand and one thoughts. The inner talk continues, the inner noise continues. You see and yet you don’t see and you hear and yet you don’t hear, because deep inside there is a wall of thoughts – dreams continuously floating in the sky of your consciousness. You are not alert even when you are awake. The Buddha is alert even when he is fast asleep. Only he knows where he goes.

Where does he go? He goes to the essence, to the source, to the primal spirit. And even if for a few moments at night you fall into the primal source, you are rejuvenated. The man who cannot fall into deep sleep is really in hell. He goes to bed tired, exhausted, bored with life, and gets up in the morning even more tired, more bored, more exhausted. His life is hell.

In deep sleep you simply slip back into the primal source of your being. That primal source is always there; you have not lost it; you have only forgotten it. And that primal source is beyond all dualities. It is neither light nor darkness, it is transcendental. It is neither the life nor the death that you know, it is transcendental. It is neither man nor woman, it is transcendental. It is beyond all kinds of dualities. It is God.

Only the primal spirit and the true nature overcome time and space.

When you are in the primal spirit you are in your true nature. When you are in your personality you are untrue, you are just a plastic phenomenon. Watch, and you will be surprised how many things are plastic in you. You smile when there is no smile in the heart, then it is plastic. You sympathize when there is no sympathy in you, it is plastic. You show joy when there is no joy in you, it is plastic. You can even cry and weep without your heart feeling anything, then those tears are plastic. Just watch how many things are plastic in you. And remember, whatsoever is plastic is not you. God has not made you a plastic thing. God has given you eternal life. But that eternal life you can find only when you put off your shoes.

Put off your personality. Drop all personas all masks. Let all masks disappear. It will be painful because you have become identified with those masks; you think they are your faces. It is going to be almost a very painful process of death; and not only once – you will have to die many times, because each time a face falls you will find a death has happened. But again, new life will be released in you, fresher, deeper, more vibrant.

When all the faces disappear and the essence is left alone, you have transcended all duality, even the duality of time and space. When you enter deep meditation, when you enter your essential being, there is no space and no time. You cannot say where you are – all “wheres” disappear – you cannot pinpoint the place. Either you are nowhere, or you are everywhere: these are the only two possibilities. Both mean the same.

A few people have chosen to say one is everywhere – Vedanta has chosen to say that in deep meditation one is everywhere: Aham Brahmasmi, “I am God.” “God” means one who is everywhere, who permeates the whole existence. You become space itself. And “I am always, I am eternal.” It means you permeate time. This is one way of expressing it, the positive way.

Buddhism has chosen the other: the negative way.

Buddha says, “In deep meditation you are nowhere.”

All space has disappeared. And there is no time; you are in a timeless state. And when there is no time and no space, how can you exist?

Man exists only at the crossing point of time and space. One line of time, another line of space cross, and at that crossing the ego arises. Take away these two lines and the point of the ego disappears. It was only a crossing of two lines. It was a fallacious idea.

So Buddha says, “There is nobody.”

In deep meditation, time disappears, space disappears, and you disappear. All disappears, there is only nothingness, shunya, zero. This is the negative way of saying the same thing.

Either you can say, “I am God,” if you choose the positive expression – which has its own dangers, its own beauties too – or you can choose the negative expression, anatta, no-self, nothingness, nirvana. It has its own beauties and its dangers too. The very idea of nothingness puts people off – that is the danger. Who wants to be nothing?

In his forty years of ministry again and again Buddha is asked, “Why should one try to be nothing? That would be a death, ultimate death.”

And Buddha says, “Yes, it is an ultimate death. But it is beautiful.”

And the questioners ask, “But to whom is it beautiful – because there is nobody?”

And Buddha says, “There is only beauty, beatitude, and nobody to experience it.”

Naturally, the human mind says, “But then what is the point? If I am not there . . . And it is very beautiful, so let it be beautiful, but I am not there, so whether it is beautiful or not makes no difference to me. Why should I lose myself? It is better to be in a world which is not so beautiful but where at least I am.”

The goal of nothingness puts people off. That’s why Buddhism disappeared from India. And it learned a lesson: in China it dropped the negative language, in Tibet it dropped the negative language. Indian Buddhism, the original Buddhism, was absolutely negative. Under the influence of Buddha thousands were transformed, but you cannot find a man like Buddha every day.

The impact of Buddha was such that people were even ready to die and become nothing. That was because of Buddha, otherwise there is no enchantment, no charm in being nothing. But Buddha’s magnetism was such, his charisma was such, that thousands of people were ready to become nothing. “If Buddha says it, it must be right.” His word was so important, his eyes were a witness to it. “He has disappeared, so let us also disappear. And if he says so then we can trust.”

But once Buddha disappeared from the Earth, Buddhist priests could not convince people. They had to disappear from India completely. Then they learned a lesson. Outside India Buddhism started using positive language, started using all that Buddha had denied. It survived; but it did not really survive as Buddhism, it survived as Vedanta, it survived as a positive language. And Buddha’s greatest contribution was the negative expression.

The beauty of the negative expression is that it never allows your ego any satisfaction, any gratification. That is the danger of the positive language. If you say, “Aham Brahmasmi, ‘I am God,’” “Ana’l haq, ‘I am truth,’” the danger is that truth may become secondary and the “I” may become primary. Truth may become your shadow. The emphasis may start concentrating on the word “I”: I am God. If the emphasis remains on God and the “I” remains just a shadow to God, it is perfectly good. But that is very difficult. The “I” is very cunning, the ego’s ways are very subtle. It will use the opportunity, it will jump upon the idea, it will say, “Right, I am God and nobody else is. I am truth and everybody else is a lie.” But then the whole point is missed.

But one thing is certain: time and space disappear. Either you have to declare, “I am all” – the whole space, the whole time – “I am everywhere and everywhen,” or you have to use the Buddhist expression, “I am not. Time is not. Space is not. There is only an absolute silent nothing from eternity to eternity. A silence, not even a ripple.” But both statements indicate the same thing. Expressions are different, fingers are different, but they point to the same moon. That moon is your essence.

Master Lu-tsu said:

Only the primal spirit and the true nature overcome time and space.

And unless you overcome time and space you will not overcome death. Death exists in time, and death exists in space. Unless you overcome time and space you will not overcome mind and body.

Try to understand: body corresponds to space and mind corresponds to time. Mind is a time phenomenon and body is a space phenomenon. Body exists somewhere and mind exists “somewhen.” Think of mind without time and you will not be able to think of it. Mind is either past, present, or future: either memory or imagination or the present facticity. Mind exists in three tenses.

You are listening to me attentively, alert: mind is in the present. If you are here thinking of other things – you have read something in the Bible and it corresponds with me or does not correspond with me – you have gone into your imagination or into your memory. You cannot think of mind if time disappears; time is synonymous with mind.

Man is a miniature cosmos, a miniature universe. All that exists outside on a greater scale exists on a small scale in man. If you can understand man, you will have understood the whole universe. As above, so below. Man is the atomic constituent of this whole universe. If one atom is understood you have understood all matter. If one man is understood, if you can decipher your own mystery, you have deciphered all the mysteries possible, past, present, future – all.

And these two things have to be remembered: body is space, mind is time. When you meditate you disappear from the body, you don’t know who you are: man, woman, ugly, beautiful, black, white; you simply don’t know who you are. When you go in, the body is left far behind. A moment comes when you cannot even locate your body, and you cannot even feel its presence. You are no more attached to the form; you have become formless. And the same happens with the mind: you don’t know where your mind is, where that mind has gone. All that noise, that traffic noise that was constantly inside, becomes distant, distant, distant, and disappears. Suddenly a great silence explodes in you. In this state of no space and no time, you come to know your essence. And to know one’s essence is to have the first glimpse of Tao.

The primal spirit is beyond the polar differences.

All the polar differences disappear: man-woman, summer-winter, hot-cold, love-hate, positive-negative, time-space, life -death; all polar opposites disappear.

The primal spirit is beyond the polar differences.

And that’s why I insist again and again that you don’t get attached to any polarity. You have been taught to become attached to some polarity. Your so-called religions have been teaching you: either be worldly or renounce and go to the monasteries. I say remain in the world and don’t be of it, otherwise, you will become attached to a polarity. If you go to the monastery, you will be afraid of the marketplace. What kind of attainment is this? If there is fear there is no attainment.

And I know people who have lived in the Himalayas. Then they become afraid. Then they don’t want to come to the world because whatsoever they have been experiencing in the Himalayas disappears when they come to the marketplace. If it disappears in the marketplace it is no attainment. It may have been just the silence of the Himalayas that you mistook for your silence. It was borrowed. Certainly, the Himalayas are silent, and if you live in that silence, slowly, slowly that silence starts permeating you. But it is not your music; it is borrowed. Go away from the Himalayas and it will disappear.

This is creating a fallacy. This is enjoying a reflected glory. This is not your own glory. Live in the marketplace and create a Himalaya in the heart. Become silent in the noise. Remain a householder and yet be a sannyasin. That’s why I emphasize so much that I don’t want my sannyasins to renounce. Nothing has to be renounced. The way of renunciation is the way of the escapist, and the way of renunciation will make you attached to a polar phenomenon. That will not give you freedom. Freedom is in transcendence, and transcendence comes only when you live in the polar opposites simultaneously, together. So be in the world, but don’t let the world be in you.

Love, and yet don’t be lost in it. Relate, and yet be alone, utterly alone. Know perfectly well that all relationship is a game. Play the game and play it as beautifully as possible and as skillfully as possible. A game is after all a game and has to be played beautifully. And follow all the rules of the game because a game cannot exist without rules. But remember always that it is just a game. Don’t become attached to it. Don’t become serious in it. Always allow the sense of humor to remain alive in you. Remain sincere but non-serious. And then, slowly, slowly you will see that the polarities are disappearing. Who is worldly, and who is other-worldly? You are both or neither.

The primal spirit is beyond the polar differences. Here is the place whence heaven and Earth derive their being. When students understand how to grasp the primal spirit they overcome the polar opposites of light and darkness and tarry no longer in the three worlds.

The world of heaven, the world of Earth, and the world of hell – the three worlds – they all disappear for the person who knows how to transcend polarities.

I told you just a few moments ago that past, present, future – these are the three worlds. Past is hell, because it is dead it is ghostly: ghosts following you. Present is the Earth: the facticity, the fact, that which is right now and here. And future is heaven: hopes, aspirations, desires, longings. These are the three worlds, and you have to move in these three worlds constantly; you are shuttled back and forth. From the past you jump to the future, from the future you jump to the past. And this goes on. And the present is so minute that you are not very aware of it. It is sandwiched between the past and the future, and they are vast. And the present is a very minute, atomic moment – so small that you don’t even see it. The moment you become aware of it; it is already past.

To be present to the present one needs to be very attentive, utterly attentive. And that’s why to be present to the present becomes the door to go beyond time. You cannot go from the past because the past is so vast – infinite. You can go on and on, you will not find the end of it. That’s why I say psychoanalysis will not help. It goes into the past, and it goes on unravelling the past, digging up the past. You can go on . . . Psychoanalysis continues for years: three years, seven years, then too it is not complete. One simply becomes bored with the psychoanalyst and then changes the psychoanalyst and goes to somebody else and starts from ABC again.

And one thing I would like to say to you: sooner or later psychoanalysis is bound to discover that this life is not the end of the past. You can go on moving backwards, and you can come to what Janov calls “the primal scream.” Primal scream is the ultimate of psychoanalysis: the first scream of the child when he started breathing – through it he started breathing – the first scream. But once you have reached there you will be surprised: that is not the beginning either. Then you have to move into the womb.

