Category: Osho

Maturity of Spirit – Osho

What is meant by “maturity of spirit”?

Just awakening to your nothingness. This is the difficulty: maturity will never give you the idea of nothingness. But unless you touch your inner space, which is nothingness as silent and empty as the sky … it is your inner sky. Once you settle down in your inner sky, you have found a home and a great maturity arises in your actions, in your behavior. Then whatever you do has grace in it. Then whatever you do is poetry in itself. You live poetry; your walking becomes dancing, your silence becomes music.

By maturity is meant that you have come home. You are no more a child who has to grow – you have grown up. You have touched the height of your potential. For the first time, in a strange sense you are not, and you are. You are not in your old ideas, imaginations, in your old comprehension of yourself; all that has gone down the drain. Now something new arises in you, absolutely new and virgin, which transforms your whole life into joy.

You have become a stranger to the miserable world. You don’t create misery for yourself or for anybody else. You live your life in total freedom, without any consideration for what others will say.

The people, who are always considering others and their opinions, are immature. They are dependent on the opinions of others; they can’t do anything authentically, honestly. They can’t say what they want to say, they say what others want to hear.

Your politicians say the things that you want to hear. They give you the promises you want. They know perfectly well that they cannot fulfill these promises, neither is there any intent to fulfill them.

But if they say exactly, truthfully, what the situation is, and make it clear to you that many of the things you are asking for are impossible, that they cannot be done, they will be thrown out of power.

You will not choose a politician who is honest.

It is a very strange world. It is almost an insane asylum. If, in this insane asylum, you become alert and aware of your being, you are blessed.

-Osho

From Zen: The Diamond Thunderbolt, Discourse #11

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.

 

 

Can Meditation be Learned – Osho

Can meditation be learned, or is it, like love, a state of being that comes as a present?

Prem Prabhati, meditation cannot be learned in a positive way, but it can be learned in a negative way. This is very important to understand: the basic method of meditation is negative.

What do I mean when I say meditation can be learned negatively, only negatively? I mean that the mind can be unlearned, and the moment you unlearn the mind you are learning meditation. Unlearning the mind is learning meditation; when the mind has been completely unlearned you have learned meditation. You cannot go directly into learning meditation. All that is needed is to remove the mind.

Mind is like a block. The river is there but blocked, it can’t flow. It is covered with rocks; those rocks don’t allow it any outlet. It is surging inside you, it is longing for the ocean, it wants to get out of this prison. That’s why everybody feels so restless. This restlessness is nothing but your consciousness longing to meet with the ultimate. The river wants to reach the ocean. The seed wants to sprout, but it is covered, blocked by a big rock. That rock is of your mind. And it is a big rock because you have been accumulating it for many, many lives. Your meditation is simply crushed underneath it.

You cannot reach meditation directly, but you can remove this rock chunk by chunk. You can take a chisel and a hammer – that’s what I go on providing you – and go on hammering on the rock. Slowly slowly the rock will disappear. The day the rock disappears, suddenly a flow, a fresh flow of water, will start running towards the ocean. That is meditation.

Hence, Prabhati, in one sense meditation cannot be learned. You cannot practice it, because all practicing is of the mind. All practices strengthen the mind, make it stronger. And the mind has to be made weaker; its power over you has to be destroyed. It has to be put in its right place: it is not the master; it has only become the master. You have to stop cooperating with it; you have to stop giving more and more nourishment to it.

That’s what I mean by unlearning the mind. Don’t support it. Don’t cling to it. Don’t rely on it. Don’t be possessed by it. Don’t live according to its dictates. And then slowly, slowly the master is free from the slave. That master is your meditative quality.

You ask me: “Can meditation be learned, or is it, like love, a state of being that comes as a present?”

It is already there. It does not come like a present – nobody ‘presents’ it to you – it is your very nature, svabhava, it is your very being. And so is love.

When meditation has happened, love is its aroma, its perfume. A meditative person is naturally loving; it can’t be otherwise. A loving person is naturally meditative. If it is not so, then you are deceived, then you are carrying false coins. If a man thinks he is meditative and is not loving, then his meditation is nothing but a mind practice, something false, pseudo. Something which is not meditation is masquerading as meditation. He has been deceived by his mind. If a man thinks that he is very loving and is not meditative, his love is nothing but another name for lust. He knows nothing of love; he can’t know in the very nature of things.

Aes dhammo sanantano. This is the ultimate law: meditation brings love naturally – it is its aroma, its fragrance. And love exists only around the flower called meditation, never otherwise. They are together.

Either search for love or for meditation. And you can only search for one, because things are already too complicated. If you start searching for both you will make them even more complicated, you may become more confused. Hence I say, only seek one. If you can find one, the other is found without any effort on your part. Either find love or find meditation and the other will follow it like a shadow.

But they are not learned in a direct way as you learn mathematics, as you learn geography, history, as you learn a new language. That is not the way to learn meditation or love; they are learned in an indirect way. If you want to learn meditation, you will have to unlearn the ways of the mind. If you want to learn love, you will have to unlearn the unloving ways that have become very ingrained in you. Anger, possessiveness, jealousy – these will have to be unlearned.

And it never comes as a gift because it is already given; it is your innermost nature. Yes, it is a grace, a gift, but it is not going to happen in the future, it has already happened. You have never been without it, you can’t be without it. Love and meditation constitute your real essential core.

-Osho

From The White Lotus, Discourse #4

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

Here you can listen to the discourse excerpt Can Meditation Be Learned.

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.

Free From Everybody – Osho

The fruit falls on the ground when it is ripe. One day, you will leave us, and it will be impossible to have another master in your place. How can anybody else be the substitute for the Master of masters? 

When you leave the physical body, will your meditation techniques help our inner growth as they do now?

My approach to your growth is basically to make you independent of me. Any kind of dependence is slavery, and the spiritual dependence is the worst slavery of all.

I have been making every effort to make you aware of your individuality, your freedom, your absolute capacity to grow without any help from anybody. Your growth is something intrinsic to your being. It does not come from outside; it is not an imposition, it is an unfolding.

All the meditation techniques that I have given to you are not dependent on me – my presence or absence will not make any difference – they are dependent on you. It is not my presence but your presence that is needed for them to work. It is not my being here but your being here, your being in the present, your being alert and aware that is going to help.

I can understand your question and its relevance. It is not irrelevant. The whole past of man is, in different ways, a history of exploitation. And even the so-called spiritual people could not resist the temptation to exploit. Out of a hundred masters, ninety-nine percent were trying to impose the idea that, “Without me you cannot grow, no progress is possible. Give me your whole responsibility.”

But the moment you give your whole responsibility to somebody, unknowingly, you are also giving your whole freedom. And naturally, all those masters had to die one day, but they have left long lines of slaves: Christians, Jews, Hindus, Mohammedans. What are these people? Why should somebody be a Christian? If you can be someone, be a Christ, never be a Christian. Are you absolutely blind to the humiliation when you call yourself a Christian, a follower of someone who died two thousand years ago?

The whole of humanity is following the dead. Is it not weird that the living should follow the dead, that the living should be dominated by the dead, that the living should depend on the dead and their promises that “We will be coming to save you”? None of them has come to save you. In fact, nobody can save anybody else; it goes against the foundational truth of freedom and individuality.

