Category: on Buddha

Religion Takes a Quantum Leap – Osho

With Gautam Buddha religion took a quantum leap. God became meaningless and only meditation was important. Now, twenty-five centuries after Buddha, again religion is taking the quantum leap in your presence becoming religiousness. Please talk about this phenomenon.

The credit of bringing a quantum leap in religion goes back twenty-five centuries before Gautam Buddha to Adinatha, who for the first time preached a religion without God. It was a tremendous revolution because nowhere in the whole world had it ever been conceived that religion could exist without God.

God has been an essential part—the center—of all the religions: Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedanism. But to make God the center of religion makes man just the periphery. To conceive of God as the creator of the world makes man only a puppet.

That’s why in Hebrew, which is the language of Judaism, man is called Adam. ‘Adam’ means mud. In Arabic man is called ‘admi’; it is from Adam, again it means mud. In English, which has become the language of Christianity by and large, the word human comes from ‘humus’ and humus means mud.

Naturally if God is the creator he has to create from something. He has to make man like a statue, so first he makes man with mud and then breathes life into him. But if this is so man loses all dignity, and if God is the creator of man and everything else, the whole idea is whimsical because what has he been doing for eternity before he created man and the universe?

According to Christianity he created man only four thousand and four years before Jesus Christ. So what was he doing all along through eternity? So it seems whimsical. There cannot be any cause, because to have a cause for which God had to create existence means there are powers higher than God, there are causes which can make him create. Or there is a possibility that suddenly desire arose in him. That too is not very philosophically sound, because for eternity he was desireless. And to be desireless is so blissful that it is impossible to conceive that out of an experience of eternal blissfulness a desire arises in him to create the world. Desire is desire, whether you want to make a house or become the prime minister or create the world. And God cannot be conceived as having desires. So the only thing that remains is that he is whimsical, eccentric. Then there is no need for cause and no need for desire — just a whim.

But if this whole existence is just out of a whim it loses all meaning, all significance. And tomorrow another whim may arise in him to destroy, to dissolve the whole universe. So we are simply puppets in the hands of a dictatorial god who has all the powers but who has not a sane mind, who is whimsical.

To conceive this five thousand years ago Adinatha must have been a very deep meditator, contemplative, and he must have come to the conclusion that with God there is no meaning in the world. If we want meaning in the world then God has to be disposed of. He must have been a man of tremendous courage.

People are still worshipping in the churches, in the synagogues, in the temples; yet that man Adinatha five thousand years before us came to a very clear-cut scientific conclusion that there is nothing higher than man and any evolution that is going to happen is within man and in his consciousness.

This was the first quantum leap—God was disposed of.

Adinatha is the first master of Jainism. The credit does not go to Buddha because Buddha comes twenty-five centuries later than Adinatha. But another credit goes to Buddha. Adinatha disposed of God but could not manage to put meditation in its place. On the contrary, he created asceticism, austerities, torturing the body, fasting, remaining naked, eating only once a day, not drinking in the night, not eating in the night, eating only certain foods. He had come to a beautiful philosophical conclusion but it seems the conclusion was only philosophical, it was not meditational.

When you depose God you cannot have any ritual, you cannot have worship, you cannot have prayer; something has to be substituted. He substituted austerities, because man became the center of his religion and man has to purify himself. Purity in his conception was that man has to detach himself from the world, has to detach himself from his own body. This distorted the whole thing. He had come to a very significant conclusion, but it remained only a philosophical concept.

Adinatha disposed of God but left a vacuum, and Buddha filled it with meditation. Adinatha made a godless religion, Buddha made a meditative religion.

Meditation is Buddha’s contribution. The question is not to torture the body; the question is to become more silent, to become more relaxed, to become more peaceful. It is an inward journey to reach to one’s own center of consciousness, and the center of one’s own consciousness is the center of the whole existence.

Twenty-five centuries have again passed. Just as Adinatha’s revolutionary concept of godless religion got lost in a desert of austerities and self-torture, Buddha’s idea of meditation—something inner, that nobody else can see ; only you know where you are, only you know whether you are progressing or not—got lost into another desert, and that was organized religion.

Religion says that single individuals cannot be trusted, whether they are meditating or not. They need communities, masters, monasteries where they can live together. Those who are on a higher level of consciousness can watch over others and help them. It became essential that religions should not be left in the hands of individuals, they should be organized and should be in the hands of those who have arrived at a high point of meditation.

In the beginning it was good; while Buddha was alive there were many people who reached self-realization, enlightenment. But as Buddha died and these people died, the very organization that was supposed to help people to meditate fell in the hands of a priesthood, and rather than helping you to meditate they started creating rituals around the image of Buddha. Buddha became another God. Adinatha disposed of God, Buddha never accepted that God exists, but this priesthood cannot exist without a God. So there may not be a God who is a creator, but Buddha has reached godhood.

For others the only thing is to worship Buddha, to have faith in Buddha, to follow the principles of Buddha, to live life according to his doctrine; and Buddha got lost in the organization, the imitation. But they all forgot the basic thing which was meditation. My whole effort is to create a religionless religion.

We have seen what happened to religions which have God as the center. We have seen what happened to Adinatha’s revolutionary concept, godless religion. We have seen what happened to Buddha — organized religion without God.

Now my effort is: just as they dissolved God, dissolve religion also. Leave only meditation so it cannot be forgotten in any way. There is nothing else to replace it. There is no God and there is no religion. By religion I mean an organized doctrine, creed, ritual, priesthood. And for the first time I want religion to be absolutely individual, because all organized religions, whether with God or without God, have misled humanity. And the sole cause has been organization, because organization has its own ways which go against meditativeness. Organization is really a political phenomenon, it is not religious. It is another way of power and will to power.

