Tag: awareness

Morality is Invented Religion – Osho

Is moral character absolutely useless?

Vadan, moral character simply means something imposed by others on you: it is not really religious.

It is a form of domination, a form of slavery, because you have not come to the understanding of what is right and what is wrong; you have been simply told by others. You don’t know really whether what you are calling “moral” is moral or immoral. One thing is moral in one society and the same thing is immoral in another society.

Just look around the earth, have a little bigger vision, and you will be surprised: there are so many moralities. How can there be so many moralities? Right is right and wrong is wrong! There is no possibility of many moralities. There is no possibility of a Hindu morality or a Mohammedan morality or a Jaina morality, but there are different moralities. That simply shows all these moralities are inventions – inventions by different societies to dominate the individuals which make up those societies. It is a strategy for imprisoning the individual.

The whole process is a very subtle trick. Now we have even found a shortcut to it. One great scientist, Delgado, has found that electrodes can be put into the human brain, and you will not know anything about it, because the brain is the most insensitive part in your body.

It happened once; a bullet was found in a man’s skull – after eleven years. When he went for some other operation and an X-ray was taken, there was the bullet inside his skull. He had been in the army and for eleven years the bullet had been inside, and he had not even been aware of it, because the brain has no sensitivity; it is absolutely – insensitive.

An electrode, a small electronic mechanism just like a small button can be put inside your head, and you will never know that it is there. And you can be controlled from far away; you can be controlled by anybody who knows about that electronic mechanism inside your brain. He can have a small remote-control unit: he can push one button on it and you will be angry; he can push another button, and you will be full of love; he can push a third button, and you will become very quiet, and a fourth button and you will become utterly violent.

Delgado has proved it. He inserted one electrode in a bull’s brain, and with his remote-control unit he was standing there, the bull was let loose, and he pressed one button. The bull became so enraged that nobody had seen any bull so enraged, for no reason at all. And he charged towards Delgado.

Thousands of people had gathered to see the experiment, and they thought the bull was going to finish Delgado, that this experiment was over. Their breaths stopped. The bull reached so close, just one foot away; one second more and he would have killed Delgado, but he pushed another button and there was a sudden stop. The bull stopped as if frozen, became just a statue – just one foot away. All rage simply disappeared. He was standing there in a yoga posture, frozen, not moving at all!

And Delgado says the same can be done with man. Now Delgado, sooner or later, is going to deliver the secret to the politicians, just as Albert Einstein did, and then you need not wonder what will happen. Then it is absolutely certain that in countries like Russia and China, children when they are born will be immediately changed into slaves – just a small operation in the skull. And from the Kremlin, from Moscow or Peking, the president of the country or whosoever rules the country can control the whole country. He can send waves and there will be great peace, and he can send other waves if he wants the country to fight some other country and people will be so violent, so murderous that one single individual will prove to be like ten or a hundred murderers. This is going to happen because now the secret cannot be kept away from the politicians.

The same thing has been done by the so-called moralists down the ages, but their process was a bullock-cart process. This is a jet-set age. Delgado is saying that this is the way to control human behavior. There is no need to teach morality – for what? Simply insert one electrode and let everybody be controlled.

That’s what the priests have been doing for centuries, but of course they were not aware of such a subtle mechanism. They were creating conscience in you; that is also an electrode. Every child was being told, “This is right, this is right, this is right . . .” continuously, and what is wrong: “You have to do this and you have not to do that.” This creates a conscience, an auto-hypnotic state. By the time the child comes of age they have created a certain idea of good and bad in him. Now his whole life he will be in trouble. If he follows the morality he will become a hypocrite, because the morality has never taken any consideration of his nature, of his uniqueness, of his individuality. No account has ever been taken of him; he has not been considered at all.

Some guy, Manu, five thousand years ago, decided what is right and wrong for the Hindus; it is still valid – for the Hindus it is still valid. Still there are women who commit suicide by jumping into the fire at the funeral of their husbands, because Manu said that to be a sati – to die with your husband – is the greatest virtue a woman can ever attain. Still today, every day, almost every day, somewhere or other some woman commits suicide, burns herself alive. And these women are worshipped by the Hindus; they are worshipped like saints. And all that they have done is to commit suicide. It is illegal, it is a crime, because the Britishers who ruled India for two centuries could not conceive any morality in it; they could see that it was just suicide. Their mind was not created by Manu; their mind was created by Moses. And in the Ten Commandments there is no commandment which says that the woman has to commit suicide, so they were very much against it. They made a law against it; the law is still there. But in spite of it, every day the crime happens. And the woman who is committing suicide believes she is doing something really great, something belonging to the high order of values.

The Mohammedan has his own morality. Just a few days ago in Moradabad a riot happened, because a pig, an innocent pig, entered into the sacred prayer place – Id–Ghah – of the Mohammedans; while they were doing their prayer the pig entered. Now some stupid person somewhere in their history has said to them that the pig is the most unholy animal on the earth.

Pigs are just poor people, maybe a little bit Polack, but poor people and very innocent! How can a pig make the holy place unholy? That means the unholiness of the pig is far more powerful than thousands of Mohammedans praying in a holy place. Their prayer is not great enough to transform the pig! The pig changes their whole atmosphere.

They killed the pig and they killed the constable who was standing outside because they thought he had allowed the pig to enter – because he was a Hindu. And the riot broke. One hundred and thirty people died, immediately. And this is the official number; and whenever there is an official number given, multiply it by four – then you will have the right number. At least six hundred people must have died, or more.

The Hindus believe in the cow, that it is the holiest animal in the world, even holier than many human beings. The sudras, the untouchables, who constitute the major part of the Hindu society, are not as important as the holy cow. To murder a sudra, says Manu, is not a big crime; to murder a cow is the greatest crime one can commit. You can commit hundreds of other crimes – it is nothing – but to kill a cow . . . Now that is Hindu morality, and every Hindu believes that the cow is his mother. This has become his conscience. And the same is true about everybody.

Morality is invented religion, not discovered religion. Discovered religion has to be your own, then certainly a great revolution happens in you. Then certainly your character has a virtue, but then it is not moral; it is religious, it is spiritual. Moral character has value to those who want to enslave you, but it is against you. You need a spiritual character, and spiritual character is not born out of moral education; it is born out of meditation. You need more awareness, not more moral education.

