Category: on Witnessing

Witnessing is not a Thought – Osho

Osho, it feels that to be a witness is also a kind of thought. So what is the difference between the witness and a thought of the witness?

Satyendra Saraswati,

Witnessing is not a thought but you can start thinking about witnessing, you can make it a thought. The moment you make it a thought, it is no longer witnessing. Either it is witnessing or it is a thought, it cannot be both together.

When you are witnessing you are not thinking that you are witnessing. If you are thinking that you are witnessing, this is not witnessing at all, it is another kind of thought. If the witnessing is simple, there is no thought of witnessing at all. If the thoughts are just passing in front of your vision and you are witnessing them, and no idea arises in you that “I am witnessing,” then it is pure witnessing.

It is not a thought at all, it is a state of no-thought, no-mind. You are simply reflecting whatsoever is passing by.

The moment you say, “Aha! This is witnessing. So I am witnessing. This is what meditation is. This is awareness,” you have missed the point. You have fallen back into the mud of the mind. You are no longer a witness. You have become identified. Witnessing cannot be reduced to a thought.

But your problem is significant. It is encountered by almost every meditator. We have become so habituated to witnessing in a wrong way. We think that we witness. We judge, we evaluate, but we think that we witness. We think that we witness, and it is not witnessing. We are associated with a wrong kind of witnessing, and that idea lingers for a long time.

Secondly: we have become so conditioned to immediately reducing every experience into a thought. We never allow any experience to remain just a pure experience, even for a few moments.

You come across a beautiful rose flower in the garden. The moment you see it, almost instantly you say inside, “How beautiful!” You can’t let that beauty sink in. The thought of beauty becomes a barrier. The moment you say, “How beautiful!” you have already started comparing it with other roses that you have seen in the past. You have started comparing it with all that you have heard about roses. You are no longer seeing this rose. You are missing its suchness. You have gone into the past. You are searching in your memory to discover how many roses you have seen before: “And this is the best one.” But this rose is no longer there in your awareness. Your awareness has become very clouded. So much smoke has come from the past, so much dust has arisen that your mirror is no longer reflecting the beauty. You are not now-here.

Allow the rose and its fragrance and its beauty and its dance in the wind and the sun to penetrate you. Don’t bring your mind in. There is no need to say that this is beautiful. If it is, there is no need to say it; if it is not, then it is false to say it. Either it is or it is not. To create a thought about it in any way is to create ripples in your consciousness. It is like throwing a pebble into a silent lake. Just a moment ago it was reflecting the moon and the stars so beautifully, and your pebble has created ripples, and the moon and the stars have all become distorted.

That’s what happens whenever a thought arises in you: your consciousness is disturbed, starts wavering. Waves start arising in you. Now you are not capable of reflecting that which is.

You will have to learn this new art of seeing things without judging, of seeing things without verbalizing, of seeing things without evaluating. See the rose, see the bird on the wing, see the night full of stars, see the river passing by, see the traffic. Listen to the songs of the birds or a train passing by. Start learning a new art of just being reflective, not bringing any thought in, not saying anything at all.

It will take a little time – old habits die hard – but one day it happens. If you persist, if you are patient enough, if you go on and on working at cleaning your inner world, one day it happens. And the benediction of that day is immense. In fact, that day you are born anew. You start seeing the same world with new eyes because your eyes are so clear, your mirror reflects so deeply, so totally, without distortion, that trees – the same trees that you have seen before thousands of times – are far more green than they have ever been. And their greenness is no ordinary greenness: it is luminous, it is radiating light.

It is the same world, the same people…. A Buddha walks, a Jesus walks in the same world – the same trees, the same rocks, the same people, the same sky – but they live in paradise and you live in hell. The difference is created by the mind.

It will take a little while to drop this mind. It has dominated you for so long that it is difficult in the beginning to suddenly disassociate yourself from it. It clings. It can’t leave its power over you so easily. Hence it goes on coming in from the back door.

You are sitting silently and a beautiful stillness arises, and the mind comes in from the back door and says, “Look, how beautiful this moment is!” And it has taken you away! It came so silently, without making any noise, and you were caught by it in such a subtle way that you could not have been aware of it. You rejoiced, you thanked the mind… but it has destroyed your stillness.

When stillness is really true there is no mind to say anything about it. When witnessing is true you are simply a witness. You don’t think, “I am witnessing.” There is no “I,” there is no thinking, there is only the witness, because all thinking, and the “I” – they have all become contents, objects of your witnessing. And witnessing itself cannot be its own object. No mirror can reflect itself. Your eyes cannot see themselves. Your witness cannot witness itself, that’s impossible.

Your question is relevant. And you will have to be very, very careful, watchful. It is a razor’s edge. One has to be very cautious because if you fall, you fall into a deep abyss. The ordinary people cannot fall; they have nowhere to fall to – they are already at the bottom. But as you start moving higher, the possibility of falling down grows every day. When you reach the Everest of your consciousness, just a little slip, just a little wrong step, and you will go rolling down into a deep abyss.

The greater the meditation, the greater the danger of losing it – naturally; only a rich man can be robbed, not a poor man. That’s why a beggar can sleep under a tree in the afternoon and the noise of the traffic and the marketplace… nothing disturbs him. He can sleep anywhere, he can sleep deeply. He has nothing to lose – no fear.

Once, at night, a king came across a very strange man, a very luminous man, standing alert underneath a tree – so silent, so quiet and so alert. The king was curious: ‘Why is he standing there?” From his appearance he looked like a monk, one who has renounced the world. The king was a very cultured man and he thought, “It is not right to disturb him.” But every night it happened.

That was the routine of the king: to go around the capital at night in disguise to see how things were going – whether the guards were on duty or not; mixing and meeting with people, going into the hotels and the theaters to find out how things were going – whether things were all right or not.

Every night he would come across this man. He saw this man so many times that it became impossible to resist the temptation. One day he approached him and asked, “Excuse me, sir, I should not interfere – you look so silent – but why do you go on standing the whole night? What are you guarding? Is there any treasure underneath this tree?”

The mystic laughed. He said, “Not underneath this tree, but within me there is a treasure and I am watching it. And the treasure is growing every day, it is becoming bigger and bigger, hence I have to be more and more alert.”

The mystic said to the king, “You can sleep, you have nothing to lose. I cannot, I have much to lose; and if I can remain awake I have much to gain.”

The king was very much impressed. He asked him to come to his palace, he invited him. The monk agreed. The king was a little puzzled: a monk agreeing so soon without even refusing once is not thought to be right. A monk should say, “No, I cannot come to the palace. I have renounced the world. It is all futile. It is all dream, illusion, maya I cannot come back to the world. I am happy wherever I am.”

But this monk didn’t say anything. He was a Zen Master. The king started thinking in his mind, “Have I been deceived by this man? Was he simply standing there every night just to catch hold of me?”

But now it was too late; he had invited him. The mystic came to the palace, lived with the king. And, of course, he lived more joyously than the king because he had no worries, no cares about the empire, no problems and no anxieties. He enjoyed good food, and the king had given him the best room in the palace – he lived just like an emperor!

Six months passed. Now the king was boiling within himself to ask him, “What kind of renunciation is this? You are enjoying everything – servants and good food and good clothes and a beautiful palace.”

One day, walking in the garden, he asked the mystic, “Can I ask you a question? Forgive me if you feel offended. This is my question: What is the difference now between me and you?”