In the East we have tried it. We have a very, very deep-going method called prati prasav – going back, going back. Mahavir used it, Buddha used it – they went through the womb. And then again, you have to go through death, because before the womb you died, and then the whole life again . . . layer upon layer. It is through deep psychoanalysis that the East became aware of the phenomenon of many lives. Christianity, Judaism, Islam are not aware of it. They never tried so hard. They have never tried psychoanalysis.

Freud is the first Jew to have tried it, and of course, Christians and Jews and all the so-called religious people were against him. The fear is that if psychoanalysis goes deeper, sooner or later the Hindu idea of rebirth will be proved right. That is the fear. If you go on digging you will find layer upon layer. Where will you end? Thousands of lives you have lived as man. And we have tried to penetrate all those. But then too there is no end. One day suddenly you see that before this life you were not a man; you were an elephant or a tiger or a dog. And then you start moving into animal lives. And before that, after millions of lives, one day you will suddenly discover that you were a bush or a tree, and then a rock.

In India, we say you have passed millions of lives. Where can it lead? The analysis of the past cannot lead anywhere. It can drive you crazy, but it leads nowhere. And so is the case with the future. Where to stop? How far is far enough? Where to make a point that “Now we will not look ahead”? In the East we have tried that too because we have worked tremendously on the concept of time. And both are unending: memory is unending, imagination is unending. Between the two is the present moment, very tiny, so tiny that you cannot become aware of it if you are not absolutely alert. It goes so fast, it is so fleeting.

But if you become aware of the present, then a door opens, the door to eternity. It is from there that mind moves into no-mind. It is from there that personality moves beyond personality into essence.

You know perfectly well Jesus was crucified. There were two thieves who were crucified with him: one was on his left side, the other was on his right side. You may not have ever thought of it as a tremendously significant symbol but Jesus represents the present moment. One thief is the past; the other thief is the future. And Jesus represents the present moment – closest to God, closest to essence. One thief mocked Jesus – the past always mocks you – he condemned Jesus. The past always condemns you. The other thief asked Jesus about the future, “What will happen after death? Will I be able to see you in heaven?” One is past, the other is future, and Jesus is just sandwiched between these two thieves.

And why call them thieves? Past is a thief, future is a thief, because they go on stealing your present. They are thieves. To me this is a parable. I don’t know whether any Christian will agree with me or not, but that is not my business at all. I don’t care whether anybody agrees with me or not.

Jesus is present, herenow, closest to the essence, just ready to die and disappear from the body and the mind. He hesitates a little bit – everybody hesitates. When you come to the present, you will see eternity facing you – no past, no future, but eternity – a totally different dimension.

Past, present, future are horizontal; eternity is vertical. Again, to me, the cross is the symbol of these two lines crossing. A cross is made of two lines: one horizontal, the other vertical. This is a representation of time and eternity. Everybody hesitates when one faces eternity, nowhereness, nothingness, or all-ness. It is so much. One is going to disappear into it like a drop. And the ocean is so big, one will not be found again. Even a dewdrop falling into the ocean from a grass leaf hesitates.

Jesus hesitated, and I love this man because he hesitated. His hesitation shows that he was human. His hesitation shows that he belonged to us – he was son of man. He cried to God, “Have you forsaken me? What are you doing to me? Have you abandoned me? Are you no more with me? I am disappearing and I don’t see your hands protecting me.” The dewdrop is falling in the ocean. “Where are you? I am falling into a deep nothingness. Death has arrived, and I had always hoped that in death you would be there waiting and you would embrace me, you would take me in your fold, you would be warm and loving. But where are you? Have you forsaken me? Have you abandoned me? I don’t see you anywhere.”

In fact, there is no God to be seen. God is not a person; God is a positive name for this absolute nothingness. But Jesus has lived with the Jewish idea of God as a person, hence this turmoil in his mind, the fear in his mind. He can’t see – he was waiting to see the beloved, the Father. He used to call the Father abba. He was waiting to find his father, but there seems to be nobody. The world is finished and beyond is nothing but a yawning nothingness, an abyss with no bottom.

It is very human. The life of Jesus is very human, and that is the beauty of it. That’s why it has impressed so many people – his very humanity is touching. But then he saw the point. He must have looked deep into the eternity, the nothingness. He must have seen the point: that “God cannot have a human face, this is his face,” that “God cannot have human hands, this nothingness is ready to embrace me, to take me deep into its heart.” And then he said to God, “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done. So, be it so. Let it be so. So you are nothingness. I am ready, I trust you. I will trust even your nothingness.”

Every Christian, every Mohammedan, every Hindu, every Jew – whosoever has lived with the idea of God’s personality will have to face this, will have to go through this anxiety period, this anguish. That is the beauty of the Buddha’s idea, and the Taoist idea, that God is nothingness, another name for nothingness. One who has lived with that idea of nothingness from the very beginning will not hesitate; he will simply disappear into it.

The primal spirit is beyond the polar differences. Here is the place whence heaven and Earth derive their being. When students understand how to grasp the primal spirit they overcome the polar opposites of light and darkness and tarry no longer in the three worlds. But only he who has envisioned human nature’s original face is able to do this.

Unless you have been able to see your own inner nothingness you will not be able to do it. First meditate and go into your inner nothingness, then you will be able to enter into the nothingness of existence itself.

When men are set free from the womb, the primal spirit dwells in the square inch . . .

This is a Taoist map. Don’t get puzzled. There are different maps of human consciousness. Different maps use different symbols. This is a Taoist map.

Taoists say that after a child is born from the womb, the primal spirit starts dwelling in the third eye. Between the two eyes, between the two exists the third, exactly in the middle. What the Yoga map calls ajna chakra, the third-eye center, that’s what Taoists call the dwelling place of the primal spirit.

. . . The primal spirit dwells in the square inch, but the conscious spirit dwells below in the heart . . .

. . . but the conscious spirit dwells below in the heart . . ., the ordinary physical heart.

This heart is dependent on the outside world. If a man does not eat for one day even, it feels extremely uncomfortable. If it hears something terrifying it throbs; if it hears something enraging it stops; if it is faced with death it becomes sad; if it sees something beautiful it is dazzled. But the heavenly heart in the head . . . 

. . . that is in the third-eye center.

 . . . when would it have moved in the least? Dost thou ask: “Can the heavenly heart not move?” Then I answer: “How could the true thought in the square inch move!” 

This physical heart is constantly dependent on the outside world. It is affected by the outside world; it is part of the outside world inside you. This is not the true heart. Taoists say the true heart is in the third eye; it moves not, it is unmoving; it is always the same. The physical heart is always in chaos, and the spiritual heart in the third eye is always in order. It is order itself. That’s why Hindus have called it ajna chakra – the center from which orders arise, discipline arises. If something comes from the third eye it is immediately followed; the whole body follows it, the whole being follows it. It is the center from which commandments are issued. But it is fast asleep. You live from the physical heart. You have not known your spiritual heart yet.

The lower heart moves like a strong, powerful commander who despises the heavenly ruler because of his weakness . . .

But the physical heart thinks that the spiritual heart is weak because it moves not. And because it moves not you remain unaware of it. You only become aware of things when they move. If something remains absolutely unmoving you become oblivious to it. And the lower heart thinks itself very strong and thinks the heavenly heart, the spiritual heart, as being weak, almost dead, because it moves not.

. . . and has usurped the leadership in affairs of state.

And because of this, the lower heart has become the master of you.

But when the primal castle can be fortified and defended, then it is as if a strong and wise ruler sat upon the throne.

But if you start becoming more and more alert and more and more conscious, you will find that you have fortified the primal castle in the third eye. Whenever you become aware, you will be surprised: you start functioning from the third eye. Just become a little bit aware and you will see a little strain on the third eye. Whenever you become alert, the strain is more on the third eye. Something starts throbbing in the third eye, something starts pulsating in the third eye.

Once awareness has made the third eye function, once awareness has moved in the third eye and the third eye starts functioning, becomes alive… That’s why Hindus call it a chakra. Chakra means a wheel. The wheel needs energy; once the energy comes in, the wheel starts moving. By “movement” is meant that it starts functioning. Then a great revolution happens in your being: immediately the lower heart bows down to the higher heart. When the higher comes, the lower always bows down. It rules only when the higher is not present.

And that is the difference between a real religion and an unreal religion. The unreal religion says to you, “Try to control yourself. Do this, don’t do that. Control your senses. Discipline your body.” The real religion says, “Just go into the third eye center and let the spiritual heart function, and all will be controlled, and all will be disciplined. Let the master arrive, and everything will be settled immediately.”

The eyes start the light circulating like two ministers at the right and left who support the ruler with all their might. When rule in the center is thus in order, all those rebellious heroes will present themselves with lances reversed ready to take orders.

Just let the master come in, and there is no need to make any effort to create an order in your life, there is no need to cultivate character. That’s why I say don’t be worried about character. Simply put all your energy into being more conscious. Consciousness is followed by character as you are followed by your shadow. If you try to cultivate a character, your character will be false, pseudo, and you will become a hypocrite. And this is not the way to reach to the ultimate.

The way to the Elixir of Life knows as supreme magic . . .

This is the supreme magic. Why call it magic? – because once the higher heart has started functioning – it is as if a magical miracle happens . . . Your senses were never in order; your mind was always confused. You were always hesitating: to do this or to do that? to be or not to be? You were in constant tension: where to go? what to choose? Suddenly, as if somebody has done a miracle, all confusion disappears, clarity arises, life becomes transparent. You simply do that which has to be done. In fact, once the heavenly heart has started functioning, all that you do is good; you cannot do wrong – it is impossible.

The way to the Elixir of Life knows as supreme magic . . .

And three are the constituents of this supreme magic:

. . . seed-water, spirit-fire, and thought-earth . . .

These are Taoist symbols.

 . . . these three. What is seed-water? It is the true, one energy, eros. Spirit-fire is the light, logos. Thought-earth is intuition.

You will have to understand these three.

Seed-water is eros, the energy that you know now as sexual energy, the energy of passion. Right now, it creates only troubles for you and nothing else. Right now, it pretends to be your friend but proves to be your foe. The more you follow it, the more it takes you into miseries. That’s why it is said that love is blind.

Mulla Nasrudin was saying to me, “Love is blind and marriage is an eye-opener.”

Love is blind because you don’t have eyes yet, and a great energy that could have become a great blessing to you becomes only misery. Eros is your energy. And Freud is right to seek and search for everything in your eros, in your sexual energy. But he is wrong because he does not know that this ordinary state of sexual energy is not its natural state; it is a perverted state.

In its natural state sexual energy rises higher and higher, it takes you upwards not downwards. In its natural state sexual energy becomes the golden flower within you. In the so-called ordinary, perverted state it simply takes you into new prisons because it moves outwards and downwards. It dissipates you; it only brings your death closer and closer. If the same energy starts moving upwards, it brings a new life, life in abundance. It becomes the Elixir of Life.

Just as the mud can become a lotus – the mud contains the lotus, the seed of it – so your sexual energy contains the seed of the golden flower. But the energy has to move upwards, you cannot move it upwards. There are people who try to make it move upwards; they become sexual perverts and nothing else. You cannot do it directly, but you can do it indirectly. Once your third eye, your spiritual heart, starts functioning, energy starts moving of its own accord. You have created the third eye, and the energy is attracted as if towards a magnet.

Right now, your energy moves outwards because you have magnets outside, far greater than you have inside. You see a beautiful woman and the energy starts moving outwards; the woman functions as a magnet. When your third eye functions you have such a strong magnet that nobody can pull you outwards. It is just a question of having a bigger magnet inside than the one which exists outside. Then the energy moves upwards, inwards.

If you go outwards you will move into the world of duality. If you go inwards you will move into the world of non-duality; you will become non-polar.

This is exactly the foundation of what I call metapsychology, or the psychology of the Buddhas. This is pure religion – not the religion of the rituals but pure religion: nothing to do with Christianity and Hinduism but something to do with your energy source.