Vadan, that’s why I am not emphasizing moral character at all; my whole emphasis is on the essential. If at the very center of your being some knowing, some clarity arises, your life will be different, totally different. It will have a beauty, a grace. It will not be Hindu because you will not live according to Manu; only stupid people do that. Living according to somebody else is stupidity.

You are not here to live according to me. I can only help you to find your own insight, that’s all. I am not going to give you my insight – that would be moral character if whatsoever I think is right I impose upon you. But one man’s nectar may prove poison to another; something which is a medicine to one man may kill somebody else. So what is right for me, what is true for me, is only true for me. But I can help you to discover the source from where you can also see.

For example, a blind man can be helped in two ways. One is that you can give him detailed information: “Go a hundred feet forward, then turn to the left ninety degrees, then go two hundred feet, then turn to the right a hundred feet again,” and so on in this way, in detail. This is morality. The blind man remains blind, but he starts functioning, starts moving.

To give meditation is to give a blind man eyes. Then you need not give him this detailed information: “First go right and then left and then this and that.” There is no need; you have given him eyes. Now he can see where he has to go, where the path turns towards the left and where the path turns towards the right – because life is such a complexity.

You cannot guide the blind man forever. He is bound to stumble somewhere or other, he is bound to commit many mistakes, he is bound to forget many things. Every moment new situations go on arising, and he will be simply following your information that may not be true anymore. Life goes on changing. […]

A smart New York career girl married Stefano, a handsome young Italian farmer. She was not too happy with his social manner and started trying to improve him immediately. Throughout the wedding reception she continuously corrected his mistakes, telling him what to say, which knife to use at the table and how to pass the butter.

Finally, the celebrations were over, and they were in bed at last. Stefano fidgeted between the sheets, unsure of himself, but finally he turned towards his new wife and stuttered, “Could you pass the pussy, please?”

That is bound to happen! That is inevitable.

A moral person remains stupid and unintelligent because he depends on others’ guidance. And guidance that Manu gave five thousand years ago is no more relevant at all, the whole context has changed. The moral person lives according to the past and the meditator lives according to the present. The meditator responds to the real situation and the moral person only goes on reacting according to ready-made formulas.

These puritans and moralists have stuffed your minds and your beings with rubbish. They have made you junk-yards!

A housewife adorned with a head full of curlers, puffy eyes, no make-up, covered in a tatty old dressing-gown and worn-out furry slippers runs out of the house with the garbage just as the garbage truck is about to move on. She rushes up to the truck and, panting, asks the garbage man, “Am I too late?”

“No, ma’am, just jump right in!”

Drop conscience and create consciousness, and then you will be living an authentic life. And to be authentic is to be divine. To be authentic is to know what God is all about. To be authentic is to be true to Tao, the ultimate nature. Ais Dhammo Sanantano, Buddha says: This is the ultimate law.

Be conscious, be a light unto yourself.

-Osho

From Guida Spirituale, 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.

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 where Mindfulness and Self-Inquiry Meet

At first glance, one might think that there is a significant difference between Ramana’s Self-Inquiry and Osho’s Witnessing Meditation. But in my own experience I have found that not to be the case. What I discovered is that Osho’s Watching/Witnessing Meditation incorporates Ramana’s enquiry but also extends out to reach a much larger field of practitioners. How so? you might ask. Okay, here goes.

Ramana Maharshi’s method of self-inquiry is often described as such:
A thought appears.
The question is asked, “To whom does the thought appear?”
The answer, “Me,” arises.
And then the question, “Who is this me? Or who am I?” is enquired into.

Osho has described the following three steps for his watching meditation:
We begin with watching the activities of the body.

With this awareness we then turn inwards to watch the movement of mind, thought.

Even deeper still and ever more subtle we then begin to watch the feelings of the heart.

So where do these seemingly very different approaches to realizing the self overlap, and how are they related?

Ramana begins with “a thought appears.” So, for a thought to appear it presumes that one is watching the movement of mind. For many of us, this is not as easy as one might, excuse the pun, think.

And this is where Osho extends the field. He instructs us to begin with watching the activities of the body. Meaning: we watch, we bring awareness to daily activities, eating, walking, talking, showering, etc. By this bringing awareness we are reclaiming our consciousness. We are increasing our own capacity of being aware. We are learning the art of watching. We are beginning to be more conscious.

His next step is to take this awareness and begin to watch the movement of mind. First, we watch our continual getting lost into thought and then remembering which brings us momentarily out of the stream. This process takes time because we have to gradually increase our capacity to watch all that appears in consciousness. Soon we are able to see thought as something separate from our watching and slowly disidentification begins, but still we are drawn out into the fray again and again. But then there is one more instruction that Osho adds and that is to watch without grasping or rejecting, to watch without judging the thoughts, to watch without analyzing the thought stream. Through this quality of watching, we begin to see that it is “the grasping and rejecting, the judging and analyzing” that is keeping us tethered to the stream of thought. It is how we remain identified with thought. A thought appears and we grab onto it because we like it and go for a ride. Or a thought appears that we find unpleasant and we push it down not to be looked at. Or we judge our getting lost into a thought or even analyze why we are attracted to such a thought.

But when we discover watching without grasping or rejecting, without judging or analyzing we are able to disengage, disidentify with thought and remain the watcher. And it is the same process for feelings, moods, emotions.

It is here that Ramana’s second step comes in. He says, we ask, “To whom does the thought appear?” We are not able to ask this as long as we are glued together with the stream of thought, as long as we are grasping, judging, etc. With the quality of watching that Osho has instructed there is space for the inquiry, “To whom does the thought appear?” Here we are in the double-pointed arrow that Osho speaks about. The arrow pointing back is the enquiry – to whom does that thought appear.

Osho instructs us to remain in this watching with the double-pointed arrow, watching without judging, analzying … and slowly, slowly the content that the outward-pointing arrow is pointing to begins to disappear. It no longer has the fuel to continue because it was being supplied by the identification, by the engagement.

And it is here that Ramana’s inquiry of “who am I” is relevant. Here in this disengaged awareness, this witnessing without an object, one’s own true nature as the witnessing consciousness is revealed. And it is indeed who we are.

