Tag: effort

Stages or No Stages? – Osho

Are there really discrete stages on the way to the ultimate happening, as this Upanishad seems to suggest, or does this happening occur suddenly and unexpectedly? Is it a matter of long conscious effort, or of a sudden total surrender to existence?

It is both. You have to make all effort that is possible, that you can do. No stone should be left unturned, no energies should be left unused. You must get totally involved. You are required to work as a unit, only then the flowering, the happening, will become possible. But that doesn’t mean that it is an outcome of your effort; just by your effort it is not going to happen. This is a little delicate and you will have to be very penetrating about it, then only will you understand.

Look at it in this way. You see a person walking on the street. Suddenly you have a feeling that you remember the face, or you feel that you even know the name, and you say it is just on the tip of your tongue, but it is not coming. The more effort you make the more frustrated you feel – it is not coming. But you cannot leave it at that, because you have the feeling that you know this face, you know the name. And there is even this feeling that somewhere, just in the corner of the mind, the name is waiting, you have only to recall it.

You make all effort; you try in every way. You close your eyes, you contemplate, you ponder over it, you try to associate, you go into the past, you start feeling for some key, some clue, but nothing happens. You get frustrated, bored; you leave the whole effort, and you go into the garden and start working, or you start smoking, or you take a cup of tea. Suddenly the name is there, suddenly the memory has come, suddenly you have recognized.

Now two things are happening. One: you are making every effort possible, but it is not coming through the effort. Then you leave all the effort, and then it comes. Effort is needed but is not enough. If you don’t make any effort, it will not come when you go to the garden or when you take a cup of tea. If you have not made total effort, it is not going to come. And if you make just the effort – total even – then too it is not going to come. So total effort is needed, then total relaxation also – then it will bubble up.

Many Nobel prizes have been given for certain discoveries which happened in this way. One Nobel prize winner was working on the inner structure of the human cell, the lymph cell. He was working for years, contemplating, brooding, making many experiments, and nothing was happening, every effort was a failure. After many years of research, effort, failure, one night suddenly he had a dream, and in the dream he saw the structure, the very structure he was looking for, the structure of the human cell, just as if a magnified picture was there. He got up. Immediately he drew the drawing and then he worked on it, and it proved that the dream was true.

But remember, you are not going to have this dream, it cannot happen to you. It happened after so many years of effort. The conscious was exhausted. The conscious did everything that could be done and then the conscious was tired, the conscious mind was finished, the conscious accepted the failure. When the conscious is exhausted the unconscious comes into focus and starts working – but it comes only when the conscious is exhausted. If the conscious is still hoping, if the conscious is still trying, then the unconscious will not function. And this is one of the basic laws of the human psyche: that if you want the unconscious to function, exhaust the conscious completely. Effort will not lead you to enlightenment, but without effort no one has ever achieved it. This may look like a paradox. It is not, it is a simple law.

Buddha tried for six years continuously, and no man has tried as totally as Buddha did. He made every effort possible; he went to every master available. There was not a single master Buddha did not go to. He surrendered to every master, and whatsoever was said he did so perfectly that even the master started feeling jealous. And every master finally had to say to Buddha, “This is all I can teach. And if nothing is happening, I cannot blame you, because you are doing everything so perfectly. I am helpless. You will have to move to some other teacher.”

This rarely happens because disciples never do everything so perfectly, so the master can always say, “Because you are not doing well, that’s why nothing is happening.” But Buddha was doing so well, so absolutely well, that no master could say to him, “You are not doing well.” So they had to accept defeat. They had to say, “This is all we can teach, and you have done it and nothing is happening, so it is better you move to some other master. You don’t belong to me.”

Buddha moved for six years, and he followed even absurd techniques when they were taught to him. Somebody said “Fast,” so for months he fasted. For six months he was continuously fasting, just taking a very small quantity of food every fifteen days, only twice a month. He became so weak that he was simply a skeleton. All flesh disappeared; he looked like a dead man. He became so weak that he couldn’t even walk. He finally became so weak that he would close his eyes to meditate, and he would fall down in a fit.

One day he was taking a bath in the river Niranjana, just near Bodhgaya, and he was so weak that he couldn’t cross the river. He fell down in the river and he thought that he was going to be drowned; it was the last moment, death had come. He was so weak he couldn’t swim. Then suddenly he caught hold of a branch of a tree and remained there. And there for the first time the thought came to his mind, “If I have become so weak that I cannot cross this ordinary small river in summertime when the water has gone completely, when there is no more water and it is very small, just a little stream – if I cannot cross this little stream, how can I cross this big ocean of the world, bhavasagar? How can I transcend this world? It seems impossible. I am doing something stupid. What to do?”