The second is spirit-fire. It is light, logos; it is conscious mind. Eros moving upwards takes you beyond conscious and unconscious mind. Logos is conscious mind. It is psychology, it is science.

Thought-earth is darkness, unconsciousness, intuition. It is parapsychology, art. Thought-earth is intuition, darkness. Women live in thought-earth, in the intuitive vision. Women live as unconscious, illogical beings. Men live in spirit-fire, logos, logic, conscious mind. Artists are feminine, scientists are masculine. And the seed-water, eros, the one energy, is non-dual. It takes you beyond art and beyond science. It takes you beyond the conscious and the unconscious. It takes you beyond man and beyond woman. It takes you into the non-dual, the transcendental.

But the secret of the magic is to let your heavenly heart, which exists between your two eyes, function. Later on, we will go into the methodology of it – how to help it function.

Enough for today.

-Osho

From The Secret of Secrets, Discourse #3

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An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

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Trance is Always Unconscious – Osho

Can trance-like states be higher or lower than the conscious?

The trance-like state is always lower than the conscious. It is always unconscious. It is a very significant question, because for centuries it has been avoided and not discussed.

There have been people like Ramakrishna who used to go into a trance very easily. Ultimately Ramakrishna became enlightened, but he became enlightened when he met a master who taught him witnessing. Before that he was not an enlightened man. But he was a very simple, very spontaneous, very loving person, and he would go into a trance just by seeing something. For example, he was passing by the side of a lake. It was evening time, the sun was setting, and there was a black cloud – the rains were just going to come. And as he passed by, he disturbed almost two dozen cranes that must have been sitting by the side of the lake. Because of Ramakrishna’s coming there, they suddenly flew away – against the black clouds, the two dozen white cranes in a row and a beautiful sunset underneath. Then and there he fell suddenly into a trance. He had to be carried back to his home. It took three hours for him to come back. Just the beauty of it was enough. But it was not a superconscious state. It was tremendously relaxing, but it was below consciousness. […]

Trance is possible but for that you need a certain training in auto-hypnosis. Or, you may have a natural tendency of falling unconscious. You may have a very thin layer of consciousness, and anything that affects you very deeply – like Ramakrishna – may make you go unconscious; otherwise, you need a training. But the training will lead you to the unconscious – it is not a spiritual growth.

You have to be conscious, more conscious. That’s why my process is to first reach to the highest point of consciousness, then turn backwards. Now go down with the light that you have, the insight that you have, into the deeper, dark parts of your being. Now you will be going with light, and wherever you are, there will be light.

Your unconscious has treasures, your collective unconscious has treasures, your cosmic unconscious has treasures, but you need light and you need alertness. If you yourself are unconscious, how can you find any treasures in the three layers of your deep unconscious mind?

-Osho

From The Path of the Mystic, Discourse #13

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An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

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The Mysterious One – Osho

Rinzai said:

If you want to be comfortable independent, free from birth and death and free to go or stay, you should recognize the one who is here now listening to my expounding of the dharma. This one has neither form nor shape and neither roots nor branches; this one has no place of abode; and this one is lively and active and performs its function according to circumstances beyond all conceptions of location. If you search for him, he will flee away from you, and if you long for him he will oppose you. So he is called the mysterious one.

If you give rise to a thought of love in your mind, you will be drowned by water. If you give rise to a thought of anger in your mind, you will be burned by fire. If you give rise to a thought of doubt in your mind, you will be obstructed by earth. If you give rise to a thought of joy, you will be whirled away by wind.

If you can discern all this you will not be affected by objective things which you can turn to your own advantage. Then you can walk on water as if on the ground, and walk on the ground as if on water. Why is this possible? — Because you already understand the four elements are like a dream and a transformation.

Therefore, followers of the way, the one who is now listening to my expounding of the dharma is certainly not your four elements, but one who can make use of your four elements. If you hold such a view, you will then be free to go or stay.

Maneesha, one of the most important things to be understood is that language goes on changing with time. What looked very significant one thousand years ago will not look very significant now. What was thought to be very profound in the times of Gautam Buddha will be thought to be childish today.

Talking on these ancient masters I am in a constant difficulty because their language does not fit with contemporary intelligence. I have to bring the essence into a contemporary context, otherwise it will look just mythological . . . talking about nonsense. Perhaps it was possible for the primitive man not to object to it, but for the modern mind it is impossible not to object.

The master’s whole position should be such that your trust deepens and is not disturbed. If the master disturbs your trust he is taking you farther away from yourself, because your undisturbed being — settled, centered, at home — is the realization of truth.

So I have to be very careful with all these old masters. They use the language of their times. It was perfectly right then, and today the essence is perfectly right, but the language is no more relevant. It is true about all the masters I will be speaking to you about. It is not only about Rinzai; I will tell you where it becomes difficult for the contemporary intelligence.

Rinzai said:

If you want to be comfortable independent, free from birth and death and free to go or stay, you should recognize the one who is here now listening to my expounding of the dharma.

In a simpler way, what he is saying is: “Don’t be concerned with what I say but be concerned with who is listening in you. It does not matter what I am saying. What matters is that you are awake and listening.” Listening is a great art. Just experience the listener, and you will not go astray.

Particularly Zen masters want you to be free from birth and death. That is not the case with other so-called religions. Most of the religions prevalent in the world begin with birth and end with death. The East has concentrated its genius on a single point: to search where we were before we were born, and whether we are going to survive death.

And, without any exception, the extraordinary conclusion that has been found is that if we go deep enough into ourselves, there is a space which is eternal, immortal. It knows nothing of birth, nothing of death. It is simply a traveler — an eternal traveler. It is an explorer of different forms, different ways of being. It has been in a tree and blossomed into flowers; it has been in a lion and roared like a lion; it has been throughout the universe in different forms. It is a great journey. If you can see the variety of the experiences . . .

Man is at a point from where he can either continue the journey into forms, or he can jump out of the circle of birth and death and merge into the universe — losing his individuality, becoming one with the cosmos.

It is possible only for man. That is his dignity. But many human beings will not use this opportunity to jump into the universal soul and dissolve themselves.

Rinzai is saying:

If you want to be comfortable independent, free from birth and death and free to go or stay, you should recognize the one who is here now listening to my expounding of the dharma.

We have to bring the statement to this moment. Who is listening to me? Is it just your mind? If it is just your mind it is not going to transform your being. If you are listening with silence, then you are listening with the heart. That is going to transform your being. The heart simply gets the essential message. Mind only gets the words, and the message is between the words. Only the heart is capable. And if you go even deeper, then your being is there. Heart is a door towards your being, and your being is the opening towards the universal being.

Listening to a master is not necessary. You can listen to the wind passing through the pine trees; with the same silence you can listen to the music of Mozart, you can listen to the birds. The whole universe is expounding the Dharma. Just the listener is missing.

The art of meditation is the art of listening with your total being.

This very moment, in this silence, your boundaries drop, your defenses drop.

You become one whole.

There are not ten thousand people, but just one ocean of consciousness.

Just listen so deeply that you disappear, and only the essential and the eternal in you remains.

This one — the listener – has neither form nor shape — space – and neither roots nor branches; this one has no place of abode; and this one is lively and active and performs its function according to circumstances beyond all conceptions of location. If you search for him, he will flee away from you, and if you long for him he will oppose you. So he is called the mysterious one.

A very great statement. Such statements come only rarely in the world. They make the mystic a miracle. What he is saying is: if you try to seek it, you will not find it, because it is not an object. Secondly, if you try to find it you are being very foolish, because it is within you; the seeker himself is the sought. Once you start seeking it somewhere else you are going on wrong paths, of which there are thousands. There is only one path which is the right path, and on the right path you have not to go anywhere, but to remain home.

Just be — no search, no desire, no longing. And in that silent and peaceful moment there is a possibility you will find your buddha. It is there, but if you start looking for him here and there you are going to be a failure. Search for him, he will flee away. And if you long for him he will oppose you. Neither seek nor desire nor long — just be at ease. You are already it! You don’t need any improvement, any refinement, and you don’t need to go somewhere else. And you don’t have to become somebody else; as you are, existence is expressing itself in you with all its glory. Don’t go anywhere, and don’t long for anything, because everything is already given to you.

Because of this situation Rinzai says:

So he is called the mysterious one.

The mystery is: if you seek it, you will never find it. And if you long for it, you are lost. Just no seeking, no longing, no desire; sitting at ease, becoming more and more settled and centered, and you have it — because you are it.

If you give rise to a thought of love in your mind, you will be drowned by water. If you give rise to a thought of anger in your mind, you will be burned by fire. If you give rise to a thought of doubt in your mind, you will be obstructed by earth.

Just metaphors. All that he is saying is: any rise of thought in you, and you have missed the point. A single thought is an obstruction to your inner space. It takes you away. Whether it is a thought of love or mind or anger or greed — it does not matter what the quality of the thought is. It may be a good thought or a bad thought, a very saintly thought or a very unsaintly one — it does not matter. Thought as such takes you away from your settled peace with the universe.

If you give rise to a thought of joy, you will be whirled away by wind.

If you can discern all this you will not be affected by objective things which you can turn to your own advantage. Then you can walk on water as if on the ground, and walk on the ground as if on water.

Don’t take this statement in a factual way, as Christians have done. What he is saying is simply that to the innermost being the outer world is just a dream. In the dream you have walked on water, in the dream you have flown in the sky, in the dream everything is possible. But when you wake up you find the dream water, the dream fire, the dream sky were all imagination and nothing else. […]

Therefore, followers of the way, the one who is now listening to my expounding of the dharma is certainly not your four elements . . .

Buddhists believe that the body is made of four elements. And the fifth is your consciousness, which is not part of the body but lives in the body; which can go out, can enter into another womb. This fifth is your reality. In your deep silence you start disentangling yourself from the body, from the mind, from the heart. And what remains is just a pure space.

This pure space is the origin of you and of all. This pure space has never changed, it is always here and now. It knows no time, no space. It fills the whole universe, which is infinite. Once you have known it, your life changes.

If you hold such a view . . .

Remember, it should not only be a view. If you experience such a space, you will then be free to go or stay. Once you have known this space you have known freedom. And then it is up to you to remain in your form, to change the form, or simply to disappear into the infinity of existence.

As far as I know, nobody who has known this space has ever entered into another form. The enlightened man’s life is his last life. Why should he bother to get into another headache? Why should he get into another imprisonment, which has illness, sickness, oldness, death and thousands of miseries?

It is only the unconscious human being who goes on groping from womb to womb. The conscious one simply leaves this body and becomes part of the sky. There is no need to be confined unless you love to torture yourself. Nobody has done that up to now. Perhaps nobody can do it. Seeing the freedom of infinity, who is going to look back towards a form, a body, with all its suffering, misery, troubles? It is just against nature.

Ni-butsu wrote:

One who rises,
rises of himself,
One who falls,
falls from himself.
Autumn dew, spring breeze —
nothing can possibly interfere.

One who rises, rises of himself – It is spontaneous. One who falls, falls from himself — that too is spontaneous. Autumn dew, spring breeze – nothing can possibly interfere. Your freedom is total. You just have to know your innermost center and from there everything becomes spontaneous. Your love, your joy, your dance, your song — everything arises on its own, and then it has a beauty. Totally different . . . when a poetry arises out of this silent space, it is not your composition.

Ancient poets have not signed their names, ancient sculptors have not signed their names on their statues. Even people who made immensely beautiful things like the Taj Mahal have not left their name. Nobody knows who the architect was. But it must have arisen just like a poetry. It is poetry in marble.

Music has arisen, but it is a totally different kind — not the kind that you compose. On the contrary, it composes you. Once a man has tasted the meditative space within him, everything that he touches becomes gold; everything that happens around him has a grace and a beauty and a splendor and a majesty. It is a miracle.