Now every Christian priest hopes someday to become a bishop at least, to become a cardinal, to become a pope. This is a new hierarchy, a new bureaucracy, and because it is spiritual nobody objects. You may be a bishop, you may be a pope, you may be anything. It is not objectionable because you are not going to obstruct anybody’s life. It is just an abstract idea.

My effort is to destroy the priesthood completely. It remained with God, it remained with godless religion, now the only way is that we should dispose of God and religion both so that there is no possibility of any priesthood. Then man is absolutely free, totally responsible for his own growth. My feeling is that the more a man is responsible for his own growth, the more difficult it is for him to postpone it for long. Because it means if you are miserable, you are responsible. If you are tense, you are responsible. If you are not relaxed, you are responsible. If you are in suffering, you are the cause of it. There is no God, there is no priesthood that you can go to and ask for some ritual. You are left alone with your misery, and nobody wants to be miserable.

The priests go on giving you opium, they go on giving you hope, “Don’t be worried, it is just a test of your faith, of your trust; and if you can pass through this misery and suffering silently and patiently, in the other world beyond death you will be immensely rewarded.” If there is no priesthood you have to understand that whatever you are, you are responsible for it, nobody else.

And the feeling that “I am responsible for my misery,” opens the door. Then you start looking for methods and means to get out of this miserable state, and that’s what meditation is. It is simply the opposite state of misery, suffering, anguish, anxiety. It is a state of a peaceful, blissful flowering of being, so silent and so timeless that you cannot conceive that anything better is possible. And there is nothing which is better than the state of a meditative mind.

So you can say these are the three quantum leaps: Adinatha drops God because he finds God is becoming too heavy on man; rather than helping him in his growth he has become a burden—but he forgets to replace him with something. Man will need something in his miserable moments, in his suffering. He used to pray to God. You have taken God away, you have taken his prayer away and now when he will be miserable, what will he do? In Jainism meditation has no place.

It is Buddha’s insight to see that God has been dropped; now the gap should be filled, otherwise the gap will destroy man. He puts in meditation—something really authentic which can change the whole being. But he was not aware—perhaps he could not be aware because there are things you cannot be aware of unless they happen—that there should be no organization, that there should be no priesthood, that as God is gone religion should also be gone. But he can be forgiven because he had not thought about it and there was no past to help him to see it, it came after him.

The real problem is the priest, and God is the invention of the priest. Unless you drop the priest, you can drop God, but the priest will always find new rituals, he will create new gods.

My effort is to leave you alone with meditation, with no mediator between you and existence. When you are not in meditation you are separated from existence and that is your suffering. It’s the same as when you take a fish out of the ocean and throw it on the bank — the misery and the suffering and the tortures he goes through, the hankering and the effort to reach back to the ocean because it is where he belongs, he is part of the ocean and he cannot remain apart. Any suffering is simply indicative that you are not in communion with existence, that the fish is not in the ocean.

Meditation is nothing but withdrawing all the barriers, thoughts, emotions, sentiments, which create a wall between you and existence. The moment they drop you suddenly find yourself in tune with the whole; not only in tune, you really find you are the whole.

When a dewdrop slips from a lotus leaf into the ocean it does not find that it is part of the ocean, it finds it is the ocean. And to find it is the ultimate goal, the ultimate realization, there is nothing beyond it.

So Adinatha dropped God but did not drop organization. And because there was no God, the organization created rituals.

Buddha, seeing what had happened to Jainism, that it had become a ritualism, dropped God. He dropped all rituals and single-pointedly insisted on meditation, but he forgot that the priests who had made rituals in Jainism are going to do the same with meditation. And they did it, they made Buddha himself a God. They talk about meditation but basically Buddhists are worshipers of Buddha—they go to the temple and instead of Krishna or Christ there is Buddha’s statue. There was no statue of Buddha for five hundred years after Buddha. In Buddhist temples they had just the tree under which Buddha became enlightened, engraved on marble, just a symbol. Buddha was not there, only the tree.

You will be surprised that the statue of Buddha that we see today has no resemblance at all to Buddha’s personality, it resembles the personality of Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great came to India three hundred years after Buddha. Till then there was no statue of Buddha. The priests were in search because there was no photograph, there was no painting, so how to make a statue of Buddha? And Alexander’s face looked really superhuman, he had a beautiful personality, the Greek face and physiology; they picked up the idea of Buddha’s face and body from Alexander. So all the statues that are being worshipped in Buddhist temples are statues of Alexander the Great, they have nothing to do with Buddha. But the priests had to create the statue—God was not there, ritual was difficult, around meditation ritual was difficult. They created a statue and they started saying — in the same way all religions have been doing — have faith in Buddha, have trust in Buddha, and you will be saved. Both the revolutions were lost. I would like that what I am doing is not lost. So I am trying in every possible way to drop all those things which in the past have been barriers for the revolution to continue and grow. I don’t want anybody to stand between the individual and existence. No prayer, no priest, you alone are enough to face the sunrise, you don’t need somebody to interpret for you what a beautiful sunrise it is.

It is said that every morning Lao Tzu used to go for a walk in the hills. One friend asked him, “Can I come with you one day? I would particularly like to come tomorrow, because I have a guest who is very much interested in you, and he will be immensely glad to have the opportunity to be with you for two hours in the mountains.”

Lao Tzu said, “I have no objection, just one simple thing has to be remembered. I don’t want anything to be said because I have my eyes, you have your eyes, he has his eyes, we can see. There is no need to say anything.”

The friend agreed, but on the way when the sun started rising the guest forgot. It was so beautiful by the side of the lake, the reflection of all the colors, the birds singing and the lotuses blossoming, opening, he could not resist, he forgot. He said, “What a beautiful sunrise.”

His host was shocked because he has broken the condition. Lao Tzu did not say anything, nothing was said there. Back home he called his friend and told him, “Don’t bring your guest again. He is too talkative. The sunrise was there, I was there, he was there, you were there — what is the need to say anything, any comment, any interpretation?”