As far as I am concerned, I am simply making every effort to make you free from everybody – including me – and to just be alone on the path of searching.

This existence respects a person who dares to be alone in the seeking of truth. Slaves are not respected by existence at all. They do not deserve any respect – they don’t respect themselves – how can they expect existence to be respectful toward them?

So remember, when I am gone, you are not going to lose anything. Perhaps you may gain something of which you are absolutely unaware. Right now, I am available to you only embodied, imprisoned in a certain shape and form.

When I am gone, where can I go? I will be here in the winds, in the ocean; and if you have loved me, if you have trusted me, you will feel me in a thousand and one ways. In your silent moments you will suddenly feel my presence.

Once I am unembodied, my consciousness is universal. Right now, you have to come to me. Then, you will not need to seek and search for me. Wherever you are . . . your thirst, your love. . . and you will find me in your very heart, in your very heartbeat.

-Osho

From Beyond Enlightenment, Discourse #11, 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.

That Which Took Us to Rajneeshpuram

Rajneesh Mandir

I am sure that whatever I say will not make one iota of difference to anyone, but still it has to be said.

It seems appropriate to ask ourselves what it was that took us to Rajneeshpuram.

If we were attracted by the idea of creating a utopian community and that is the only reason we went then it is natural that we are disappointed that the experiment did not deliver the goods. And I suppose then there is some benefit in reviewing the history and events that took place so as to do better next time.

Perhaps we were attracted by the idea of being with a “godman,” some saintly character that would conform to our own ideas of “enlightenment.” Just the idea elevated our own status. We were one of the chosen few. Is this anything more than an ego trip? And of course, we were headed for disappointment. Masters do not conform to anyone’s ideas of enlightenment, Gurdjieff did not, J. Krishnamurti did not, and certainly U.G. Krishnamurti did not, just to name a few more recent examples. And it is natural that our egos would be bruised when we realized that life did not live up to our expectations.

And then there were some that were lured by the prospect of opening ourselves to the unknown, of diving deep into our own inner depths, of examining every aspect of ourselves, both the dark and the light. There are not many in this group who were disappointed, Rajneeshpuram delivered on all accounts for many.

Whatever it was that took us to Rajneeshpuram, what we can take away, even if only beginning at this moment, is meditation.

We can forget all about Osho, but if we forget about meditation, the whole journey was for naught.

If we persist in meditation (and by meditation I mean observing the contents of the mind without pushing them away or without jumping into the fray) then we rediscover that space, that magical space of silence and love. From here it is hard to be anything but so overwhelmingly grateful for the one who spent his entire life pointing towards this door to no-mind. And, in fact, it is THIS no-mind, this oceanic space of silence and love that is Osho, this very moment.

-purushottama

See all 0f Prem’s notes.

 

Give Yourself a Little of God – Osho

I don’t understand – What does the word God mean? I really don’t understand. God, what is that? You say life is everything. Life is what is, what counts, here and now – no planning, no wishing, no wanting, no hoping, no searching. Live now, spontaneously. Just be. Yes. I understand that, but what is “God”? Is God the same word for life? For what is? But why do we use the word ‘God’ and not just life? They say “God” is the one who created the world. Is that what God is?

The question is of course from somebody who is very new here. Many things will have to be understood. First: there is no need to understand what “God” is, because whatsoever God is cannot be understood. Understanding is not the right direction towards God. Understanding means you are trying intellectually – through logic, reason, concepts – and that’s the sure way to miss God.

It is as if somebody is trying to see through the ears. He will not be able to see. Or somebody is trying to hear with the eyes. He will not be able to hear. The ears are to hear and the eyes are to see.

The intellect is utilitarian. It helps while you are moving outside of your being. It is helpful as a guide in the world of the without. The moment you turn inwards it becomes useless; it is no more a guide. Then it misguides. There is a limit to the intellect… and God can be felt only, not understood.

When you are moving inwards, you come closer to the source of your own being – and that is the source of all being. If I can come to my own self, I have come to the supreme self, because at the center I am no more I AM; I am the whole. But the movement has to be inwards, the movement has to be somewhere deep in the depth.

Intellect is superficial – so if you are trying to understand God, you will go on missing. The first thing to be understood is that understanding is not the right direction.  Feeling….

Once a Christian missionary asked a very primitive man, an aboriginal, “Who told you what you know of God?”

The primitive laughed and replied, “Told? Whoever is so stupid that they have got to be told about God? Never did any man know God by ‘tolds.’ You get God by ‘feels.’ All the told there is to it is his name. You call him God, I call him Gallah. I English Gallah’s name so you can understand me, but whoever has got anything by ‘tolds’?”

Whatsoever you know about “God” is through ‘tolds’ – the parents, the society, the culture. It is your conditioning. And now you have got a concept about God and you are trying to understand that word. “God” is not a word. The word God is not god. The word is simply a word; in itself empty and meaningless.

If you really want to know what God is, you will have to drop the word and move into feeling. You will have to drop the mind and move into no-mind. Love will bring you closer to it than thinking.

And when I say “Life is God,” I am saying that if you want, you can experience God but you cannot understand. Life cannot be understood. You can live it – that is the only understanding there is. But you are worried. You say that you understand that – but what is “God”? If you understand that, if you understand what life is, you will never ask what God is. In that very understanding, the problem of “God” is solved.

A man who has lived life in its totality has understood all that is there to understand. He will be full of God. He has given enough of God to himself and there will be no problem of understanding.

You have not given anything of life to yourself. Empty you live. Hiding in a cocoon you live. Blind, deaf, you live. Dead you live. You have not given any life at all to your being – and there is the flavor, there is the taste of what “God” is. You have to eat out of life. You have to drink out of life. You have to live, merge into it.

But the mind is cunning; it goes on thinking about “God.” Thinking is a very secure situation. You never go out of yourself. You go on playing with words. If you are too interested in the word, if you want to know what the word “God” means… it doesn’t mean “God”. If you are only interested in the linguistic symbol God, then you can ask the linguists; don’t come to me. They say that God is derived from a word ghu-to. That ghu-to means “the called one,” nothing else.

If you call life, it becomes God – the called one. If you provoke life, it becomes god.

“God” is a certain situation in life when you provoke it, when you pray to it, when you are in a deep dialogue with it. When you look at the sky and you say, “Father, who art in heaven…” you have called life. Now life is no more just life – it has become the called one, the provoked one. The word God simply means that.

In deep love, someday one cries, one starts uttering words… a dialogue arises. Life is no more “it”; it becomes a “thou”. That is the meaning of the word God. If life becomes your beloved, if life becomes a thou and you are in deep relationship with it, suddenly life has become God.

“God” is a deep communion with life.

If you are just trying to understand the word…. Yes, there is a need to use a different word – God – rather than just calling it “life” — life provoked, called life in deep relationship.

An ordinary woman passes by. She is a woman – but if love calls in your heart she is no more a woman; she is a beloved. We can say all beloveds are women. To become a beloved is a certain function in the being of a woman – when she is called, when she is no more just a “she”, she becomes “thou,” becomes related.

Have you watched this transfiguration? The woman may have passed you many times, you may have seen her many times, yet she was just a woman, as there are millions of women. Then suddenly one day something changes. The woman is no more an ordinary woman; she has become divine. She is a beloved. Now suddenly she has come close to you; your heart has called.