He came out of the river in the evening and sat under a tree, which became the bodhi tree, and that evening when the moon was coming up – it was a full moon night – he realized that every effort is useless. He realized that nothing can be achieved, the very idea of achievement is nonsense. He had done everything. He was finished with the world, with the world of desires. He was a king and he had known every desire; he had lived every desire. He was finished with them, there was nothing to be achieved, there was nothing worthwhile. And then for six years he had been trying all austerities, all efforts, all meditations, yoga, everything, and nothing was happening. So he said, “Now there is nothing more except to die. There is nothing to be achieved, and every concept of achievement is nonsense; human desire is but futile.”

So he dropped all effort that evening. He sat under the tree, relaxed, with no effort, no goal, nowhere to go, nothing to be achieved, nothing worth achieving. When you are in such a state of mind, mind relaxes – no future, no desire, no goal, nowhere to go, so what to do? He simply sat; he became just like the tree. The whole night he slept, and later on Buddha said that for the first time he really slept that night – because when effort is there it continues in sleep also.

A person who is earning money and who is after money goes on counting even in his dreams, a person who is after power and prestige and politics goes on fighting elections in his dreams. You all know that when you are sitting for an examination in the university or college, in sleep also you go on doing the examination; again and again you are in the examination hall answering questions. So whatsoever effort is there it continues in sleep – and there is always some effort for something or other.

That night there was no effort. Buddha said, “I slept for the first time in millions of lives. That was the first night that I slept.” Such a sleep becomes samadhi. And in the morning when he awoke, he saw the last star disappear. He looked. His eyes for the first time must have been mirrorlike, with no content, just vacant, empty, nothing to project. The last star was disappearing, and Buddha said, “With that disappearing star I also disappeared. The star was disappearing and I also disappeared” – because the ego can exist only with effort. If you make some effort ego is fed – you are doing something, you are reaching somewhere, you are achieving something. When there is no effort how can you exist?

The last star disappeared, “And,” Buddha said, “I also disappeared. And then I looked, the sky was vacant; then I looked within, there was nothing – anatta, no self, there was no one.”

It is said Buddha laughed at the whole absurdity. There was no one who could reach. There was no one who could reach the goal, there was no one who could achieve liberation – there was no one at all, no entity. Space was without, space was within. “And,” he said, “at that moment of total effortlessness I achieved, I realized.” But don’t go to relax under a tree, and don’t wait for the last star to disappear. And don’t wait thinking that with the last star disappearing you will disappear. Those six years must precede. So this is the problem: without effort no one has ever achieved, with only effort no one has ever achieved. With effort coming to a point where it becomes effortlessness, realization has always been possible.

This is what I go on emphasizing for you to do: make as much effort as you can, and don’t withhold any energy. Bring your total energy into it so you get exhausted, so the conscious mind cannot make any more effort. When the conscious cannot do anything, suddenly the unconscious reveals. And it reveals only when the conscious has become a total failure, only then it is needed – otherwise it goes on sleeping inside.

It is just like this. Every human body has three layers of energies. The first layer is only for day-to-day work: eating, sleeping, walking to the office, working in the office, coming home, fighting, making love, anger – routine. The first layer. It has not got very much energy, just routine energy.

The second layer is for emergency situations. Unless the first is exhausted the second is not available. You are tired. You have come from the office; the boss has been very insulting. You come home and the wife is very bad-tempered, the children are creating noise, and the whole house is a mess. You feel tired and dead, and suddenly you find that the house has caught fire, it is on fire. Tiredness disappears immediately. You need not do anything; you don’t even have to take a cup of coffee. Tiredness is no more. The house is on fire, and you have got so much energy that you can work the whole night. From where is this energy coming? The first layer is exhausted, and an emergency is there – the second layer becomes available.

And there is a third layer which is the real source, the source of all energy. You may call it the infinite source, the elan vital. When the second layer is also exhausted, only then the third becomes available. And when the third is available you are totally different: you have become divine, because now the source is infinite, you cannot exhaust it.