And this is my attitude: you are here, every individual is here, the whole existence is available. All that you need is just to be silent and listen to existence. There is no need of any religion, there is no need of any God, there is no need of any priesthood, there is no need of any organization.

I trust in the individual categorically. Nobody up to now has trusted in the individual in such a way. So all things can be removed. Now all that has been left to you is a state of meditation which simply means a state of utter silence. The word meditation makes it look heavier. It is better to call it just a simple, innocent silence and existence opens all its beauties to you.

And as it goes on growing you go on growing, and there comes a moment when you have reached the very peak of your potentiality—you can call it Buddhahood, enlightenment, bhagwatta, godliness, whatever, it has no name, so any name will do.

-Osho

From The Last Testament, Vol. 5

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.

Appa Deepo Bhava – Osho

The first question.

Osho, how can I become a light unto myself?

These were the last words of Gautam the Buddha, his parting message to his disciples: “Be a light unto yourself.”  But when he says, “Be a light unto yourself,” he does not mean to become a light unto yourself. There is a great difference between being and becoming.

Becoming is a process, being is a discovery. The seed only appears to become the tree; that is an appearance.  The seed already had the tree within itself, it was its very being. The seed does not become the flowers. The flowers were there unmanifest, now they are manifest. It is not a question of becoming, otherwise a pebble could become a flower. But that doesn’t happen. A rock cannot become a rose; that doesn’t happen because a rock has no potential to become a rose. The seed simply discovers itself through dying into the soil: dropping its outer shell, it becomes revealed in its inner reality.

Man is a light in the seed. You are already buddhas. It is not that you have to become buddhas; it is not a question of learning, of achieving. It is only a question of recognition–it is a question of going within yourself and seeing what is there. It is self-discovery.

You are not to become a light unto yourself, it is already the case. But you don’t go in, your whole journey is outward. We are being brought up in such a way that we all become extroverts. Our eyes become focused on the outside. We are always seeking and searching for some goal “there,” far away. The farther the goal, the more challenging it appears to the ego. The more difficult it is, the more attractive it appears. The ego exists through challenges; it wants to prove itself. It is not interested in the simple, it is not interested in the ordinary, it is not interested in the natural, it is interested in something which is neither natural, nor simple, nor ordinary. Its desire is for the extraordinary. And the reality is very ordinary, it is very simple.

The reality is not there but here, not then but now, not outside but in the innermost sanctum of your being. You have just to close your eyes and look in.

-Osho, Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen, Chapter 13

The last words of Gautam Buddha were, appa deepo bhava: Be a light unto yourself. And those words were said to his chief disciple, Ananda, who had been with him for forty-two years, just like a shadow, non-stop, day out, day in. But he had not become enlightened. And many others who had come afterwards had become enlightened.

Buddha said, “That is the barrier. You think I can make you enlightened – that’s why these forty-two years have gone by and you have not attained. Perhaps after my death, within twenty-four hours you may become enlightened. For these forty-two years there was a hope that I would do something. Nobody can do anything. Be a light unto yourself.”

-Osho, Razor’s Edge, Chapter 12

This statement of Gautam Buddha is one of the milestones in the history of human growth: Appa deepo bhava – be a light unto yourself. Nobody before him was courageous enough to say this. They were all trying to say, “We are the light, follow us. Be surrendered to us and whatever we say never doubt it.” These people were not really for human freedom, human integrity, they destroyed all self-respect in man, they reduced him to a slave, a spiritual slave.

Gautam Buddha has brought a great revolution to the world. He says, “Be a light unto yourself” – because there is no other light. You are not to surrender to somebody because every surrender is slavery, and spiritual surrender is the greatest of all because it is so subtle. The chains are so invisible that you may never become aware of it, and the imprisonment is not something outside you, it is something imposed on the very being of your interiority. You are carrying your prison wherever you go, whatever you do.

-Osho, Sword and the Lotus, Chapter 19

Don’t live on borrowed concepts.The last words of Gautam Buddha on the earth were, “Be a light unto yourself. Don’t be bothered about what others say, don’t be bothered about traditions, orthodoxies, religions, moralities. Just be a light unto yourself.”Just a small light is enough, and you can go on with that small light for ten thousand miles without any difficulty. Your light may be falling only four feet ahead of you – just go on moving. As you move, the light will be moving ahead, and if you can see four feet ahead, that’s enough. You can go as far as you want. You can go on an eternal pilgrimage with just a small light of your own.Don’t live on borrowed light.Don’t live on borrowed eyes.

Live according to your own light, and your life will be, each and every moment, a greater joy, a greater blissfulness, a greater ecstasy.

-Osho, The Great Zen Master Ta Hui, Discourse #10

Buddha says nobody can deliver you. You have created the mess, you have to sort it out. Nobody has created it, so nobody can deliver you either. Your bondage is created by you, so only you can come out of it. Hence his last statement on the earth was: Be a light unto yourself. This is a totally different dimension: Be a light unto yourself. The buddhas only show the way, but you have to work upon your being; you have to work hard to discover your innermost core.

-Osho, Wild Geese and the Water, Discourse #8

Buddha’s last words to his disciples were: Be a light unto yourself. And how can you be a light unto yourself? Go beyond the body, the mind, the heart. Find the center of your being and suddenly there is light. It is already there, it is already burning bright. It is your very being; you just have to discover it.

-Osho, Dhammapada V. 12, Discourse #5

The last words of Gautama the Buddha on the earth were: Be a light unto yourself. Do not follow others, do not imitate, because imitation, following, creates stupidity. You are born with a tremendous possibility of intelligence. You are born with a light within you. Listen to the still, small voice within, and that will guide you. Nobody else can guide you, nobody else can become a model for your life, because you are unique. Nobody has there been ever who was exactly like you, and nobody is ever going to be there again who will be exactly like you. This is your glory, your grandeur – that you are utterly irreplaceable, that you are just yourself and nobody else.