Or a man. You know him, as one of so many men – just a statistic, just a number in millions of men; he has no particular face for you, is unrelated to you… if that man disappears and is replaced by another, you will not even notice the difference; he is only a number, is not yet a person to you; unprovoked, uncalled, he remains anonymous, he has no name…. Then suddenly one day love arises. He is no more an ordinary man; he has become a God.

Provoked, called, related, you have become… a communion has happened. And not only that the man has changed; you are also changed simultaneously. Something of the beyond has entered.

Yes, there is a function of the word God – life provoked, life becomes a thou, life becomes a person. You are no more indifferent to it. You feel for it – a communion has happened. Then life becomes God. Then life is no more with a lower case “l”; now it is with a capital “L” – Life.

But there is no way to understand “God” through intellect, because there is no way to understand love through intellect. “God” is love provoked. And in that light of love, everything is transformed. It is alchemical, magical.

Give a little of “God” to you—that’s my whole effort. When I say “Life is God,” I am meaning to say don’t see “God” in the temples and the mosques and the churches. There you will find the “God” of the philosophers, theologians – which is a bogus God, a false coin, a counterfeit. Look in the trees, in the flowers, in the stars, in humanity, in animals, in birds. Wherever there is life, look deep down there. Provoke God there. Pray there. Pray before a tree. Pray before an animal. Pray before the stars. Provoke God there. There is the real temple.

When I say “Life is God”, I mean this – don’t be confined in temples and don’t be confined in churches and don’t be confined by Bibles and Gitas and Korans. Don’t be confined at all. Life is infinite. Meet life as it is. Meet the infinite. Don’t be afraid of the infinite.

Where is the fear of the infinite? The fear is that with the infinite you will disappear. In a church you cannot disappear. You can manage. A church is your construction. It is arbitrary. It is artificial. It is a plastic flower. You can control it, manipulate it. Behind the curtain are your hands. The God in the church is your creation.

The real God is totally different. If you come to the real God – the life – then you are God’s creation. Then God is behind everything. In the church you are behind everything. The church is a deception.

So when I say “Life is God,” I simply mean don’t create substitute Gods, don’t create substitute temples. This vast space is the temple and this infinitely moving life is the god. Give a little of God to you and then you will understand. And that understanding will not be of the intellect; that will be more of your total being. It will be more of the blood and the guts.

I was-reading an anecdote:

A man was brooding over his beer at the bar-room, and said to his friend, “I tell you, Mulligan, I don’t know what I am going to do about my wife.”

“What is it now?”

“The same old thing – money. She is always asking for money. Only last Thursday she wanted ten dollars, yesterday she was around asking for twenty, and this morning, if you please, she demanded fifty dollars!”

“What does she do with all the money, for heaven’s sake?” asked the friend.

“There is no way of finding out. I never give her any.”

Give a little of God to you, then you will stop asking what “God” is. You don’t give yourself a little of God and then you go on asking. Nobody else can give you God, remember. You will have to come to terms with God on your own. I cannot give God to you. God is not a commodity, it is not a thing. It is such an experience that only you can have it.

You will have to move alone. You will have to go totally alone, naked of all thoughts, totally naked, naked of all philosophies, naked of all scriptures. And once you have tasted a little, you will understand. Love life, and by and by a light will arise in your being. Through deep love of life one comes to understand what God is.

The last part of the question is: They say “God” is the one who created the world.

“God” is the world. The mind goes on creating dualisms. It says: “God is the one who created the world”—then “the world” is separate and “God” is separate. God is not separate. He cannot be separate from his world. If he is separate, the world cannot exist for a single moment without him. He is the very life of life.

So don’t imagine God as a painter who paints on a canvas and then the canvas is separate and god is separate. The painter can die but the painting can continue.

Because of this duality, Nietzsche could say, “God is dead.” What is the need of him? He created the world – finished! Why go on carrying the load? What is the need of God? Once he created the world then what is the need? The world is there, you are there. This God can only be a hindrance. He will come between you and your life – be finished with him!

And Nietzsche was right in a way: that is the logical conclusion of duality. The world is perfectly right without him. Why bring him in? In fact, the more you bring him in, the more trouble arises. Look at the religions. How many wars, murders, violence? What has not happened in the name of religion? The world has suffered tremendously.

“…Be finished with God! He created the world; give him a last thank you and be finished. Now he is no more needed. Already too old, almost a ruin….” Nietzsche said, “God is dead, and man is free now.” This is the logical conclusion of dualistic thinking.

In the East we have never thought of God as a painter. We have thought of God as a dancer. The dance cannot be separated from the dancer; the painting can be separated. That’s why dance is alive and painting is dead. Howsoever beautiful a painting, it is dead. It is separate from the creator. The moment it is separate it is dead. It may have lived a life in the mind of the painter; it may have been alive when it was not painted. The moment it is painted it is finished; it is already a dead product. But a dance….

In India we call God Nataraj – the god of dancers. You must have seen Shiva dancing. That is the eastern concept about God – a non-dual concept. When the dancer stops, the dancing stops. You cannot separate the dancing from the dancer. And dancing comes to a culmination, to a crescendo, when the dancer is completely lost in it – when there is neither a dancer nor a dancing; both are one… one movement of sheer energy and delight.

That’s why nothing can be compared with dancing – poetry, painting, sculpture; nothing comes close to it. Dancing remains the supreme art. And that is the first art that was born and that will remain the last art also, because dancing has some quality in it of life itself.

God is a dancer. He is not a creator in the sense of a painter; he is a creator in the sense of a dancer.

Then let me say it in another way. God is not a creator but creativity… a dynamic energy. The moment you say creator, he is dead. The very word creator has a full-stop in it. Creativity with an open end, tremendously moving and moving and reaching to higher and higher peaks….

The animals are a dance of God. The trees are also a dance of God. Humanity is also a dance of God, reaching higher and higher. God is moving faster and faster – more mad, more fast, getting dissolved into his dance.

A Buddha or a Jesus is the ultimate of his dance… where the dancer is so completely drunk and mad that he has become the dance.

That’s why I say that if you live life in its dynamism you will come closer to God – because he is still dancing. Don’t say that he created the world – he is still creating. Otherwise how do the trees go on growing? How do the flowers go on blooming? Every moment the world is being renewed. Every morning fresh life is released.

No, the Christian God is false – the God who created the world in six days and then rested on the seventh. It doesn’t seem true – a holiday for a God will be a death. Just think of it. A holiday for a God will be a death to his creation. The dancer cannot go for a holiday otherwise the dance will disappear. And the very idea that God got tired is stupid. He is still creating. He is nothing but creativity.

Think in terms of energy; don’t think in terms of things. Think in terms of energy. The wild ocean…. God is a wild ocean of energy – goes on and on, waves upon waves, unending. There has never been a beginning. The very idea of a beginning is of the mind. How can the world begin?

Before Darwin, Christians used to believe that God created the world on a particular date. One foolish theologian even decided the date and the day – four thousand and four years before Jesus, exactly on a Monday he started… it must have been the first of January.

Then the question arises – what was he doing before that? Don’t ask Christians; they will get angry. Even a man like Saint Augustine became very, very angry. One man asked – the question seems to be relevant and innocent – he asked, “I can understand that God created the world four thousand and four years before Jesus Christ was born, but what was he doing before that?”