I have been known to say that Osho’s witnessing meditation is the bee’s knees of meditation because it incorporates both mindfulness and self-enquiry. And so it is, and so it does.

A big shout to those who have persisted in their questions requiring me to articulate ever more clearly this insight.

-purushottama

See all 0f Prem’s notes.

Awareness is My Successor – Osho

You have said that you don’t care if there is any successor when you are gone. What do you see happening to your sannyasins, to Rajneeshism, the moment you die?

I don’t at all think about it. Never does the thought occur to me, for the simple reason that the very idea goes against my approach. The people who are living with me are enjoying the moment. Do you want me alone not to enjoy the moment?

I am teaching everybody to enjoy the moment, and don’t be bothered by tomorrow. Living in the moment intelligently, consciously, meditatively, will take care of the future. There is no need for me to give you directives, guidelines for what you have to do when I am gone. That’s what all the old religions have done.

Manu gave all the guidelines for Hindus five thousand years ago, and they are still following them. Everything has changed, nothing of Manu is applicable any more. In fact it is a hindrance to the evolution of Hindus to become contemporaries. Now, Manu has committed a crime against humanity by giving these directives. He did not prove a blessing, he proved himself a curse. But the same is done by Moses, Mohammed, Mahavira, Jesus, Buddha. On one thing they are all agreed: that when they are gone they have still to control the people who had come into contact with them, who had trusted them. But they don’t trust their people.

I trust my people. I know that they are living fully, joyously. They know how to live joyously, how to live fully, and that’s enough. I have given them the experience; now the experience will be decisive. And they will have a freedom, because things will change, situations will change. I could give directives that will become hindrances to their growth, but I cannot do that. That is criminal, very criminal. […]

Nobody should try to make any guidelines for the future. The future is always open. I am not willing to be a participant in a crime which has been committed for thousands of years. I absolutely decline to stand with Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, Mohammed, Jesus, Moses. No, that is not my company.

I want to make a complete breakthrough about everything, and this is one of the most fundamental things. There is hidden in it a deep desire to dominate people, even when you are gone —to put it in other words, that the dead should be dominating the living. That’s what has been happening all around the world. The living are not given freedom even to choose their own course, to choose their own moralities, to choose, according to the time, what is right and what is wrong.

Those people were very much concerned, because they were writing, they were dictating rules and regulations in detail. In Buddhist scriptures there are 33,000 rules for a monk. People have come to seek freedom, they have come to seek truth. What they are getting is a strange psychological slavery in its place, and that too even for coming generations.

So when I am asked whether I am going to make somebody my successor, I say absolutely no. I am giving my people clarity, understanding, awareness. That is going to be my successor. Every one of my sannyasins has to decide for himself. I have given him that much understanding, and I am making every effort to make him more and more conscious, so there is no need for him to be dictated to about things which are absolutely new by people who are dead, and who had no idea about those things. […]

I am not going to give a single instruction about anything. In fact there is no need. These people had to give instructions because they left people blind. They gave only beliefs to them; they never gave them consciousness, awareness. They never gave them the capacity to decide on their own. They never made them responsible for their own life.

Yes, they gave them a blind man’s stick, and directions on how to move so you can get to the door. But the house is being continuously renovated, continuously remade. Doors are being changed, windows are being changed, and the old blind man goes on finding the way with the old instructions.

No, I don’t want to give my people sticks. I want to give them eyes. And the people who ask me who is going to be my successor are asking because that’s how it has always been: somebody should succeed, and I should give clear-cut instructions about what you have to do and what you have not to do when I am gone. The people who ask me the question think that I am very irresponsible that I will simply die and leave the sannyasins without any instructions, without any moral code, without any ten commandments. They do not understand me. I love my people so much that I cannot create any hindrance in their life in the future. I cannot give them any instructions. I am giving them eyes so they can see where the door is for themselves. Why should I give them a map of the house when the house is continuously changing? And it has been proved by these five thousand years that all codes, all religions, all ethical systems have failed for the simple reason that they were trying to decide the future, which was not in their hands. Their intention was good, but their understanding was not enough.

I want my sannyasins to inherit my freedom, my awareness, my consciousness. And each sannyasin has to be my successor, has to be me. There is no need for anybody to dominate. There is nobody for anybody to dictate to. They are on their own. If they want to be together, they can be together. Out of their own freedom, it is their choice and their decision. If they want to move free, they have all the rights to move free.

So the thought never occurs to me. All that occurs to me is that the sooner I can make my people more clear about life and its complexities the better, because nobody knows when I may be gone. Before that my people have to be capable of blissfully and joyously giving me a send-off.

And I will not be leaving any ethical code, any structure to be followed. They will have to make it. And they will have to remember that they make it only for themselves, not for the future. They will have to do the same as I am doing for them. They will have to keep alert, because it is very easy to be tempted so that the new generation does not get lost. It is better to get lost than to be imprisoned.

So I am not giving you any structure, any instructions, but only clarity, understanding, consciousness. Remember, the same thing has to be done for the future generation. One day the same question will be before you. What are you going to decide for the younger generation of sannyasins for when you are gone?

Nobody has the right to decide for anybody else. Help the person to grow, to mature. Help the person to stand on his own feet, this is real compassion. And my compassion does not allow me to say a single word about the future. I am absolutely concerned with the present. And if the present is golden, the future born out of it will be even more golden.

-Osho

From The Last Testament, V. 1, Talk #6

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.

The Double-Pointed Arrow of Watchingness

Osho speaks often about watching the mind without grasping or rejecting, without judging, without analyzing. And he also speaks about watching with a double-pointed arrow of awareness.

After experimenting with these two viewpoints, it has been my discovery that they are two ways of describing the exact same phenomenon. When we manage to watch without grasping or rejecting, without judging, without analyzing we find ourselves watching with a double-pointed awareness. If we find ourselves in watching with the double-pointed arrow we discover that we are indeed watching without grasping or rejecting, etc., and we see that it is the grasping, the rejecting, the judging, the analyzing that is preventing us from having the double-pointed awareness

So whichever viewpoint we are more suited to, they both will be describing the same quality of watchingness. The key is watching without being drawn out (grasping, rejecting …) into the fray. This watching without being drawn out creates the second arrow of awareness.

