Podcast Episode: Be a Light unto Yourself

An imaginary podcast discussing a real post

Following is an A.I. generated conversation discussing Purushottama’s post: Be A Light Unto Yourself

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Be a Light unto Yourself Podcast

Pip: Sat Sangha Salon — where the beach walk leads somewhere you didn’t expect.

Mara: Today we’re following a single insight from Purushottama: what it means to stop seeking attention from the outside world and turn it inward. Let’s start with that realization on the beach.

Be a Light unto Yourself

Pip: The setup here is deceptively ordinary — a working holiday in Mexico, walks on the beach, swimming in cenotes. But something lands mid-stroll that reframes a pretty fundamental human habit: the need to be seen.

Mara: The post traces it back to a specific moment of noticing. The observation is that “we seek attention in many ways and that it is natural to seek attention until we are ourselves giving attention to our true being in self-remembering or right-remembering.”

Pip: So the hunger for outside attention isn’t a character flaw — it’s a placeholder. It fills the space until something else does. That’s a meaningful distinction, because it shifts the question from “what’s wrong with me” to “what am I actually missing.”

Mara: And the post names what replaces it. Once you begin nourishing your being with your own attention, the need for external validation doesn’t get managed or suppressed — it simply evaporates. That’s the word used: evaporates.

Pip: Evaporates is doing a lot of work there. Not “diminishes,” not “becomes manageable.” Gone. Which is either very reassuring or a very high bar, depending on where you’re standing.

Mara: The post ties this directly to the Buddha’s instruction “Be a light unto yourself” — reading it as at least one answer to why that phrase matters. Self-remembering isn’t a spiritual luxury; it’s the actual source that makes external approval unnecessary.

Pip: What I find interesting is the framing of attention as nourishment. You’re not fighting the craving — you’re feeding the thing that was hungry all along, just from a different direction.

Mara: Right, and the setting isn’t incidental. The observation arrives mid-walk, surrounded by suntans and tattoos and what the post calls “undulating buttocks” — all of it display, all of it a bid for eyes. The insight emerges from inside the phenomenon it’s describing.

Mara: The idea that self-remembering makes external attention unnecessary — that’s not a small claim.

Pip: No. It’s the kind of thing that sounds simple until you actually try it. More from Sat Sangha Salon next time.

Here you can listen to the podcast on Youtube.

Here is the original post from Purushottama, Be a Light Unto Yourself

Podcast Episode: Meditation Involves all Three

An imaginary conversation discussing a real post

Following is an A.I. generated conversation discussing Purushottama’s post: Meditation Involves all Three.

click to play or download audio file:

Meditation Involves all Three Podcast

Pip: Sat Sangha Salon — where the questions are ancient and the answers keep arriving fresh, usually before breakfast.

Mara: Today we’re working through a piece by Purushottama on what meditation actually is — how concentration, contemplation, and dhyana relate to each other, and what it takes for awareness to find its own ground.

Pip: Let’s start with how those three stages fit together.

Meditation Involves all Three

Mara: The post opens with a distinction Osho draws between concentration, contemplation, and meditation — but the real claim here is that all three aren’t competing alternatives. They’re a sequence, a natural progression that unfolds within a single sitting.

Pip: And the writer lays out exactly where each stage lives. Here’s the spine of it: “This watching without any involvement at all is what I am referring to as dhyana, as meditation. In this watching there is more self-awareness than identification hence I am able to watch without involvement.”

Mara: So the upshot is that dhyana isn’t a separate technique you switch into — it’s what concentration and contemplation are building toward. Each stage increases self-awareness and loosens identification until the watcher can simply remain on the bank.

Pip: The river metaphor does a lot of work here — you’re not stopping the current, you’re just refusing to jump in. Which sounds effortless until you’ve spent twenty minutes narrating your own grocery list.

Mara: Right, and the post is honest about that friction. Contemplation is described as “a continual movement from being aware to being lost in thought, remembering and again lost into the stream of thought.” The re-membering — spelled out with a hyphen — is doing something deliberate there: rejoining awareness, piece by piece.

Pip: What strikes me is the practical instruction buried in the final section. You don’t start from some ideal state — you start from wherever you actually are. Chaotic and scattered? Begin with concentration. Already thinking hard about a problem? That’s contemplation — you can work with it.

Mara: And the post follows that logic all the way through. When watching becomes truly non-involved, thought doesn’t get suppressed — it subsides on its own. The interference itself, the grasping and rejecting and judging, is what keeps the stream moving. Remove that, and the witness is what remains: “awareness aware of itself.”

Pip: Three stages, one ground. The architecture was always there — the sitting just maps it.

Mara: What stays with me is the idea that you begin from wherever you are — not from some prepared, settled place.

Pip: Awareness finding its own address. We’ll keep following that thread next time.