Of course there is no answer to it in Christian theology. Saint Augustine became very angry and he said, “He was brooding and thinking about punishments for people like you who ask such questions.”

This is not very saintly. The question was very innocent; this anger is irrelevant. But the man raised a question which topples down the whole Christian theology. No, there has never been a beginning. There cannot be, because then the question will always arise:

What was there before the beginning? And there is never going to be any end, because the question will arise: Then what will be after the end? If you can conceive anything before the beginning, then that was not the beginning. If you can conceive anything after the end, then that is not the end.

The world is an ongoing process. “God” is creativity – creating and creating and creating. In fact the moment I say creating, I don’t feel very happy. Language is not exactly capable of expressing it. The moment I say “creating”, again it seems that he is separate.

No, “God” is the creator and he is the created. “God” is the same energy which becomes a rock, becomes a tree, becomes a man… the same energy which becomes a sinner and becomes a saint… the same energy which weeps and cries and laughs… the same energy which becomes the day and the night, life and death, summer and winter – non-dual.

Existence is God called through love, provoked through love. The moment you become capable of prayer, existence becomes God. The moment you become capable of deep love, life becomes God. It is a transfiguration of the same energy.

So, “God” is not something which exists there like an object. If I have experienced him, I cannot show him to you. Unless you provoke him, unless you come to terms with him, unless you kneel down in prayer, unless you call him, you cannot know him.

And the dilemma is that first you want to be perfectly certain whether he is, then you can pray. And only through prayer he is; only through trust he is. And you want first to be certain about the very hypothesis that God is, then you can trust. Now this is the dilemma. If you choose that first you need certainty, then you will never be able to know what “God” is.

It is only for gamblers to know God — who are not worried about certainty, who are ready to move in danger, who are ready to move in insecurity, who are ready to move into the unknown, who are ready to leave the comfortable past, the convenient past, who are like small children – always wondering and always wandering. God is only for those who are courageous. It is the greatest courage there is.

Because it is the most difficult thing – almost impossible for the mind to do. First comes trust and then arises god. You create god through your trust. Here you open the eyes of trust and suddenly life takes a change, is transformed – it becomes godly, it becomes divine.

“God” is your subjectivity, your innermost rest, coming home. “God” has nothing to do with theology; it has something to do with the way you live your life – whether you live through the mind or you live through the heart.

If you live through the heart, forget all about “God” —he will take care himself. He will come; he will knock at your heart. Sooner or later you will hear the sound of his footsteps coming closer and closer. Your very heartbeats will become the footsteps… the sound of his footsteps. Your very breathing will be his coming in and his going out.

-Osho

From Nirvana: The Last Nightmare, Discourse #4

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.

Seeing This, No-Mind Arrives – Osho

Is it possible that the no-mind evolves quite naturally out of the mind without struggle and anguish, without exploding, hammering, cutting and such wild acts? Is the very idea of no-mind, which seems to be in the mind and yet transcending the mind, a seed like form of the no-mind? Is it helpful to meditate along these lines of mind-transcending concepts like eternity, nirvana, death? My mind seems to explode when I do. It feels like I am pushing over my limit and I get afraid of becoming schizophrenic.

The no-mind cannot arise out of the mind. It is not a growth of the mind, it is not in continuity with the mind; it is discontinuous. It is as discontinuous as disease is with health. The health does not arise out of the disease; it arises out of the removal of the disease. Disease was encroaching on the space and was not allowing the health to bloom.

The disease has to be removed. It is like a rock blocking the path of a small spring. You remove the rock and the spring starts flowing. It does not arise out of the rock. The rock was blocking it, the rock was a block. So is the mind. Mind is the block for the no-mind.

No-mind simply means that which is not mind at all. How can it arise out of the mind? If it arises out of the mind, it may be super-mind, but it can’t be no-mind. That’s where I differ from Shree Aurobindo. He talks about the super-mind. A super-mind is the same mind more decorated, more cultivated, more cultured, more sophisticated, more strong, more integrated — but all the time the same old mind.

Buddha says not super-mind but no-mind; not super-soul but no soul; not super-individuality, not super-self, but no-self, anatta. That is where Buddha is unique and his understanding the deepest. A super-mind is a growth, a no-mind is a leap, a jump. The no-mind has nothing to do with the mind at all. They never meet even; they never encounter each other. When the mind is there, the no-mind is not there. When the no-mind is there, the mind is not there. They don’t even say hello to each other — they can’t. The presence of the one is necessarily the absence of the other. So remember it.

That’s why I say Shree Aurobindo never became enlightened. He remained polishing the mind. He was a great mind, but to be a great mind is not to be enlightened. So is Bertrand Russell a great mind. But to be a great mind is not to be enlightened. So is Friedrich Nietzsche a great mind — and Aurobindo and Nietzsche have many similarities.

Nietzsche talks about the superman and Aurobindo also talks about the superman. But the superman will be a projected man. A superman will be this man; all the weaknesses destroyed; all the strengths strengthened — but this man. Bigger than this man, stronger than this man, higher than this man, but still on the same wavelength, the same ladder. There is no radical change, there has never been a discontinuity.

No-mind means discontinuity with all that you are. You have to die for no-mind to be. So the first thing. You ask, “Is it possible that the no-mind evolves quite naturally out of the mind?”  No. It is not an evolution; it is a revolution. The mind is dropped and suddenly you find the no-mind is there, has always been there. The mind was clouding, making you confused, was not allowing you to see that which is. So it is not an evolution.

And you ask, “Is it possible without struggle and anguish?” It has nothing to do with struggle and anguish. No-mind has nothing to do with struggle and anguish. It does not come out of struggle and anguish. Anything that comes out of struggle and anguish will carry the wounds. Even if those wounds are healed, the scars will be carried. It will be again a continuity.

The struggle and anguish is not for the no-mind; the struggle and anguish arises because the mind struggles to keep itself in power. The fight is given by the mind. The mind does not want to go, the mind wants to stay. The mind has become so powerful; it possesses you. It says, “No, I am not going to get out. I am going to stay here.” The whole struggle and anguish is because of the mind. The no-mind has nothing to do with it. And you will have to go through this anguish and struggle. If you don’t go through the anguish and the struggle, the mind is not going to leave you.

And again let me repeat, the no-mind is not born out of your struggle; out of your struggle only comes the mind. The no-mind comes without any struggle. The rock gives you the struggle. It does not want to move. It has remained in that spot for centuries, for millennia — who are you to remove it? “And about what spring are you talking? There is none. I have been here for centuries and I know — there is none. Forget all about it!” But you want to remove the rock. The rock is heavy, the rock is rooted in the earth. It has remained there for so long. It has attachments; it does not want to go. And it knows nothing of the spring. But you will have to remove this rock. Unless this rock is removed, the spring will not flow.

You ask: “without exploding, hammering, cutting and such wild acts?” The no-mind has nothing to do with your acts. But the mind will not go. You will have to hammer and cut, and you will have to do a thousand and one things.

Is the very idea of no-mind, which seems to be in the mind and yet transcending the mind, a seed like form of the no-mind?

No — there is no seed in the mind of the no-mind. The mind cannot contain even the seed of no-mind. The mind has no space to contain it. No-mind is vast, like the sky. How can it be contained in a tiny thing, the mind? And the mind is already too full — full of thoughts, desires, fantasies, imaginations, memories. There is no space.