-purushottama

See all 0f Prem’s notes.

Is Life Predestined or Not? – Osho

I would like to know if our lives are predestined or not.

It is both, yes and no, both. And it is always so with living problems.  In a way, everything is predetermined. Whatever is physical in you, material, whatever is mental, is predetermined. But something in you constantly remains undetermined, unpredictable. That something is your consciousness.

If you are identified with your body and your material existence, in the same proportion you are determined by cause and effect. Then you are a machine. But if you are not identified with your material existence, with either body or mind – if you can feel yourself as something separate, different, above and transcendent to body-mind – then that transcending consciousness is not predetermined. It is spontaneous, free. Consciousness means freedom; matter means slavery. So it depends on how you define yourself. If you say, “I am only the body,” then everything about you is completely determined.

A person who says that man is only the body cannot say that man is not predetermined. Ordinarily, persons who do not believe in such a thing as consciousness also do not believe in predetermination.

Persons who are religious and believe in consciousness ordinarily believe in predetermination. So what I am saying may look very contradictory. But still, it is the case.

A person who has known consciousness has known freedom. So only a spiritual person can say there is no determination at all. That realization comes only when you are completely unidentified with the body. If you feel that you are just a material existence, then no freedom is possible. With matter, no freedom is possible. Matter means that which cannot be free. It must flow in the chain of cause and effect.

Once someone has achieved consciousness, enlightenment, he is completely out of the realm of cause and effect. He becomes absolutely unpredictable. You cannot say anything about him. He begins to live each moment; his existence becomes atomic.

Your existence is a river-like chain in which every step is determined by the past. Your future is not really future; it is just a by-product of the past. It is only the past determining, shaping, formulating and conditioning your future. That is why your future is predictable.

Skinner says that man is as predictable as anything else. The only difficulty is that we have not yet devised the means to know his total past. The moment we can know his past, we can predict everything about him. Based upon the people he has worked with, Skinner is right, because they are all ultimately predictable. He has experimented with hundreds of people, and he has found that they are all mechanical beings, that nothing exists within them that can be called freedom.

But his study is limited. No Buddha has come to his laboratory to be experimented upon. If even one person is free, if even one person is not mechanical, not predictable, Skinner’s whole theory falls. If one person in the whole history of mankind is free and unpredictable, then man is potentially free and unpredictable.

The whole possibility of freedom depends on whether you emphasize your body or your consciousness. If you are just an outward flow of life, then everything is determined. Or are you something inner also? Do not give any preformulated answer. Do not say, “I am the soul.” If you feel there is nothing inside you, then be honest about it. This honesty will be the first step toward the inner freedom of consciousness.

If you go deeply inside, you will feel that everything is just part of the outside. Your body has come from without, your thoughts have come from without, even your self has been given to you by others.

That is why you are so fearful of the opinion of others – because they are completely in control of your self. They can change their opinion of you at any moment. Your self, your body, your thoughts are given to you by others, so what is inside? You are layers and layers of outside accumulation. If you are identified with this personality of yours that comes from others, then everything is determined.

Become aware of everything that comes from the outside and become non-identified with it. Then a moment will come when the outside falls completely. You will be in a vacuum. This vacuum is the passage between the outside and the inside, the door. We are so afraid of the vacuum, so afraid of being empty that we cling to the outside accumulation. One has to be courageous enough to disidentify with the accumulation and to remain in the vacuum. If you are not courageous enough, you will go out and cling to something and be filled with it. But this moment of being in the vacuum is meditation. If you are courageous enough, if you can remain in this moment, soon your whole being will automatically turn inward.

When there is nothing to be attached to from the outside, your being turns inward. Then you know for the first time that you are something that transcends everything you have been thinking yourself to be. Now you are something different from becoming; you are being. This being is free; nothing can determine it. It is absolute freedom. No chain of cause and effect is possible.

Your actions are related to past actions. A created a situation for B to become possible; B creates a situation in which C flowers. Your acts are connected to past acts, and this goes back to the beginningless beginning and on to the endless end. Not only do your own acts determine you, but your father’s and mother’s acts also have a continuity with yours. Your society, your history, all that has happened before, is somehow related to your present act. The whole history has come to flower in you. Everything that has ever happened is connected with your act, so your act is obviously determined. It is such a minute part of the whole picture. History is such a vital living force, and your individual act is such a small part of it.

Marx said, “It is not consciousness that determines the conditions of society. It is society and its conditions that determine consciousness. It is not that great men create great societies. It is great societies that create great men.” And he is right in a way because you are not the originator of your actions. The whole history has determined them. You are just carrying them out.

The whole evolutionary process has gone into the making of your biological cells. These cells in you can then become part of another person. You may think that you are the father, but you have just been a stage on which the whole biological evolution has acted and has forced you to act. The act of procreation is so forceful because it is beyond you; it is the whole evolutionary process working through you.

This is one way in which acts happen in relation to other past acts. But when a person becomes enlightened, a new phenomenon begins to happen. Acts are no longer connected with past acts. Any act now, is connected only with his consciousness. It comes from his consciousness not from the past. That is why an enlightened person cannot be predicted.

Skinner says that we can determine what you will do if your past acts are known. He says that the old proverb, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink,” is wrong. You can force him to. You can create an atmosphere so that the horse will have to drink. The horse can be forced, and you also can be forced because your actions are created by situations, by circumstances. But even though you can bring a buddha to the river, you cannot force him to drink. The more you force him, the more impossible it will be. No heat will make him do it. Even if a thousand suns shine on him, it will not help. A buddha has a different origin of action. It is not concerned with other acts; it is connected with consciousness.

That is why I emphasize that you act consciously. Then, every moment you act, it is not a question of a continuation of other acts. You are free. Now you begin to act, and no one can say how you will act.

Habits are mechanical; they repeat themselves. The more you repeat something, the more efficient you become. Efficiency means that now consciousness is no longer needed. If a person is an efficient typist, it means that no effort is needed; typing can be done unconsciously. Even if he is thinking about something else the typing continues. The body is typing; the man is not needed. Efficiency means that the thing is so certain that no effort is possible. With freedom, effort is always possible. A machine cannot make errors. To err, one has to be conscious.