We live on the first layer and only sometimes in emergencies, accidents, in some dangerous situations where life is at stake, does the second become available. The third remains almost unavailable. All the effort in spiritual sadhana, discipline, is to exhaust the first. Then austerities, arduous efforts, are to exhaust the second. When the second is exhausted you fall into the ocean, and it can never be exhausted. And from that source, the original source – you may call it God, or whatsoever you like – from that original source, once a contact is made, you are totally different. This is what liberation means, this is what becoming infinite means, this is what Jesus used to call the kingdom of God.

But remember, you cannot just slip into it, it is not available. You have to exhaust the first layer and the second layer, only then it becomes available. Effort is needed to exhaust these layers, and then effortlessness is needed to enter the original source.

So the first thing to be understood: effort is needed, but effort alone is not enough – effort and then effortlessness, effort plus effortlessness. Effort precedes, and then effortlessness follows. Effortlessness is the peak of effort; it comes only when you have reached the peak. And this is so difficult to conceive that there are many misunderstandings.

In Japan, Zen, which is an offshoot of the Indian dhyana, says no effort is needed. And it is right. Because of this Zen has become very influential in the West. And the West has created its own Zen writers – they are Zen writers, not Zen masters. And it has much appeal; no effort is needed; you can become enlightened without any effort. So in the West there are many Zen writers, Zen painters, Zen haiku poets – and they are all bogus, because they have taken this idea.

This idea is very appealing, that there is no need of any effort. If there is no need of any effort, then as you are you are a master, you are enlightened, you have become a siddha. But then look at the Zen monasteries in Japan. If you read Zen scriptures, there it is written that there is no need of effort. But then go to the Zen monastery and look: for twenty years, thirty years, a seeker has to make all the efforts. Then the moment comes when that scripture becomes applicable – then, no effort.

Effort will lead you to no effort, and this is a basic law. You can understand if you try to observe your own life. For example, if in the day you have been working hard, sleep will be deep in the night. If you have been working hard, exerting hard, then sleep will be good. If you have slept well in the night, then in the morning you will be capable of doing much hard work again. Hard work is against relaxation, it is the opposite. This would be more logical – that you sleep the whole day, rest, and then in the night you fall into deeper sleep because you have been practicing sleep the whole day. This should be the logic – that a man who has been practicing sleep the whole day must sleep better in the night than others who have not been practicing so much.

Mulla Nasruddin once went to his doctor. He had a cold and had been coughing for many days. As he was entering his doctor’s office he coughed. The doctor heard and said, “Nasruddin, it sounds better.”

Nasruddin said, “Of course it must because I have been practicing for three months.”

But logic is not life. If you sleep and rest the whole day you will not be able to rest at all in the night. That’s what is happening with rich people in affluent societies. Insomnia is a luxury, not everybody can afford it. To attain insomnia, you have to rest for the whole day. If you can afford that much rest, only then is insomnia possible. A poor man cannot afford it. He has to fall in deep sleep, he is helpless. He has been working hard the whole day.

But work is against rest, so it is not logical – but this is the logic of life. Life depends on opposites; life depends on opposite polarities. Logic is linear, life is polar. Logic moves in a line; life moves in a circle. So a person who has been relaxing will not be able to relax in the night, a person who has been working hard the whole day will be able to relax.

Or look at it from another angle. A person who is always loving, never angry, really cannot be loving. Ordinary logic will say that a person can be loving in the morning, loving in the noon, loving in the evening, loving in the night; always loving in summer, always loving in winter – every season, every moment loving. This love is not humanly possible, because the opposite is needed. He must sometimes become angry. That anger relaxes, that anger becomes the valley and then peaks of love can arise again.

If you want only peaks and no valleys, you are mad. Only peaks cannot exist. With every peak at least two valleys will be needed, and only between two valleys is one peak possible. So a person who is always loving is possible only in two ways. One is that he is not human. That means he must be a buddha, who can be always loving. But then his love cannot have any intensity, his love will be very silent. His love will not be like a peak, it will be just plain straight ground.

That’s why a buddha’s love can only be called compassion, it cannot be called love. There is no passion in it, it is compassion. There can be no intensity in it, because intensity comes from the opposite. A buddha is never angry, so from where can the intensity come?

In ordinary life you have to be angry, then you regain love. In marriage there is no need for the final divorce if every day you can divorce a little. In the morning divorce, in the evening remarriage, then things move beautifully. And if you go on postponing this everyday divorce then finally you will have to break, then separation is a must. Life is polarity, and this applies to everything. Effort plus effortlessness – they are the polar opposites. The ultimate is reached through effort and effortlessness, so don’t cling to one – remember both.