The mystic looked at the king and he said, “Why did you wait for six months? This question you could have asked me the very first night. The moment you invited me and I accepted your invitation, this question arose in your mind. Why did you wait for six months? You tortured yourself unnecessarily.

I was expecting it at any moment. There is no question of my feeling offended – it is a natural question. “There is a difference, but it is very subtle. And if you really want to know the difference, then come with me. I cannot tell you here. I will tell you in a certain space, at a certain place. Come along with me.”

They both went outside the city. The king said, “Now can you tell me?”

The mystic said, “Come along.”

When they were crossing the boundary of his empire – it was evening – the king said, “What are you doing? Where are you taking me? Now this is the end of my empire. We are entering somebody else’s kingdom and I would like to be answered. What is your answer? And I am feeling very tired.”

And the mystic said, “My answer is that I am going. Are you coming with me or not? I am not going back.”

The king said, “How can I come with you? I have my whole empire, my wife, my children. How can I come with you?”

The mystic said, “That’s the difference. But I am going!”

Again the king saw the light, the beauty of the man, and fell at his feet. He said, “Come back! I am just stupid. I have missed these six months. I have been thinking things which are really ugly. Forgive me and come back.”

The mystic said, “There is no problem for me. I can come back, but you will again think the same. It is better for me now to go ahead – that story is finished, that chapter is closed – so that you can remember the difference.”

The witness lives in the world just like a mirror, reflecting everything. He may be in a hut, he may be in a palace; it makes no difference. What difference does it make to a mirror whether the mirror is in a hut or in a palace? What difference does it make to the mirror whether the mirror is reflecting beautiful diamonds or just ordinary stones? It makes no difference to the mirror.

Witnessing is the art of transcending the world. Witnessing is the very essence of Zen, of religion itself. But don’t make it a thought – it is not a thought at all. Thoughts have to be witnessed. Even if the thought of witnessing arises, witness that thought. Remember that it is not witnessing, it is only a thought – it has to be witnessed. It is there in front of you. You are not it.

The witness is irreducible to any thought; it always goes on sliding back. You cannot catch hold of it through any thought. It can witness each and every thought, the thought of witnessing included; hence, it can never itself become a thought.

Next time when you are meditating, Satyendra Saraswati, remember it. Don’t start enjoying the thought that “This is a beautiful moment. My mind is silent, my being is still. This is witnessing!” The moment you say it, you have lost it.

-Osho

From Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen, 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 online from Amazon.com and in the U.S. from OshoStore-Sedona and Osho Here and Now.

Light in the Seed – Osho

How can I become a light unto myself?

Shraddho Yannis, 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 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 un-manifest, 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 the rock has no potential for being 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.

Yannis, 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.

In the beginning it is difficult because the eyes only know how to look out. They have become so accustomed to looking out that when you close them, then too they continue to look out – they start dreaming, they start fantasizing. Those dreams are nothing but reflections of the outside.

So it is only in appearance that you seem to be with closed eyes, your eyes are still open to the outside world, you are not in. In fact, every meditator comes across this strange phenomenon: that whenever you close your eyes, your mind becomes more restless, your mind becomes more insane.

It starts chattering in a crazy way: relevant, irrelevant thoughts crisscross your being. It is never so when you are looking outside. And naturally you become tired, naturally you think it is better to remain occupied in something, in some work, rather than sit silently with closed eyes because nothing seems to happen except a long, long procession of thoughts, desires, memories. And they go on coming, unending.

But this is only in the beginning. Just a little patience, just a little awaiting . . . if you go on looking, watching these thoughts silently, with no judgment, with no antagonism, with no desire even to stop them – as if you have no concern with them – unconcerned – just as one watches the traffic on the road or one watches the clouds in the sky, or one watches a river flow by, you simply watch your thoughts. You are not those thoughts; you are the watcher, remembering that “I am the watcher, not the watched.” You cannot be the watched; you cannot be the object of your own subjectivity. You are your subjectivity, you are the witness, you are consciousness. Remembering it . . . It takes a little time, slowly, slowly the old habit dies. It dies hard but it dies, certainly. And the day the traffic stops, suddenly you are full of light. You have always been full of light; just those thoughts were not allowing you to see that which you are.

When all objects have disappeared, there is nothing else to see, you recognize yourself for the first time. You realize yourself for the first time. It is not becoming; it is a discovery of being. The outer shell of the thoughts of the mind is dropped, and you have discovered your flowers, you have discovered your fragrance. This fragrance is freedom.

Hence, Yannis, don’t ask, “How can I become a light unto myself?” You are already a light unto yourself, you are just not aware of it. You have forgotten about it – you have to discover it. And the how of discovery is simple, very simple: a simple process of watching your thoughts.

To help this process you can start watching other things too because the process of watching is the same. What you are watching is not significant. Watch anything and you are learning watchfulness.

Listen to the birds, it is the same. One day you will be able to listen to your own thoughts. The birds are a little farther away; your thoughts are a little closer. In the fall watch the dry leaves falling from the trees. Anything will do that helps you to be watchful. Walking, watch your own walking. Buddha used to say to his disciples: “Take each step watchfully.” He used to say: “Watch your breath.”

And that is one of the most significant practices for watching because the breath is there continuously available for twenty-four hours a day wherever you are. The birds may be singing one day, they may not be singing some other day, but breathing is always there. Sitting, walking, lying down, it is always there. Go on watching the breath coming in, the breath going out.

Not that watching the breath is the point; the point is learning how to watch. Go to the river and watch the river. Sit in the marketplace and watch people passing by. Watch anything; just remember that you are a watcher. Don’t become judgmental, don’t be a judge. Once you start judging you have forgotten that you are a watcher, you have become involved, you have taken sides, you have chosen: “I am in favor of this thought, and I am against that thought.” Once you choose, you become identified. Watchfulness is the method of destroying all identification.

Hence Gurdjieff called his process the process of non-identification. It is the same, his word is different. Don’t identify yourself with anything, and slowly, slowly one learns the ultimate art of watchfulness.

That’s what meditation is all about. Through meditation one discovers one’s own light. That light you can call your soul, your self, your God – whatsoever word you choose – or you can remain just silent because it has no name. It is a nameless experience, tremendously beautiful, ecstatic, utterly silent, but it gives you the taste of eternity, of timelessness, of something beyond death.

-Osho

From Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen, Discourse #13, 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.

Consciousness, Witnessing and Awareness – Osho

Question: What is the difference between awareness and witnessing?

There is much difference between awareness and witnessing. Witnessing is still an act; you are doing it, the ego is there. So the phenomenon of witnessing is divided between the subject and the object.

Witnessing is a relationship between subject and object. Awareness is absolutely devoid of any subjectivity or objectivity. There is no one who is witnessing in awareness; there is no one who is being witnessed. Awareness is a total act, integrated; the subject and the object are not related in it; they are dissolved. So awareness doesn’t mean that anyone is aware, nor does it mean that anything is being attended to.

Awareness is total – total subjectivity and total objectivity as a single phenomenon – while in witnessing a duality exists between subject and object. Awareness is non-doing; witnessing implies a doer. But through witnessing awareness is possible, because witnessing means that it is a conscious act; it is an act, but conscious. You can do something and be unconscious – our ordinary activity is unconscious activity – but if you become conscious in it, it becomes witnessing. So from ordinary unconscious activity to awareness there is a gap that can be filled by witnessing.

Witnessing is a technique, a method toward awareness. It is not awareness, but, as compared to ordinary activity, unconscious activity, it is a higher step. Something has changed: activity has become conscious; unconsciousness has been replaced by consciousness. But something more still has to be changed. That is, the activity has to be replaced by inactivity. That will be the second step.