-Osho, Dhammapada V. 2, Discourse #9

But if you want to end this whole nonsense that has persisted down the ages for so many lives, the same repetitive wheel of birth and death moving; if you want to stop it, then the other, the way of the intelligent person, the way of the wise…be a light unto yourself.

-Osho, Dhammapada V. 2, Discourse #9

In the same way, Krishnamurti is also contained in Buddha. Krishnamurti is Buddha’s latest edition, the freshest – in today’s language. But the difference is only of language. Krishnamurti is just an elaboration of Buddha’s ultimate sutra: “Be a light unto yourself.” A commentary on this sutra – deep, profound, tremendously vast, immensely significant – but he is just an elaboration.” These were Buddha’s last words on this earth. Before leaving his body he had given this essential sutra, poured his whole life’s treasure, his whole life’s experience, into this one small sutra.

-Osho, Die O Yogi Die, Discourse #1

Don’t search for any light outside. The last words of Buddha were, “Be a light unto yourself. Be a lamp unto yourself.” Don’t search for light anywhere else; the light is already there, the fire is already there. Just probe a little deeper into your being. Inquire. Maybe much ash has gathered around the fire…just probe deep inside, and you will find the spark again. And once you have found a single spark inside yourself, you will become a flame soon, you will be a fire – a fire that purifies, a fire that transforms, a fire that gives you a new birth and a new being.

-Osho, The Sun Rises in the Evening, Discourse #3

The last message on his deathbed was…Ananda, his chief disciple asked “Bhagwan, give us your last message.” And he said “Ananda, appa deepo bhava: become a light unto yourself. There is no other light, so don’t look into the sky, don’t look at me. There is no other light. Be a light unto yourself. Your own intelligence has to become your light, depend utterly upon yourself – no other dependence, no shelter anywhere, no refuge.”

-Osho, I Say Unto You V. 1, Discourse #2

It is good that religious experience has to be experienced individually. Nobody can lead you there. People can indicate the way and those indications are very subtle. Don’t take them literally. Buddha said, “Be a light unto yourself.” He is saying, “Remember, my truth cannot be your truth, my light cannot be your light. Imbibe the spirit from me, become more thirsty from me. Let your search be intense and be totally devoted to it. Learn the devotion of a truth-seeker from me but the truth, the light, will burn within you. You will have to kindle it within you.”

-Osho, Ancient Music in the Pines, Discourse #4

The master said, “Buddhas can only show the way, but you have to travel alone – and with your own light. Be a light unto yourself.”

-Osho, Nirvana the Last Nightmare, 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.

When Eternity Penetrates Time – Osho

You once said, “The moment is rare when eternity penetrates time.” Can you speak more on this?

Vadan, the question seems to be simple but the answer is very complex. And the complexity becomes multidimensional, because the answer can come only from your own experience, not from outside. Just as the question is arising in you, the answer has to also be part of your interiority. But I will go into a little detail, to explain what I mean when I say that the moment is rare when eternity penetrates time.

Time is that in which we live – it is horizontal. It is from A to B to C to D; it is in a line. Eternity is vertical. It is not from A to B and from B to C. It is from A to more A to still more A. It goes on upward. The moment is rare because it happens only when meditation has reached ripening, maturity, when you have touched your innermost core.

Then suddenly you become aware that you are a crossroad. One line goes horizontal; in other words, mediocre, ordinary, meaningless and leading finally to death. The horizontal line is continuously moving toward the graveyard. […]

It is strange that every moment our graves are coming closer to us – even if you don’t move, your grave is moving toward you. The horizontal line of time is, in other words, the mortality of man.

But if you can reach to the center of your being, the silences of your innermost center, you can see two roads: one horizontal, another vertical. […]

In a moment of meditation, you suddenly see that you can move in two directions – either horizontal or vertical. The vertical consists of silences, blissfulness, ecstasies; the horizontal consists of hands, work, the world. […]

Once the vertical is discovered, one starts moving on the vertical line. That vertical line does not mean you have to renounce the world. But it certainly means that you are no more of the world, that the world becomes ephemeral, loses importance. It does not mean that you have to renounce the world and escape to the mountains and the monasteries. It simply means that you start – wherever you are – living an inner life which was not possible before.

Before you were an extrovert; now, suddenly, you become introvert. As far as the body is concerned, you can manage very easily, if the remembrance is there that you are not the body. But the body can be used in many ways to help you to move on the vertical line. The penetration of the vertical line, just a ray of light coming into your darkness of horizontal life, is the beginning of enlightenment.

You will look the same, but you will not be the same. Those who have a clarity of seeing, to them you will not look the same either. And at least for yourself, you will never look the same. And you can never be the same. You will be in the world, but the world will not be in you.

Ambitions, desires, jealousies will start evaporating. No effort will be needed to drop them, just your movement on the vertical line and they start disappearing – because they cannot exist on the vertical line. They can exist only in the darkness of the horizontal, where everybody is in competition, everybody is full of lust, full of will to power, a great desire to dominate, to become somebody special.

On the vertical line all these stupidities simply disappear. You become so light, so weightless, just like a lotus flower: it is in the water, but the water does not touch it. You remain in the world, but the world has no longer any impact on you. On the contrary, you start influencing the world – not with conscious effort, but just by your sheer being, your presence, your grace, your beauty. As it grows inside it starts spreading around you.

It will touch people who have an open heart, and it will make people afraid who have lived with a closed heart – all windows, all doors closed. They will not come in contact with such a person.

And to convince themselves why they are not coming in contact with such a person, they will find a thousand and one excuses, a thousand and one lies. But the basic fact is that they are afraid to be exposed.