So your acts have a chain relationship with your previous acts. They are determined. Your childhood determines your youth; your youth determines your old age. Your birth determines your death; everything is determined. Buddha used to say, “Provide the cause, and the effect will be there.” This is the world of cause and effect in which everything is determined.

If you act with total consciousness, an altogether different situation exists. Then everything is moment to moment. Consciousness is a flow; it is not static. It is life itself, so it changes. It is alive. It goes on expanding; it goes on becoming new, fresh, young. Then, your acts will be spontaneous. […]

The more alive you are, the less repetitive. Only a dead man can be consistent. Living is inconsistency; life is freedom. Freedom cannot be consistent. Consistent with what? You can be consistent only with the past.

An enlightened person is consistent only in his consciousness; he is never consistent with his past. He is totally in the act. Nothing is left behind; nothing is left out. The next moment the act is finished and his consciousness is fresh again. Consciousness will be there whenever any situation arises, but each act will be made in complete freedom, as if it is the first time that this man has been in this particular situation.

That is why I answered both yes and no to your question. It depends on you, whether you are consciousness, or whether you are an accumulation, a bodily existence.

Religion gives freedom because religion gives consciousness. The more science knows about matter, the more the world will be enslaved. The whole phenomenon of matter is of cause and effect: if you know that given this, that happens – then everything can be determined. Before this century ends, we will see the whole course of humanity being determined in many ways.

The greatest calamity that is possible is not nuclear warfare. It can only destroy. The real calamity will come from the psychological sciences. They will learn how a human being can be completely controlled. Because we are not conscious, we can be made to behave in predetermined ways.

As we are, everything about us is determined. Someone is Hindu; someone else is Mohammedan.This is predetermination, not freedom. Parents have decided; society is deciding. Someone is a doctor and someone else is an engineer. Now his behavior is determined. We are already being controlled constantly, and our methods are still very primitive. Newer techniques will be able to determine our behavior to such an extent that no one will be able to say that there is a soul. If your every response is determined, then what is the meaning of the soul?

Your responses can be determined through body chemistry. If alcohol is given to you, you behave differently. Your body chemistry is different, so you behave differently. At one time, the ultimate tantra technique was to take intoxicants and remain conscious. If a person remained conscious when everything indicated that he should be unconscious, only then would tantra say the man was enlightened, otherwise not.

If body chemistry can change your consciousness, then what is the meaning of consciousness? If an injection can make you unconscious, then what is the meaning? Then the chemical drug in the injection is more powerful than your own consciousness. Tantra says it is possible to transcend every intoxicant and remain conscious. The stimulus has been given, but the response is not there.

Sex is a chemical phenomenon. A particular quantity of a particular hormone creates sexual desire. You become the desire. You may repent when your body chemistry has returned to its normal level, but the repentance is meaningless. When the hormones are there again, you will act in the same way. So tantra has also experimented with sex. If you feel no sexual desire in a situation that is totally sexual, then you are free. Your body chemistry has been left far behind. The body is there, but you are not in the body.

Anger is also just chemistry. Biochemists will soon be able to make you anger-proof, or sex-proof. But you will not be a buddha. Buddha was not incapable of anger. He was capable of it, but the effect of feeling anger was not there.

If your body chemistry is controlled, you will be incapable of being angry. The chemical condition that makes you feel angry is not there, so the effect of anger is not there. Or if your sex hormones are eliminated from your body, you will not be sexual. But the real thing is not whether you are sexual or not, or angry or not. The real thing is how to be aware in a situation that requires your unawareness, how to be conscious in a situation that happens only in unconsciousness.

Whenever such a situation is there, meditate on it. You have been given a great opportunity. If you feel jealous, meditate on it. This is the right moment. Your body chemistry is working within you. It will make you unconscious; it will make you behave as if you are mad. Now, be conscious. Let there be jealousy, do not suppress it, but be conscious; be a witness to it.

If there is anger, be a witness to it; if there is sex, be a witness to it. Let whatever is happening inside you happen and begin to meditate on the whole situation. By and by, the more your awareness deepens, the less possibility there is of your behavior being determined for you. You become free.

Moksha, freedom, doesn’t mean anything else. It only means a consciousness that is so free that now nothing can determine it.

-Osho

From Psychology of the Esoteric, Discourse #11, 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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The Mysterious One – Osho

Rinzai said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rinzai said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rinzai is saying:

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

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

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

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

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

You become one whole.

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

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

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

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

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

Because of this situation Rinzai says:

So he is called the mysterious one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you hold such a view . . .

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

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

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

Ni-butsu wrote:

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

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

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

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

Bunan wrote:

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

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

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

Maneesha has asked:

Our beloved Master,

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

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

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

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

-Osho

From The Miracle, Discourse #7

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

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The Dancer is the Witness – Osho

Can one be absorbed in doing something – for instance dynamic meditation techniques – with absolute total intensity, and at the same time remain a witness who is separate, apart?

The same is the problem in many forms. You think that a witness is something apart, separate. It is not. Your intensity, your wholeness, is your witness. So when you are witnessing and doing something you are not two – the doer is the witness.

For example, you are dancing here in kirtan. You are dancing: the dancer and the witness are not two, there is no separation. The separation is only in language. The dancer is the witness. And if the dancer is not the witness, then you cannot be total in the dance, because the witness will need some energy and you will have to divide yourself. A part will remain a witness and the remaining will move in the dance. It cannot be total, it will be divided. And this is not what is meant, because really this is the state of a schizophrenic patient – divided, split. It is pathological. If you become two you are ill. You must remain one. You must move totally into the dance, and your totality will become the witness. It is not going to be something set apart, your wholeness is aware. This happens.

So don’t try to divide yourself. While dancing become the dance. Just remain alert; don’t fall asleep, don’t be unconscious. You are not under a drug, you are alert, fully alert. But this alertness is not a part standing aloof; it is your totality; it is your whole being.

But this is again the same thing as whether two lovers are two or one. Only on the surface are they two, deep inside they are one. Only in language will you appear two, the dancer and the witness, but deep down you are the one. The whole dancer is alert. Then only peace, equilibrium, silence, will happen to you. If you are divided there will be tension, and that tension will not allow you to be totally here and now, to merge into existence.