It is difficult to jump from ordinary, unconscious action into awareness. It is possible but arduous, so a step in between is helpful. If one begins by witnessing conscious activity, then the jump becomes easier – the jump into awareness without any conscious object, without any conscious subject, without any conscious activity at all. This doesn’t mean that awareness isn’t consciousness; it is pure consciousness, but no one is conscious about it.

There is still a difference between consciousness and awareness. Consciousness is a quality of your mind, but it is not your total mind. Your mind can be both conscious and unconscious, but when you transcend your mind, there is no unconsciousness and no corresponding consciousness. There is awareness.

Awareness means that the total mind has become aware. Now the old mind is not there, but there is the quality of being conscious. Awareness has become the totality; the mind itself is now part of the awareness. We cannot say that the mind is aware; we can only meaningfully say that the mind is conscious. Awareness means transcendence of the mind, so it is not the mind that is aware. It is only through transcendence of the mind, through going beyond mind, that awareness becomes possible.

Consciousness is a quality of the mind, awareness is the transcendence; it is going beyond the mind. Mind, as such, is the medium of duality, so consciousness can never transcend duality. It is always conscious of something, and there is always someone who is conscious. So consciousness is part and parcel of the mind, and mind, as such, is the source of all duality, of all divisions, whether they are between subject and object, activity or inactivity, consciousness or unconsciousness. Every type of duality is mental. Awareness is non-dual, so awareness means the state of no mind.

Then what is the relationship between consciousness and witnessing? Witnessing is a state, and consciousness is a means toward witnessing. If you begin to be conscious, you achieve witnessing. If you begin to be conscious of your acts, conscious of your day-to-day happenings, conscious of everything that surrounds you, then you begin to witness.

Witnessing comes as a consequence of consciousness. You cannot practice witnessing; you can only practice consciousness. Witnessing comes as a consequence, as a shadow, as a result, as a by-product. The more you become conscious, the more you go into witnessing, the more you come to be a witness. So consciousness is a method to achieve witnessing. And the second step is that witnessing will become a method to achieve awareness.

So these are the three steps: consciousness, witnessing, awareness. But where we exist is the lowest rank: that is, in unconscious activity. Unconscious activity is the state of our minds.

Through consciousness you can achieve witnessing, and through witnessing you can achieve awareness, and through awareness you can achieve “no achievement.” Through awareness you can achieve all that is already achieved. After awareness there is nothing; awareness is the end.

Awareness is the end of spiritual progress; unawareness is the beginning. Unawareness means a state of material existence. So unawareness and unconsciousness are not both the same.

Unawareness means matter. Matter is not unconscious; it is unaware.

Animal existence is an unconscious existence; human existence is a mind phenomenon – ninety-nine percent unconscious and one percent conscious. This one percent consciousness means you are one percent conscious of your ninety-nine percent unconsciousness. But if you become conscious of your own consciousness, then the one percent will go on increasing, and the ninety-nine percent unconsciousness will go on decreasing.

If you become one hundred percent conscious, you become a witness, a sakshi. If you become a sakshi, you have come to the jumping point from where the jump into awareness becomes possible.

In awareness you lose the witness and only witnessing remains: you lose the doer, you lose the subjectivity, you lose the egocentric consciousness. Then consciousness remains, without the ego. The circumference remains without the center.

This circumference without the center is awareness. Consciousness without any center, without any source, without any motivation, without any source from which it comes – a “no source” consciousness – is awareness.

So you move from the unaware existence that is matter, prakriti, towards awareness. You may call it the divine, the godly, or whatever you choose to call it. Between matter and the divine, the difference is always of consciousness.

-Osho

From Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy, Discourse #14

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

For a related post see Yoga Means the Growth of Consciousness.

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.

 

 

 

Witnessing is Not a Mental Activity – Osho

Last night you said that the mind cannot do two things together—that is, thinking and witnessing. It seems then that witnessing is a mental faculty and an act of the mind. Is it so? Please explain. Is there anything like partial witnessing and total witnessing?

Witnessing is not a mental activity; thinking is a mental activity. Rather, it would be better to say that thinking is mind. When the mind is not, when the mind is absent, when the mind has disappeared, only then do you have witnessing. It is something behind the mind.

Zen Buddhism uses mind in two ways: the ordinary mind means thinking; then Mind with a capital “M” means the Mind behind thinking. Consciousness is behind the mind; consciousness comes through the mind. If mind is in a state of thinking, it becomes opaque, non-transparent, just like a clouded sky – you cannot see the sky. When the clouds are not, you can see the sky. When thinking is not there, then you can feel the witnessing. It is the pure sky behind.

So when I said that you cannot do two things, I meant either you can think, or you can witness. If you are thinking, then you lose witnessing. Then the mind becomes a cloud on your consciousness.

If you are witnessing, you cannot think simultaneously; then the mind is not there. Thinking is an acquired process; witnessing is your nature. So when I say that you cannot do both or mind cannot do both, I don’t mean that mind is the faculty to witness. Mind is the faculty to think, mind is for “minding.”

Really, many problems are created just by language. There is nothing like mind. There is only a process, not a thing. It is better to call it minding than mind. It is a process of continuous thought, one thought being followed by another. Only in the gaps, only in the intervals between two thoughts, can you have something of the witnessing nature. But thoughts are so speedy that you cannot even feel the gap. If you begin to witness your thoughts, then the thought process is slowed down and then you begin to feel gaps. One thought passes, another has not come yet, and there is an interval. In that interval you have witnessing. And thoughts cannot exist without gaps; otherwise they will begin to overlap each other. They cannot exist! Just like my fingers are there – with gaps in between.

If your thought process is slowed down – and any method of meditation is nothing but a slowing down of the thought process – if the thought process is slowed down, you begin to feel the gaps.

Through these gaps is witnessing. Thought is mind; a thoughtless consciousness is witnessing.

Thought is acquired from the outside; witnessing is inside. Consciousness is born with you: thought is acquired, cultivated. So you can have a Hindu thought, you can have a Mohammedan thought, you can have a Christian thought, but you cannot have a Christian soul, you cannot have a Hindu soul. Soul is just soul – consciousness is consciousness.

Minds have types. You have a particular mind. That particular mind is your upbringing, conditioning, education, culture. Mind means whatsoever has been put into you from the outside, and witnessing means whatsoever has not been put from the outside but is your inside – intrinsically, naturally. It is your nature. Mind is a by-product, a habit. Witnessing, consciousness, awareness, whatsoever you call it, is your nature. But you can acquire so many habits, and the nature can go just underneath.

You can forget it completely. So, really, religion is a fight for nature against habits. It is to uncover that which is natural – the original, the real you.

So remember the first thing: witnessing and thinking are different states. Thinking belongs to your mind; witnessing belongs to your nature. And you cannot do both simultaneously. Mind must cease for your consciousness to be; thought must cease for your real nature to be. So a thinker is one thing, and an Enlightened person is totally different.

A Buddha is not a thinker. Hegel or Kant are thinkers. They use their minds to reach particular conclusions. Buddha is not using his mind to reach any conclusions. Buddha is not using his mind at all. He is really a no-mind. He has stopped using mind. He is using himself, not the mind, to reach any conclusions. So with the mind you can reach conclusions, but all conclusions will be hypothetical, theoretical, because one thought can beget another thought. But thought cannot beget reality, thought cannot beget Truth.