Here you can listen to the podcast on Youtube.

and Here is the original Post from Purushottama, Meditation Inovles all three.

Right Listening – Osho

Right listening means you have put aside your mind. It does not mean that you become gullible, that you start believing whatsoever is said to you. It has nothing to do with belief or disbelief. Right listening means, “I am not concerned right now whether to believe or not to believe. There is no question of agreement or disagreement at this moment. I am simply trying to listen to whatsoever it is. Later on, I can decide what is right and what is wrong. Later on, I can decide whether to follow or not to follow.”

And the beauty of right listening is this: truth has a music of its own. If you can listen without prejudice, your heart will say it is true. If it is true, a bell starts ringing in your heart. If it is not true, you remain aloof, unconcerned, indifferent; no bell rings in your heart, no synchronicity happens. That is the quality of truth: if you listen to it with an open heart, it immediately creates a response in your being – your very center is uplifted. You start growing wings; suddenly the whole sky is open.

It is not a question of deciding logically whether what is being said is true or untrue. On the contrary, it is a question of love, not of logic. Truth immediately creates a love in your heart; something is triggered in you in a very mysterious way.

But if you listen wrongly – that is, full of your mind, full of your garbage, full of your knowledge – then you will not allow your heart to respond to the truth. You will miss the tremendous possibility; you will miss the synchronicity. Your heart was ready to respond to truth . . . It responds only to truth, remember, it never responds to the untrue. With the untrue it remains utterly silent, unresponsive, unaffected, unstirred. With the truth it starts dancing, it starts singing, as if suddenly the sun has risen and the dark night is no more, the birds are singing, and the lotuses are opening – the whole earth is awakened.

-Osho

From The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, V.7, Discourse #9

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 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.

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.

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

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.

Samyak Shravan – Right Listening – Osho

To discipline ourselves in learning is called hearing.

And Buddhists call the first step of learning, of knowing, hearing; right hearing – ‘samyak shravan’. […]

Because the truth happens when you are in the mood of right listening. It has nothing to do with the object of listening; it has everything to do with the quality of listening. But we have forgotten how to listen. Even when we are silent, we are not listening. Even when we pretend to show that yes, we are listening, we are not listening; we are doing a thousand and one things in the mind. Many thoughts are crowding in. Politely we show that yes, we are listening, politely sometimes we nod also – we are listening –but deep inside us is the madhouse. How can you listen?

To listen you will have to drop your thinking. With thoughts, listening is not possible. If you are speaking inside and I am speaking here, how can you listen to me? Because you are closer to yourself than me, your thoughts will be closer to you, they will make a ring around you and they will not allow my thoughts to enter. They will allow only those thoughts which are in tune with them, they will choose and select. They will not allow anything that is strange, unfamiliar, unknown. Then it is not worth listening because you are simply listening to your own thoughts. And it is dangerous because now you will think that you have listened to me. Right listening means to be in a totally receptive, silent mood.

In Zen the disciple sits for many months, sometimes years, before he becomes capable of listening. Whenever anybody came to Buddha he would say, ‘For one year or two years you simply sit here. Nothing else has to be done. You simply learn how to sit.’ People would say, ‘We know already how to sit.’ And Buddha would say, ‘I have never come across a person who knows how to sit, because when I say sit, I mean sit – no turmoil, no movement of thought, totally silent, utterly silent, no movement in the body, no movement in the mind. A pool of energy with no ripples.’

To discipline ourselves in learning is called hearing.

So the whole Buddhist discipline, Zen discipline, starts by right listening.

-Osho

From Dang Dang Doko Dang, Discourse #9

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 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.

My Beloved Bodhisattvas – Osho

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But this time you have pulled me back.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Osho

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

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.

Let Your Emptiness Become a Dance – Osho

I am often able to achieve the state – or what seems like the state – which you call ‘being a hollow bamboo’ – silent, watching, empty. The only problem is that there is no bliss in that emptiness. It is just nothing. Can I expect something to fill it one of these days?

Mariel Strauss, it is because of this idea that you are missing the whole beauty of nothingness: this desire to fill it. You are not really a hollow bamboo, because in this hollow bamboo this desire is there, and this desire is enough to fill the hollow bamboo, to block its emptiness.

This desire to fill it one day, this expectation that “Someday, God will come and fill my emptiness” this very idea is preventing you from really becoming a hollow bamboo. Drop this desire. Forget all about filling your hollow bamboo – then you are a hollow bamboo. And when you are a hollow bamboo, it is immediately full of God. But not that you have to desire it; if you desire it you will go on missing it.

This is one of the basic paradoxes to be understood about religious inquiry. Understand it as deeply as possible, let it sink deeply into your heart, because this is not only Mariel Strauss’s problem, this is everybody’s problem. Anybody who goes on in the search for truth, for being, for God, or whatsoever you call it, will have to come across it.