Both the parties exist; there are a few persons who go on clinging to the method, effort, and then they go on making effort. Even if nirvana has been reached, they cannot be stopped. They will go on breathing, they will say, “We cannot stop. Effort is needed.” So even if God is standing before them they will go on doing chaotic breathing; they will not look, they will not look and see what has happened. They are too much attached to the method and the effort.

And then there is the other polar opposite party. They say, “If no effort is needed then why breathe at all?” So they are sitting just waiting for the last star to disappear so that they can become buddhas. Both are wrong. You have to breathe, and you have to stop also. You have to make all efforts and then relax also. If these are both possible, only then will you create the rhythm through which every growth becomes possible.

The second thing: “Are there really discrete stages on the way to the ultimate happening, as this Upanishad seems to suggest?”

There are no stages. Life cannot be divided. But without division there is no possibility for you to understand. I call this part of my body my hand; this part of my body my head – but can they be divided? Where my head begins and where it ends – can you draw the line? Nowhere can the line be drawn. Where my legs end, where my hand ends – can you draw a line? No line can be drawn, because inside I am one – my hands, my legs, my head, they are one. But we have to divide to understand. Division is just to help understanding, it is not actual fact.

So this Upanishad is dividing, not because divisions are there, but because you will not be able to understand the whole. The whole will be too much, too complex. The whole will be incomprehensible, and understanding will not be possible. That’s why the division into seven stages, and that’s why there are so many divisions. You can divide in fourteen, you can divide in seventeen – you can divide into as many as you like. And theologians go on fighting about these divisions. They are workable, utilitarian – not existential.

Just feel your body, close your eyes and feel. Where are the divisions? It is one. But if your eyes are not functioning well you will go to the eye specialist. And you know that eyes are not separate, they are one with the body, so then why go to the eye specialist? You can go to any doctor. The eye specialist has tried to understand eyes . . . because eyes in themselves are such a big, such a complex phenomenon, that just to understand those eyes medical science has divided the body in parts. There are millions of parts in the body, and as science grows more divisions have to be made. But those divisions are just workable, utilitarian – you are not divided.

I have heard one story. Once it happened, one master had two disciples and they both were always competing. Who was the head, who was the chief disciple, was always the competition and the problem. And they were always competing with each other to gain the master’s heart.

One summer afternoon the master was tired and was sleeping. The disciples wanted to serve him, to massage his body, so the master said, “Okay. Number one, you take my left side. Number two, you take my right side and massage.” The master fell asleep. They drew a line with chalk on his body, because one should not enter into the other’s territory.

But it happened the master was not aware that he had been divided. He was fast asleep, and he didn’t know that now he was not one, but two. So he moved in his sleep and put his right leg on his left. The disciple to whom the left leg belonged said, “Take away your right leg. Remove it immediately! You are interfering with my work. This is a transgression!”

But the other said, “I cannot remove it. I have not put it on your leg. And if you have any courage, then remove it yourself and see what happens!”

Now they were standing with two sticks, and they were almost going to beat the master. Suddenly the master became aware that something was wrong, so he asked, “What is happening?”

Both said, “You need not interfere. Remain silent and go to sleep. We will decide by ourselves.”

All divisions are workable, life remains one. The path and the goal and the stages, they are just to help you, so don’t take them dogmatically and don’t take them literally. These seven stages are just to help you, to give you a view of the whole path. When you have understood forget that they are seven. But until you have understood follow the division. When you have understood forget the division – it is one progression, one flow.

And thirdly: “Does this happening occur suddenly and unexpectedly?”

Both things can be said. It cannot be predicted, so it happens suddenly. Nobody can say when it will happen. My own disciples go on asking me, “When? Give the date, the day, the month, the year!” And I have to go on lying to them. I go on saying, “Soon!” Soon doesn’t mean anything. And soon is a beautiful word, because I need never change it. Whenever you ask, I will say, “Soon!”

The happening is unpredictable because it is so vast a phenomenon. And it is not mechanical, it is not mathematical, so you cannot conclude about it. And it is very mysterious; when it has happened, only then you know that it has happened. So in a sense, because it is unpredictable it is always sudden. Even you don’t know when it will happen. Suddenly one day when it has happened you become aware that it has happened. Not even a single moment before will you be aware that this is going to happen. You will become aware only when it has happened already. Then you will feel that you are no more the same, the man who was there has disappeared and a new man is there in his place – somebody new. You are unacquainted, you cannot recognize yourself. There has been a gap, the old continuity has been broken and something new has come into its place.