Through witnessing you reach reality – not conclusions, not theories, but direct, immediate facts. For example, I am saying something to you. You can think about it – then you have missed the point.

You can think about it, what witnessing is, what mind is – you can think about it. This is one way; this is the mind’s way. But you can experiment with it and not think. And by “experiment” is meant that you have to know how to stop the mind and feel the witnessing. Then again you reach to something, but then it is not a conclusion; it is not something achieved through the thought process. Then it is something you realize.

Someone was asking Aurobindo, “Do you believe in God?” Aurobindo said, “No, I don’t believe in God at all.” The questioner was perplexed because he had come a long way just because he thought Aurobindo was capable of showing him the path towards God. And now Aurobindo says, “I don’t believe.”

He couldn’t believe his ears, so he asked again. He said, “I am perplexed. I have come a long way just to ask you how to achieve God. And if you don’t believe, then the problem, the question, doesn’t arise.”

Aurobindo said, “Who says that the question doesn’t arise? I don’t believe because I know that God is. But that is not my belief, that is not a conclusion reached by thought. It is not my belief. I know! That is my knowing.”

Mind can, at the most, believe. It can never know. It can believe either that there is God or there is no God, but both are beliefs. These both are beliefs.  Both have reached to these conclusions through “minding,” through thinking. They have thought, they have tried to probe logically, and then they have come to certain conclusions.

A Buddha is not a believer – he knows! And when I say he knows, knowing is possible only in one way. It is not through mind. It is through throwing mind completely. It is difficult to conceive because we have to conceive through the mind; that is the difficulty. I have to talk to you through the medium of the mind, and you have to listen to me through the medium of the mind. So when I say it is not to be achieved through mind, your mind takes it – but it is inconceivable for the mind. It can even create a theory about it. You may begin to believe that the Truth cannot be achieved through mind. If you begin to believe, you are in mind again. You can say, “I am not convinced. I don’t believe that there is anything beyond the mind.” Then again you are within the mind.

You can never go beyond the mind if you go on using it. You have to take a jump, and meditation means that jump. That’s why meditation is illogical, irrational. And it cannot be made logical; it cannot be reduced to reason. You have to experience it. If you experience, only then do you know.

So try this: don’t think about it, try – try to be a witness to your own thoughts. Sit down, relaxed, close your eyes, let your thoughts run just like on a screen pictures run. See them, look at them, make them your objects. One thought arises: look at it deeply. Don’t think about it, just look at it. If you begin to think about it then you are not a witness – you have fallen in the trap.

There is a horn outside; a thought arises – some car is passing; or a dog barks or something happens. Don’t think about it; just look at the thought. The thought has arisen, taken form. Now it is before you. Soon it will pass. Another thought will replace it. Go on looking at this thought process.

Even for a single moment, if you are capable of looking at this thought process without thinking about it, you will have gained something in witnessing and you will have known something in witnessing. This is a taste, a different taste than thinking – totally different. But one has to experiment with it.

Religion and science are poles apart, but in one thing they are similar and their emphasis is the same: science depends on experiments, and religion also. Only philosophy is non-experimental. Philosophy depends just on thinking. Religion and science both depend on experiment: science on objects, religion on your subjectivity. Science depends on experimenting with other things than you, and religion depends on experimenting directly with you.

It is difficult, because in science the experimenter is there, the experiment is there and the object to be experimented upon is there. There are three things: the object, the subject and the experiment. In religion you are all the three simultaneously. You are to experiment upon yourself. You are the subject and you are the object and you are the lab.

Don’t go on thinking. Begin, start somewhere, to experiment. Then you will have a direct feeling of what thinking is and what witnessing is. And then you will come to know that you cannot do both simultaneously, just as you cannot run and sit simultaneously. If you run, then you cannot sit, then you are not sitting. And if you are sitting, then you cannot run. But sitting is not a function of the legs.

Running is a function of the legs; sitting is not a function of legs. Rather, sitting is a non-function of the legs. When the legs are functioning, then you are not sitting. Sitting is a non-function of the legs; running is the function.

The same is with the mind: thinking is a function of the mind; witnessing a non-function of the mind. When the mind is not functioning, you have the witnessing, then you have the awareness. That’s why I said you cannot do both with your mind. You cannot both sit and run with your legs. But that doesn’t mean that sitting is a function of your legs. It is not a function at all; it is a nonfunctioning of your legs.

And you ask, “Is there anything like partial witnessing and total witnessing?” No – there is nothing like partial witnessing and total witnessing. Witnessing is total. It may be for a single moment and then it may go, but when it is there, it is total. Can you sit partially or totally? What can we understand by sitting partially? Witnessing is a total thing. Really, in life, nothing is partial – in life. Only with mind everything is partial. Understand this: with mind, nothing is total and never can be total. And when mind is not there, everything is total, nothing can be partial.

So mind is the faculty to bring partialness and fragmentariness in life. For example, watch a child in anger. The child is yet raw, uncultured. Look at his anger: the anger is total; it is not partial. Nothing is suppressed, it is a full flowering. That’s why children in anger are so beautiful.

Every totality has a beauty of its own.

When you are in anger, your anger is never total. The mind has come in – it is going to be partial. Something is bound to be suppressed, and that something suppressed will become a poison. Then your love also cannot be total. It is going to be partial. Neither can you hate nor can you love. Whatsoever you do will be partial because the mind is functioning.

A child can be angry this moment, and the second moment he can be in love. And when he is in anger it is a total thing, and when he is in love it is again a total thing. Every moment is total! The mind is still undeveloped. Again, a sage is just like a child. There are many, many differences, but the childhood comes again – he is total again. But he cannot be in anger. The child is without a mind as far as this life is concerned, but past lives and many minds accumulated in the unconscious, they go on working. So a child appears total, but he cannot be really total. This life’s mind is still growing, but he has many, many minds hidden in the subconscious, in the unconscious, in the deeper realms of the mind.

A sage is totally without mind – of this life or of past lives – so he can be only total in anything. He cannot be angry, he cannot be in hate, and the reason is again that no one can be totally in anger.

Anger is painful and you cannot be totally in anything which gives pain to you. He cannot be in hate because now he cannot be in anything in which he cannot be total. It is not a question of good and evil; it is not a moral question. Really, for a sage, it is not a question of being total. He cannot be otherwise.

Lao Tzu says, “I call that good in which you can be total and that bad in which you can never be total.” Partiality is sin. If you look at it in this way, then mind becomes sin – mind is the faculty of being partial. Witnessing is total, but in our lives nothing is total – nothing. We are partial in everything. That’s why there is no bliss, no ecstasy – because only when you are total in something do you have a blissful moment and never otherwise. Bliss means being total in something, and we are never total in anything. Only a part of us goes into something and a part of us remains outside. This creates a tension: one part somewhere and another part somewhere else. So whatsoever we do, even if we love, it is a tension, it is an anguish.

Psychologists say that if you study someone in love, then love appears just like any disease. Even love is not a blissful thing. It is anguish, a heavy burden. And that’s why one gets bored even with love, fed up – because the mind is not in bliss, it is in anguish. In whatsoever we are partial we are bound to be tense, in anguish. ”Partial” means we are divided, and mind is bound to be partial. Why? Because mind is not one thing. Mind means many things. Mind is a collection; it is not a unity.