You can feel that you are empty, but deep down, lurking somewhere is the desire, the hope, the expectation that “Now, where is God? It is getting late and I have remained a hollow bamboo so long. What is the point? This is just nothingness.”

There is condemnation when you say, “This is just nothingness.” You are not happy with this hollow bamboo-ness. You are not happy with this emptiness; there is condemnation. You have managed somehow, because you have heard me saying again and again that the moment you are a hollow bamboo God will descend in you: “Become empty, and you will become full.” You want to become full, so you say “Okay, we will become empty. If that is the only way to become full, we will even try that.” But this is not true emptiness. You have not understood the point.

Enjoy emptiness, cherish it, nourish it. Let your emptiness become a dance, a celebration. Forget all about God – to come or not is His business. Why should you be worried? Leave it to Him. And when you have completely forgotten about God, He comes, immediately He comes. He always comes when you are utterly unaware of His coming; you don’t even hear His footsteps. One moment He was not there, and suddenly another moment He is there. But your emptiness has to be total. And a total emptiness means no expectation, no future, no desire.

You say, “I am often able to achieve the state . . .”

You must be forcing it, you must be trying hard, you must be cultivating it, you must be imagining it. It is imaginary, it is not true.

“. . . or what seems like the state . . .”

And deep down you also know that it is not the real state. You have managed somehow to create a kind of emptiness in yourself. It is a forced emptiness.

“. . . which you call ‘being a hollow bamboo’ – silent, watching, empty . . .”

It is not what I call the state of being a hollow bamboo; it is not. If it were, then there would be no desire for God, because there is no desire. It does not matter what you desire; God, money, power, prestige, it matters not. Desire is desire, its taste is always the same. Desire leads you away from the present, from the herenow into the future, somewhere else. Desire does not allow you to relax into the moment. It takes you away from your being.

So what you desire does not matter: you can desire presidency of a country, or you can desire money, or you can desire sainthood, or you can desire God, you can desire truth – desire is desire. Desire means you are torn apart between that which you are and that which you would like to be. This is anguish; this is anxiety. And this anxiety will not allow you to become a hollow bamboo. To be a hollow bamboo means: a state of desirelessness. Then you are utterly empty, and then that emptiness has a clarity in it. Then that emptiness has a splendor in it, a purity in it. Then that emptiness has a holy quality to it. It is so pure; it is so innocent that you will not call it ‘just emptiness’ or ‘just nothingness’. That emptiness is God itself! Once you are empty, once you are herenow, with no desire taking you away from your reality, God is. God means ‘that which is’.

God is already the case; your desiring mind does not allow you to see it. Your desiring mind makes you a monkey: you go on jumping from one branch to another branch. You go on jumping; you are never in a state of rest. This desire and that desire, and one desire creates another desire, and it is a continuum.

When there is no desire where can you go? When there is no desire where is the future? When there is no desire where is time? Where is past? When there is no desire where is mind? Where is memory? Where is imagination? All gone! Just cut one single root which is the chief root of the tree of mind: cut desire and just be. In that state of being you are a hollow bamboo. And the moment you are a hollow bamboo, reality bursts upon you, as if it has been always waiting but you were not available to it. It floods you!

-Osho

From The Secret of Secrets, Discourse #18, Q5

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

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

What is Herenow? – Osho

What is Herenow? Does ‘thought’ form part of it? If so, then all-time and all-things are now. Or . . . is herenow only in no-mind?

Divya, thought is the capacity of not being here – so thought cannot exist in the herenow, it cannot be part of it. That is impossible. Thought can only be either of the past, or of the future. Thought can never be of the present. In the very process of thinking, that is implied; it is intrinsic to it.

The moment you think, either you think of the past or you think of the future. It may be the immediate past, but it is still past – it is never the present, it cannot be the present.

Thought needs space. And the present moment has no space in it. Thought creates the past and the future to live in. The bigger the past, the more easily thought can move; the bigger the future, again, the more easily thought can move. The present is not capable of giving that space for thought to move.

The present moment is a moment of no-mind. Whenever you are in the present you don’t function as a mind. Your body is in the present, but your mind is never. Your body is always in the present – that’s why the body is so beautiful, and mind is so ugly.

And, down the ages, you have been taught to be with the mind and against the body. That has been the greatest calamity humanity has suffered up to now. If a new humanity is to be, we will have to put things right – you have to be with the body and not with the mind.

Use the mind but never get identified with it. The mind is a good slave, but a very bad master. The body is wiser.

When you are hungry, you are hungry herenow; you cannot be hungry in the future, and you cannot be hungry in the past. When you are feeling thirsty, your throat is feeling it right now – it is immediate, it has a presence. But your mind is running in all directions . . . so your body and mind never meet. That’s how you have become split, that’s how schizophrenia has entered into the very being of man.