The man who is moving vertically becomes almost a mirror. If you come close to him, you will see your real face – you will see your ugliness, you will see your continuous ambitiousness, you will see your begging bowl. […]

On the horizontal line, only beggars exist, because they are all rushing for more, and because the more cannot be fulfilled – not that you cannot get to a position you want, but the moment you get it, there are higher positions. For a moment maybe a flicker of happiness, and the next moment, again the same despair and the same race for more. You cannot fulfill the idea of more. It is intrinsically unfulfillable. And this is the horizontal line, the line of more and more and more.

What is the vertical line? Of being less and less and less, to the point of utter emptiness, to the point of being nobody. Just a signature – not even on sand but on water. You have not even made it and it has disappeared. The man of the vertical line is the authentic sannyasin, who is immensely happy in being nobody, immensely happy with his inner purity of emptiness because only emptiness can be pure, who is absolutely contented with his nakedness because only nothingness can be in tune with the universe.

Once this tuning with the universe happens, you are no more in a sense. In the old sense, you are no more. But you are for the first time the whole universe. Even the faraway stars are within you; your nothingness can contain them. The flowers and the sun and the moon . . . and the whole music of existence. You are no more an ego, your “I” has disappeared. But that does not mean that you have disappeared. On the contrary, the moment your “I” has disappeared, you have appeared.

It is such a great ecstasy to be without the feeling of “I,” without the feeling of any ego, without asking for anything more. What more can you ask? You have nothingness. In this nothingness you have become, without conquering, the whole universe. Then the singing birds are not only singing outside you. They appear outside because this body creates the barrier.

On the vertical line you become more and more consciousness and less and less body. The whole identification with the body disappears. In nothingness, these birds will be within you; these flowers, these trees and this beautiful morning will be within you. In fact, then there is no without. Everything has become your vision. And you cannot have a richer life than when everything has become your within. When the sun and the moon and the stars and the whole infinity of time and space is within you . . . what more do you want?

This is exactly the meaning of enlightenment: to become so nonexistent as an ego that the whole oceanic existence becomes part of you. […]

On the vertical line, you become less and less and less and less. And one day, you are no more. […]

This is the ultimate peak human consciousness can reach. This is the ultimate benediction. And unless one reaches to this peak, one will remain wandering in dark pathways, blind, suffering, miserable. He may accumulate much knowledge, he may become a great scholar, but that does not help. Only one thing, a very simple thing, is the essence of the whole religious experience, and that is meditation. […]

This silence is meditation. […]

-Osho

Excerpt from Hari Om Tat Sat, Discourse #27, Q1

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.

Buddham Sharanam Gachchhami – Osho

Beloved Osho,

Is this a question, a realization, or a declaration?

Something beyond forces me to put this on paper; though I am writing this, the words are not mine.

It is past midnight, about five o’clock on the full moonlight night of the Indian month known as “Bhadra the Thursday,” The Guruvar Master’s Day in Indian language.

I am in vipassana meditation, as my eyes open, a dazzling light brightens the room. I cannot keep my eyes open, as the light is too dazzling. After a few minutes, I can open my eyes and I become quite aware.

Two figures are standing before me: one is beloved Bhagwan with folded hands and that gentle, beautiful smile; and the other is Gautam Buddha in Gyan Mudra. It is Buddha’s third body.

He looks at beloved Bhagwan, and after a few moments he touches the feet of Bhagwan and merges with his body, smilingly.

I hear him saying:

“I have fulfilled my promise. I was to come as Maitreya after two thousand five hundred years, and I have come. If you have eyes, you will see me; if you have ears you will hear me; if you have a heart you will feel and recognize me. My third body I had kept in existence to rebirth, to help whoever wanted my help.

“With due respect and adoration, I have to state that I could have merged with Krishnamurtiji, but due to his insistence on being original I could not merge and help individuals through him. I was hopeful, as he was especially prepared for my appearance – but he was adamant. His body suffered a lot due to his resistance to accepting me. He preferred and chose ceaseless pain and suffering for this.

“My third body now cannot remain in existence if it is not accepted for rebirth or merging. The time I had decided for it is coming close to an end so I cannot wait any longer, and hence I am merging my third body with Bhagwan’s energy without disturbing his individuality.

“He is like an ocean; many small and big rivers merge with it, but still the ocean remains, unperturbed. Its identity remains as an ocean without any change.

“In him, all enlightenments – past, present and future – have become alive and active; a unique event that has not happened before, nor will it happen again. Bhagwan is total acceptance, total emptiness, total nothingness, and unbounded compassion. He is both Purna and Shunya incarnated.

“From my third body, I address him as ‘Bhagwan,’ but from now onwards he will not be only ‘Bhagwan Rajneesh,’ he will be ‘Bhagwan Rajneesh, the Buddha Lord Maitreya’ – A Buddha, A True Friend to All.”

Thus saying, Buddha’s third body merged with our beloved, beautiful Bhagwan.

Bhagwan’s radiance was increasing and filled the whole universe. I remember the prophecy of Lama Karmapa, who had predicted this event, but had asked me not to talk about the event till it happened. Now it has happened and flowers have showered.

So let it be known to all, let it be shouted from the rooftops that Bhagwan Rajneesh, the Buddha Lord Maitreya, is here; Buddha has fulfilled his promise.

The light was fading, the full moon was setting slowly in the West with its cool, silent fading light; and in the East the new sun was rising with a light orange glow, silently bringing a new day, and with it a new journey.

Beloved, beautiful Bhagwan slowly, slowly disappeared with a gentle smile and folded hands, leaving me in that gentle morning light with a heart full of gratitude and eyes full of tears.

Beloved Osho, I bow down to you, announcing to the world that Bhagwan Rajneesh, the Buddha Lord Maitreya, is here and the flowers have showered. To date, Masters have declared themselves, but today a disciple declares with gratitude that the Master, the Buddha, a Real Friend, has come with a new radiance to help all.

Beloved Osho, I have nothing to offer – not even a flower – and yet I offer everything. Thus, something is given and something is taken.