Even your master cannot predict it. He may become aware that something is going to happen, but he cannot predict it. There are problems – because even the prediction will change the whole situation. This is the problem, even the prediction will change it. If I become aware that something is going to happen to you tomorrow morning, I cannot say it because that will change the whole situation. If I say, “Tomorrow morning this is going to happen,” you will become tense and you will start expecting and you will start waiting. You will not be able to sleep in the night. Then the whole thing is finished, then it is not going to happen tomorrow morning.

Even if your master becomes aware . . . because there are signs that show that something is going to happen. Your master can see that you are pregnant, he can feel, but it is not such a fixed affair that within nine months the child will be born. You may take nine years, you may take nine lives, you may not take even nine days; even nine moments may be enough. It depends, and it depends on such multidimensional things that nothing can be said. And if something is said, the very assertion will change the whole situation. So the master has to wait, just watch and not say anything.

In this sense it is sudden, but in another sense, it is not sudden, because you have to make efforts for it, you have to prepare. You have to prepare the ground; you have to open the doors. The guest may come suddenly, but if your doors are closed he may come and go back. So you have to open the doors, you have to clean the house, you have to prepare food for the guest – you have to be ready. You have to watch and wait at the door – any moment the guest can come.

Jesus goes on telling one anecdote many times. Once it happened, a great landlord went on a journey. He told all his slaves and servants, “Be alert constantly. Even in the night the house must be ready because I can come any moment. In the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, at midnight – any moment I can come, and my house must be ready, waiting for me. So twenty-four hours you have to watch and wait. Don’t go to sleep!”

And so the servants had to wait and watch. There was no difference between day and night – the master could come any moment.

Jesus used to say, “Your master also can come any moment – you have to be ready. And if you are ready, your readiness also becomes a factor for his coming soon. If you are completely ready he may come back from mid-journey. If your whole being is calling him, inviting him, he may come this very moment.”

The happening can happen any moment if you are ready. It is sudden because unpredictable; it is sudden because you cannot plan, calculate; it is sudden because it is not mechanical. But still you have to prepare for it, you have to be ready for it, and you have to do much before it can happen.

It is just as if you sow a seed in the ground. You prepare the ground and sow the seed – the right seed in the right season in a right place – and then wait. The sprouting will be sudden, you cannot determine it. You cannot say that on Monday morning the sprout will be there. It may not be, it may be, because millions of factors are working. Now scientists say that even music helps. If somebody is dancing and singing near that ground where you have sown the seed, it may help the seed to sprout quickly. If the moon is rising it will help the seed to sprout soon. If the moon is declining it will take more time.

You may not be aware that full moon night is different from any other night. More children are born on full moon night, more than on any other night. The highest number of children born is on the full moon night, and the lowest number is on the no-moon night. That factor goes on working; the whole constellation goes on working – every star is a factor. Even a beggar sitting there near your house and singing will help. If somebody passes, sad, miserable, the seed is affected; that sadness hinders.

There are millions of factors, unpredictable, complex, mysterious – but still you have to prepare everything. So don’t wait for the sudden. “Sudden” doesn’t mean that you need not do anything and it will happen any moment, suddenly. You will have to prepare, and then too it will happen suddenly. Your preparation will help, but it cannot plan, it cannot force.

-Osho

From Vedanta: Seven Steps to Samadhi, Discourse #9, Q2

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

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The Purity of the Path – Osho

Seeing the dialectical facts of life, can one practice the path of relaxation and the path of effort simultaneously?

No, it is not possible! You cannot practice both simultaneously because both are diametrically opposite. They lead to one point, but they don’t pass through the same road, through the same route, through the same realms. They are quite diametrically opposite.

You cannot practice both, just like you cannot go to one place simultaneously following two roads. Two roads may be going. You are going to the station and two roads may be going to the station, but you cannot follow both the roads simultaneously. And if you do follow them, you will not reach the station. Both roads go, but then you will not reach because then you will have to go ten steps on one, then come back, follow the other, then come back, follow the first one. Then you can follow much, but you will reach nowhere.

Every way is a particular way. It has its own route, its own steps, its own milestones, its own symbols, its own philosophy, its own methodology, its own vehicles, its own mediums of movement. It has its own everything: every way is a perfect way. So never be in two minds. It will simply create confusion. Follow one! When you reach to the end, you will know that even if you had followed the other you would have reached. When you have reached, you can try just as a play to go on the other – that’s another thing – just to know whether this road also comes or not. But don’t follow two simultaneously, because every path is so scientifically perfect that this will only create disturbance.