Get out of the mind and get into the body. The more you are in your body, the more natural you will be. The more you are in the body, the closer to God you will be.

Mind is just a device. Good! Helpful! Can be used in a thousand and one ways! But it is from there that the problem arises – because it can be used in so many ways, you start becoming dependent on it and by and by you lose consciousness of the present and you become focused with the mind. Then your life will be dry, a wasteland.

And suddenly questions will arise: What is the meaning of life? – because mind cannot supply any meaning. Mind cannot give you any end. Mind cannot help you to live. It cannot give you life! It can give you technology, it can give you bigger machines, it can give you more affluence – but it cannot give you more life, more being.

So riches go on growing. Technology goes on becoming more and more sophisticated . . . and man becomes more and more poor. This is strange! that outside riches go on accumulating and inside man becomes a beggar. Never before in the history of man was there such inner emptiness, such inner meaninglessness, such inner poverty.

The reason is: significance comes from the body – the body is the body of God. Mind is man created: body is still in God, it still exists in God, it still breathes God.

You ask: What is herenow?

Now, if any mind answer is given to you, that won’t be the right answer – because anything that the mind can say as a definition of herenow will be wrong; anything whatsoever, it will be wrong. Mind knows nothing of herenow! How can it define it? Just be silent; for a moment, just be . . . and it is there.

This is herenow! I will not give you a definition, because definitions come from the mind, and definitions will be taken by the mind, and herenow is an existential experience . . . these trees, this bird calling, and the traffic noise, and the train, and the sun and the trees . . . and you, and me . . . and this silence, this presence . . .

When not even a single thought is stirring in you, when the screen is utterly empty, not even a single picture moves . . . this is . . . and this cannot be defined. You can experience it; it is available. It is everybody’s right to experience it, but how to define it? If you try to define it you will have to bring past and future. Go to the dictionaries, go to the Encyclopedia Britannica – what will they say? They will say the present is a moment between the past and the future – that’s the only way to define it! Now can there be a more wrong way to define the present? If you have to bring past and future into the definition, if you cannot define the present without bringing past and future into it, how are you going to define it?

The present is neither past nor future – and it is not between the two! It cannot be between the two, because the past is no more, and the future is not yet. How can the present be between two non-existentials? The present is existential; how can existence be defined by something which is not? That is utter absurdity! But that’s where logic moves. Logic appears very logical but remains rooted in absurdity.

The present is not between the past and the future: the present is beyond past and future. The present is eternity. The present is not even part of time! And it is not that the time passes: we pass, time remains; we come and go, time remains. It is not that the moment that was here just a moment before has become past, no. It is a single moment, utterly one. It is eternity. It is not passing; it is not going anywhere.

Have you not observed some time, sitting in a train, waiting on a station, and your train starts moving and you feel the other train has started moving which is just on the other track? Or the other train starts moving and you feel your train has started moving, and then you look closely, and you find that, no, your train is not moving, the other train is moving.

Time remains there – we go on moving, we change. The ocean of time is there – the fish goes on moving. The movement is in our minds. Mind is movement. Truth is unmoving; it is always the same.

Just see: when you were born . . . have you changed since then? Yes, on one level you have changed, certainly – your body has grown, you are young or old, and so many things you have lived through, and experiences, and frustrations, and ex-citements, and ecstasies, and all that life gives . . . But go deep down: have you really changed on that plane? at the very core of your being? Are you not the same? There nothing has changed. It is where you were, and it is where you will ever be – it is always the same there, it is one climate.

On the surface things go on changing. The wheel of the cart goes on moving, but it moves on something which remains unmoving: the axle. You are both the circumference and the axle, the center. Even the cyclone is not there at the center – there is silence. Nothing ever moves there.

That is your being! What name you give to it matters not. That center of the cyclone . . . that center of the cyclone is herenow; it is not part of time. It is eternity.

You ask me: What is herenow?

Feel it! Experience it! That’s what we are doing here! What is meditation? – getting into here . . . now. What is love? – getting into herenow. What is celebration? – getting into herenow. But no definition is possible.

Getting-into is possible, because in fact you have never got out of it. It is there! You can again turn and face it.

While making love to a woman or to a man, have you not felt the herenow? If you have not felt it then you have not loved. Making love to a woman, have you not forgotten the past? has not the past utterly disappeared in that moment? In that moment do you have a past, a history, an autobiography? If you have, then you don’t know how to love. Then you have been just playing the game of love not knowing exactly what it is – you have not loved.

While making love, your autobiography simply disappears. There is no more any past – as if you had never existed. You are not old – in that moment you are virgin newness; in that moment you are born for the first time; in that moment there is rebirth. Love is resurrection. And there is no future. Is there tomorrow? While making love to your woman, are you thinking of the tomorrow? what you are going to do tomorrow? Then you are not with the woman and you are not in love either. All thinking stops – that’s the joy of love!