Bunan wrote:

Remain apart,
the world is yours —
a buddha in the flesh.

Just remember the buddha in your flesh and the world is yours. You don’t have to conquer it; it is already yours. But find out the buddha in the flesh. Just a few words, and a whole philosophy . . . remain apart . . . That is what I mean when I say, be a witness. Remain apart, just a watcher on the hill. Remain apart, the world is yours – a buddha in the flesh.

This remaining apart brings two things. One, a buddha inside awakens; and the other, a new mastery over the whole existence. It is not political, it is existential. It does not need to have any map; it has no boundaries. Finding the buddha in you, you have found the emperor.

Maneesha has asked:

Our beloved Master,

I have understood you to say lately that the Buddha, the “Mysterious One” within us, is always there, constant, unaffected by whatever we do.

I always had the feeling that the more often we are conscious, the more we nourish the inner buddha, but if nothing we can do negatively can diminish him, then my feeling must be just imagination. Is it?

Maneesha, neither can you do anything negative to harm the buddha inside you, nor can you do anything positive to nourish the buddha inside you. It is complete and perfect in itself.

All that you can do is: by being conscious in your actions you can recognize it; by unconscious actions you can forget it. But you cannot do anything to it. Either you can remember and recognize and be transformed, or you can go on doing things which take you away from it and completely forget the way back. But whether you are positive or negative, your innermost buddha remains the same. You cannot do anything favorable or unfavorable to it. It is your transcendence.

-Osho

From The Miracle, Discourse #7

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

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Aham Brahmasmi – Osho

The most fundamental upanishidic statement is aham brahmasmi. Is it connected in any way to satchidanand?

Anando, the statement in the Upanishads, aham brahmasmi, is perhaps the most fundamental and the most essential experience of all the mystics of the world. The Upanishads are the only books which are considered not to belong to any religion, yet they are the very essence of religiousness.

This statement, aham brahmasmi, is a declaration of enlightenment – literally it means, “I am the divine, I am the ultimate, I am the absolute.” It is a declaration that, “There is no other God than my own inner being.” This does not mean that it is a declaration of a single individual about himself. It is a declaration, of course, by one individual, but it declares the potential of every individual.

It denies God as a separate entity. It denies God as a creator. It denies God as a ruler. It simply denies the existence of God, other than in our own existence. It is the whole search of the Eastern genius. In thousands of years, they have discovered only one thing: don’t look for God outside your own being. If you can find him you can find him only in one place and that is in you – other than you all the temples and all the mosques and all the synagogues and all the churches are inventions of the priests to exploit you. They are not in the service of God; on the contrary they are exploiting all the potential gods.

Aham brahmasmi is perhaps the boldest statement ever made by any human being in any age in any part of the world, and I don’t think it can be improved upon in the future, ever. Its courage is so absolute and perfect that you cannot refine it, you cannot polish it. It is so fundamental that you cannot go deeper than this, neither can you go higher than this.

This simple statement aham brahmasmi, – in Sanskrit, is only three words. In English also it can be translated in these few words: “I am the Ultimate.” Beyond me there is nothing; there is no height that is not within me and there is no depth which is not within me. If I can explore myself I have explored the whole mystery of existence.

But, unfortunately, even the people of this country – where this statement was made some five thousand years ago – have forgotten all about the dignity of human beings. This statement is nothing but the ultimate manifesto of man and his dignity. Even in this country, where such individuals existed who reached the ultimate awakening and illumination, there are people who are worshipping stones. There are people who are enslaved by ignorant priests. There are people who are living in the bondage of a certain religion, creed or cult. They have forgotten the golden age of the Upanishads.

Perhaps that was the most innocent time that happened in the history of man. At that time the West was almost barbarous, and that barbarousness somehow has remained as an undercurrent in the western consciousness. Otherwise, it cannot be just coincidental that the two great world wars have happened in the West. And preparation for the third is also happening in the West – just within a small span of half a century.

The days of the Upanishads in this land were the most glorious. The only search, the only seeking, the only longing, was to know oneself – no other ambition ruled mankind. Riches, success, power, everything was absolutely mundane.

Those who were ambitious, those who were running after riches, those who wanted to be powerful were considered to be psychologically sick. And those who were really healthy psychologically, spiritually healthy, their only search was to know oneself and to be oneself and to declare to the whole universe the innermost secret. That secret is contained in this statement, “Aham brahmasmi.” The people who followed the days of the Upanishads in a way have fallen into a dark age.

You will be surprised to know that the idea of involution has not appeared at all in the Western mind, only the idea of evolution, only the idea of progress. But the mystics of the Upanishads have a more perfect and more comprehensive approach. Nothing can go on evolving forever. Evolution has been conceived by the Upanishads as a circle and, in fact, in existence everything moves in a circle. Stars move in circles, the sun moves in a circle, the earth moves in a circle, the moon moves in a circle, climates move in a circle, life moves in a circle.

The whole existence knows only one way of movement and that is circular. So that which seems to be going up one day will soon be going down. Again, it will come up – it is just like a wheel and the spokes of the wheel. The same spoke will come up, will go down, will come up, will go down.

Evolution is incomplete if there is not any complementary idea of involution. Materially man has evolved. Certainly, there were no railway trains and there were no atomic weapons and there was no nuclear war material, there was no electricity, there was nothing of the technology that we have become accustomed to living with. Materially, man has certainly evolved, but spiritually, the situation is totally different.

Spiritually, man has not evolved. According to the Upanishads, man has gone deeper into darkness. He has lost his innocence and he has lost his blissfulness and he has lost his simple experience of: “I am the mysterious, I am the miraculous; I am the whole cosmos in a miniature form, just as a dewdrop is the whole ocean in a miniature form.” The dewdrop can declare, “I am the ocean,” and there will not be anything wrong in it. Certainly, a particular individual is only a dewdrop, but he can declare, “Aham brahmasmi,” and there is nothing wrong in it. He is simply saying the truth.

The Upanishads talk about four stages of man’s fall, not of evolution. The first stage, when the Upanishads came into being, is called the “Age of Truth.” People were simply truthful, just as small children are simply truthful.

To lie, one needs some experience. Lying is a complicated phenomenon, truth is not. To lie you need a developed memory, you have to remember what kind of thing you have said to one person and what kind of thing you have said to another person. A lying person needs a good memory. A man of truth needs no memory because he is simply saying that which is the case.

The child has no experience other than the truth, other than what he experiences. He cannot lie. The days of the Upanishads are the days of man’s childhood, of purity and innocence, of deep love and trust. The first age the Upanishads call Satyuga, the Age of Truth. Truth was not a long journey. You were not to go anywhere to find it. You were living in it.

The situation was exactly expressed by Kabir in a symbolic parable: A fish in the ocean, who must have had a philosophic bent, started inquiring of other fish, “I have heard so much about the ocean, but I want to know where it is.”

The poor fish that she questioned had also heard about the ocean but they were not so curious, so they never bothered about where it was. They said, “We have also heard about the ocean, but where it is we have never bothered to ask, and we don’t know the answer.”

And the young philosopher fish went on asking everybody, “Where is the ocean?” And they were all stunned. They had heard about it from their forefathers – it had always been known – but as far as an exact description or experience was concerned, nobody was able to explain it to the young fish.

Finally, the young fish declared, “You are all stupid. There is no ocean at all.” Nobody could answer the fish.

Kabir says the same is the situation of man. Man goes on asking, “Have you seen God? Have you seen the mysterious, the miraculous?” And all he can hear is, “We have heard about it, we have read about it . . .” But there was a day when people were so innocent, childlike, that they knew it – that they are surrounded by the ocean, that the ocean is not to be searched for, it is within and without. They are part of it, they are born in it, they live in it, they breathe in it, and they will one day disappear into it. They are part and parcel of the ocean.

But every child has to grow. And just as every child has to grow, Satyuga, the Age of Truth, could not remain forever. It produced the great scriptures called the Upanishads – the word is so beautiful: it simply means ‘sitting by the side of the master’ – those are recordings from the notes of disciples who were sitting in silence by the side of the master. Once in a while, out of his meditation, he would say something; out of his heart something would be transferred to the disciple, and the disciple would take a note. Those notes are the Upanishads.

Satyuga, the Age of Truth, disappeared – the child grew. The second stage is called Treta – it is compared to a table. The first, Satyuga, the Age of Truth, was almost like a table with four legs, absolutely balanced. Treta means three. One leg of the table has disappeared. Now it is no more a table with four legs, with that certainty, with that trust, with that grounding, with that centering, with that great balance . . . Now it is only a tripod, three legs.

Certainly, something is missing. It is not so certain – some doubt has arisen, trust is no longer complete and perfect, love is no more unpolluted. The disciple’s question is not coming from his whole being, just out of his head. But still, there was much yet to happen. The child went on growing. As far as age is concerned it seems a growth, but as far as innocence is concerned it is an involution. Both are going side by side: evolution as far as age and body are concerned, and involution as far as innocence, trust and love are concerned.

After Treta humanity fell still more. The stage after Treta is called Dwapar. One leg is lost again – now everything is unbalanced. Standing on two legs, how can a table have trust, certainty, security, safety, balance? Fear became the predominant quality rather than love, rather than trust. Insecurity became more prominent than a tremendous feeling of being at home. But things went on growing in one direction: as far as material growth is concerned, there was evolution; in another direction as far as consciousness is concerned, there was a continuous fall.

After Dwapar, the age of two legs, is the age we are living in. It is called Kaliyuga, the Age of Darkness. Even the last leg has disappeared. Man is almost in a state of insanity. Instead of innocence, insanity has become our normal state. Everybody is in some way or other psychologically sick.

I am talking about these four ages for a particular reason, because the statement that was made in innocence in the days of the Upanishads has become absolutely incomprehensible to our people, to our contemporaries. Even the people who are the inheritors of the Upanishads are afraid to declare that, “I am God,” that, “I am the Absolute” – what to say about others? Others have their own prejudices.

For example, when Christians started translating the Upanishads they were shocked. They could not believe that there are in existence scriptures so tremendously poetic, beautiful, but what they are saying goes against Christianity, against Judaism, against Mohammedanism, even against today’s Hinduism. Even the Hindu is not capable today of declaring, “I am God.” He has also become impressed and influenced by Christianity to such an extent.

Christian missionaries started condemning the Upanishads because if the Upanishads are right, then what to do with the Bible? The Bible absolutely declares, just as the Koran declares, that there is only one God. If the Upanishads are right then there are as many gods as there are living beings. Some may have come to manifestation, some may be on the way, some may not have started the journey yet but will start finally.

How long can you delay? You can miss one train, you can miss another train, but every moment the train is coming. How long can you go on sitting in the waiting room? And people go on becoming buddhas, and people go on becoming seers and sages, and you are still waiting in the waiting room with your suitcases. How long can you do that? There is a limit when you see that so many people have left already – the whole platform is empty – you will take courage that perhaps it is time to move.

For Christianity the problem was that everybody cannot be God. They cannot even accept everybody to be the son of God, what to say about God? Only Jesus is the son of God.

You are only puppets made of earth. God made man with mud and breathed life into it. It is just a manufactured thing, and if a puppet starts declaring, “Aham brahmasmi” – “I am God” – the puppeteer will laugh, saying, “Idiots! You are just puppets and your strings are in my hands. When I want you to dance you dance, when I want you to lie down you lie down, when I want you to breathe you breathe, when I want you not to breathe you can’t do anything.”

For Christianity it was a tremendous challenge, and they started finding arguments against it. Their first argument was that the person, the seer, the sage – whoever he may be, because even the name is not mentioned in the Upanishads – who declared for the first time, “Aham brahmasmi,” the Christian missionaries started saying that he was a megalomaniac, that he was suffering from a big ego. They were full of prejudice. They could not see the simple fact that it was not the ego that was declaring – because the Upanishads say it clearly: unless your ego disappears, you cannot even understand the meaning of “I am the Ultimate.”