Really, in the old days, even to know about the other path was prohibited because even that knowing creates disturbance. And our minds are so childish and so curious, and foolishly curious, that if we hear about something else or read about something else, we begin to amalgamate. And we don’t know that anything which is meaningful on a particular path may be just harmful on another. So you cannot amalgamate. Some part in one car may be meaningful, useful – so useful that the car cannot move without it. But the same part can become a hindrance in another car. Don’t use it, because every part is meaningful only in its own pattern, in its own gestalt. The moment you change the whole, the part becomes a hindrance.

So much confusion has come into the religious world because now every religion is known to everybody, every path is known, and you are just confused. Now, to find a Christian is difficult, to find a Hindu is difficult, to find a Mohammedan is difficult, because everyone is just something of a Hindu, something of a Mohammedan, something of a Christian – and that creates a lot of danger. It is dangerous. It may prove suicidal.

So purity of path is a basic necessity for one who has to follow. If one has just to think about it, then there is no need for any purity. You can go on thinking. But if you are to travel, then purity of the path is very essential. And you must be aware not to confuse anything and not to bring any alien, foreign element in it.

It doesn’t mean that the other is wrong. It only means that the other is right only on the other’s path. You need not take the other conclusion that “Only I am right and the other is wrong.” The other is right in its own way. And if you have to follow another path, just go to the other’s way leaving your way completely.

That is why the old religions – and there are only two basic religions: Hindu and Jewish – were never ready to convert anyone. And the only reason was this, that they knew a very old, very deep tradition – that to convert is to confuse. If someone has been brought up as a Christian and you convert him into a Hindu, you will just confuse him because now he cannot forget that which he has known. Now you cannot just wash it out. It will remain there, and on that foundation, whatsoever you give him as Hinduism will not mean the same because his old foundation will always be there. You will just confuse him, and that confusion will not make him religious, cannot make him.

So the old religions – really, there are just two old religions, the Jewish and the Hindu, and all other religions are just branches of those – have remained very dogmatically non-converting. The Hindu concept was disturbed by Dayananda. Because his mind was working in a political way, not in a religious one, he began to convert. But that concept has a beauty of its own. It doesn’t mean that other religions are bad; it doesn’t mean that others are not right. It doesn’t mean anything like that. It only means that if you have been brought up in a particular concept, it is better to follow that – follow that! It has gone deep in your bones and blood, so it is better to follow that.

But now it has become impossible, and it will never be possible now again because the old patterns have broken. Now, no one can be a Christian, no one can be a Hindu. That is not possible now, so a new categorization is needed. Now I don’t categorize as Hindu and Mohammedan and Christian. That categorization is not possible now. It is just dead and must be thrown away. Now we must categorize every path.

For example, there are two basic divisions: the path of relaxation and the path of effort, the path of surrender and the path of will. This is a basic division. Then other divisions will follow, but these two are basic and quite diametrically opposite. The path of relaxation means surrender just here and now with no effort. If you can, you can. If you cannot, you cannot. If you can, you can. If you cannot, you cannot – there is no go. The path of surrender is very simple: Surrender! If you ask how, then you are not for this path, because the “how” belongs to the other path. Mm? “How” means by what effort, by what technique: “How am I to surrender?” If you ask, “How I am to surrender?” then you are not for the path of surrender. Then go to the other.

If you can just surrender without asking how, only then is it possible. So it seems simple, but it is very difficult, very arduous, because the “how” comes instantaneously. If I say “Surrender!” you have not even heard the word and the “how” comes up: “How?” – then you are not for this path. Then the other path is of will, effort, endeavor. Then every “how” is supplied – how to do it. Then there are many ways. So surrender has only one way, and there are no branches. There cannot be. There cannot be different types of surrender. Surrender is simply surrender. There are no types. Types belong to techniques. There can be different techniques; but because there is no technique surrender remains the purest path, without any division.

Then the second: the path of will. It has many divisions. All the yogas, methods, belong to the second. The second says, “You cannot relax just now, so we will prepare you: a preparation is needed. So follow these methods, and a moment will come when you will drop.”

They look difficult – they are not! They look difficult because they say preparation, methods, years of training and discipline are necessary. So they look difficult, but they are not – because the more time is given to you, the more simplified the process becomes. And surrender is the most difficult process because no time is allowed. They say, “Just here and now.” If you can, you can. If you cannot, you cannot.