That’s why I say that sex and samadhi are joined together. Sex is the lowest rung, samadhi is the highest rung, of the same ladder. They belong to the same ladder – sex the lowest rung, samadhi the highest rung. But the ladder is the same. There is an affinity.

Man got the idea of samadhi from two things: sex and sleep. Deep sleep is also on the same ladder. Man became alert to the phenomenon of samadhi, became excited, intrigued, by the phenomena of love and sleep – because in both these moments, time disappears, time stops, mind stops, thinking no longer functions – and because thinking no longer functions and time stops, there is such ecstasy and such joy. Then man became intrigued: Is it possible to attain this joy without falling into sleep? – because in sleep it happens, but you are not aware of it; it is very unconscious. Only in the morning do you hear the distant sound of it, or the later effects. If you slept deeply in the night, in the morning you feel renewed, rejuvenated – but you had not been there exactly while it was happening. What was it?

In sex, you are more aware, but then the sex moment is so small that rather than satisfying you it leaves you very much frustrated. The greater the experience of love, the greater will be the frustration that comes in its wake. Remember: only great lovers are frustrated with love; ordinary lovers are not frustrated with love – because the higher the peak, the greater will be the fall. And the peak exists only for a single moment. It comes and it is gone . . . it is like lightning.

And when the peak is gone, you have known the taste of it and now nothing will taste better and everything will look ordinary compared to it, and everything will look mundane. You have experienced something of the sacred. You have experienced something of God – God flashed like lightning, but you could not catch hold of His face, you could not figure it out, how He looks, and He was gone. It was so fast and so sudden.

Man became interested: Is it possible to prolong that experience? Is it possible to remain in that experience a little longer? Is it possible to go into it a little deeper? Is it possible to have that experience without moving into sex? – because sex by its very nature depends on the other. It is a kind of dependence, and all kinds of dependence destroy your freedom. That’s the eternal fight between the lovers.

They are giving something to each other which is immensely valuable but mixed with poison. They cannot live separately, and they cannot live together. If they are separate, they start missing the joy that was happening through the other; if they are together, the poison is too much – and one starts thinking: Is the joy worth it? Because you have to depend on the other! When you depend on the other, your freedom is destroyed, your freedom becomes defined, confined, limited. You cannot open yourself as you would like to open. You have always to look to the other and the other’s feelings. You feel prevented, hindered. And the other starts possessing you, the other starts becoming powerful over you – because the other knows that it is through him or her that you feel joy.

Man started looking for the same experience without becoming dependent on the other. Then, if it depends only on sexual experience, it cannot last forever. You can have sex once in a while – and what about the other times? All other times you will remain dull and dead. Is it possible to have that joy continuously, as a continuum, like a river flowing always?

These were the speculations of man, but they came from sleep and love. In love sometimes it happens, and that is the moment which is called orgasm. If time stops, if thinking stops, and you are utterly herenow, it is orgasmic.

This orgasmic experience will give you the taste. I cannot define it, but I can indicate ways how to feel it.

If you have some aesthetic sense, then some aesthetic experience will give you the taste. Seeing a sunset, if you have the heart of a painter, the heart stops; you start missing beats. The sun is setting, just falling and falling . . . and a moment more and it will be gone. And all that color in the clouds, and all that sublime beauty! And the birds returning back to their homes, and the silence settling on the earth, and the trees getting ready to go to bed, and the whole of nature saying goodbye to the sun . . . If you have the aesthetic heart, if you are a poet or a painter or a musician, if you know what beauty is, if you are affected by beauty, not so-so but tremendously, if beauty gives you awe – then you will know what herenow is.

Or listening to music it happens sometimes. There is nothing more meditational than music. Or if you can play some instrument yourself, then it is far better – because listening you remain on the periphery; playing you are at the center. If playing some instrument – playing a flute or sitar or guitar – and you are lost into it, absolutely lost into it, time stops, mind is no more there, a Buddha moment arrives, and you know what herenow is.

Or if you can dance – which seems to me the most profound experience – if you can dance and dance so deeply that the dancer disappears, only the dance remains, then again you will be herenow.

I cannot define it, but I can indicate a few things. You will have to experience it. It is a taste! If you ask me how sugar tastes, how can I define it? I can say it is sweet, but that will not make much sense – it will be a tautology. You were asking what sweet is; I have simply substituted another word for it. If I say to be herenow means to be in the present, I am not saying anything – I am simply substituting another word for it. That’s what dictionaries go on doing.

All dictionaries live on tautologies. And if you look into the dictionary, you will be surprised: ask the philosopher or the philologist, “What is mind?” and he says, “Not matter”; and then ask him, “What is matter?” and he says, “Not mind” – but what is the point of it? You don’t know either. When it comes to defining matter you use ‘mind’ as if you know mind, and you say, “Not mind”; and when it comes to defining the mind you start using ‘matter’ as if you know matter, and you say, “Not matter” – but you don’t know either. Now, two things themselves undefined, how can they define each other? – that is not possible.