It is not the declaration of ego. This declaration is possible only on the death of ego. That is a clear-cut statement in the Upanishads. But Christian missionaries went on misinterpreting the Upanishads to the West, distorting and commenting that these people were almost mad. Obviously, to a Mohammedan or to a Christian, the idea that somebody says, “I am God,” is very shocking. […]

When Christians – particularly the learned, scholarly missionaries – started translating the Upanishads, they distorted it in every way and they made comments, saying, “This is a statement of somebody who is utterly insane, whose ego is too big. And he is not religious at all, because a religious man should be humble. How can a religious man declare, ‘I am God’?”

This is very strange about religions. They can see the faults of each other but they cannot see their own faults. When Jesus declares, “I am the only begotten son of God,” they don’t see any ego – it is humbleness.

The Upanishads are not egoistic. They are not saying that the one sage who declares, “I am God,” is saying something only about himself. He is saying that you are also God – just as I am God, you are God. We are all part of a godliness. We are all part of the same ocean. This fish and that fish are not different; they are all born out of the same ocean and they will all disappear into the same ocean.

The Upanishads’ statement is not egoistic at all, but religions which are God-centered cannot accept it easily. Even Hindus, whose forefathers made this statement, have become so cowardly that now they do not dare to make such a statement. They themselves think that it is egoistic.

Christianity and Mohammedanism have both impressed too much – even on the Hindu mind. The Hindu mind is no longer pure Hindu. […]

And you are asking, Anando, what is the connection between this great statement – it is actually called mahavakya: ‘the great statement’ – with another statement of the same significance, sachchidanand. Sachchidanand consists of three words, as I have told you: Sat – truth; Chit – consciousness; Anand – bliss. These three experiences make one capable of asserting the great statement, “Aham brahmasmi.” They are deeply connected. In fact, if sachchidanand is the flower, then “Aham brahmasmi” is the fragrance, so deep is the connection between the two.

Certainly, “I am the Ultimate” is the very conclusion of the whole search of the East – of all the Buddhas, of all the mystics. A single sentence can be called the conclusion of the whole of India. But God-centered religions will not be ready to accept it. That simply shows that their understanding is not of truth, not of consciousness, not of bliss.

Their understanding is of a very low order: it is not an experience, but only a belief. One is a Christian only by belief; a Jew only by belief; a Mohammedan only by belief. What the Upanishads are saying is not any belief – it is direct, immediate experience. And they are so poetic, so mystic, that there is no comparison in the whole world’s literature.

But this final flowering and fragrance is possible only if you start with meditation and not with prayer. These two ways will take you to different conclusions: prayer will take you more and more into fiction and meditation will take you more and more into truth. Meditation is to go within wards, and prayer is to look upwards, into the empty sky, with all your desires and greed and demands, with all your fears and insecurities. God is to you, if you are on the path of prayer, a consolation and nothing more, but if you are on the path of meditation, God will become one day your very own self, your very own existence. […]

If you want fictions, prayer is the path. All the religions that are based on prayer are not authentic religions.

But meditation is a totally different route. It takes you inwards; it takes you away from the world towards your own being. It is not a demand, it is not a desire, it is not greed, it is not asking or requesting anything. It is simply being silent, utterly silent, moving deeper and deeper into silence . . .

And a moment comes of sublime silence, and then a sudden explosion of light and you will feel yourself saying, “Aham brahmasmi.” Not outwards, because you are not saying it to anybody in particular – it will be just a feeling in the deepest core of your being. No language is needed, just an experience that, “I am the whole, I am the all. And just as I am the whole, everybody else is,” so there is no question of any ego or megalomania.

The Christian missionaries who interpreted the Upanishads were absolutely prejudiced and had no understanding about meditation and no understanding about the higher qualities of a true religion. They knew only an organized church. In comparison to the Upanishads, every religion of the world looks so ‘pygmy’, so childish.

Those organized religions don’t give you freedom. On the contrary, they give you deeper and deeper bondage and slavery. In the name of God, you have to surrender, in the name of God you have to become a sheep and allow a Jesus or a Mohammed to be a shepherd. It is so disgusting, the very idea is so self-disrespectful that I cannot call it even pseudo-religious. It is simply irreligious.

The Upanishads are the highest flights of consciousness. They don’t belong to any religion. The people who made these great statements have not even mentioned their names. They don’t belong to any nation, they don’t belong to any religion, they don’t belong to those who are in search of some mundane thing.

They belong to the authentic seekers of truth.

They belong to you.

They belong to my people.

-Osho

From Sat Chit Anand; Truth, Consciousness, Bliss, Discourse #12

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The Three Initiations – Osho

Is it true that to be in communion with the master is the initiation?

The word ‘initiation’ is very significant and profound. There are three initiations: first, when a student becomes a disciple; second, when a disciple becomes a devotee; and third, when the devotee disappears in the master. To understand the whole process, all three steps have to be understood.

Everyone begins as a student, as an inquirer into what this life is all about, with a curiosity to know the mysteries that surround us. But the desire is for knowledge; hence, superficial. Because the desire is for knowledge, it is of the mind. And mind is the periphery of our being, the most superficial part of our individuality.

The student has questions, but he has no quest. His questions are easily answerable, he is easily satisfied – just borrowed knowledge is enough for him. He does not yet need a master; he only needs a teacher. He accumulates answers, becomes an intellectual, but does not become intelligent. The accumulation of answers happens in the memory part of the mind, and the part that functions in accumulation is mechanical, it has nothing to do with intelligence. It is possible to find very educated, cultured, sophisticated intellectuals behaving in life in a very unintelligent way. They are very efficient whenever some question is asked for which they are already prepared. But if life raises a new question for which they are not prepared, they are completely at a loss, they are as ignorant as one can be. And the problem is, life goes on posing new questions, new challenges.

Memory is good in the marketplace; memory is not good as a lifestyle. And all your universities only teach you how to memorize. It has been found that the people of very great memory are generally unintelligent people. […]

It is a well-known fact that a student is interested in collecting knowledge. His questions are easily satisfied. His mind functions like a computer. But once in a while, a student falls into the trap of a master. He is not in search of a master; he does not know any difference in the words ‘master’ and ‘teacher’. In the dictionaries both words mean the same. But in actual life, a teacher simply transfers knowledge from one generation to another generation – it is not his own experience. The master does not transfer knowledge from one generation to another generation; what he gives out is his own realization.

But if the student is caught in the trap of a master, then it is very difficult to get out of it because soon it becomes clear that knowledge and knowing are two different things. Questions and quest are two different things. Questions are simply curiosities. Quest is a risk, is a pilgrimage, is a search.

A question is easily satisfied by any logical, rational answer. The quest is not satisfied by logical or rational answers; the quest is like thirst. You can go on repeating that scientifically, H2O means water, but that is not going to quench the thirst. It is an answer, and a perfectly right answer. If somebody is asking what water is, as a question, it is very simple to answer it. But if somebody is asking about water because he is thirsty, then H2O is not going to help. Then, only real water will do. Quest means thirst, hunger. No borrowed knowledge can satisfy it. And the master slowly makes the student aware that if you are really a man, then just to be curious is childish. Maturity demands that you should go on a quest, that you should not ask only for knowledge, you should ask for ways and means and methods so that you can know – not knowledge that has come from generation to generation. No one knows whether somebody invented it, whether it is fiction, whether somebody realized it or not, how much is lost in transferring it, how much is added, how much is edited out. Knowing means “I want a personal experience.”

A genuine seeker has no questions, but a tremendous thirst.

This is the first initiation – when the master changes the student’s focus from knowledge towards knowing, from memory towards intelligence. And it is not an ordinary phenomenon, it happens to only a very few fortunate ones. Millions of people simply remain curious, childish, immature for their whole life.

Once the emphasis has moved from knowledge to knowing, your concern is no more with the past, your concern is with the present. Your concern is no more with the great philosophers, wise people; your concern is about your own consciousness. For the first time you become interested not in objects but in your subjectivity, not about other things but about the one who wants to know: Who is this who wants to know?

This is the first initiation: the student dies, and the disciple is born. The second initiation is when the disciple also disappears, into a devotee. A disciple is still interested in gaining methods, disciplines, ways to know himself. The master has to be used; hence, he is grateful. But he is the end, and the master is the means; he is using the master for his own ends. As he comes closer to the master, the master takes him into the second initiation. And the second initiation is that unless you drop this obsession with yourself you will never know yourself. It appears contradictory; it is not. Your very obsession is preventing you; it is egoistic. You drop the ego, surrender the ego; you forget yourself, and in the very moment you forget yourself you will find yourself.

From knowledge to knowing, the student was never interested in himself. He was interested in things, objects, the whole world. The first initiation brought him into a new world of interest about himself. The second initiation takes away the ego. The second initiation teaches him love. Because knowing oneself is a byproduct – if you can love, you will know yourself without any difficulty.

Only in loving light does the darkness within you disappear. Love is light, and the flame of love has to be taught.

The master loves, his presence is love. His very presence is magnetic. Without saying a Word . . . just to be close to him, you will feel a certain pull, a certain love, a trust. And you don’t know the man, you don’t know whether he is trustworthy or not. But you are ready to risk. The presence of the master is so convincing that there is no need of any argument to prove it. […]

The master is not a teacher. He loves; it will be better to say he is love. He respects; it will be better to say he is respectfulness. Naturally he creates a gravitational field of love, respect, gratitude. In this gravitational field, the second initiation happens. The disciple is no longer interested in knowing about himself. His only interest is in how to be dissolved into the master, how to be in harmony with the master. And the day the harmony comes to its peak, the disciple disappears; the devotee is born.

The devotee is miles away from the student. The whole journey has taken such revolutionary changes. The devotee is on the verge . . . the life of the devotee is not long. The longest life is that of the student. In the middle is the disciple. And the life span of the devotee is very small. It is something like a dewdrop on a lotus petal in the early morning sun, slipping slowly, slowly towards the sun into the ocean. The dewdrop is just that small fragment of time that it takes to slip from the lotus leaf into the ocean.

The devotee’s life is not long, it is very short – because once you have tasted the harmony, you cannot wait to taste oneness. It is impossible to wait. The dewdrop runs fast, drops into the ocean, becomes one with the ocean.

There are two ways to say it. Kabir, one of the great mystics of India, is the only one who has used both ways. When for the first time he slipped into the ocean, he wrote a small statement in which he said, “I had been searching for myself, but, my friend, instead of finding myself, I have disappeared into the ocean. The dewdrop has disappeared into the ocean.”

After almost twenty years, when he was on his deathbed, he asked his son, Kamal, “Bring the notes you have been taking of my statements. Before I die, I have to correct one thing.” He said, “I have said at one place that the dewdrop has disappeared into the ocean. Change it. Write down, ‘The ocean has disappeared into the dewdrop.’”

His own words are tremendously beautiful. The first words are Herat herat hey sakhi rahya kabir herayi; bunda samani samunda men so kat heri jayi. And the second: Herat herat hey sakhi rahya kabir herayi; samunda samana bunda men so kat heri jayi. In the first, the dewdrop has disappeared in the ocean. In the second, the ocean has disappeared into the dewdrop. Perhaps two sides of the same coin . . .

This is the third initiation, and only after the third initiation is there communion – because there is union, there is no more separation, there is at-oneness.

The path of a mystic begins as a student, ends as a master . . . begins as a dewdrop, ends as an ocean.

-Osho

From Beyond Enlightenment, Discourse #12, Q1

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Enlightenment – Osho

Enlightenment is the greatest revolution you can conceive of because it destroys all fictions, all rituals, all gods, all traditions, all scriptures. It leaves you with only the essential consciousness of your own being. Its trust in consciousness is so total that there is no need of anything else.