Baso, a Zen monk, would say to whosoever would come, “Surrender!” If the person asks, “How?” he would say, “Go elsewhere!” His whole life he used only two statements continuously – never a third. He would say, “Surrender!” If you would say, “How?” he would say, “Go somewhere else!”

Sometimes some persons came who would not ask, “How?” and would surrender. But rare becomes the phenomenon! As our modern mind progresses surrender will be rare, surrender will be difficult, because surrender means an innocence, a trusting mind, an absolute faith. It doesn’t need effort; it needs faith. It doesn’t ask for the method and the way and the bridge; it takes the jump. It doesn’t ask for the steps – it doesn’t ask anything.

But the other path is of effort, tension. And many methods are possible, because to do something there are many techniques. There are many techniques for how to create the ultimate tension so that you explode. But never follow both. You cannot follow! You can just go on thinking about both. And don’t confuse. Determine clearly, exactly, which is for you.

Can you trust? Are you ready without any “how” to take the jump? If not, then forget relaxation, then forget surrender, then even forget the very word – because you cannot understand it. Then effort – and this Upanishad is talking about effort: upward effort, a continuous arrowing of the mind towards the peak.

-Osho

From The Ultimate Alchemy, V.1, 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.

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.

Grace and Effort – Osho

Does one attain to meditation through God’s grace?

It will be useful to understand this thing, because it has led to lots of misunderstandings and mistakes. A good number of people have thought that if meditation is attained through God’s grace then there is no need to do anything, and they did not do a thing. You are grievously mistaken if you mean by God’s grace that you don’t have to do anything.

Another misunderstanding that flows from it is that God’s grace is not equally available to everybody, that some persons receive more of it and others less. But in fact, no one is God’s chosen one; no one is his favorite. And if even God has his favorites then there is no hope for justice in the world. If you mean by God’s grace that God is kind to some and unkind to others then you are wholly mistaken.

But the statement that one attains to meditation through God’s grace is quite correct in another sense. Really it is not the statement of those who have yet to attain to meditation. It is the statement of the enlightened ones – those who have attained to it. It is so because when it happens, when one comes to it, the efforts he had made seem to be utterly irrelevant. In the context of the attainment, which is so immense, the efforts look so petty that one simply can’t say that he came to it through them. When one comes to it he feels so overwhelmed with its immensity that he says, “How could it have happened through my efforts? What had I done to find it? What price had I paid? What had I staked on it? Did I have a thing that I could have offered? Nothing.” When God’s bliss showers on anyone he just exclaims, “It is through thy compassion, O Lord, it is through thy grace, that I come to thee! Otherwise it was beyond me, impossibly beyond me.”

But remember that this is the statement of the blessed ones, the enlightened ones. If the unenlightened, the initiates cling to it they will be misled forever. Efforts are essential; one must make efforts.

The happening of meditation or enlightenment or whatsoever you call it is like opening the doors of a house in darkness to let in the sun. Although the sun has risen in the east, if we keep the doors of our house shut we will be always in the dark. And if we open the doors and wait, the sun will come in on his own. No other effort is needed to bring the sun in; we cannot put him or his light in a container and take it to our house. He comes on his own accord. The irony is that while our efforts cannot bring him, they can certainly keep him out, prevent him from coming. If we shut the doors or close our eyes, even the sun will be powerless to do anything. We can keep the sun out of our houses, we are capable of stopping the sun; but we are not capable of ushering him in. Only let the door open, and he will come in. And when the sun is in, we cannot say that we brought him in, we cannot take that credit. We can only say that it was his kindness that he came into our house. And we can only say that we were merciful to ourselves that we did not shut our doors.

Man can only be an opening, a door for God to come in. Our efforts only open the door; his coming depends on him, on his compassion. And his compassion is infinite, it is forever present at every doorstep. But what can he do if he finds many doors closed to him? God knocks at every door and goes back when he finds the doors shut. And we have closed our doors so firmly. So whenever he comes and knocks, we rationalize it, we explain it away in so many ways, and we remain content with it.

I would like to tell you a story that I love to tell. There is a great temple with a hundred priests to look after it. One night the chief priest went to bed and dreamed that God has sent word that he will visit their temple the next day. He did not believe it, because it is difficult to come across people who are more disbelieving than the priests. He did not believe his dream for another reason, too. People who trade in religion never come to believe in religion. They only exploit religion, which never becomes their faith, their truth. No one in the world is more faithless than one who turns faith into a means of exploitation. So the chief priest could not believe that God would really this temple.