In the first place it is very tiny — it cannot contain the no-mind. In the second place it is so full, overcrowded, so noisy. The no-mind is silent, the mind is noisy. The mind cannot contain it; the mind has to cease. In that cessation is the beginning of a new life, a new being, a new world.

Is it helpful, you ask, to meditate along these lines of mind-transcending concepts like eternity, nirvana, death?

Those so-called mind-transcending concepts are still concepts and are of the mind. When you are thinking of eternity, what will you do? You will think. When you are thinking of nirvana, what is going to happen? Your mind will spin and weave, and your mind will give you beautiful ideas about nirvana — but that will be all mind work. What can you think about death? What will you think if you think about death? You don’t know. How can you think anything about that which you don’t know?

Mind is perfectly capable in repeating the known; with the unknown it is impotent. You don’t know eternity; all that you know is time. Even when you think of eternity it is nothing but lengthened time, stretched time — but it is time. What do you know about nirvana? — all that you have heard about it, read about it. That is not nirvana. The word nirvana is not nirvana, and the concept of nirvana is not nirvana. The word God is not God, and all the pictures and all the statues that have been made of God have nothing to do with him — because he has no name and no form.

And what are you going to think about death? How can you think about death? You have heard a few things, you have seen a few people dying, but you have never seen death.

When you see a man dying what do you see? He breathes no more; that’s all that you see.

His body has become cold; that’s all that you see. What more? Is this death? — The body becoming cold, breathing stopping? is this all? What has happened to the innermost core of the person? You cannot know without dying. You cannot know without experiencing.

The only way to know the unknown is to experience it.

So these concepts won’t help. They may rather, on the contrary, strengthen the mind, because the mind will say, “Look, I can even supply you mind-transcending concepts.

See what I am doing for you. Keep me with you always. I will help you to become enlightened. Without me you will be nowhere. Without me how will you think about death and nirvana and eternity? I am absolutely essential. Without me you will not be anything at all.”

No, these meditations won’t help. You have to see it — that the mind is not going to help at all. When you see the point that mind is not going to help at all, in that very helplessness, in that very state, there is silence; all stops. If the mind cannot do anything, then nothing is left to do. Suddenly all thinking is paralyzed; it is pointless. In that paralysis you will have the first glimpse of no-mind . . . just a small window will open. In that stopping of the mind you will have a taste of no-mind. And then things will start moving. Then it will be easier for you to get lost into the boundary-lessness.

You cannot meditate; you have to go into it. Meditating upon it is a pseudo activity; it is a kind of avoiding, escaping. You are afraid of death, you think about death. You are afraid of nirvana, you think about nirvana. Thinking gives you the feeling that you are capable even of thinking about death and nirvana.

My mind seems to explode when I do.

Mind is very cunning. It must be deceiving you — because mind cannot explode while you are thinking. About what you are thinking does not matter; while you are thinking, mind cannot explode. Mind will be enjoying it, and in that very enjoyment you are thinking you are exploding.

It feels like I am pushing over my limit and I get afraid of becoming schizophrenic.

Dinesh, you need not be afraid of ever becoming schizophrenic, because you already are — everybody is. Mind is schizophrenic, because mind knows nothing of unity. Mind is always split. Mind always has alternatives, to be or not to be, to do this or to do that.

Mind is always indecisive. Even if you choose something it is only a part of the mind that chooses it, the other part remains against it.

The mind is never total, so mind is schizophrenic. You need not be afraid of that. To be in the mind is to be schizophrenic. Only Buddhas are beyond it. The whole humanity is schizophrenic, more or less. When you go beyond a point then you have to seek and search for the psychiatrist, but the difference is only of degrees; the difference is only of quantity not quality. Even between you and your psychoanalyst there is only a difference of degrees.

Remember, mind will not help. Mind cannot help, mind can only hinder. Seeing this, no-mind arrives. It is not that you bring it; it arrives on its own accord.

-Osho

From The Diamond Sutra, Discourse #2

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What is Satori – Osho

What is satori and how to attain it?

Pratima, satori is exactly your ordinary nature; it is not anything special. Hence there is no question of attaining it – it is already the case. You are in it, you have just forgotten. You have become too occupied with the outside world. You have forgotten your own kingdom, you have forgotten your own treasure, you have forgotten yourself. You have become too concerned with others. You are too much in the world, and you don’t give any time, any space for your inner nature to have a dialogue with you, to whisper a few things to you. You have become artificial.

You have created a false ego because nobody can live without a center. You have forgotten your real center, and nobody can live without a center, so you have created a false center as a substitute. That’s the ego. Ego simply means living with a false center.

Satori is dropping the false, entering into the real; just being yourself, your natural self, your ordinary self.

The word “ordinary” has to be remembered because the mind is not interested in the ordinary at all; it wants to be extraordinary; it wants to be special. It is through being special that the ego survives.

It is constantly striving to be more special, more special. It wants to be more rich, more powerful, more respectable; it is ambitious. Hence the word “ordinary” has no appeal for the mind. And that is the beauty of the word “ordinary” – because it has no appeal for the mind.

Mind is an achiever and the ordinary need not be achieved; it is already the case. The extraordinary has to be achieved, the extraordinary becomes the goal. It is far away; you have to make all kinds of efforts, you have to struggle for it, you have to fight for it because there are so many competitors.

To be ordinary . . . and there is no competition at all. You can just be ordinary; nobody has any objection. People will simply feel sorry for you that you have dropped out of the competitive race.

One competitor less – they will feel good but sorry for you. They will say, “Poor fellow! What happened to him? Why did he have to drop out?” The dropouts are not respectable people. Buddha is a dropout. All real Masters are dropouts. To be a sannyasin means to be a dropout. To drop out of the rat race is to drop in, because when you are in the race you cannot enter in. When you are no longer in the race there is nowhere to go. You start moving inward because life is a flow: if there is no outer direction, it takes the inner direction. If the goal is not there far away in the future, then you start moving into your nature in the present. That is satori.

Satori is very ordinary. Satori means your nature. You have come with it; it is your original face – all other faces are masks.

Yoka says:

A disciple speaks in accordance with the ultimate, the absolute truth.
Remember that one should cut the root and not the branches and the leaves.

What is the root of your misery? The root is your ambition, desiring. One wants to be this and that, one wants to possess this and that, one wants to be somebody, one wants to be significant.

Yoka says: Cut the root, only then are you a disciple. And the moment you cut the root – not the branches, not the leaves – you attain the ultimate truth. The ultimate truth is not far away; it is the immediate truth, it is your truth, it is your very being.

Most people do not recognize the perfect jewel, the jewel of supreme wisdom, satori. It is hidden in the secret place of Tathagata, awaiting its discovery.

It is to live in your suchness; it is hidden in your suchness. Whatsoever you are, live in it. Don’t create any conflict, don’t live through the ideal. Don’t be an idealist, just be natural.

But everybody is being taught to be an idealist: “Become a Jesus” or “Become a Buddha” or “Become a Krishna.” Nobody tells you just to be yourself! Why should you be a Jesus? One Jesus is enough, and one Jesus is beautiful –  he enriches the existence. Many Jesuses just carrying crosses, and wherever you go you meet them . . . It won’t look beautiful; it won’t add to the beauty of existence; it will make the whole world ugly. Wherever you go you meet a Mahavira standing naked . . . It is because of this that God never creates the same person again. He never repeats; he is original.