Ask the philologist who knows words and languages – what does he go on saying? You ask one word; he substitutes another word for it – but the real problem remains.

A Zen Master was dying and the disciples had gathered. And his whole life he had been talking about herenow – that’s what Masters have been doing down through the ages. The disciples asked again, “Master, you are leaving us, and we will be left in darkness. Is there any last message so that we can cherish it and remember it forever? We will keep it as a sacred memory in our hearts.”

The Master opened his eyes . . . at that moment on the roof of his hut, a squirrel ran making noise – tit tit, teevee, tit tit – and the Master raised his hand and said, “This is it!” and died.

What is he saying, “This is it”? He is simply indicating. He-is simply saying there is nothing to say – there is much to see, but there is nothing to say.

You ask: Does thought form part of it?

No, thought cannot form part of it. It is asking: Does darkness form part of light? Just like that. Darkness cannot form part of light. When light is present, dark-ness is absent; when light is absent, darkness is present – they never meet. So is the state of mind and herenow – they never meet.

Herenow means no-mind. No-mind means no thought. And you know it! Many times, it happens to you: there are moments, small, but they are there, when you suddenly see no thought stirring in you, no ripple arising – those are Buddha moments! You just have to get more in tune with them, you just have to get deeper into them, you just have to change your emphasis.

For example, you read a book. Naturally, you read the words printed on the paper; you don’t see the paper. The paper remains in the background. The words written with the black ink, they are the figure, and the white paper is the background. You may not even see the white paper while you are reading – although it is there! Without it, those words cannot exist; they exist because of it, against it, in contrast to it.

It happened: a psychologist did a small experiment. He fixed a big piece of white paper over the whole blackboard, and the students watched. Then he brought his pen and on that big sheet of white paper he made just a small dot, a black dot – just a small one, barely visible. The students had to look very, very closely, only then could they see it. And then he asked, “What do you see?” They all said, “A small dot.” And nobody had seen the white paper – nobody, not a single student out of the fifty, said “We see a big white sheet of paper over the whole blackboard.” Not a single student said! They all said, “A black dot.” And he had simply asked, “What do you see?”

What happened?! Emphasis. Continuously reading, you emphasize the dots, the black marks on the paper; you don’t see the white paper.

Just change the emphasis. Start looking at the white paper rather than at the black dot – and that brings great revolution.

When two thoughts are moving in you, between the two thoughts there is a gap, an interval, a pause. When two-words move-in you, between these two words there is a gap again. Just look-into the gaps more; become negligent of the words – look at the gaps.

Just standing on the road, try one experiment: you are standing on the road and cars are passing; maybe it is an international car rally and cars are passing. One car has gone, another car has gone, another car, but between two cars there are gaps . . . the road remains empty. Just change the emphasis! Just change the gestalt, as the Germans would like to say – change the gestalt, change the pattern.

Start looking between one gap and another gap. Rather than thinking one car has passed, another car has passed, another car has passed, start looking at the one gap that has passed, another gap, another gap – forget about the cars, start counting the gaps, how many gaps are passing. And you will be surprised – so many gaps are passing, and you had never seen them before!

Just a change of emphasis: move from the figure to the background. Thoughts are figures, conscious-ness is the background. Mind consists of figures and no-mind is the background. Just start looking into the gaps. Fall in love with the intervals! Go deeper into them, search more into them – they have real secrets in them. The mystery is hidden there. It is not in the words that pass in your mind; those words are trivia, impressions from the outside. But see on what they pass, those ripples; look into that conscious-ness. And it is infinite. It is your being.

That consciousness is called no-mind.

That is the meaning of the English expression ‘reading between the lines.’ Read between the lines and you will become a wise man. Read the lines and you will become an ugly scholar, a pundit, a parrot, a computer, a memory – a mind. Read between the lines and you will become a no-mind.

And no-mind is herenow.

-Osho

From Walk Without Feet, Fly Without Wings, Discourse #3, Q1

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

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

Start Remembering Yourself – Osho

In which way can the practice of self-remembering transform the human mind?

Man is not centered in himself. He is born centered, but the society, the family, the education, the culture, they push him off-center, and they put him off-center in a very cunning way, knowingly or unknowingly. So everyone becomes, in a sense, “eccentric” – off the center. There are reasons, survival reasons for it.

When a child is born, he has to be forced into a certain discipline. He cannot be allowed freedom. If he is allowed total freedom, he will remain with the center – spontaneous, living with himself, living himself. He will be original as he is. He will be authentic, and then there will be no need to practice any self-remembering. There will be no need to practice any meditation because he will never go off the center. He will remain with himself – centered, rooted, grounded in his own being. But this has not yet been possible. Meditation is, therefore, medicinal. The society creates the disease, and then the disease has to be treated.