So remember that, don’t try to divide. Become the dancer and still be aware. This happens. This I am saying through my experience. This I am saying through many others’ experiences who have been working with me. This will happen to you also. This may have happened to many already. But remember this: don’t get split. Remain one and yet aware.

-Osho

From Vedanta: Seven Steps to Samadhi, Discourse #11

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Meditation is a Bridge – Osho

Whoever clings to mind sees not the truth of what’s beyond the mind.

If you cling to the mind, thoughts, emotions, then you will not be able to see that which is beyond the mind – the great Mind – because if you cling, how can you see it? If you cling, your eyes are closed by your clinging. And if you cling to the object, how can you see the subject? This “clinging-ness” has to be dropped.

Whoever clings to mind is identified, and sees not the truth of what’s beyond the mind. Whoever strives to practice dharma finds not the truth of beyond practice.

All practice is of the mind. Whatsoever you do is of the mind. Only witnessing is not of the mind, remember this.

So, even while you are doing meditation, remain a witness, continuously see what is happening. You are whirling in a dervish meditation? – whirl, whirl as fast as you can, but remain a witness inside and go on seeing that the body is whirling. The body goes on, faster and faster and faster, and the faster the body goes, the deeper you feel that your center is not moving. You are standing still, the body moves like a wheel, you stand still just in the middle of it. The faster the body goes, the deeper you realize the fact that you are not moving, and the distance is created.

Whatsoever you are doing, even meditation – I make no exception – don’t cling to meditation either, because a day has to come when even that clinging has to be dropped. Meditation becomes perfect when it too is dropped. When there is perfect meditation, you need not meditate.

So keep it constantly in your awareness that meditation is just a bridge; it has to be passed over. A bridge is not a place to make your house. You have to pass it and go beyond it. Meditation is a bridge; you have to be watchful about it also, otherwise you may stop being identified with anger, greed, and you may start being identified with meditation, compassion. Then you are in the same trap again; through another door you have entered the same house.

It happened once: Mulla Nasruddin came to the town bar and he was already too drunk, so the barkeeper told him, “You go away! You are already drunk and I cannot give you any more. You just go back to your house.” But he was insisting, so the barkeeper had to throw him out.

He walked a long distance in search of another bar. Then he came to the same bar from another door, entered, looked at the man with a little suspicion because he looked familiar. The barman said, “I have told you once and forever that tonight I am not going to give you anything. You get away from here!” Mulla was insisting again, he was thrown out again.

He walked a long distance in search of another bar, but in that town there was only one bar. Again, from the third door, he entered, looked at the man, who looked so familiar. Mulla said, “What is the matter? Do you own all the bars in the town?”

This happens. You are thrown out from one door; you enter from another door. You were identified with your anger, your lust; now you become identified with your meditation. You were identified with your sexual pleasure; now you become identified with the ecstasy that meditation gives. Nothing is different – the town has only one bar. Don’t try to enter the same bar again and again. And from wherever you enter you will find the same owner – that is the witness. Be mindful of it, otherwise much energy is unnecessarily wasted. Long distances you travel to enter into the same thing again.

Whoever clings to mind sees not the truth of what’s beyond the mind.

What is beyond the mind? You. What is beyond the mind? Consciousness. What is beyond the mind? Sat-chit-anand – truth, consciousness, bliss.

Whoever stives to practice the dharma finds not the truth of beyond practice.

And whatsoever you practice, remember, practice cannot lead you to the natural, the loose and the natural, because practice means practicing something which is not there. Practicing means always practicing something artificial. Nature has not to be practiced; there is no need, it is already there. You learn something which is not there. How can you learn something which is already there? How can you learn nature, tao? It is already there! You are born in it. There is no need to find any teacher so that you can be taught – and that is the difference between a teacher and a master.

A teacher is one who teaches you something, a master is one who helps you to unlearn all that you have already learned. A master is to help you unlearn. A master is to give you the taste of the non-practiced. It is already there; through your learning you have lost it. Through your unlearning you will regain it.

Truth is not a discovery, it is a rediscovery. It was already there in the first place. When you came into this world it was with you, when you were born into this life it was with you, because you are it. It cannot be otherwise. It is not something external, it is intrinsic in you, it is your very being. So if you practice, says Tilopa, you will not know that which is beyond practice.

Remind yourself again and again, that whatsoever you practice will be a part of the mind, the small mind, the outer periphery, and you have to go beyond it. How to go beyond it? Practice, nothing is wrong in it, but be alert; meditate, but be alert – because in the final meaning of the term, meditation is witnessing.

All techniques can be helpful but they are not exactly meditation, they are just a groping in the dark. Suddenly one day, doing something, you will become a witness. Doing a meditation like the dynamic, or kundalini or whirling, suddenly one day the meditation will go on but you will not be identified. You will sit silently behind; you will watch it – that day meditation has happened; that day technique is no more a hindrance, no more a help. You can enjoy it if you like, like an exercise, it gives a certain vitality, but there is no need now – the real meditation has happened.

Meditation is witnessing. To meditate means to become a witness. Meditation is not a technique at all. This will be very confusing to you because I go on giving you techniques. In the ultimate sense meditation is not a technique; meditation is an understanding, awareness. But you need techniques because that final understanding is very far away from you; deep hidden in you, but still very far away from you. Right this moment you can attain it, but you will not attain it, because your moment goes on, your mind goes on. This very moment it is possible and yet impossible. Techniques will bridge the gap, they are just to bridge the gap.

So in the beginning techniques are meditations; in the end you will laugh, techniques are not meditation. Meditation is a totally different quality of being, it has nothing to do with anything. But it will happen only in the end; don’t think it has happened in the beginning, otherwise the gap will not be bridged.

This is the problem with Krishnamurti, and this is the problem with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi – they are the two opposite poles. Mahesh Yogi thinks that technique is meditation, so once you are attuned to a technique – Transcendental Meditation or any other – the meditation has happened. This is right and wrong. Right, because in the beginning a beginner has to attune himself to some technique, because his understanding is not ripe enough to understand the ultimate. So approximately . . . a technique is approximately a meditation.

It is just like a small child learning the alphabet – so we tell the child that “m” is the same letter as when you use “monkey,” the monkey represents “m.” With the “m” the monkey is there, the child starts learning. There is no relationship between monkey and “m.” “M” can be represented by millions of things, and still it is different from everything. But a child has to be shown something. Monkey is nearer the child; he can understand the monkey, not “m.” Through the monkey he will be able to understand “m” – but this is just a beginning, not the end.