He always creates a new person. You have never been before, and there is no one who is like you, and there will never be anybody else like you again. In the whole of eternity, you alone are just like you. Look at the beauty of it and the glory of it and the respect that God has shown to you! What more respectability do you need? See the uniqueness of yourself. There is no need to be unique; you are already unique, just as everybody else is unique. You are unique in your ordinariness, in your suchness.

Satori is hidden, says Yoka, in the secret place of your suchness, awaiting its discovery.

It has not to be created, it is already there; you just have to discover it. Go in and discover it! It is waiting and waiting. And centuries have passed and many, many lives have passed, and you have become addicted to extroversion. You never move in.

The first step toward satori is meditation. Satori is the ultimate experience of meditation when meditation is fulfilled, when meditation has reached to its ultimate flowering.

Yoka says:

The world is complete illusion, yet nothing exists which might be called illusion.

The world that you have created through your mind is illusory, but there is another world which is not your creation. When your mind disappears, you discover that world: the world of suchness. That is a totally different experience. No words can describe it. Thousands of mystics have tried to describe it, but nobody has ever been able and nobody will ever be able to describe it. It is so mysterious; it is so beautiful that all words fall short. No poetry reaches to its level, no music even touches its feet.

The perfect light of this wisdom enlightens one.

The moment you have put your mind aside – mind means ambition, the ego trip of being this and that – the moment you have put the whole mind aside, a great light explodes in you and you are enlightened. This is satori. It does not come from the outside: you are not delivered by somebody else; you are delivered by your own being, by your own nature.

That is possible only by practicing zazen beyond speculation. You can see clouds naturally in the mirror but to hold on to the reflection is impossible.

That is possible only by practicing zazen . . . Satori is possible only by practicing zazen. Zazen means:

Just sitting, doing nothing, the spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.

You are simply relaxing into your own being, not doing anything at all. It is not a question of doing; it is simply a question of being. You go on relaxing into your being. A moment comes when you are in your utter purity, in your utter simplicity, in your utter innocence. That is satori.

Zazen is a beautiful word. It simply means just sitting – not even doing meditation. In fact, you cannot do meditation. Meditation is just sitting silently; it is not a question of doing. If you are doing something, you are disturbing your meditation.

Somebody is chanting a mantra; he is disturbing his meditation. Somebody is focusing on something; he is disturbing his meditation. Somebody is concentrating, somebody is praying, somebody is thinking of God: they are disturbing their meditation. All these are the doings of the mind, and if the doing continues, the mind continues. Stop doing, and where is the mind? When the doing disappears, mind disappears. And the disappearance of the mind is satori.

It is beyond speculation, says Yoka. You cannot think about it, you can only experience it. It is the ultimate experience, and the immediate experience too, of truth, of beauty, of love, of bliss, of God, of nirvana.

-Osho

From Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen, Discourse #4

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

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

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Relaxation Without Concentration – Osho

When we start watching our bodies, and then our minds and emotions, there remains an element, although subtle, of concentration. Initially, for example, watching my breathing, I would watch it to the exclusion of everything else – here there was an element of focus. On other occasions, when silence is just there, the breathing may be all there is to watch. This seems to be nearer, but still I feel that more soft focusing of the awareness would take me further and further back, as if relaxing enough to let the watcher move far enough away so that all is seen, rather than any one thing like thoughts or breathing. Does relaxing allow the watcher to be on the hill?

It is true. Relaxation helps the most. No part of concentration should be in your watchfulness. Concentration is sabotaging the whole process of watchfulness because concentration is an act of the mind, and watchfulness is something that comes from above, from beyond. If there is any concentration . . . I can understand, if you start watching your breathing – in the name of watching, you are concentrating on the breathing, you are excluding everything else. Don’t exclude.

Watch your breathing inclusive of all.

Watching your breathing . . . a temple bell starts ringing, a car passes by, a child starts crying – all that should be included. Your watchfulness should be open. Watching the breathing is simply to begin with. It is not the end. It is just learning how to watch.

But there is a difficulty – you can start thinking that concentration is watching. Concentration is not watching. Concentration is narrow, narrowing the mind, bringing it to a focus on one thing, forgetting everything else. That’s why in relaxing, you will feel more watchful, yet without concentration. If that is happening, that’s perfectly good.

The essential thing is watchfulness, inclusive of all. Concentration can be disturbed; watchfulness cannot be disturbed. These are the differences. If somebody is concentrating on something, anybody can disturb him. Just a small boy can do something, and he is distracted, and his focus is lost – or not even a small boy, just the wind comes, and the door opens, and the noise is enough.

So you will find the phenomenon in so-called religious people. They are always angry because their concentration is continuously disturbed.

Watchfulness cannot be disturbed. It is simply inclusive of all. If the door opens, makes a noise, the wind passes through the trees singing its song, it is available to it. It is not choosing breathing or anything in particular, but simply being there, open, available, present to everything that is happening.

So remember the difference: concentration is sabotaging watchfulness.

To begin with, something has to be given to you so you can have a little taste of what watchfulness is. Then it has to be made wider and wider and bigger, so much bigger that there is no need to do anything. You simply sit or lie down relaxedly and everything that is happening around you is mirrored in you.

You don’t think about it, you don’t justify it, you don’t condemn it, you don’t evaluate it – you simply watch.

So it is perfectly right. Relaxation, utter relaxation with no focusing of consciousness is real watchfulness.

-Osho

From The Transmission of the Lamp, Discourse #12, Q2

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

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

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Let Consciousness Be Your Master – Osho

You say: Go beyond the mind. Do not listen to its chatter. Discipline it and make it a servant. Do not be its slave. But how to know when the mind is being disciplined and when it is being repressed. 

Prem Lisa, the difference is so great that it is impossible to miss it. Repression happens through fighting with your mind. Discipline happens through being watchful, aware, alert. In discipline, there is no fight implied. In discipline, there is no condemnation, no evaluation. One simply looks at the mind silently, seeing the whole traffic, without saying what is right and what is wrong, what should be and what should not be, just as, standing by the side of the road, you watch the people walking by – saints and sinners, beautiful people, ugly people, good people, bad people – but you are unconcerned. It has nothing to do with you; you are out of it.

That’s exactly the meaning of the English word “ecstasy”. Ecstasy means to be out of the mind. You are just looking, as one looks at the clouds moving in the sky or at the river flowing by – cool, detached. Neither are you trying to cling to something nor are you trying to push something away from you.

This is pure awareness: you are only a mirror. And in just being a mirror, the miracle happens – the miracle of discipline. Slowly, slowly, the traffic starts disappearing. Less and less thoughts are moving on the road; less and less pictures are appearing on the screen, less and less memories, fantasies. Gaps start appearing.

A mother was telling her child, “Be very careful when you go to school because the traffic is dangerous at rush hour time.”

The child said, “Don’t be worried. I always wait by the side of the road. When a gap comes by, then I cross the road.”