Your nature is a unity. Your mind is a collection; it is not a unity at all. It has been collected by the way. So many persons have influenced your mind; so many influences have made it. Nothing goes by which is not impressing your mind. Everything that passes you impresses itself upon you: your friends impress you, your enemies also; your attractions impress you, your repulsions also; what you like impresses you and what you don’t like also impresses you. You go on collecting in multi-dimensional ways. So mind is just a junkyard. It is not unitary. It is a “multiverse,” it is not a universe, so it can never be total. How can it be total? It is a crowd with many, many contradictory, self-contradictory openings.

Old psychology believed in one mind, but new psychology says this is a false concept. Mind is a multiplicity, it is not one. You don’t have one mind. It is only a linguistic habit that we go on talking about one mind. We go on saying “my mind,” but this is wrong, factually wrong. It is better to say “my minds.”

Mahavir came upon this fact two thousand years ago. He is reported to have said: “Man is not uni-psychic, man is poly-psychic – many minds.” That’s why you cannot be total with the mind.

Either the majority of your mind is with you or the minority. Any mind decision is bound to be a parliamentary decision and nothing more. At the most you can hope for a majority decision.

And then a second thing comes in: it is not a fixed crowd – it is a changing crowd. It is not a fixed crowd! Every moment something is being added and something is being lost, so every moment you have new minds.

Buddha is passing through a city and someone comes to him and says, “I want to serve humanity. Show me the path!” Buddha closes his eyes and remains silent. The man feels bewildered. He asks again: “I am saying that I want to serve humanity. Why have you become silent? Is there something wrong in my asking this?”

Buddha opens his eyes and says, “You want to serve humanity, but where are you? First BE! You are not! You are a crowd. This moment you want to serve humanity, the second moment you may want to murder humanity. First be! You cannot do anything unless you are. So don’t think of doings – first contemplate about your being.”

This “being” can happen only through witnessing, never through thinking. Witnessing is total because your nature is one. You are born as one. Then you accumulate many minds. Then you begin to feel these many minds as you – then you are identified. This identification is to be broken.

-Osho

From The Ultimate Alchemy, Vol. 1, Discourse #16, Q1

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

Listen to the discourse excerpt Witnessing is Not a Mental Activity.

For a related post see Established in One’s Own Witnessing Nature.

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.

Path of Will or Path of Surrender? – Osho

Last night you spoke about witnessing as a method; other times I have heard you speak about becoming a thing totally, being totally involved in any given situation. Usually, I am at a loss as to which of these two to follow: Whether to stand back and witness in a detached way or become something totally – for example, when there is anger or love or sadness. Are these not two opposite paths? Are they both for different kinds of situations or for different types of people? When should one do which?

There are two basic paths – only two. One is of surrendering and another is of willing: the path of surrender and the path of will. They are diametrically opposite as far as going through them is concerned. But they reach to the same goal; they reach to the same realization. So we have to understand a little more in detail.

The path of will starts with your witnessing Self. It is not concerned with your ego directly – only indirectly. To start witnessing, to be aware of your acts, is directly concerned with awakening your inner Self. If the inner Self is awakened, the ego disappears as a consequence. You are not to do anything with the ego directly. They cannot both exist simultaneously. If your Self is awakened, the ego will disappear. The path of will tries to awaken the inner center directly. Many, many methods are used. How to awaken the Self? We will discuss that.

The path of surrender is directly concerned with the ego, not with the Self. When the ego disappears, the inner Self is awakened automatically. The path of surrender is concerned with the ego immediately, directly. You are not to do anything to awaken your inner Self. You are just to surrender your ego. The moment ego is surrendered; you are left with your inner Self awakened.

Of course, these both will work in opposite directions, because one will be concerned with ego and one will be concerned with Self. Their methods, their techniques, will be opposite – and no one can follow both. There is no need to and that is impossible also. Everyone has to choose.

If you choose the path of will, then you are left alone to work upon yourself. It is an arduous thing. One has to struggle – to fight – to fight with old habits which create sleep. Then the only fight is against sleep, and the only ambition is for a deep awakening inside. Those who follow will, they know only one sin, and that sin is spiritual sleepiness.

Many are the techniques. I have discussed some. For example, Gurdjieff used a Sufi exercise. Sufis call it “halt.” For example, you are sitting here, and if you are practicing the exercise of “halt” it means total halt. Whenever the teacher says “Stop!” or “Halt!” then you have to stop totally whatsoever you are doing. If your eyes are open, then stop them there and then. Now you cannot close them.

If your hand is raised, let it be there. Whatsoever your position and gesture, just be frozen in it. No movements! Halt totally! Try this, and suddenly you will have an inner awakening – a feeling. Suddenly you will become aware of your own frozenness.

The whole body is frozen, you have become a solid stone, you are like a statue. But if you go on deceiving yourself, then you have fallen into sleep. You can deceive yourself. You can say, “Who is seeing me? I can close my eyes. They are becoming painful.” You can deceive yourself – then you have fallen into sleep. No – deception is sleep. Don’t deceive yourself, because no one else is concerned. It is up to you. If you can be frozen for a single moment you will begin to see yourself as different, and your center will become aware of your frozen body.

There are other ways. For example, Mahavir and his tradition have used fasting as a method to awaken the Self. If you fast, the body begins to demand, the body begins to overpower you. Mahavir has said, “Just witness – don’t do anything. You feel hungry, so feel hungry. The body asks for food – be a witness to it, don’t do anything. Just be a witness to whatsoever is happening.” And it is a deep thing.

There are only two deep things in the body – sex and food. Nothing is more than these two, because food is needed for individual survival and sex is needed for race survival. Both are survival mechanisms. The individual cannot survive without food and the race cannot survive without sex. So sex is food for the race and food is sex for the individual. These are the deepest things because they are concerned with your survival – the most basic things. You will die without them.

So if you are fasting and just witnessing, then you have touched the deepest sleep. And if you can witness without being identified or bothered – the body is suffering, the body is hungry, the body is demanding and you are just witnessing – suddenly the body will be different. There will be a discontinuity between you and the body; there will be a gap.

Fasting has been used by Mahavir. Mohammedans have used vigilance in the night – no sleep!

Don’t sleep for a week and then you will know how sleepy the whole being becomes, how difficult it is to maintain this vigilance. But if one persists, suddenly a moment comes when the body and you are torn apart. Then you can see that the body needs sleep – it is not your need.

Many are the methods to work directly to create more awareness in yourself, to bring yourself above your so-called sleepy existence. No surrender is needed. Rather, one has to fight against surrender. No surrender is needed, because this is a path of struggle not of surrender. Because of this path, Mahavir was given the name “Mahavir.” “Mahavir” means “the great warrior.” This was not his name. His name was Vardhaman. He was called Mahavir because he was a great warrior as far as this inner struggle is concerned. He had no Guru, no Master, because it is a lonely path. Even to take somebody’s help is not good – it may become your sleep.

There is a story: Mahavir was fasting and remaining silent for years together. In a certain village some mischievous people were disturbing him, harassing him, and he was on a vow of silence.

He was beaten so many times because he would not speak and he remained naked – completely naked. So the villagers were at a loss to understand who he was. And he would not speak! And moreover he was naked! So from one village to another village he would be thrown out, made to leave the village.

The story says Indra, the King of gods, came to him and said to Mahavir, “I can defend you. It has become so painful. You are being beaten unnecessarily, so just allow me to defend you.”

Mahavir rejected the help. Later on, when he was asked why he rejected the help, he said, “This path of will is a lonely path. You cannot even have a helper with you because then the struggle loosens. Then the struggle becomes partial. Then you can depend on someone else, and wherever there is dependence sleep comes in. One has to be totally independent; only then can one be awake.”