Mahesh Yogi is right in the beginning, to push you on the path, but if you are stuck with him you are lost. He has to be left, he is a primary school; good as far as it goes, but one need not always remain in the primary school. The primary school is not the university, and the primary school is not the universe; one has to pass from there. It is a primary understanding that meditation is a technique.

Then there is Krishnamurti at the other pole. He says there are no techniques, no meditations, but choiceless awareness. Perfectly right! – but he is trying to help you enter into the university without the primary school. He can be dangerous because he is talking about the ultimate. You cannot understand it; right now, in your understanding it is not possible – you will go mad. Once you listen to Krishnamurti you will be lost, because you will always intellectually understand he is right, and in your being you will know that nothing is happening.

Many Krishnamurti followers have come to me. They say intellectually they understand: “Of course it is right, there is no technique and meditation is awareness – but what to do?” And I tell them, “The moment you ask what to do, it means you need a technique. ’What to do?’ You ask how to do it, you are asking for a technique. Krishnamurti will not help you. Rather, go to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi – that will be better.” But people are stuck with Krishnamurti and there are people who are stuck with Mahesh Yogi.

I am neither – or I am both; and then I am very confusing. They are both clear, their standpoints are simple; there is no complexity in understanding Mahesh Yogi or Krishnamurti. If you understand language, you can understand them, there is no problem. The problem will arise with me because I will always talk about the beginning and will never allow you to forget the end. I will always talk about the end and always help you to start from the beginning. You will be confused because you will say, “What do you mean? If meditation is simply awareness, then why go through so many exercises?”

You have to go through them; only then will that meditation help you . . . that will happen to you which is simple understanding.

Or you say, “If techniques are all, then why do you go on saying again and again that techniques have to be left, dropped?” . . . Because then you feel: “Something learned so deeply, with so much effort and arduous labor has to be left again?” You would like to cling to the beginning. I will not allow you. Once you are on the path, I will go on pushing you to the very end.

This is a problem; with me this problem has to be faced, encountered and understood. I will look contradictory. I am; I am a paradox – because I am trying to give you both the beginning and the end, the first step and the last. Tilopa is talking of the ultimate. He is saying:

Whoever strives to practice dharma finds not the truth of beyond practice. To know what is beyond both mind and practice, one should not cling, one should cut cleanly through the root of the mind and stare naked.

That’s what I am calling witnessing: stare naked. Just staring naked will do, the root is cut. This staring naked becomes like a sharp sword.

-Osho

From Tantra: The Supreme Understanding, Discourse #8

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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I am not Going to Give You a New Pattern

You said that through chaotic breathing you want to destroy our old wrong patterns – to rebuild us in a new dimension. Please explain how this rebuilding in a new dimension happens after the old has been destroyed.

You have misunderstood me. The chaotic method is to destroy the old patterns, not to create a new one. It is not to create a pattern at all. Just the old pattern has to be destroyed. The method, all meditative methods, just destroy your conditioning without conditioning you in any way; otherwise there will simply be a change of fetters, a change of prisons. The new prison may look a little better but it is still a prison.

The unconditioned mind is the end – a mind which has no pattern around it. The old pattern has to be destroyed, and the new is not to be created because the new will become the old again. Nothing has to be created in its place; you are to be left alone without a pattern. But you have lived so long in patterns that you cannot conceive of how you can live without a pattern. How can you live without conditioning? How can you live without a discipline? How can you live without fetters? You have lived so long in slavery, in conditioning, that you cannot conceive of what freedom is. But you can live; really, only then will you live.

A conditioned mind is not alive. For instance, people come to me and they say, “You do not give us any discipline: what to eat, what not to eat, what to do, what not to do. You simply give us meditation and let us go into chaos. You do not give us something to live by. You just push us into chaos without any discipline.”

I do not give you any discipline because only those who are enemies to you can give you disciplines. I give you awareness, not discipline. And your awareness will give you spontaneous light about what to do and what not to do. And who can decide beforehand? And what is the need to decide it beforehand? When the moment arises, when the situation is there, you will be alert enough to do whatsoever happens to you – what is felt by your awareness itself to be done.

If you are aware, you do not need any discipline. Only people who are fast asleep need discipline because they do not know what to do. They need a pattern to follow. Their whole life becomes a misery because no pattern can be helpful in a changing life. Every pattern will become a prison because life is constantly changing. This moment one act may be good but the next moment it may become bad because the situation has changed. And you go on following a dead pattern; you never fit anywhere. […]

You will not fit because you can fit only when you are flux like, changing. A fixed entity cannot fit in a riverlike existence. You must be fluid. Only when you are liquid, fluid, flowing, changing, alert, aware, will you not repent. You will never feel guilty; you will never feel that something was better than what you did. Nothing can be better because you responded totally. That was all that could have been. Nothing else was possible.

My meditation technique is not to give you a new pattern; it is simply to drop the old pattern, to destroy it and leave you completely free without any imprisonment around you – without any prison. Of course, you will feel difficulty because the prison was also a shelter. Now there will be rains and there will be no shelter, and the wind will come and there will be no shelter, and the sun will be there, hot and burning, and there will be no shelter, and you would like to hide somewhere. Your eyes have become so accustomed to darkness that in the light you will feel uneasy. But this is what will make you free. You will have to get the feel of the new life under the open skies. Once you know the freedom and the beauty of it, once you have become aware, once you have come out of the prison, the old habit, you will not ask for any pattern or any discipline.

And this doesn’t mean that your life will become a chaos – no! Your life will be the only ordered life possible. The life that you are leading is a chaos. It only seems to be ordered on the surface. Behind it, underneath, there is disorder and turmoil. Only on the surface have you created the appearance of order. Look within yourself: there is disorder. Ordered life will be disordered; disciplined life will be chaotic within. This looks paradoxical but this is so, this is the truth. Only an alert life will have an order – not forced but spontaneous, alive. The order will go on changing with life. It must.