Oh beloved sannyasins, devotees and friends who are present here are the blessed ones to hear this declaration and witness this unique event.

Oh sannyasins, rejoice, celebrate and sing, “Buddham sharanam gachchhami; sangham sharanam gachchhami; dhammam sharanam gachchhami.”

Beloved Osho, I was reluctant to write this to you, but something unknown forces me to write to you. I do not know whether this is right to do or not. Will you please comment on the event?

Govind Siddharth, it is not a question.

It is a realization, and it is a declaration.

Whatever you have experienced was not a dream. Your whole life may have been a dream, but this experience is absolute reality. That’s why you felt an unknown force compelling you to declare it. You had to declare it – it is impossible to hide the truth.

It has not only happened to you alone; there are two more persons present here to whom the same experience at the same time has happened. They are also hesitating whether to declare it or not. The hesitation is natural, because the declaration is so big and you feel so small, but you cannot keep it within you. It is just like a pregnant woman – how long can she hide that she is pregnant? One day she is going to give birth to a child.

Every truth is a living experience.

And the very nature of life is expression, expansion, declaration. Each flower declares it, each morning the sun declares it, each night millions of stars declare it. Of course their language of declaration is different – a flower declares it by its fragrance, the star declares it by its light, the moon declares it by its beauty.

But truth, beauty, good . . . these three – satyam, shivam, sundaram – are the basic, the fundamental trinity of existence. You cannot hide them.

One feels embarrassed – how to say it? And to say it in a world which is skeptical, in a world where people are deaf as far as truth is concerned, where people are blind as far as beauty is concerned, where people don’t have hearts as far as feeling, sensitivity is concerned . . . one feels alone to declare such a thing.

But it is not out of egoism – you cannot declare such a thing out of egoism because the ego will feel very embarrassed, and ego does not like to feel embarrassed. It is out of humbleness that one declares such experiences.

I was waiting . . . out of those three persons, who is going to declare it first? Govind Siddharth has proved really humble, courageous. Whatever he is saying, he has seen – not in sleep, not in dream.

It is true that J. Krishnamurti was prepared for exactly this phenomenon.

Gautam Buddha had promised that after twenty-five centuries he will be coming as Lord Maitreya. Maitreya means ‘the friend’.

Of course, his own body was burned and could not be kept for twenty-five centuries; the technology was not yet developed. Now it is possible. There are ten bodies in the world which are being kept. They are dead, it is very expensive to keep them, but those people were very rich people and they have willed that their bodies should be kept – because science is saying that within ten or twelve years, at the most twelve, we will be able to revive dead bodies. These rich people have allowed their bodies to be kept, so that when the technology is ready to revive them, they can be revived back to life again.

Gautam Buddha had to use a totally different kind of technology – not scientific but occult. The physical body died. But there are other bodies within this body which don’t die, and he has lived with his third body. He cannot be born through a womb; that is impossible, that is against the nature of things. Once you are enlightened, you cannot be born through the natural process, through a womb.

It is his compassion. No one before him has ever tried. Perhaps no one before him had such compassion.

The story is that Gautam Buddha reaches the door of nirvana – and once you enter the door you disappear into the universe. The doors are opened, the doorkeeper welcomes him. But Buddha refuses to enter the door and he says, “I will stay here outside the door, because millions of my fellow travelers are groping in the dark. I will try in every possible way to help them. Unless every living being has passed through the door, I will wait. I am going to be the last.”

This is not just a parable, not just a fictitious story, but something absolutely factual in the world of mysticism. It is not factual in the world of matter, it is factual in the world of the spirit.

J. Krishnamurti was prepared by very learned scholars who had found in all the scriptures – Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, Indian – the promise of Buddha that after twenty-five centuries he would be coming back: “I will find a way. I cannot come through a womb but I can enter into a living being, can merge my soul with his soul.” When the theosophists found this, they started searching for somebody who could be prepared – in purity, in discipline, in meditation, consciously – so that he can become a vehicle of Lord Maitreya.

They worked really hard on J. Krishnamurti.

He was not the only one they worked on. They had chosen at least five children of immense intelligence, and they worked on all five. One of the five was Nityananda, Krishnamurti’s elder brother. He died; he died because of too much arduous discipline. He was immensely intelligent. He would have become a great scientist, a great philosopher, but he was not meant to become a great mystic – and perhaps not a vehicle of Gautam Buddha.

Training those five – and when Nityananda died, the four – slowly it became clear that Krishnamurti was the best out of the four. One was Raj Gopal, who was made personal secretary to J. Krishnamurti. And he betrayed J. Krishnamurti because he carried that resentment for his whole life. He was chosen for the same purpose, and finally he was just made a personal private-secretary. He was angry, resentful, but he didn’t show it.

He was the managing trustee of all the properties that belonged to the organization which was created for Krishnamurti – its name was “The Star of the East.” The royalties for all of Krishnamurti’s books were going to Raj Gopal. And just five years ago, he simply betrayed J. Krishnamurti. He simply said, “You have nothing to do with the organization, the money, the books, the royalties.” At the age of eighty-five, Krishnamurti had to begin again from ABC.

This man, Raj Gopal, must have had a tremendous patience, because for sixty years he kept the resentment repressed in himself, waiting for the right moment when Krishnamurti was so old that he could not do anything. At that moment he would desert him. He took away all the assets of Krishnamurti Foundation – he was the head of the foundation – and Krishnamurti was left, at the age of eighty-five, just a beggar.

Another boy who was trained was a German. Seeing that he was not going to be chosen, he behaved just like a German: he created a new organization and revolted against the theosophical movement, created a split in the movement. And the German section of the theosophical society became a separate party. He became the leader of it, hoping that he would compete with J. Krishnamurti not understanding at all that these matters are not of competition.