This is one path, one basic attitude. All these methods of witnessing belong to this path. So when I say, “Be a witness.” it is meant for those who are travelers on the path of will.

Quite the opposite is the method of surrender. Surrender is concerned with your ego, not with your Self. In surrender you have to give up yourself. Of course, you cannot give the Self; that is impossible.

Whatsoever you can give is bound to be your ego. Only the ego can be given – because it is just incidental to you. It is not even a part of your being, just something added. It is a possession. Of course, the possessor has also become possessed by it. But it is a possession, it is a property – it is not you.

The path of surrender says, “Surrender your ego to the Teacher, to the Divine, to a Buddha.” When someone comes to Buddha and says, “Buddham Sharanam Gauchhami – I take shelter at your feet. I surrender myself at Buddha’s feet,” what is he doing? The Self cannot be surrendered, so leave it out. Whatsoever you can surrender is your ego. That is your possession; you can surrender it. If you can surrender your ego to someone, it makes no difference to whom – X, Y or Z. The person to be surrendered to is irrelevant in a way. The real thing is surrendering. So you can surrender to a God in the sky. Whether He is there or not is irrelevant. If a concept of the Divine in the sky can help you to surrender your ego, then it is a good device.

Really, yoga shastras say that God is a device to be surrendered to – just a device! So you need not bother whether God is or not. He is just a device, because it will be difficult for you to surrender in a vacuum. So let there be a God, and you surrender. Even a false device can help. For example, you see a rope on the street and you think that it is a snake. It moves like a snake. You are afraid, you are trembling, you are running. You begin to perspire, and your perspiration is real. And there is no snake – there is just a rope mistaken for a snake.

The yoga sutras say that God is a just a device to be surrendered to. Whether God is or is not is not meaningful; you need not bother about it. If He is, you will come to know through surrender. You need not be bothered about it before surrender. If He is, then you will know; if He is not, then you will know. So no discussion, no argument, no proof is needed. And it is very beautiful: they say He is a device, just a hypothetical thing to which you can surrender yourself, to help you surrender.

So a Teacher can become a god; a Teacher is a god. Unless you feel a Teacher as a god, you cannot surrender. Surrendering becomes possible if you feel that Mahavir is a god, Buddha is a god. Then you can surrender easily. Whether a Buddha is a god or not is irrelevant. Again, it is a device, it helps.

Buddha is known to have said that every truth is a device to help; every truth is just a utility. If it works, it is true. And there is no other basis for calling it true or untrue – if it works, it is true!

On the path of surrender, surrendering is the only technique. There are many techniques on the path of will, because you can make many efforts to awaken yourself. But when one is just to surrender, there are no methods. […]

These are completely, diametrically opposite standpoints. But just in the beginning and while on the path – they reach to the same thing. Either surrender your ego – then you have not to do anything. You have to do only one thing: surrender your ego. Then you have not to do anything. Then everything will begin to happen. If you cannot surrender then you will have to do much, because then you are on your own to fight, struggle.

Both paths are valid, and there is no question of which is better. It depends on the person who is following. It depends on your type. […]

The path of will is just like naturopathy – you have to depend upon yourself. No help! The path of surrender is more like allopathy – you can use medicines.

Think of it in this way: when someone is ill, he has two things – an inner, positive possibility of health and an accidental or incidental phenomenon of disease, illness. Naturopathy is not concerned with illness directly. Naturopathy is directly concerned with a positive growth of health. So grow in health! Naturopathy means growing in health positively. When you grow in health, the disease will disappear by itself. You need not be concerned with disease directly.

Allopathy is not concerned with positive health at all. It is concerned with the illness: destroy the illness and you will be healthy automatically.

The path of will is concerned with growing in positive awareness. If you grow, the ego will disappear – that is the disease. The path of surrender is concerned with the disease itself, not with positive growth in health. Destroy the disease – surrender the ego – and you will grow in health.

The path of surrender is allopathic and the path of will is naturopathic. […]

-Osho

From The Ultimate Alchemy, V.1, Discourse #16, Q2

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation 

For a related post see The Light of Awareness.

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.

You Witness Death – Osho

Maneesha has asked a question:

I have heard you say that if we lose consciousness—through fear—at the point of death we re-enter the circle of birth and death. Is witnessing all we can do at this crucial moment or is there any specific technique?

Maneesha, there is nothing except witnessing, and witnessing is not a technique.

Witnessing is your nature, your very nature. You are nothing but witnessing.

Witnessing is the purest consciousness.

And it is not only fear that makes you unconscious. Fear is only one element. When you are dying, it is not only fear that makes you unconscious; you already have too much unconsciousness – fear only takes away the thin layer of consciousness. One-tenth is conscious, nine-tenths is unconscious. Fear takes away the thin layer of consciousness and you are drowned in your own unconsciousness. It is so deep. It does not come from outside.

In meditation, when you are witnessing, you are by and by, without your knowing it, dispelling unconsciousness. You are becoming more and more conscious. The thin layer of consciousness becomes thicker and thicker and thicker, and a moment comes when your whole being is full of consciousness. This is witnessing.

So when death comes, you witness death. When life was there, you witnessed life. It is nothing new: death is only an object, just as life was an object. If you have learned how to witness, there is no question of being afraid. You will be a witness in your death too.

And if you are a witness in your death, you will never be born again into any other prison of the body. […]

Maneesha, there is no technique as such. Your being, your consciousness, has to transform all the dark corners inside you. The light has to reach into every nook and corner.

That’s what we call meditation.

Witnessing penetrates to every nook and corner – slowly, slowly, all darkness, all unconsciousness disappears. And if you die consciously, witnessing death, you are freed from the imprisonment of the birth and death circle. Then you can melt into the cosmic whole, into absolute silence, into great ecstasy. That is the only authentic religiousness.

-Osho

Excerpt from Yakusan: Straight to the Point of Enlightenment, Discourse #2

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.

 

Start Witnessing – Osho

Last night I saw for the first time that the mind need not be inimical to meditation. Does what you said about the mind accepting enlightenment also apply to its acceptance before enlightenment, of, for example, witnessing? Can the mind acknowledge that witnessing is often more useful than thinking, and so just step aside in those moments without throwing a tantrum?

Maneesha, it is impossible. Enlightenment has to be first. As an experience mind can understand it, and seeing its gracefulness in action can become a friend to it. But before enlightenment mind can only believe, it cannot become a friend.

Mind can only believe that there is enlightenment. At the most the belief is possible – but belief is of no use. The mind has to experience enlightenment in function, not as a belief but as activity. And the same is the case with witnessing: mind will always be against witnessing because it stops mind’s long heritage of thinking. Mind is familiar with thinking; witnessing at the most can become a thought, but it cannot become an actuality.

You have to put mind aside to become a witness, and obviously mind resists it. Who wants to be put aside? – And particularly from a place where the mind has been the master for centuries. And you want to put it aside for something that you don’t know what it is? Mind will not allow you to remain a witness long.

You can try a small experiment. Just put your wristwatch in front of you and start looking at the second hand and remain watching and witnessing. You will be surprised: not even fifteen seconds have passed and you have fallen and forgotten that you are witnessing. Some other thoughts have come. Suddenly you will awaken after a few seconds: “My God, it was only fifteen seconds!”

Not even sixty seconds – one minute – can you persist in witnessing? The force and the flood of mind is too big.

That’s why an articulate master creates strange devices to put the mind aside without making it an enemy, because sooner or later, when you become enlightened, the same mind has to be used as a friend. It is a very useful mechanism. But in the beginning it is going to be against any effort to put it aside.