It has not been said as clearly as I am putting it . . . I want to make it absolutely clear that the very idea of enlightenment is against all religions. Or, in other words, the only authentic religion is that of enlightenment. All other religions are part of the marketplace; they are businesses exploiting human helplessness, exploiting human weakness, exploiting human limitations.

Religions have done so much harm to man that it is unparalleled. Nothing else has been so dangerous. In every possible way they have been preventing man from even hearing the word ‘enlightenment’. You should not become aware that raising your hands to the sky is stupid — there is no one to answer your prayers, no prayer has ever been answered. […]

Enlightenment is a rebellion against all traditions, against all priests, against all religions, because it declares that there is nothing higher than man’s consciousness. And man is not suffering because some stupid man in the past disobeyed a fictitious God; man is not suffering because of millions of lives of evil acts. Man is suffering for the simple reason that he does not know himself. His ignorance about himself is the only cause of his suffering, misery, torture.

Enlightenment brings everything to a very simple and scientific conclusion. It pinpoints that all that you need is to learn the art of awareness.

Ta Hui is right to say that enlightenment is the key, the only key which opens all the realities and all the blessings and all the potentials which have been hidden within you. You are a seed: enlightenment is nothing but finding the right soil and waiting for the spring to come.

Enlightenment is such a radical standpoint.

It is not another religion.

It is the only religion.

All other religions are pseudo.

Ta Hui says, Some take sitting wordlessly with eyes shut beneath the Black Mountain, inside the Ghost Cave, and consider it as the scene on the other side of the primordial Buddha, the scene before their parents were born — They also call it “silent, yet ever illuminating,” and consider it ch’an. This lot don’t seek subtle wondrous enlightenment. They consider enlightenment as falling into the secondary.

This word ‘secondary’ has to be understood because it has a context, and without the context you will not be able to grasp the meaning. Gautam Buddha has said, “To experience enlightenment is primary, but to say anything about it is secondary.” To know it is fundamental, but to say anything about it — howsoever articulate, howsoever intelligently worded — falls into the secondary, into the nonessential. The essential is the experience; the expression is nonessential.

But this is one of the great misfortunes of humanity, that even great truths are destined to be misunderstood by people. What Buddha is saying is one thing; what people hear is another.

There is a school which says enlightenment is secondary, and Gautam Buddha himself has said it. Don’t be bothered by it. Certainly, Gautam Buddha has said it, but he has not said that enlightenment is secondary. He has said that to say anything about it is to go wrong . . . even the very word enlightenment, and you have gone far away from the experience.

And you know in your ordinary life there are situations . . . When you see a beautiful rose, is it the same to experience the beauty of the rose and to say that it is beautiful? Can the word ‘beautiful’ contain your experience of the rose? You experience love, but is it possible to say through the word ‘love’ exactly what you experience in the silences of your heart? The love that you experience and the word ‘love’ are not synonymous. The word is not even an echo of your authentic experience. And these are ordinary realities: beauty, love, gratitude. Enlightenment is the ultimate experience of being one with the whole. There is no way to say it.

Lao Tzu refused his whole life to say anything about it: “You can talk about everything, but don’t mention the ultimate experience” — because he cannot lie, and to say anything about the ultimate truth is a lie.

Gautam Buddha was right, but he was not taking into consideration the stupid people who are always in the majority. He would never have thought that there would be a school quoting him, saying that enlightenment is secondary; the real thing is to worship, the real thing is to pray. Gautam Buddha has denied . . . His last words were, “Don’t make statues of me, because I don’t want you to be worshipers, I want you to be buddhas. And a buddha praying before a stone statue is simply ridiculous.”

But such is the ignorance of man that the first statues made of any man were those of Gautam Buddha. There had been statues, but those were of fictitious gods. Gautam Buddha is the first historical person whose statues were made and made on such a great scale that even today he has more statues in the world than anybody else. And the poor fellow had said, “Don’t make my statues, because I am not teaching you to worship, I am teaching you to awaken. No worship is going to help; it is simply a waste of time.”

But the priest is interested in worship; hence Buddha’s words were not taken care of, and priests started making statues. Rituals were created, and he had been fighting for forty-two years continuously against rituals, against temples, against scriptures. Exactly what he had been fighting against was done afterwards — and done with all good intentions by people who thought they were doing some service to humanity, by people who thought that they were followers of Gautam Buddha.

It is a strange history. Every master has been betrayed, without exception, by his own people in different ways. The betrayal of Judas was very ordinary, superficial. But the betrayal of those who have created statues of Buddha, made temples of Buddha, created scriptures in the name of Buddha, brought everything back against which that man had fought for forty-two years continuously . . . From the back door everything has come in.

These people say . . . and they are many, and of many different sectarian ideologies. There are thirty-two Buddhist sects in the world, and they all think they are teaching exactly what Gautam Buddha has said. But there are only a few who can be said to have understood Gautam Buddha — because the only way to understand him is to become him, is to become an awakened being.

Except for that, there is no way to understand Buddha. You cannot study him from scriptures and you cannot persuade him by your prayers. You can be in his company only by being awakened the same way as he was. On those same sunlit peaks of consciousness, you will be able to understand him. In other words, the day you understand yourself you will have understood the message of this strangest man who has walked on the earth. The priests have been trying to misquote him, to distort him, to interpret him for their own interests. They consider enlightenment as falling into the secondary.

They think that enlightenment deceives people . . . The fact is, only enlightenment does not deceive people. Except enlightenment, everything in the name of religion deceives people.

. . . That enlightenment is a fabrication . . . And I say again to you: only enlightenment is the ultimate reality. Other than that, everything else is a fabrication. All your gods, all your messiahs, all your prophets are nothing but your own imagination, your own projection. They are fulfilling certain needs in you, but those needs are sick. They are providing you with father-figures.

It is not strange that people call God “the father,” because everybody feels alone in the world, unprotected. Always death is walking by your side; it can grab you any moment. Life is so insecure and unsafe that you need some insurance, some guarantee. God comes in handy; he is your father. In times of trouble, you can always rely on him, although he has never helped anybody.

Even Jesus on the cross is praying. Finally, he freaks out and shouts at the sky, “Father, why have you forsaken me?” But still, he goes on looking, hoping that God will be coming on a white cloud to save him, with angels playing on their harps, singing “Alleluia!” But not a single white cloud appears.

Jesus can be taken as the greatest example of all those who believe in fictions. He believed too much . . . The sky is not responsible for his beliefs, and if the sky is not fulfilling his expectations, only he is responsible — nobody else. He had immense belief, but he was not enlightened; he did not trust. He believed in a God; he believed madly that he was the only son of God.

These very ideas show that the man was a little neurotic. Instead of helping him and giving him the right treatment, there were other idiots who crucified him . . . but crucifixion is not a treatment. So one sort of idiots crucified him and another sort of idiots, in their imagination, have resurrected him. Now half of humanity is following a man who was a mental case.

But why has he been able to influence so many people? The reason is not that he had a great, convincing philosophy — he had no philosophy at all! The reason is that humanity at large is also neurotic. It feels very good to believe in Jesus Christ, to believe in God; it creates a protection — just in your mind. You will be deceived, finally you will be disillusioned, but to be disillusioned at the time of death is meaningless. Then there is no time is left to do anything else.

The people who say that enlightenment deceives people, the people who say that enlightenment is a fabrication, are people who since they have never awakened themselves, they don’t believe anyone has awakened either.

It is like blind people who don’t believe that there is light — and there is no way to convince them. Even the greatest logician will not be able to convince a blind man that there is light, because light is not an argument but an experience. You need eyes — you don’t need great philosophical proofs.

If you are deaf, no music exists for you. If you are crippled, it hurts you that somebody else can dance. And if the majority is crippled — which is the case as far as enlightenment is concerned . . . If once in a while there is a dancer and millions of people are crippled, they cannot believe that he is real. Maybe he is a dream, maybe an illusion, maybe a magical trick — but he cannot be real. Their own experience does not support his reality.

The awakened ones have found themselves in utter aloneness in a world where everybody is capable of becoming a dancer, but people have chosen to remain crippled, people have chosen to remain blind. There are people who can exploit you only if you are blind, if you are crippled, if you are deaf, if you are dumb. These parasites are your prophets, these parasites are your priests.

Enlightenment is a rebellion against all these parasites.

-Osho

From The Great Zen Master Ta Hui, Discourse #34

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Is Timing Everything? – Osho

Is it true to say that timing is everything?

No, it is not true to say that timing is everything, because once you start thinking that timing is everything, you will stop seeking, searching. You will simply wait for the spring to come, you will become absolutely unaware of the fact that for enlightenment no season is right or wrong, no climate is right or wrong. Every moment is right; you just have to catch hold of your own being. But it has been said even by Gautam Buddha that timing is needed.

I want you to know that Gautam Buddha is simply trying to console those who cannot gather courage in this moment. He does not want to discourage them by saying, “You will never become enlightened.” He is saying, “You will become enlightened, just wait for the time, for the ripening, for the cause.”

But I say unto you, in spite of Gautam Buddha, that no timing is needed, no causation is needed, because you are already enlightened. It is just that you are afraid to declare it, you are just afraid of what people will say . . . “I am enlightened? People will laugh, they will say, ‘Look at this fellow, he is enlightened.’”

Every day Neelam brings news to me that somebody is creating trouble, walking naked in the ashram because he thinks he has become enlightened. But just walking naked has nothing to do with enlightenment.

One woman was declaring herself a master and one man declaring his enlightenment – and both are cuckoos. So I told Neelam, “It is better to put both the cuckoos together.” The woman has been declaring herself for almost fifteen years. I said, “Neelam, tell the woman that if she is really a master and enlightened, take care of this fellow. He is very new, needs care.” And that fellow is a much bigger cuckoo.

The woman was cured. She said, “I am no more . . . he is too much. I take my words back that I am enlightened or I am a master . . . If this man has to be taken care of, I refuse. I will be simple from now onwards.” And for three, four days she has proved simple. The greater cuckoo managed to make the smaller cuckoo silent. Now Neelam was asking me what to do with the remaining cuckoo. I said, “Simply wait, somebody will be coming who is bigger. Give this one into his charge and tell him, ‘Here is your first disciple.’ There is no other way.”

And then Anando told the enlightened man that, “You either be silent and stop disturbing other people or you will be given to a greater cuckoo.” For at least one and a half days he has been behaving silently, just being afraid, because here there are so many potential cuckoos! I have even told Neelam to make a special office and department where cuckoos meet and discuss their enlightenment.

Enlightenment is not something that you have to shout on the streets, enlightenment is your recognition of your silent inner flame. It will make you saner, not a cuckoo; it will even help create a certain energy field around you which can trigger other people to enlightenment. But you don’t have to be a nuisance. You cannot force anybody to enlightenment. You can kill someone, that is not difficult, but even dead he will remain unenlightened. Enlightenment is not something that can be done from outside.

But from the outside, situations can be created, devices can be created in which suddenly you become aware of your own self. The master himself, his presence, is nothing but a situation; those who are thirsty will draw water from the well. But the thirst has to be authentic; otherwise, people go on standing by the side of the well, thirsty, and their thirst is either intellectual or just a curiosity to know what this enlightenment is. It has to be a tremendously powerful longing in you, a very life and death question – then there is no barrier, then there is no timing.

So even though it goes against Gautam Buddha’s statement, I will not say that you have to wait for tomorrow. Do it now, this is the time!

-Osho

From This. This. A Thousand Times This: The Very Essence of Zen, Discourse #10

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That Area is Meditation – Osho

Maneesha, Ryusui is pointing to a very fundamental question which Gautam Buddha raised for the first time in human history.