Krishnamurti himself, after years of training and discipline . . . rather than becoming pure, rather than becoming a right-vehicle, he became so hateful towards all the ringleaders who were torturing him – telling him to fast, telling him to wake up early in the morning at three o’clock, have a cold bath at three o’clock – with all good intentions, but they never realized the fact that you cannot make anybody a Gautam Buddha. It is not a question of training. However good the intentions are, the result is going to be a disaster.

When Krishnamurti reached the age of twenty-five, they gathered the chief leaders of the theosophical movement in Holland, where Krishnamurti was going to declare that Gautam Buddha had entered into him and he has become the world teacher.

But he was a sincere man. Gautam Buddha did not enter. If he had been a man like the pope or

Ayatollah Khomeini he could have said, “Yes, Gautam Buddha has entered in me and I am the world teacher.” But he refused. He said, “No Gautam Buddha has not entered in me, and I am not the world teacher. Not only that, I am not going to be a teacher at all.”

It was such a shock to the six thousand leaders of the movement who had come from all over the world. They could not believe it – they had prepared this man, they had fought for this man in the courts, they had done everything that was possible to give him the best education. He never gave an indication that he was unwilling. And at the last moment, when he stood up, he declared, “I dissolve the organization, ‘The Star of the East’. I am not the world teacher.” It was a reaction. You cannot force anybody into paradise. A forced paradise will become hell, because the basic element of freedom is missing.

Gautam Buddha’s third body has been hovering around the world to find someone to become a vehicle, so that whatever he said twenty-five centuries ago can be updated, resurrected, made fit for the modern man – for the new man who is going to be born.

In twenty-five centuries so much dust has gathered that unless something absolutely fresh begins . . .

There are millions of Buddhists, there are thousands of great Buddhist monks; it looks simply absurd that he should not choose a vehicle from these people. It will be just natural and logical to choose a Dalai Lama or a great Buddhist monk, learned.

But you have to remember – that is one of my basic emphases – that these people cannot be chosen, because they are still hanging on to the Buddha that was twenty-five centuries ago. To choose them as vehicles is just meaningless; they will be repeating the same.

I love Gautam Buddha as I have not loved any other master, but my love is not blind. I have criticized him as severely as possible. I have praised him when I have found him right – right for today, right for tomorrow, right for the new humanity to come. And I have criticized him severely whenever I have found that he is twenty-five centuries old, still carrying conditionings, rotten ideas which are of no use for the new man, but will be a great hindrance.

Govind Siddharth must have been puzzled seeing what he has seen, because I would appear to be the last man that Gautam Buddha would choose to be a vehicle.

But this is the beauty of Gautam Buddha: he understands that the message has to be for the present and for the future, that he needs an absolutely fresh being – unattached to any old tradition, his tradition included – a man absolutely untraditional, unorthodox. A man of today, as fresh as today’s rose – even if the man goes many times against the teachings of the old Buddha.

I was not going to declare it for the simple reason that then it would become difficult for me to criticize the old man. So I was keeping completely aloof, so that my freedom and my independence are not in any way curtailed.

I have my own message.

If Gautam Buddha finds that my message has the essentials of his message too, then it is his choice.  It is not a burden on me. I will go on criticizing him whenever I find anything that is not right for human growth in the future.

But Govind Siddharth’s difficulty was that he could not keep it a secret. One of the most difficult things in the world is to keep a secret – and such a secret!

But I will remain exactly the same as I am, no compromise. Gautam Buddha and all the masters of the past can choose me as their vehicles, but I will not allow any pollution. My message will remain my message.

Yes, they can . . . and Govind Siddharth says it rightly: The river can fall into the ocean; thousands of rivers can fall into the ocean – they don’t make the ocean sweet. They themselves become salty.

Gautam Buddha has chosen me as his vehicle because it was difficult now to keep hanging around in his third body anymore. Twenty-five centuries have passed; in fact a few more years have passed. He had to choose, but he has chosen a person who has his own message. It will surely be beautiful if it coincides with his essentials, but if it does not coincide, then I am going to be as hard on him as I have been before. It will not make any difference.

I am not going to be his voice; I am going to remain my voice.

But what Govind Siddharth has seen is a tremendous experience, a great realization.

There are two more persons present here – if they gather courage, then their questions will be coming. If they cannot gather courage, then they will always remain burdened with a secret. It is better to bring it in the open and be free of it – and anyway it is in the open, Govind Siddharth has done almost 99.9 percent of the work. Nothing is left for you.

Anybody who has been close to me has felt it many times, that I bring Gautam Buddha, his life, his stories, more than those of anybody else to illustrate some of my ideas. Gautam Buddha comes very close to me. The difference is not of twenty-five centuries – maybe only twenty-five centimeters – but the difference is there.

I am not a person who compromises.

I will not be compromising with Gautam Buddha either, but whatever is ultimate truth is nobody’s possession, neither Gautam Buddha’s nor mine. Only the non-essentials are different; the essential is always the same. And my effort is to cut all non-essentials and give you only the pure, essential message, because only the essential religion is going to survive in the future. The non-essential rituals are all going to be dead.

With this century ending, there will be a religiousness in the world but no religions.

Perhaps he has chosen a right man.

And he has also chosen a right man in Govind Siddharth to declare the fact. I was not going to declare it, because declaration from my side brings a certain compromise, as if I have become a vehicle of somebody else’s message.

I am nobody’s vehicle. In fact, my message and Gautam Buddha’s message are almost parallel – so parallel, so similar that it can be said that he was my vehicle or it can be said that I am his vehicle. But it is not going to change my approach in any way. Now I will be even harder on Gautam Buddha, so that only the most essential and the purest part of him reaches to humanity in the future.

-Osho

From The Osho Upanishad, Discourse #35

There is a related post concerning Govind Siddharth’s meeting with the 16th Karmapa at Osho and the 16th Karmapa.

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.