Religion is medicinal. If a human society really based in freedom can be evolved, there would be no need of religion. Because we are ill medicine is needed, and because we are off-center methods of centering are needed. If someday it becomes possible on earth to create a healthy society, healthy in the inner sense, there will be no religion. But it seems difficult to create such a society.

The child has to be disciplined. What are you doing when you are disciplining a child? You are forcing something which is not natural to him. You are asking and demanding something which he will never do spontaneously. You will punish him, you will appreciate [him], you will bribe him, you will do everything to make him social – to take him away from his natural being. You will create a new center in his mind which was never there, and this center will grow, and the natural center will go into oblivion, into the unconscious.

Your natural center has moved into the unconscious, into the dark, and your unnatural center has become your conscious. There is really no division between unconscious and conscious; the division is created. You are one consciousness. This division comes because your own center has been forced to some dark corner. Even you are not in contact with it; you are not allowed to be in contact with it. You yourself have become unconscious that you have a center. You live what the society, the culture, the family have taught you to live.

You live a false life. For this false life, a false center is needed. That center is your ego, your conscious mind. That is why, no matter what you do, you will never be blissful – because only the real center can happen, only the real center can explode, can come to the climax, the optimum, of the possibility of bliss. The false center is a shadow game. You can play with it, you can hope with it, but ultimately nothing but frustration comes out of it. With a false anxiety that is bound to be so.

In a way everything is forcing you not to be yourself, and this cannot be changed just by saying that this is wrong, because society has its own needs. A child, when born, is just like an animal – spontaneous, centered, grounded, but so independent. He cannot become part of an organization. He is disturbing. He has to be forced, cultivated and changed. In this cultivation he has to be pushed off-center.

We live on the periphery, and we live only to the extent that the society allows us. Our freedom is false because the rules of the game, of the social game, are so deeply fixed that you may feel that you are choosing this and that, but you are not choosing. The choice comes from your cultivated mind, and this goes on in a mechanical way.

I am reminded of a man who married eight women in his life. He married one woman, then divorced her, then married another – very cautiously, very carefully, very carefully, in order not to fall into the old trap again. In every way he calculated, and he was thinking that this new woman was going to be totally different than the first one. But within a few days, with the honeymoon not yet even over, the new woman started to prove herself to be just the same as the old one, the first one. Within six months the marriage was shattered again. He married a third woman and now he was still more cautious, but again the same thing happened.

He married eight women, and every time the woman turned out to be the same as the old one. What was happening? And he was choosing very cautiously now, very carefully. What was happening? The chooser was unconscious. He couldn’t change the chooser, and the chooser was always the same, so the choice was going to be the same. And the chooser works unconsciously.

You go on doing this and that, and you go on changing outward things, but you remain the same. You remain off-center. Whatsoever you do, howsoever it is apparently different, it ultimately proves to be the same. The results are always the same; the outcome is always the same; the consequence is always the same.

Whenever you feel you are choosing and you are free, then too you are not free, and you are not choosing. The choice is also a mechanical thing. Scientists say, biologists particularly, that the mind becomes imprinted, and that happens very early. The first two or three years are the years for imprinting, and things become fixed in the mind. Then you go on doing the same; you go on repeating in a mechanical way. You are moving in a vicious circle.

The child is forced to be off-center. He has to be disciplined; he has to learn obedience. That is why we give so much value to obedience. And obedience destroys everyone, because obedience means now you are not the center: the other is the center; you are just to follow him.

Education is a necessity in order to survive, but we make this necessity to survive an excuse for submitting. We force everyone to be obedient. What does it mean? Obedient to whom? Always someone else – the father, the mother, someone else is there, and you have to be obedient to him. Why so much insistence for obedience? Because your father was forced to be obedient when he was a child; your mother was forced to be obedient when she was a child. They were forced off their centers; now they are doing the same. They are doing the same with their children, and these children will do the same again. This is how the vicious circle moves on.

Freedom is killed, and with freedom you lose your center. Not that the center is destroyed; it cannot be destroyed while you are alive. It would be good if it was destroyed; you would be more at ease with yourself. If you were totally false and there was no real center hidden within you, you would be at ease. There would be no conflict, no anxiety, no struggle.

The conflict comes into existence because the real remains there. It remains in the center, and just on the periphery an unreal center is created. Between these two centers a constant struggle, a constant anxiety, tension, is created. This must be transformed, and there is only one way: the false must disappear and the real must be given its place. You must be re-grounded into your center, into your being; otherwise, you will be in anguish.

The false can disappear. The real cannot disappear unless you die. While you are alive the real will be there. The society can do only one thing: it can push it deep down and it can create a barrier so that even you become unconscious of it. Can you remember any moment in your life when you were spontaneous, when you just lived in the moment – when you were living yourself and you were not following someone else?