A spontaneous life is just like your eyes. Do you know that your eyes go on changing continuously? And when they stop changing, then you need some technical help. When I am looking at you and you are ten feet away from me, my eyes have one kind of focus. When I start looking at the hills which are far away, my eyes immediately change. The lenses of the eyes change immediately. Then only can I see the hills. When I look at the moon, my eyes change immediately.

You come into the house, it is dark; your eyes change. You come out of the house, it is light; your eyes change. And when your eyes become fixed, they are ill. They must be flux like; only then are you capable of seeing. The more flux like the eyes, the more liquid they are, without any pattern, the more they are just changing with the situation, then the more alert your consciousness will be.

Meditation will give you an inner eye which will be constantly changing, constantly aware of the new situation, constantly responding. But the response will come from your total being, not from a pattern. The response will come from you, not from a conditioning. […]

So I am not going to create a new pattern for you. I am a destroyer. I am not going to create anything, really. I am just going to destroy, because there is no need to create. You are already there behind the structure. If the structure is destroyed, you will be freed. If the structure which binds you is no more there, you will be there. You are not to be created; you are already there. Only the walls of the prison have to be destroyed and you will be under the open sky.

You have misunderstood me. I told you this chaotic meditation is to destroy your conditioning, your slavery, your mind, your ego – in a deep sense, you. It has to destroy and then the new will be born. I am not saying I will create it. No one can create it. And there is no need: it is already the case. It is there. Only the shell has to be broken and it will come out.

All religion is destructive in this sense. The society is constructive, religion is destructive. Society constructs the conditioning. Society makes you a Hindu or a Christian or a Jaina. Society never allows you to be yourself. It gives you a pattern, because society is an organization. The society wants you to fit into that organization according to its own rules. The society doesn’t want you; the society only wants your efficiency. You are not the point; you are not the target. You must behave like a mechanical thing. The more mechanical you are, the more society will appreciate you because you will be less dangerous.

No machine can be dangerous. It never goes out of the way: it never disobeys, it never rebels, it is not revolutionary. No machine is revolutionary; it cannot be. All machines are orthodox: they obey, they follow. Society tries to change you into a mechanical thing. Then you are more efficient, less dangerous, reliable, responsible. And there is no fear, no danger; you can be relied upon.

The society creates a mechanical device around you: that is the conditioning. And it allows you only certain outlets and closes certain things completely. It chooses some fragments from you and approves them, then rejects all else. It says that only a part of you is good and the other parts are bad, so deny those parts. Society doesn’t accept you as a whole, as a unity; it accepts only certain parts. Hence, the conditioning.

Religion is always destructive; in a way, religion is always antisocial. But society is very cunning. It tries to convert religion also into its managerial system. It wants to make religion also a part of it.

Jesus is rebellious, the church is not. Jesus is against society – he has to be, because he is trying to destroy the mechanical part and he is trying to free your spontaneity. He is bound to be against the society; the society will crucify him. But just by crucifying him you cannot destroy Jesus. Really, if you want to destroy Jesus, crucifixion will be of no help. You will have to organize a church around Jesus; only then will he be destroyed.

It is said that once it happened that the devil was very much disturbed because one man had achieved enlightenment on earth. He called his advisers and he asked them, “What to do now? One man has again achieved truth, he has become enlightened, and our whole profession is now in danger. What to do? How to prevent people from going to this man?”

The oldest follower of the devil said, “Do not be disturbed. We should go and we should organize a church around him. Do not worry. Then the church will become the prevention, then people will not be able to come to him directly. The church will be in between, and whatsoever he says will not be heard by the people directly. The church will first interpret it, and through interpretation you can destroy anything.”

Truth can be destroyed most easily if you order it, organize it. When religion becomes a sect, it becomes a part of society. Whenever religion is alive and not a sect, it is against society. Jesus is against society, Mahavira is against society, Buddha is against society. But Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity, they are all parts of society. They are religions no more. Religion has to be rebellious. And this is the rebellion: religion tries to destroy the mechanicalness because the mechanicalness is your hell. Spontaneity is your heaven; mechanicalness is your hell.

I am not going to give you any new pattern – neither new nor old. I am simply going to destroy the pattern and leave you alone to live without a pattern. A life without a pattern is a religious life. A life without any forced order is a religious life. A life without any discipline, but with inner awareness, is a religious life.

-Osho

From The Supreme Doctrine, Discourse #7

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

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

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The Awakening of the Double-Pointed Arrow

It seems to me that the awakening of the double-pointed arrow is the fulcrum point, the nexus, of meditation. Before the awakening, all meditation is an exercise in creating and realizing the double-pointed arrow. After the awakening of the double-pointed arrow, meditation is about stabilization, and then with this stabilized awareness – the witness – the transformation occurs.

 

 

What is the double-pointed arrow? The simplest definition is awareness, or the witness. It is not only awareness of objects but also awareness of our own subjectivity, hence the witness. Without this element, there is no possibility of transformation. In fact, it is because of this element of a double-pointed arrow, the witness, that transformation takes place.

When we begin by watching the activities of the body or watching the breath, we are endeavoring, knowingly or unknowingly, to create the level of awareness where one is also aware of oneself, the double-pointed arrow.

It is in the activity of watching the mind that the turning point happens. It is by watching the mind that one becomes aware of being something other than the mind, and this is precisely the awakening of the double-pointed arrow, the awakening of the witness. It is important to point out that this awareness of being something beyond the mind is not just an intellectual or conceptual understanding. But rather it is the experience of there being thought (mind) but also the knowingness, the actual experiencing of being something beyond the mind, hence the double-pointed arrow.

And it is here after one first becomes aware of this double-pointed arrow that the work of stabilization takes place. For some time, one finds oneself shifting back and forth between pre-awakening and post-awakening until finally this state of double-pointed arrow is stabilized. This shifting back and forth is natural to the stabilization process.

From this stabilized watching, we witness the heart, and transformation gains momentum until finally what is watched is watchingness itself, being, the witness. At this point there is no longer a double-pointed arrow, just a single all-encompassing awareness. Here the observer is the observed. Here there is no center and no periphery, there is only oneness.

Bodhi Svaha!

-purushottama

For more on this topic, you may wish to explore:

Meditation Involves all Three

Watching and Forgetting the Content

Awakening Before Enlightenment

After Awakening Before Enlightenment

See all 0f Prem’s notes.