Meditation is nothing but putting the mind aside, putting the mind out of the way, and bringing a witnessing which is always there but hidden underneath the mind. This witnessing will reach to your center, and once you have become enlightened, then there is no problem. Then bring the mind in tune with you. It is a great art. First you have to put the mind aside, then you have to bring the mind back again, but now it comes as a slave. It used to be the master before, so if you try before enlightenment, it is going to throw all kinds of tantrums. There is no need, because those tantrums will hinder your progress into witnessing. Just don’t create the enemy.

Silently start witnessing, without making a direct attack on the mind. You have to be very careful to reach to the center. Mind will try in every way to take you away for a worldwide tour. And it allures, persuades you, gives you great promises: “Where are you going? What is there inside? The boyfriend is waiting outside the gate and you are going inside. The party is arranged in the Blue Diamond – and who has ever heard of a party inside?”

The mind will create many kinds of things, but you have to very lovingly and carefully put it aside.

Remember my words, lovingly and carefully. Don’t hurt the mind, because the mind will be of much use after enlightenment. Before enlightenment it is your hindrance; after enlightenment it is an immensely complicated mechanism which can be used for all kinds of things. Then it is no more your enemy. Just the master has to be awakened, and once the mind sees the immense light inside you, it spontaneously falls in tune. There is no question of fighting. But before enlightenment the mind will give every fight if you are going to leave it behind or put it aside. This is simple psychology.

Gurdjieff used to say that in a class where the master has gone out, there is havoc. Children are shouting, jumping, fighting, doing whatsoever they always wanted to do, but because of the master…

And then the master comes in and every child is sitting in his place looking into the book. That does not mean that he is reading; that simply means he is showing that he is occupied. There is silence.

Gurdjieff used to say that something almost similar happens when you become enlightened. The master comes in and the mind, seeing the master, suddenly recognizes what his position is. Before such a splendor he is reduced. At that moment you can make friends with the mind; he will be immensely happy to be of any service to the eternity that you have brought with you. But don’t try it before enlightenment: then the mind is going to give you unnecessary trouble. The more you will fight with the mind, the more you will be engaged in mind rather than becoming a witness.

Witnessing is simply slipping out of the mind – a very graceful way, because the moment you start witnessing the very thought process, you have slipped out without creating any fight. You are just watching the caravan of thoughts within you. You are no more part; you are standing aside, by the side of the road, and the traffic is passing. You are not in a fighting mood, you are not even judgmental. You don’t say, “This is good and that is wrong.” Whatever is passing, your whole work is just to see. Soon this silent seeing… and the mind is put aside.

It is witnessing that will take you to enlightenment. After enlightenment mind can be used, can be very significantly used. It is the greatest biological evolution. It has not to be thrown away in the wastepaper basket; it has to be used. But first find the master who can use it. Right now mind is using you. Everybody is a mind slave unless he is enlightened. Then enlightenment is you and mind becomes your slave.

-Osho

From Isan: No Footprints in the Blue Sky, Discourse #3

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

Listen to the discourse excerpt Start Witnessing.

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.

 

Who is Watching the Mind? – Osho

Can the mind commit suicide?

The mind cannot commit suicide because whatsoever the mind can do will strengthen the mind. Any doing on the part of the mind makes the mind more strong. So suicide is impossible.

Mind doing something means mind continuing itself — so that is not in the nature of things. But suicide happens. Mind cannot commit it — mm? — let me make it absolutely clear: mind cannot commit it, but suicide happens. It happens through watching the mind, not by doing anything.

The watcher is separate from the mind, it is deeper than the mind, higher than the mind. The watcher is always hidden behind the mind. A thought passes, a feeling arises — who is watching this thought? Not the mind itself — because mind is nothing but the process of thought and feeling. The mind is just the traffic of thinking. Who is watching it? When you say, “An angry thought has arisen in me,” who are “you”? In whom has the thought arisen? Who is the container? The thought is the content — who is the container?

The mind is like when you print a book: on white, clean paper, words appear. That empty paper is the container and the printed words are the content. Consciousness is like empty paper. Mind is like written, printed paper.

Whatsoever exists as an object inside you, whatsoever you can see and observe, is the mind. The observer is not the mind, the observed is the mind.

So if you can go on simply observing, without condemning, without in any way creating a conflict with the mind, without indulging it, without following it, without going against it, if you can simply be there indifferent to it, in that indifference suicide happens. It is not that mind commits suicide: when the watcher arises, the witness is there, mind simply disappears.

Mind exists with your cooperation or your conflict. Both are ways of cooperating — conflict too! When you fight with the mind, you are giving energy to it. In your very fight you have accepted the mind, in your very fighting you have accepted the power of the mind over your being. So whether you cooperate or you conflict, in both the cases the mind becomes stronger and stronger.

Just watch. Just be a witness. And, by and by, you will see gaps arising. A thought passes, and another thought does not come immediately — there is an interval. In that interval is peace. In that interval is love. In that interval is all that you have always been seeking — and finding never. In that gap, you are no more an ego. In that gap you are not defined, confined, imprisoned. In that gap you are vast, immense, huge! In that gap you are one with existence — the barrier exists not. Your boundaries are no more there. You melt into existence and the existence melts in you. You start overlapping.

If you go on watching and you don’t get attached to these gaps either . . . because that is natural now, to get attached to these gaps. If you start hankering for these gaps . . . because they are tremendously beautiful, they are immensely blissful. It is natural to get attached to them, and desire arises to have more and more of these gaps — then you will miss, then your watcher has disappeared. Then those gaps will again disappear, and again the traffic of the mind will be there.

So the first thing is to become an indifferent watcher. And the second thing is to remember that when beautiful gaps arise, don’t get attached to them, don’t start asking for them, don’t start waiting that they should happen more often. If you can remember these two things — when beautiful gaps come, watch them too, and keep your indifference alive — then one day the traffic simply disappears with the road, they both disappear. And there is tremendous emptiness.

That’s what Buddha calls Nirvana — the mind has ceased. This is what I call suicide — but mind has not committed it. Mind cannot commit it. You can help it to happen. You can hinder it, you can help it to happen — it depends on you, not on your mind. All that mind can do will always strengthen the mind.

So, meditation is not really mind-effort. Real meditation is not effort at all. Real meditation is just allowing the mind to have its own way, and not interfering in any way whatsoever — just remaining watchful, witnessing. It silences, by and by, it becomes still. One day it is gone. You are left alone.

That aloneness is what your reality is. And in that aloneness, nothing is excluded, remember it. In that aloneness everything is included — that aloneness is God. That purity, that innocence, uncorrupted by any thought, is what God is.

-Osho

From The Discipline of Transcendence, V. 3, Discourse #2, Q4

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

Here you can listen to the discourse excerpt Who Is Watching the Mind?

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.

What is the Difference Between No-Mind and My Mind? – Osho

What is the difference between no-mind and my mind?

Milarepa, the difference between no-mind and my-mind is the difference between your mind and my mind.

Just drop the “my” and there is no difference between no-mind and mind. “My” mind creates the boundary. Take the boundary away, and mind becomes no-mind, infinite, unbounded. You are an imprisoned splendor. Just take the prison away . . . And the prison is not much; it is of I, my, mine. Just be without these words surrounding you, and no-mind will give you the whole existence as an inheritance. Mind has poisoned you, but it has been able to poison you because you have become identified with it. You start calling it my-mind. Drop the my and you are separate from the mind — that was the bridge.