The question is, is enlightenment something to be achieved, desired, longed for? If so, then there must be practices, disciplines, rituals, and the whole paraphernalia. And millions of people have gone astray in search of enlightenment. Buddha is the first human being who has said that everything is absolutely arbitrary because you need not go anywhere. Enlightenment is your very nature.

It is consciousness that you are built with; this house, this body is not you. And this mind also is not you. And there is not much problem to stand aside and watch the mind and its functioning, to stand aside and watch the gestures of the body. This watcher is your reality, your truth. It is already here, so don’t go in search somewhere else. Whenever, wherever you find it, you will always find it here and now. Now is the time and here is the space. If you can be now here, you are a Gautam Buddha.

I have heard a small story about a man who was a great atheist. The whole day he was arguing against religion, against all kinds of superstitions. He had written in his sitting room in big letters: God is nowhere.

Then a small child was born to him.

One day the small child was looking at the writing. He was just learning to write, learning the alphabet, so he could not manage to read God is nowhere; on the contrary, he read: God is nowhere – nowhere can be divided into two.

The father heard it and was amazed. He had never thought about it, that ‘nowhere’ consists of ‘now’ and ‘here’.

The small child changed the man’s whole approach; he started thinking about now and here. And he was puzzled . . . because he has never been now; his mind has been wandering in the past or in the future, but never now, never in the present.

Meditation means no mind – no past, no future, no present . . . just eternity, a pure mirror which reflects the whole and is not scratched by anything. Just as the sky is not scratched by the clouds moving, or the sun rising, or the full-moon night, the sky remains unscratched.

The father had defeated many philosophers, but this small child changed his whole life because he started to be here, and to be now, and he found a new area opening within himself.

That area is meditation.

Meditation means no mind – no past, no future, no present . . . just eternity, a pure mirror which reflects the whole and is not scratched by anything. Just as the sky is not scratched by the clouds moving, or the sun rising, or the full-moon night, the sky remains unscratched.

You have heard the Zen haiku about the shadows of the bamboos . . . sweeping the temple steps, but they don’t make any noise.

The moon in the sky is reflected in the smallest pond but it does not disturb the pond. It does not create even a single ripple. And the miracle is, neither does the pond want the moon to reflect nor does the moon want to be reflected. But existence manages spontaneously a beautiful phenomenon – a single moon being reflected all over the earth.

In rivers, in oceans, in ponds, in lakes, in streams . . . even in a single dewdrop on a lotus leaf, the full moon is reflected as fully as in the biggest ocean.

But everything is happening so silently on its own accord.

In existence there is no effort, there is no intention. Everything is very relaxed and at ease.

Gautam Buddha was the first man to say that anybody who is searching for himself is a fool. The very search is preventing you from finding. Don’t search! Don’t go anywhere, just sit down and close your eyes and be within. Forget all about past and future, forget the body and the mind – you are the host. This is only a house, a temporary caravanserai; by the morning you will have to go on. The caravan continues from one serai to another serai, so don’t get attached to the caravanserai where you happen to be right now, in this moment.

Detached, aloof, just watching . . . and the mind disappears.

Mind is your attachment with the body and through the body with the world and all its greed, anger, love, hate, jealousy. The whole world is a projection of your mind, in which you live in suffering and misery – or once in a while a little joy, a little pleasure, but very superficial, not even skin deep. But behind all this scene is hiding your buddha, your awareness, your pure consciousness – unclouded, unscratched, from eternity to eternity.

To realize this is the greatest experience in the world.

But all the religions have been driving people astray, searching for gods which don’t exist, praying before gods they have never met. No prayer has been responded to, but all the religions are combined in a conspiracy to take you away from yourself. These are the ways . . . God is far away; self-realization is going to be through arduous practices, disciplines. Everybody cannot afford it. Nobody has that much time, nobody has that much capacity for self-torture. Nobody is so much a masochist that he can become a saint.

Naturally, the ultimate outcome is the present-day humanity: everybody has lost his way to himself. And it is a single step – just turning in. It is not a finding, it is not a discovery, it is not an invention. It is simply a remembrance.

You can forget it, you can remember it. These are the only two things you can do about your nature, about your intrinsic consciousness.

But between the two there is not much difference; the difference between sleep and waking is the only difference. And one who is awake today was asleep yesterday; one who is asleep today may become awake tomorrow, so it is only a question of timing. It is only a question of your decision, when to recognize. As far as buddhahood is concerned, it is waiting there since eternity to eternity. Whether you recognize it or not, it does not matter.

If you recognize it, all your actions will change. Your world view will change. Mind will not be any more a master to you but will be a very good and very efficient servant, a good bio-computer. But first the master has to be recognized, then the mind and the body function according to the wisdom of the master.

-Osho

From Turning In, Discourse #1

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.

My Beloved Bodhisattvas – Osho

My beloved bodhisattvas . . . Yes, that’s how I look at you. That’s how you have to start looking at yourselves. Bodhisattva means a buddha in essence, a buddha in seed, a buddha asleep, but with all the potential to be awake. In that sense everybody is a bodhisattva, but not everybody can be called a bodhisattva — only those who have started groping for the light, who have started longing for the dawn, in whose hearts the seed is no longer a seed but has become a sprout, has started growing.

You are bodhisattvas because of your longing to be conscious, to be alert, because of your quest for the truth. The truth is not far away, but there are very few fortunate ones in the world who long for it. It is not far away but it is arduous, it is hard to achieve. It is hard to achieve, not because of its nature, but because of our investment in lies.

We have invested for lives and lives in lies. Our investment is so much that the very idea of truth makes us frightened. We want to avoid it; we want to escape from the truth. Lies are beautiful escapes — convenient, comfortable dreams. But dreams are dreams. They can enchant you for the moment; they can enslave you for the moment, but only for the moment. And each dream is followed by tremendous frustration, and each desire is followed by deep failure.

But we go on rushing into new lies; if old lies are known, we immediately invent new lies. Remember that only lies can be invented; truth cannot be invented. Truth already is! Truth has to be discovered, not invented. Lies cannot be discovered, they have to be invented.

Mind feels very good with lies because the mind becomes the inventor, the doer. And as the mind becomes the doer, ego is created. With truth, you have nothing to do . . . and because you have nothing to do, mind ceases, and with the mind the ego disappears, evaporates. That’s the risk, the ultimate risk.

You have moved towards that risk. You have taken a few steps — staggering, stumbling, groping, haltingly, with many doubts, but still you have taken a few steps; hence I call you bodhisattvas.

And The Dhammapada, the teaching of Gautama the Buddha, can only be taught to the bodhisattvas. It cannot be taught to the ordinary, mediocre humanity, because it cannot be understood by them.

These words of Buddha come from eternal silence. They can reach you only if you receive them in silence. These words of Buddha come from immense purity. Unless you become a vehicle, a receptacle, humble, egoless, alert, aware, you will not be able to understand them. Intellectually you will understand them — they are very simple words, the simplest possible. But their very simplicity is a problem, because you are not simple. To understand simplicity you need simplicity of the heart, because only the simple heart can understand the simple truth. Only the pure can understand that which has come out of purity.

I have waited long . . . now the time is ripe, you are ready. The seeds can be sown. These tremendously important words can be uttered again. For twenty-five centuries, such a gathering has not existed at all. Yes, there have been a few enlightened masters with a few disciples — half a dozen at the most — and in small gatherings The Dhammapada has been taught. But those small gatherings cannot transform such a huge humanity. It is like throwing sugar in the ocean with spoons: it cannot make it sweet — your sugar is simply wasted.

A great, unheard-of experiment has to be done, on such a large scale that at least the most substantial part of humanity is touched by it — at least the soul of humanity, the center of humanity, can be awakened by it. On the periphery, the mediocre minds will go on sleeping — let them sleep — but at the center where intelligence exists a light can be kindled.

The time is ripe, the time has come for it. My whole work here consists in creating a buddhafield, an energy field where these eternal truths can be uttered again. It is a rare opportunity. Only once in a while, after centuries, does such an opportunity exist. Don’t miss it. Be very alert, mindful. Listen to these words not only with the head but with your heart, with every fiber of your being. Let your totality be stirred by them.

And after these ten days of silence, it is exactly the right moment to bring Buddha back, to make him alive again amongst you, to let him move amongst you, to let the winds of Buddha pass through you. Yes, he can be called back again, because nobody ever disappears. Buddha is no longer an embodied person; certainly he does not exist as an individual anywhere — but his essence, his soul, is part of the cosmic soul now.

If many, many people — with deep longing, with immense longing, with prayerful hearts — desire it, passionately desire it, then the soul that has disappeared into the cosmic soul can again become manifest in millions of ways.

No true master ever dies, he cannot die. Death does not appear for the masters, does not exist for them. Hence they are masters. They have known the eternity of life. They have seen that the body disappears but that the body is not all: the body is only the periphery, the body is only the garments. The body is the house, the abode, but the guest never disappears. The guest only moves from one abode to another. One day, ultimately, the guest starts living under the sky, with no shelter . . . but the guest continues. Only bodies, houses, come and go, are born and then die. But there is an inner continuum, an inner continuity — that is eternal, timeless, deathless.

Whenever you can love a master — a master like Jesus, Buddha, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu — if your passion is total, immediately you are bridged.

My talking on Buddha is not just a commentary: it is creating a bridge. Buddha is one of the most important masters who has ever existed on the earth — incomparable, unique. And if you can have a taste of his being, you will be infinitely benefited, blessed.

I am immensely glad, because after these ten days of silence I can say to you that many of you are now ready to commune with me in silence. That is the ultimate in communication. Words are inadequate; words say, but only partially. Silence communes totally.

And to use words is a dangerous game too, because the meaning will remain with me, only the word will reach you; and you will give it your own meaning, your own color. It will not contain the same truth that it was meant to contain. It will contain something else, something far poorer. It will contain your meaning, not my meaning. You can distort language — in fact it is almost impossible to avoid distortion — but you cannot distort silence. Either you understand or you don’t understand.

And for these ten days there were only two categories of people here: those who understood and those who did not. But there was not a single person who misunderstood. You cannot misunderstand silence — that’s the beauty of silence. The demarcation is absolute: either you understand or, simply, you don’t understand — there is nothing to misunderstand.

With words the case is just the opposite: it is very difficult to understand, it is very difficult to understand that you don’t understand; these two are almost impossibilities. And the third is the only possibility: misunderstanding.

These ten days have been of strange beauty and of a mysterious majesty too. I no longer really belong to this shore. My ship has been waiting for me for a long time — I should have gone. It is a miracle that I am still in the body. The whole credit goes to you: to your love, to your prayers, to your longing. You would like me to linger a little while longer on this shore, hence the impossible has become possible.

These ten days, I was not feeling together with my body. I was feeling very uprooted, dislocated. It is strange to be in the body when you don’t feel that you are in the body. And it is also strange to go on living in a place which no longer belongs to you — my home is on the other shore. And the call comes persistently. But because you need me, it is the compassion of the universe — you can call it God’s compassion — that is allowing me to be in the body a little more.

It was strange, it was beautiful, it was mysterious, it was majestic, it was magical. And many of you have felt it. Many of you have felt it in different ways. A few have felt it as a very frightening phenomenon, as if death is knocking on the door. A few have felt it as a great confusion. A few have felt shocked, utterly shocked. But everybody has been touched in some way or other.

Only the newcomers were a little at a loss — they could not comprehend what was going on. But I feel thankful to them too. Although they could not understand what was going on, they waited — they were waiting for me to speak, they were waiting for me to say something, they were hoping. Many were afraid that I might not speak ever again…that was also a possibility. I was not certain myself.

Words are becoming more and more difficult for me. They are becoming more and more of an effort. I have to say something so I go on saying something to you. But I would like you to get ready as soon as possible so that we can simply sit in silence…listening to the birds and their songs . . . or listening just to your own heartbeat…just being here, doing nothing . . .