Buddha and the Knotted Handkerchief – Osho

I am reminded of a story. Gautam the Buddha one day comes into his morning discourse; ten thousand sannyasins are waiting for him, just like every day. But today there is something surprising.

Everybody is puzzled and looking at each other, because Buddha is coming with a handkerchief, it is very costly – perhaps some king has presented it to him.

But he does not accept that kind of thing, so everybody is looking, thinking, what is the matter?

And why should he bring it just in his hand ahead of himself almost saying to everybody, “Look, look well”? And then he comes and sits; and keeping the handkerchief in his hand, says to his sannyasins, “Look very carefully.”

They all look. There is nothing to look at, just a beautiful silken handkerchief.  And then Buddha starts putting knots in the handkerchief; he puts five knots in it. There is immense silence… everybody is simply watching what he is doing. Then Buddha asks them, “Is this the same handkerchief the same that I had brought with me, or is it a different handkerchief?”

Sariputta, one of his chief disciples, stands up and says, “Why are you joking with us? You have never done such a thing. This is the same handkerchief.”

Buddha says, “Sariputta, think once again – because the handkerchief that I brought had no knots, and this has five knots. How can this be the same?”

Sariputta could see the point. He said, “I am sorry. I do understand. Although it is the same handkerchief now it is in a very knotted condition – such as a man in anguish. He is the same man; a man in suffering is the same man but in knots.”

Buddha said, “Exactly right. That’s what I want to show to you: that the man who is in suffering is not different from Gautam the Buddha. I am just a handkerchief without knots. You are a handkerchief with five knots.” Of course Buddha has his philosophy of five basic problems that trouble man: violence, greed, untruthfulness, unawareness, and the ego. You can find many more knots; these are just the main ones according to him.

Secondly he said, “I would like to ask you one thing more. I am trying to open these knots. Look at me – will this help to open the knots?” He pulled both the ends of the handkerchief; the knots became smaller and tighter. Somebody shouted, “What are you doing? This way those knots will never open. Such fine silk and you are pulling so hard! The knots are becoming so small that it will become almost impossible to open them again.”

Buddha said, “You can understand about this handkerchief so clearly – can’t you understand yourself? Can’t you see yourself in the same, understanding way? Have you been pulling your knots or not? Otherwise why do they go on becoming smaller and smaller, and tighter and tighter?

“A child is loose, relaxed. Look at the old man, just knots and knots. Certainly, whatever you are doing is wrong. You are pulling the handkerchief. You are trying hard; your intention is good, you want to open the knots. You are taking much trouble – but your doing is your very undoing. You are making things more and more complicated, worse and worse. And the more complicated they become, the harder you pull, because you think, what else to do?”

Buddha asked, “Then I would like to ask you, what do you suppose I should do?”

One monk stood up and he said, “I would like to come close, and first I would like to see how the knots have been put together.”

Buddha said, “That’s a scientific way. Before you can undo something, you have to know how it has been done, because if you know how it has been done, you have already known all that is needed to undo it; you have just to reverse the process.”

The monk looked at the handkerchief and he said “The knots have been done in such a way that if we relax the handkerchief and allow the knots to become looser rather than tighter, and help them to become loose, it is not going to be very difficult. They are simple knots.”

Buddha gave the handkerchief to him and the man opened the knots one by one. Buddha said, “Today’s sermon is finished. I am not going to speak anymore today. Just go and meditate about your knots, and how you have managed to make them so tight. And just do the reverse.”

Any small problem, just look at it, at how you have been trying to solve it and it goes on becoming worse and worse. Certainly in your doing there is something which is becoming a  nourishment to it rather than a killer. You are not poisoning it; you are nourishing it, feeding it. And don’t try to work on so many knots together. Just choose one small knot, the smallest you can find in yourself; by smallest, I mean the most insignificant.

People have the tendency to choose the most significant; even when they are choosing to solve their problems, they choose the greatest problem first. Now, that is simply foolish. Just become a little aware, alert. Start from the small things, very small things.

In one sermon Buddha was speaking, and a man sitting in front of him was moving his toe continuously. Buddha was not like me; otherwise he would have stopped him immediately. He tolerated it, tolerated it, tolerated it – but it was too much, because the man was just in front of him and he went on, went on, went on.

At the end Buddha said, “What is wrong with your toe?” The moment he said, “What is wrong with your toe?” the man stopped. Buddha said, “This is what is wrong with your toe: you are not aware of it. You were not doing it, it was happening almost unconsciously. It is just a habit; you must be doing it everywhere you are sitting. Now it goes on doing it by itself knowing that the master needs it. The master is not even aware that it is happening, because the moment I asked you about it, it stopped immediately. That means the moment your awareness went to the toe there was a complete break.”

Now, start with such small things which have not much investment in them. People start with their ego – they want to become egoless. Now, you are taking on such a big problem. You are so small, and the problem is so big, that you are going to fail.

In fact that’s why you have chosen the big problem, because you want to fail, you don’t want to succeed. Perhaps this too is the way of the ego, to choose the biggest problem. You are no ordinary man trying to change small things here and there; when you want to change, you want to change the real problem. Perhaps this is the ego coming in from the back and deceiving you.

Now choose something very insignificant, which makes not much difference. But the beauty is, the smallest problem has the same properties as the biggest problem, the same ingredients as the biggest problem and the same solution as the biggest problem.

All problems are one problem.

If you can solve a small problem – dissolve it, get rid of it, be finished with it – you know the master key.

Now you can go on opening all the locks in your house. And there is not going to be any trouble.

The basic key is awareness.

And while solving a small problem, you are starting to learn the ABC of awareness.

Choose something meaningless with no investment; it will be easier to work with. And once you have worked with it, you will be surprised: you have the secret, the whole secret of your puzzled, knotted life.

Solve it, then man is born in you. Before that, you are only a problem.

-Osho

Taken from the series From Misery to Enlightenment, Discourse #19.

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.