The priest had never believed in such things, although he had been a priest for long years. He had worshipped God for long and he knew that God had never visited his temple even once. Each day he had offered food to God, and he knew that he had in reality offered it to himself. He had also prayed to God every day, but he knew well that his prayers were lost in the empty sky, because there was no one to hear them. So he thought that the message was not true, it was just a dream, and a dream rarely turns into a reality.

But then he was afraid, too, lest the dream should come true. At times what we call a dream turns into a reality and a reality as we know it proves to be a dream. Sometimes what we think to be a dream really becomes a reality. So the chief priest ultimately decided to inform his close colleagues about his last night’s dream. He said to the other priests, “Although it seems to be a joke, yet I should tell you about it. Last night I dreamed that God said that he would visit us today.” The other priests laughed and they said, “Are you mad that you believe in dreams? However, don’t tell others about it; otherwise they will take you to be crazy.” But the head priest said, “In case he should come, we should be prepared for it. There is no harm if he does not turn up, but if at all he comes, we will not be found wanting.”

So the whole temple and its premises were scrubbed, washed and cleaned thoroughly. It was decorated with flowers and flags and festoons. Lamps were lit and incense burned. Perfumes were sprayed and every kind of preparation made. The priests tired themselves out in the course of the day, but God did not turn up. Every now and then they looked up the road, they were disappointed, and they said, “Dream is a dream after all; God is not going to come. We were fools to believe so. It was good that we did not inform the people of the town; otherwise they would have simply laughed at us.”

By evening the priests gave up all hope, and they said, “Let us now eat the sumptuous food cooked for God. It has ever been so: what we offer to God is consumed by us in the end. No one is going to turn up. We were crazy enough to believe in a dream. The irony is that we knowingly made fools of ourselves. If others go mad, they can be excused, because they don’t know. But we know God never comes. Where is God? There is this idol in the temple; it is all there is to it. And it is our business, our profession to worship him.” And then they ate well and went to bed early as they were tired.

When it was midnight a chariot pulled up at the gate of the temple, and its sound was heard. One of the sleeping priests heard it and thought that it was God’s chariot. He shouted to others, “Listen friends and wake up. It seems he, whom we expected all day, has arrived at long last. The noise of the chariot is heard.” The other priests snubbed him saying, “Shut up, you crazy one. We have had enough of madness all through the day, now that it is night let us sleep well. It is not the sound of a chariot, but the rumblings of the clouds in the skies.” So they explained the thing away and returned to their beds.

Then the chariot halted at the gate, and someone climbed the steps of the temple and knocked at its door. And again one of the priests woke up from sleep and shouted to his associates, “It seems the guest has arrived whom we awaited the whole day long. He is knocking at the door.” The other priests berated him as they had done with the first. They said, “Are you not crazy? Won’t you allow us to sleep? It is just the dash of winds against the door and not a knock of a caller.” So they again rationalized and went back to their beds.

The next morning they woke up and walked to the gates of the temple. And they were astounded to see a few footprints on the steps of the temple. Surely enough someone had climbed them during the night. And then they noticed some marks of a chariot’s wheels on the road, and there was now no doubt at all that a chariot had arrived at the gate in the night. And strangely enough the footprints on the steps were absolutely uncommon and unknown. Now the priests burst into tears and fell down and began to roll on the ground where the chariot had halted. And soon the whole village was at the temple’s gates. Everybody in the crowd asked with bewilderment, “What is the matter?” The priests said, “Don’t ask what the matter is. God knocked at the door of our temple last night, but we rationalized everything. We are now damned. He knocked at the door and we thought that it was the flapping sound of the winds. His chariot came, and we thought that it was the rumble of thunder in the sky. The truth is that we did not understand anything. We only explained them away, because we wanted to enjoy our sleep.”

God knocks at every door. His grace visits every home. But our doors are shut. And even when we hear a knock we immediately rationalize it and explain it away. In the old days they said that “A guest is God”. There is a slight mistake in this maxim. The truth is that God is the guest. God is waiting as a guest at our doorsteps, but the door is closed. His grace is equally available to all. Therefore don’t ask whether one attains through his grace; one attains through his grace alone. And as far as our efforts are concerned, they are a help in opening the door, in removing the hurdles from the way.

When he comes, he comes on his own accord.

-Osho

From In Search of the Miraculous, Discourse #6, Q1

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

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.