Separate who you are from the mind — just a pure presence, an utter silence, unmoving stillness . . . and in this space happens all that deep down you are all looking for, knowingly or unknowingly.

Three mice walked into a bar, sat down and began some serious drinking. All three became thoroughly drunk and in due course, each began to boast about how brave he was.

“I’m going to tell that dumb Ronald Reagan in the White House about some of his policies,” said the first mouse.

“That’s nothing,” sneered the second mouse. “I’m going over to the Kremlin and tell them just what I think about them.”

They both turned to the third mouse who was sitting there dreaming.

“Well, what are you going to do?” they demanded.

“Me, I’m going to screw the cat.”

This is your mind. Just drop the identity with the mind and you will be surprised beyond your wildest expectations what a tremendous treasure you have, inexhaustible. And when I am saying this, I am not saying it within quotation marks. When I am saying this, I am saying this on my own authority.

I am not authoritative, remember — one can get confused. The authoritative person is a person who wants to dominate. I am not an authoritative person, I have no desire to dominate; but what I am saying is with absolute authority. I am not quoting any scriptures; I am saying only what I have encountered within myself. The day I dropped the identity with the mind I became the no-mind. No-mind is the highest state of your consciousness.

Paddy and Sean were sitting in the bar when Paddy said, “You know, Sean, I have read so much lately about how smoking can ruin your health that I have finally decided to do something about it.”

“So, you are going to give up smoking?” asked Sean.

“Heavens no,” cried Paddy, “I am going to give up reading.”

So just be very alert. I am saying to drop the idea of my, mine — the identity. But you can misunderstand me, because misunderstanding does not need much intelligence. You can go on being identified with the mind. Your mind is capable of giving you the sense that you have arrived, that this is no-mind. It is so easy to deceive yourself that you have to be alerted again and again not to deceive yourself.

Just the other day I have received again a letter from a German sannyasin. Now he is asking for my blessings because he has become enlightened. Germans are very strong people, and once they get an idea, it is very difficult to change them. And this is not the first case!

It has happened before with another German sannyasin, Gunakar. He became at least six times enlightened and finally he dropped it. Whenever he would go to Germany he would become enlightened and from there — and he was rich, he had a beautiful castle in the mountains — he would write letters to all the presidents, to all the prime ministers of the world, to all the members of the U.N., “I have become enlightened. If you need any advice I am available.”

His letter would come to me also, “Osho, I thank you, you were right that enlightenment is our nature. I have become enlightened. I just need a recognition from you because nobody else believes in me.”

So I had to call him again and again. And when he would come and sit in front of me, and

I would say, “Gunakar, are you really enlightened?” he would say, “No.” He would say,

“It is strange. When I come to you I become unenlightened, and when I go back to

Germany I become enlightened again!”

This happened six times. Gautam Buddha became enlightened only once. In fact, people have never become enlightened even twice — once is more than enough. But mind is very cunning, it can give you all kinds of ideas.

Beware of your own mind.

If you can remain alert and not allow the mind to disturb your silence, your peace, slowly, slowly the mind stops bothering you. And the day the mind feels completely frustrated that you are no more listening to it, it evaporates. Its whole life is the life of a parasite. If you get identified with it, you are giving life to it, you are giving nourishment to it.

Just get unidentified. Let the mind be there, but remember, you are not it. Just this simple remembrance: I am not the mind. Not that you have to repeat it — because repetition will be done by the mind, that is the problem. Just a wordless awareness, I am not the mind . . . and no-mind will start opening its doors to you. And that is the beginning of the transformation.

-Osho

From The Osho Upanishad, 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.

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.

 

Does Witnessing Always Bring Joy? – Osho

Does witnessing always bring joy? The moments that I call witnessing sometimes feel distant – almost cold in their neutrality. Other times it is like sprouting wings and soaring in joy over the open sea.

Deva Abhiyana,

The state of witnessing is neither cold nor hot. It is neither happiness nor unhappiness. It is neither dark nor light. It is neither life nor death. The Upanishads say neti neti — neither this nor that.

If you feel joy, you have already become identified; witnessing is gone. If you feel sad, you are no more a witness; you have forgotten witnessing, you have become involved. You are colored by your psychology of the moment. Joy, sadness, all these qualities, are part of your psychology. And witnessing is a transcendence; it is not psychological.

The whole art of meditation consists in witnessing. Then what does it bring? At the most, we can say it brings total peace; it simply brings eternal silence. You cannot define it as joy. The moment you define it as joy you have fallen into the world of duality again. Then you have become part of what is passing, you have started clinging to it.

The state of witnessing remains indefinable. That’s why Buddha has not used the word “bliss” at all because it can give you a wrong idea – because in your mind bliss will mean happiness. That’s how you are going to translate it, to interpret it. Buddha has not used the word “bliss”; he has not used the word “God.”

The word that he has used is “absolute void” – shunyam. There will be nothing left, just absolute silence, absolute emptiness – but not emptiness in the English meaning of the word. Shunyam has a totally different connotation; it has been translated and can only be translated as emptiness. But emptiness is negative, emptiness means something is missing, emptiness means loneliness. Emptiness is not a life quality but a death quality.

Shunyam is not negative; it is not even positive, how can it be negative? It simply means you are alone – not lonely, but alone. You are not missing anything. You are spacious, there is great space in you, but it is not empty of something. On the contrary, it is utter plenitude. It is full of emptiness – if you allow me the expression It is full of emptiness, but one is fulfilled.

Shunyam is blossoming in you. There is great peace but not joy because joy becomes positive; but not sadness because sadness becomes negative. Peace is exactly the middle, neither cold nor hot. It is not neutrality; it is not indifference. It is not a state where you turn your back towards something, you are no more interested. No, there is no question of disinterest, indifference or neutrality. You are utterly there, absolutely there, totally there but like a mirror, just reflecting whatsoever is the case.

Joy passes by and the mirror reflects it, but the mirror does not become joy itself; it never becomes identified. And sadness comes like a cloud, a dark cloud, and passes by, and the mirror reflects it. The mirror has no prejudice against it. The mirror is not favorable to joy and unfavorable to sadness. The mirror has no liking, no disliking; it simply reflects whatsoever is the case. It is not neutral, otherwise it will not reflect; it does not turn its back towards things. It is not indifferent because indifference again means you are already prejudiced; you have a certain conclusion. It is not disinterested and you cannot say it is interested either. It is a transcendence.

Abhiyana, don’t get identified with the joy that comes – watch it. Remain a watcher on the hills, a mirror. Reflect it but don’t cling to it. A bird on the wing . . . and the lake reflects it.

The Zen people say this is the state of Buddhahood. The bird has no mind to be reflected in the lake and the lake has no mind to reflect the bird, but the bird on the wing . . . and the lake reflects it. You see the point: the bird has no mind to be reflected and the lake has no mind to reflect the bird, but the bird is reflected. It simply happens that the lake is there, and the bird is on the wing . . . the reflection is bound to happen — it is natural! The bird is gone; the lake does not miss the bird, it does not hanker for it, it does not long for it, it does not hope that it will come again. It does not go into the past, into the memories, or into the future projections. The bird has flown; it never thinks of the lake again, it never desires to be there again. One day it may be there again, and again it will be reflected, but no relationship is created. The happening is there but no relationship is there.

This is what I call relating, not relationship. It is a fluid phenomenon. This is witnessing.

–   Osho

From Be Still and Know, Discourse #2

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

Here you can listen to the discourse excerpt Does Witnessing Always Brings Joy.

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.