“When a gap comes by…” As you are looking at your mind you will be surprised: gaps come by, intervals when there is nothing to be seen. The observer remains alone and because it is alone it is no longer an observer either. You can’t call it an observer because there is nothing to observe. The mirror is there, but it is not reflecting anything. There is no duality of the seen and the seer. In these intervals discipline arises.

The word “discipline” is also beautiful. It is sometimes very significant to go to the roots of words. “Discipline” comes from a root which means learning. When you are looking at a gap, learning happens. Learning about what? Learning about yourself, because there is nothing else. You are full of awareness. You are just full of your own being, overflowing. And this experience of just being yourself, overflowing, undistracted by anything, undisturbed by anything, is the greatest learning, the greatest possibility of knowing the truth. This is discipline.

From the same root comes the word “disciple.” Disciple means one who is becoming capable of being utterly silent in the presence of the Master. The disciple is one who allows the interval to happen when he is with the Master. With the Master you are bridged only through silence; when there is nothing in your mind you are bridged. Something then transpires between the Master and the disciple. A flame jumps from the Master into the heart of the disciple. The unlit candle of the disciple suddenly becomes lit. All is joy and light and love, and a great dance arises.

Lisa, discipline can never be misunderstood as repression. Repressions are totally different. In repression you have already decided what is wrong – a priori decisions. In fact, others have decided for you what is wrong and what is right. Now you are simply trying to impose the ideas and opinions of others upon yourself. You will have to repress your nature. You will have to force that which is wrong – or which you have been told is wrong – deep into the unconscious. There will be a fight, great turmoil. Instead of bringing silence to you, every method of repression brings more turmoil.

That’s why the so-called religious people are more restless, more worried. You are worried only about this world; they are worried even about the other. You are worried only about this life, they are worried about many, many past lives and future lives. Your worries are nothing compared to the worries of the so-called religious people. And they are sitting on a volcano, because whatsoever is repressed is there; it is not destroyed.  Repression never destroys anything; you are simply sitting on top of it. And the danger is that you cannot sit on top of it for twenty-four hours a day; you have limitations. You will get tired, you will need some rest. And whenever you will be tired and you will need rest, repressions will start arising in you.

Hence, even your greatest saints go on thinking, fantasizing, dreaming about all those things that they have repressed.

Mahatma Gandhi has written in his autobiography: “I have been able to control my sexuality as far as my day is concerned, but in the night, in my dreams, it comes with a vengeance.” This he was writing at the age of seventy… a whole life of repression!

Yes, in the day you can somehow manage, but in the night, in the dreams, that which you have repressed in the day is bound to take revenge. It will come back, it will explode in you.

Hence, down the ages your saints have been very much afraid of sleep. They go on cutting down on their sleep – five hours, four hours, three hours, two hours. And the less they sleep the greater the danger, because all their repressions have to come in those two hours in a very condensed way. Then they are crowding in from everywhere. And people worship them! The less a saint sleeps, the more people worship him. They say, “Look how much he has sacrificed! What a great austerity he is doing – he is not even sleeping! Or he sleeps for only two hours or one hour.”

The reality is that he is afraid of sleep. And from where is the fear coming? The fear is coming from the fact that when you are awake you can control, but when you are asleep, who is there to control? The controller is asleep, is in a relaxed state. He cannot sit on top of all the repressions, and they will assert themselves.

So, Lisa, if you are fighting with anything, then it is not discipline. I don’t teach fight, I teach awareness. It is useless to fight with the darkness, utterly useless and stupid. Bring the light in. Why fight with darkness? And how can you ever hope to win by fighting with darkness? Bring the light in and the darkness is found no more.

You are surrounded by much darkness: greed, anger, jealousy, lust, ambition, ego. These are layers of darkness. If you start fighting with all these layers of darkness you are not going to win, because there is no way to fight with darkness directly. Darkness does not exist in the first place; it is only the absence of light. So if you want to do something with darkness, don’t try to do it directly, do something with light. If you want darkness, put the light out. If you don’t want darkness, put the light on. But do something with the light, forget about darkness. If the light is there, darkness is not there. If the light is not there, you cannot avoid darkness. You can close your eyes, you can try to forget about it, you can become occupied somewhere else, you can take your mind far, far away from it, but it is there all the same. And it will show in your acts, in your thoughts, in your behavior. It will come up again and again. You cannot hide it – it is impossible to hide it. The truth of your being, whatsoever it is, is bound to surface.

Lisa, become aware. And I am not saying what is wrong and what is right. I am simply saying: Be aware; or, awareness is right and unawareness is wrong. When you are aware, things will start changing of their own accord, and then the mind functions as a servant. It is a machine, a beautiful machine, one of the most complex machines invented by nature in thousands of years. Man has not yet been able to create anything comparable to it. Even the best computer is not yet so capable.

A single human mind can contain all the libraries of the world. It is almost infinite. Its capacity is great, its use is great, but it should be your servant not your master. As a servant it is beautiful; as a master it is dangerous.

Let consciousness be your master and mind your servant. It happens through awareness. And I am not telling you to control it, because all control is repression. I am not telling you to fight, because all fight is a sheer waste of energy. You are fighting with your own servant – you are wasting your energy. You need not fight with your servant, you have simply to say, “I am the master”; that’s all.

You have simply to be the master, that’s all, and the servant bows down. The servant immediately understands that the master has come in. And how does the master come in? The moment you become awake, the master comes in.

You ask me, Lisa:

You say: Go beyond the mind. Do not listen to its chatter. Discipline it and make it a servant. Don not be its slave. But how to know when the mind is being disciplined and when it is being repressed? 

It is very simple. Nobody can ever mistake the two; nobody can ever confuse the two. They are so different – just like light and darkness, just like love and hate, just like flowers and thorns, just like poison and nectar. They are so totally different! But if you think about them you may get confused.

In thinking you cannot make the distinction. Don’t think about them – experiment, experience, and the distinction will be absolutely clear.

-Osho

From Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen, Discourse #3

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

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

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There is Only One Chicken – Dayanand Bharati

Transcending the conditioned mind

I had transcended alcohol addiction and sobriety. It is not quite correct that “I” had transcended it. Transcendence happened after “I” had failed absolutely, completely. Only through the power of awareness and watching both had disappeared, in a blaze of grace never to be seen or heard of again.

The first true transformation had happened in my life. It was real. It was a miracle. I was in awe and the mind still cannot comprehend, even now after 11 years, because he was left out of the loop. I mean something that was such a strong destructive habit for almost half of my life, suddenly just gone, evaporated, like it never existed from one moment to the next, suddenly waking up from a bad dream. This was a key experience.

Many changes happened right after this transformation.

I was filled with love and gratitude. All self-doubt, the favorite record of my mind, that it played over and over, was suddenly silenced.

This was confirmation that I was not in some kind of spiritual illusion about myself, because even in all that time I had been with my master I never had an experience that confirmed that I was on the right path, never a proof, except his acceptance of me and my love and trust for him. Of course many other things happened on the emotional and mental plane but never this final proof, this dropping into another dimension this falling out of polarity. This first real transformation made all my spiritual efforts solid.

My “personal” unconscious layers collapsed, and I was free of the hidden influences that had directed this life so far. I was conscious of myself as part of existence and not anymore part of Society, free of all the games society is playing, I had nothing to do with it any more, I was still in the marketplace but not of it anymore. Therefore, survival anxiety dropped away immediately, replaced by a natural trust in existence.