Get ready as soon as possible, because I may stop speaking any day. And let the news be spread to all the nooks and corners of the world: those who want to understand me only through the words; they should come soon, because I may stop speaking any day. Unpredictably, any day, it may happen — it may happen even in the middle of a sentence. Then I am not going to complete the sentence! Then it will hang forever and forever . . . incomplete.

But this time you have pulled me back.

These sayings of Buddha are called The Dhammapada. This name has to be understood. Dhamma means many things. It means the ultimate law, logos. By “ultimate law” is meant that which keeps the whole universe together. Invisible it is, intangible it is — but it is certainly; otherwise the universe would fall apart. Such a vast, infinite universe, running so smoothly, so harmoniously, is enough proof that there must be an undercurrent that connects everything, that joins everything, that bridges everything — that we are not islands, that the smallest grass leaf is joined to the greatest star. Destroy a small grass leaf and you have destroyed something of immense value to the existence itself.

In existence there is no hierarchy, there is nothing small and nothing great. The greatest star and the smallest grass leaf, both exist as equals; hence the other meaning of the word ‘dhamma’. The other meaning is justice, the equality, the non-hierarchic existence. Existence is absolutely communist; it knows no classes, it is all one. Hence the other meaning of the word ‘dhamma’ — justice.

And the third meaning is righteousness, virtue. Existence is very virtuous. Even if you find something which you cannot call virtue, it must be because of your misunderstanding; otherwise the existence is absolutely virtuous. Whatsoever happens here, always happens rightly. The wrong never happens. It may appear wrong to you because you have a certain idea of what right is, but when you look without any prejudice, nothing is wrong, all is right. Birth is right, death is right. Beauty is right and ugliness is right.

But our minds are small, our comprehension is limited; we cannot see the whole, we always see only a small part. We are like a person who is hiding behind his door and looking through the keyhole into the street. He always sees things…yes, somebody is moving, a car suddenly passes by. One moment it was not there, one moment it is there, and another moment it is gone forever. That’s how we are looking at existence. We say something is in the future, then it comes into the present, and then it has gone into the past.

In fact, time is a human invention. It is always now! Existence knows no past, no future — it knows only the present.

But we are sitting behind a keyhole and looking. A person is not there, then suddenly he appears; and then as suddenly as he appears he disappears too. Now you have to create time. Before the person appeared he was in the future; he was there, but for you he was in the future. Then he appeared; now he is in the present — he is the same! And you cannot see him anymore through your small keyhole — he has become past. Nothing is past, nothing is future — all is always present. But our ways of seeing are very limited.

Hence we go on asking why there is misery in the world, why there is this and that . . . why? If we can look at the whole, all these whys disappear. And to look at the whole, you will have to come out of your room, you will have to open the door…you will have to drop this keyhole vision.

This is what mind is: a keyhole, and a very small keyhole it is. Compared to the vast universe, what are our eyes, ears, hands? What can we grasp? Nothing of much importance. And those tiny fragments of truth, we become too much attached to them.

If you see the whole, everything is as it should be — that is the meaning of “everything is right.” Wrong exists not. Only God exists; the Devil is man’s creation.

The third meaning of ‘dhamma’ can be God — but Buddha never uses the word ‘God’ because it has become wrongly associated with the idea of a person, and the law is a presence, not a person. Hence Buddha never uses the word ‘God’, but whenever he wants to convey something of God he uses the word ‘dhamma’. His mind is that of a very profound scientist. Because of this, many have thought him to be an atheist — he is not. He is the greatest theist the world has ever known or will ever know — but he never talks about God. He never uses the word, that’s all, but by ‘dhamma’ he means exactly the same. “That which is” is the meaning of the word ‘God’, and that’s exactly the meaning of ‘dhamma’. ‘Dhamma’ also means discipline — different dimensions of the word. One who wants to know the truth will have to discipline himself in many ways. Don’t forget the meaning of the word ‘discipline’ — it simply means the capacity to learn, the availability to learn, the receptivity to learn. Hence the word ‘disciple’. ‘Disciple’ means one who is ready to drop his old prejudices, to put his mind aside, and look into the matter without any prejudice, without any a priori conception.

And ‘dhamma’ also means the ultimate truth. When mind disappears, when the ego disappears, then what remains? Something certainly remains, but it cannot be called ‘something’ — hence Buddha calls it ‘nothing’. But let me remind you, otherwise you will misunderstand him: whenever he uses the word ‘nothing’ he means no-thing. Divide the word in two; don’t use it as one word — bring a hyphen between ‘no’ and ‘thing’, then you know exactly the meaning of ‘nothing’.

The ultimate law is not a thing. It is not an object that you can observe. It is your interiority, it is subjectivity.

Buddha would have agreed totally with the Danish thinker, Soren Kierkegaard. He says: Truth is subjectivity. That is the difference between fact and truth. A fact is an objective thing. Science goes on searching for more and more facts, and science will never arrive at truth — it cannot by the very definition of the word. Truth is the interiority of the scientist, but he never looks at it. He goes on observing other things. He never becomes aware of his own being.

That is the last meaning of ‘dhamma’: your interiority, your subjectivity, your truth.

One thing very significant — allow it to sink deep into your heart: truth is never a theory, a hypothesis; it is always an experience. Hence my truth cannot be your truth. My truth is inescapably my truth; it will remain my truth, it cannot be yours. We cannot share it. Truth is unsharable, untransferable, incommunicable, inexpressible.

I can explain to you how I have attained it, but I cannot say what it is. The “how” is explainable, but not the “why.” The discipline can be shown, but not the goal. Each one has to come to it in his own way. Each one has to come to it in his own inner being. In absolute aloneness it is revealed.

And the second word is pada. ‘Pada’ also has many meanings. One, the most fundamental meaning, is path. Religion has two dimensions: the dimension of “what” and the dimension of “how.” The “what” cannot be talked about; it is impossible. But the “how” can be talked about, the “how” is sharable. That is the meaning of ‘path’. I can indicate the path to you; I can show you how I have traveled, how I reached the sunlit peaks. I can tell you about the whole geography of it, the whole topography of it. I can give you a contour map, but I cannot say how it feels to be on the sunlit peak.

It is like you can ask Edmund Hillary or Tensing how they reached the highest peak of the Himalayas, Gourishankar. They can give you the whole map of how they reached. But if you ask them what they felt when they reached, they can only shrug their shoulders. That freedom that they must have known is unspeakable; the beauty, the benediction, the vast sky, the height, and the colorful clouds, and the sun and the unpolluted air, and the virgin snow on which nobody had ever traveled before…all that is impossible to convey. One has to reach those sunlit peaks to know it. ‘Pada’ means path, ‘pada’ also means step, foot, foundation. All these meanings are significant. You have to move from where you are. You have to become a great process, a growth. People have become stagnant pools; they have to become rivers, because only rivers reach the ocean. And it also means foundation, because it is the fundamental truth of life. Without dhamma, without relating in some way to the ultimate truth, your life has no foundation, no meaning, no significance, it cannot have any glory. It will be an exercise in utter futility. If you are not bridged with the total you cannot have any significance of your own. You will remain a driftwood — at the mercy of the winds, not knowing where you are going and not knowing who you are. The search for truth, the passionate search for truth, creates the bridge, gives you a foundation. These sutras that are compiled as The Dhammapada are to be understood not intellectually but existentially. Become like sponges: let it soak, let it sink into you. Don’t be sitting there judging; otherwise you will miss the Buddha. Don’t sit there constantly chattering in your mind about whether it is right or wrong — you will miss the point. Don’t be bothered whether it is right or wrong.

The first, the most primary thing, is to understand what it is — what Buddha is saying, what Buddha is trying to say. There is no need to judge right now. The first, basic need is to understand exactly what he means. And the beauty of it is that if you understand exactly what it means, you will be convinced of its truth, you will know its truth. Truth has its own ways of convincing people; it needs no other proofs.

Truth never argues: it is a song, not a syllogism.

-Osho

From The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, V.1, Discourse #1

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.

Not Enough to Love the Master Because that May Become a Consolation – Osho

Need we love enlightenment – “The Great Matter” – For enlightenment’s sake? Is it enough to love the master and want more than anything to “requite his kindness”?

Maneesha, you cannot love enlightenment, you cannot hate enlightenment. These are not possible ways of approaching enlightenment. You can be enlightened or not, there is no question of loving enlightenment or not loving enlightenment. And it is not enough to love the master because that may become a consolation: that you are with the master, you love the master, what else is needed?

Loving the master has only one meaning – that you open up to such a point that the master can hit and cut like a sword all the barriers to your enlightenment.

You will not allow anybody to come too close without trust. To be with a master simply means to be defenseless; if he cuts off your head, you will still be grateful. And he has to cut off much more than your head. He has to cut all your mind activities; he has to cut all your heart feelings. Unless thoughts and feelings disappear, you cannot be absolutely silent.

If you love the master, this is not the end; it is just the beginning of a process. The master himself is a device. On your own, it will be very difficult. But if you trust someone – and you can feel that he has arrived – you can open your heart, there is no fear.

The master is pure love, not addressed to anybody in particular. You can open to the master, exposing yourself, not hiding behind thoughts, theories, philosophies or religions. Just open and expose yourself with all your wounds, with all your darkness, with all your misery, with all your anger and jealousy. You can open yourself without any fear, because a master never judges. A master has no judgment, he simply loves. And out of his love, he cuts all the barriers and leaves you alone like a flame. There is nothing that you have to do – just your dancing flame is enough gratitude.

In your enlightenment, the master has again become enlightened. As each disciple becomes enlightened, the master becomes again and again enlightened; and with the sheer joy of a gardener when each of his plants start blossoming. Just watch his eyes – all those colors, all those flowers dancing in the wind, in the rain, in the sun – and how long he has been waiting! You are my garden. I will wait until you gather courage, and this courage means disappearing into the soil, losing yourself in complete let-go.

Enlightenment is not somewhere else. It is hiding behind your seed, inside you. You just have to trust. If you trust in yourself, the master is not needed. But because the society has created you in such a way that you cannot trust yourself, you are always divided – to do it or not to do it, to be or not to be – your mind is continuously wavering. You need someone unwavering. It is almost like surgery; you cannot do surgery on yourself, it will be very difficult, almost impossible. You will need someone else and you will have to trust because he is opening your heart or opening your brain and who knows what kind of man he is. But ordinarily you do trust a surgeon even though you do not know him. The function of the master is far more deep. It needs a very conscious love and trust on the disciple’s side because the master is going to tear down all your personality and shatter all your mind habits to bring out the hidden flame with all its splendor. You don’t have to love it. You will rejoice, you will dance, you will sing, you will share, you will now love all that surrounds you.

Maneesha, even gratitude is not needed; it comes on its own. With your enlightenment your gratitude comes on its own accord. The West is absolutely unaware of why in the East disciples touch the feet of the master.

One day a man came and wanted to touch Gautam Buddha’s feet and he said, “Wait. It is not yet time.”

The man said, “What do you mean, not yet time?”

Buddha said, “Your hands are empty. Just wait a little until I can see that your hands are full of gratitude. But nothing has happened yet in you which will bring gratitude of its own accord. When it does – without any effort – your head will want to touch the feet of your master.” The master has been working without any reward. You cannot pay him, you cannot do anything in response to all that has happened to you through him. Gratitude is a very helpless awareness: “At the most, I can touch your feet.”

When Sariputta became enlightened, one of the great disciples of Gautam Buddha, he did not even touch his feet. He simply touched the dust near his feet.

Buddha said, “What are you doing?”

He said, “To touch your feet seems to be too much. It is enough to touch the dust under your feet.”

Sariputta says this even though he is enlightened, but he also understands that nothing can be done in return. There is no way to repay it. All that we can do is show our gratitude.

-Osho

From Zen: The Diamond Thunderbolt, Discourse #5

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.