I was reading one memoir of a poet. His father had died, and the dead body was put in a coffin. The poet, the son, was weeping, crying, and then suddenly he kissed the forehead of his father’s dead body and said, “There, now that you are dead, I can do this. I always wanted to kiss you on your forehead, but while you were alive it was impossible. I was so afraid of you.”

You can kiss only a dead father – and even if the alive father allows you to kiss, the kiss is going to be false; it cannot be spontaneous. A young boy cannot even kiss his mother spontaneously because always the fear of sex is there; the bodies must not come too closely in contact, even with the mother. Everything becomes false. There is fear and falsity – no freedom, no spontaneousness, and the real center can function only when you are spontaneous and free.

Now you will be able to understand what my attitude towards this question is: “In which way can the practice of self-remembering transform the human mind?” It will re-ground you; it will give you again roots into your own center. By self-remembering, you are forgetting everything other than yourself: the society, the mad world around you, the family, the relationships, everything, you are forgetting. You are simply remembering that you are.

This remembrance is not given by the society to you. This self-remembrance will detach you from all that is peripheral. And if you can remember, you will fall back to your own being, to your own center. The ego will be there just on the periphery, but you will be able to see it now. Like any other object, you will be able to observe it. And once you become capable of observing your ego, your false center, you will never be false again.

You may need your false center because you have to live in a society which is false. You will be able to use it now, but you will never be identified with it. It will be instrumental now. You will live on your center, in your center. You will be able to use the false as a social convenience, a convention, but you will not be identified with it. Now you know you can be spontaneous, free. Self-remembering transforms you because it gives you the opportunity to be yourself again – and to be oneself is the ultimate and to be oneself is the absolute.

The peak of all the possibilities, of all the potentialities, is the divine – or whatsoever you want to call it. God is not somewhere in the past; he is your future. You have heard it said again and again that God is the father. More significantly, he is going to be your son, not the father, because he is going to evolve out of you. So I say, “God the son,” because the father is in the past and the son is in the future.

You can become divine, God can be born out of you; if you are authentically yourself, you have taken the basic step. You are going towards divinity, towards total freedom. As a slave you cannot move to that. As a slave, as a false person, there is no path leading towards the divine, to the ultimate possibility, the ultimate flowering of your being. First you must be centered in yourself. Self-remembering helps and only self-remembering helps; nothing else can transform you. With the false center there is no growth – only accumulation – and remember the distinction between accumulation and growth. With the false center you can accumulate: you can accumulate wealth, you can accumulate knowledge, you can accumulate anything, without any growth. Growth happens only to the real center. Growth is not an accumulation; you are not burdened by growth. Accumulation is a burden.

You can know many things without knowing anything. You can know much about love without knowing love. Then it is an accumulation. If you know love, then it is growth. You can know much about love with the false center; you can love only with the real center. Real centers can mature. The false can only get bigger and bigger without any growth, without any maturity. The false is just a cancerous growth, an accumulation, burdening you like a disease.

But you can do one thing: you can change your focus totally. From the false, you can move your eyes to the real. This is what is meant by self-remembering: whatsoever you are doing, remember yourself – that you are. Don’t forget it. The very remembering will give an authentic reality to whatsoever you are doing. If you are loving, first remember that you are; otherwise you will be loving from the false center. And from the false center you can only pretend; you cannot love. If you are praying, first remember that you are; otherwise the prayer is going to be just nonsense, just a deception. And you are not deceiving anyone else; you are deceiving yourself.

First remember that you are, and this remembering that “I am” must become so basic that it follows you like a shadow. Then even while asleep it will enter, and you will remember. If you can remember the whole day, by and by, it enters even in your dreams, even in your sleep, and you will know that “I am.”

The day you can know even in your sleep that you are, you are grounded in your center. Now the false is no more; it is not a burden to you. You can use it now, it is instrumental. You are not a slave to it, you have become the master.

Krishna says in the Gita that while everyone is asleep, the yogi is not: he is awake. It is not meant that the yogi lives without sleep, because sleep is a biological, bodily necessity. What is meant is that he remembers even in his sleep that he is – that “I am.” Sleep is just on the periphery. In the center the remembrance is there.

The yogi remembers even while he is asleep, and you are not remembering yourself even while you are awake. You are walking on the street, but you are not remembering that you are. Try, and you will feel a change of quality. Try to remember that you are. Suddenly a new lightness comes to you, the heaviness disappears; you become weightless. You are thrown off the false center to the real once again, but it is difficult and arduous because we are so much grounded in the false. It will take time, but no transformation is possible without self-remembering becoming effortless for you. You simply start remembering yourself; otherwise, no transformation is possible.

-Osho

From The Book of Secrets, Discourse #36, Q1

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.

Tag: Being

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