I was loved, accepted and embraced by life, I was ultimately worthy to be alive, rooted in myself, not anymore in others.

My whole life I had asked the other, the woman, the mother image to confirm me, give me worth and value, love me, or the lover, to satisfy me, give me bliss and fulfilment. But I was asking a mirror image, there was nobody in these reflections, only my own projections, nobody really there, only the reflection echoing back, asking the same from me. Just like when I look in my bathroom mirror and ask, do you love me? What will happen?  Will the reflection say: Yes!

No, the reflection will say “Do you love me”? There was no other!

To me, this is best described by a small anecdote my beloved master has told once. I don’t recall in which discourse so I tell it as I remember it.

Osho had a friend who had a butcher shop in his village, he liked the man and he dropped in occasionally to say hello.( only an enlightened “Jain” can have a butcher as a friend)

One day just before closing time my master stopped by and asked how his day was, the butcher said he had a great day today, I sold all my meat except for this chicken here. That very moment the shop door burst open and a customer rushed in, “ahh.. glad I made it, I have some friends over today for dinner and need a chicken. The Butcher winked at my master and put the chicken on the scale, “$5 please”, he said.

“Hmmm”, said the customer, “do you have a bigger one?”

Without hesitation the butcher walked back in his storeroom with the chicken, made some noise and came back with the same chicken He slapped it on the scale and said, “this one will be $7”! Tell you what”, said the customer, “I will take both.”

Now there is only one chicken. My master said there is always only one chicken. Asking for both will reveal the truth! That there is not two!

Being alert, watching, looking, inquiring is asking for both.

The steps that led to transcendence

I want to elaborate on the realisation that there is only one chicken, because this is a key that can be applied to transcend any duality.

And it can be used by anyone.

Before the transformation of getting drunk and trying to control it I had always believed I was going in a straight line, from this point to that, from unhappiness to happiness, from addiction to sobriety, from dependence to independence. And to get there I just had to try hard enough, give it my all and one bright sunny day…it will happen. I will arrive at my final destination. I will be free, sober, happy, loved, enlightened. And when it didn’t happen, as I had hoped, the reverse attitude kicked in, no matter how hard I try I will never make it, I will be never be free, sober, happy, loved, enlightened, I am a loser.

But in the struggle to be free of the drunkard I became aware that I was not going in a straight line at all, I became conscious that I was moving in a circle, going from negative to positive and then again to negative, from addict to anti-addict to addict….. From unhappiness to happiness to unhappiness, round and round….

If I follow a straight road and keep going and going I will eventually drive around the planet and arrive exactly where I am now, same with the mind. Before I was never aware of this fact, because the opposite was always hidden in the unconscious, half of the globe hidden in the dark night.

The road invisible appears non-existent, that is why it looks like it is a straight line, a half circle looks like a straight line, going from dawn to dusk from here to there, the other half is dark, unconscious, hidden, but I had somehow, through watching my mind and by trying, digging myself out of myself, brought eventually light to that dark hidden part.

I suddenly saw the whole mind, I stood apart, I saw the full circle not just half. I became aware that they are one whole and not 2 separate things.

It changed everything!

Osho

“If you make a circle, the end and beginning meet — only then is the circle complete. If you become a circle, whole, total, in you will meet the beginning and the end. You will be the very source of the world and you will be the very climax of the world. You will be both the alpha and the omega. And unless you become that, something is incomplete; and when something is incomplete you will remain miserable. The only misery that I know is being incomplete. The whole being tends to be complete, needs to be complete, and the incomplete becomes a torture. The incompletion is the only problem. And when you become complete, the end and the beginning meet in you. God as the source and God as the ultimate flowering meet in you.”

From The Hidden Harmony, Chapter #4

It is not that the mind saw that, he cannot, he is not able to look around the full circle, around the whole globe, the mind, just like the eyes, can always only see half, the front or the back, the up or the down but the eyes can never see front and back, up and down at the same time. That is the limitation of the mind and body. Only awareness can see all, not see, be all, rooted at the centre with full awareness of all that is.

Being aware of that, I could not be in the illusion anymore that one day I will be fulfilled, that this mind would one day arrive at its destination, at one side and stay there, there was no destination, a circle has no end, no arrival point it just goes round and round, on and on, like the horses on a merry go round.

I would never reach one side, because there is no one side, there is always 2 sides, like breathing in and breathing out, there cannot be only breathing in, or only breathing out. But the mind believes that this is possible, that is the illusion. I would never attain fulfilment in any of my desires because they are all based in duality.

There was no love waiting for me at the end of the tunnel, or security, or happiness. There was always both waiting for me. Love and hate, happiness and unhappiness, life and death.

Seeing this, understanding this, choice was irrelevant. I would always end up at the opposite again sooner or later. The illusion that I was going somewhere that I was growing, winning, that one day I will arrive at my goal was only an illusion, or that I will be condemned for ever, in eternal despair was also only one side of the coin.

Understanding this clearly, the turning in happened, the “letting go” happened, the transformation happened, addict and anti-addict evaporated into awareness, into the heart of being.

It is like a chess player suddenly becomes aware that he is actually playing against himself, his own mirror image.

 

I became aware that I was 100% addicted to alcohol, I wanted to get drunk, escape, forget, period, and I was aware that I wanted 100% to get rid of the addiction, be free of it, period.

And both identifications where mine. I was the only player in this game, I was aware of the opposite player as myself, I was my own enemy my own competitor, I competed against myself, trying to win against myself.

But now the light was on, I saw who I was playing against and I knew the next move I would make because the opponent was me, myself my own mind. That day, the game of playing and winning against the world, collapsed, because it was all me, my projection. I was the world and I was the individual, because I projected “me” onto the world and the world reflected “me” back. Once a fact is known it cannot be reversed, once a child knows by experience that fire burns it will know it for life and not touch fire again. Once the mind knows 100% it is not possible to get fulfilment outside, It will cooperate and stop reaching out.

All that has ever been stuffed in my mind is still intact, I still have a mind but it can not play with it anymore, the air has been let out of the balloon, it can be used perfectly for practical things but it doesn’t run the show anymore.

I became a light onto myself, I could see where I was going. Now I had a centre. I was “In”.

Osho

Crystallising. When this energy inside you has started an inner dance, by and by, slowly, enjoying it more and more, becoming more and more aware of it, a certain chemical crystallization happens in you. Exactly the same word was used by Gurdjieff in his work: crystallization. Your fragments fall together, you become one. A unity arises in you. In fact, for the first time you can say “I have an I.” Otherwise there were many I’s; now you have one I, a big I which controls everything. You have become your master.
And the fourth step is destroying. When you have one I, then it can be destroyed; when you have many I’s, they cannot be destroyed. When your energy has become one and is centred, it can be killed, it can be completely destroyed. When it is a crowd it is difficult to destroy it. You destroy one fragment, there are a thousand other fragments. When you rush after those other fragments, the first one grows again. It is just like the way trees grow branches: you cut one, three branches sprout out of it.

The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 3 Chapter #7


For me the addiction to alcohol was the catalyst that pushed me into awareness, but it can be anything that the mind is addicted to, the mind is basically in its essence addiction.

Any duality can be transcended with deep inquiry and awareness.

In deep gratitude to my beloved master Osho.

Dayanand Bharati