Mabel Collins – Sat Sangha Salon

Seeking the Way – Osho

Seek out the way.

Pause and consider awhile. Is it the way you desire, or is it that there is a dim perspective in your visions of great heights to be scaled by yourself, of a great future for you to compass? Be warned. The way is to be sought for its own sake, not with regard to your feet that shall tread it.

Seek out the way. The way is not known. It cannot be made known to you by others; it cannot be given to you. The way cannot be shown, it cannot be transferred. You have to seek it.

Ordinarily, we think that we have to seek the goal, but the way is already given. There are so many ways that people go on talking about and they all reach the same goal. The goal has to be discovered, the goal has to be reached, but the way? The way is available. In fact, it is too available, there are too many ways.

But it is not so, because the goal and the way are not two things. The way itself becomes the goal. The first step is also the last because the way and the goal are not two things. The way as you proceed on it, transforms itself into the goal. The real thing is not to think about the goal. The basic thinking has to be about the way. Discover the way: Seek out the way.

But our minds are so conditioned that everyone thinks he has been given a way by birth. Someone is a Christian, someone is a Hindu, someone is a Mohammedan. They think that the way has been given to them by society, by the culture, by their education.

No, the way cannot be given by anyone.

Neither the society nor the culture nor the education can give you the way. You will have to seek it because, through seeking, you will be transformed.

A borrowed way is a dead way. You cannot travel on it; it will not lead you anywhere. You can believe in it, you can have consolation in it, you can postpone your journey because of it – because you know the way, you can travel on it any day – but the moment you start travelling, the way that is borrowed, given, will be of no help.

You will have to seek your own way.

It is difficult to seek it; many errors are possible. But nothing is gained without errors, so be courageous enough to err. You may move on the wrong path, but it is better to move on the wrong path than not to move at all, because at least you will learn movement, at least you will learn what a wrong path is. That too is good, because elimination will help. You will move on this path and find out what is wrong. You will move on another path and find out what is wrong. And through knowing what is wrong, you will come to understand what is right.

So don’t be afraid to err. don’t be afraid to move on the wrong path. Those who are too afraid of being in error and of moving on the wrong path become paralyzed. Then they remain where they are; they never move.

Be courageous and seek out your own path. And don’t imitate anyone else’s path. Imitation will not lead you to freedom. It is not a question of following one path or another; it is a question of seeking. Be a seeker and not a follower. And know the distinction well.

A follower is an imitator. A seeker also follows, but he is not an imitator. A seeker also follows, but he follows in order to seek, to discover. He remains alert, he remains aware.

A follower becomes blind, he becomes dependent – spiritually a slave. He throws his responsibility on someone else’s shoulders and then hangs on. A seeker is responsible for himself. He’s alert, responsible – discovering something new every day, experimenting with something new every day. He’s unafraid, vulnerable, open to any new light, ready to move into any dimension that comes to his vision. If he feels the path he is on is wrong, he will not say, “But I have invested so much on this path. Now I cannot change.” He will throw the path, throw his whole investment in it, move back to where he was before and start learning again from A-B-C.

A seeker is always ready to change, but a follower is stubborn. He will close his eyes rather than see the light because he has invested so much.

A Jain monk came to me and he said, “I have been a Jain monk for thirty years and I know well that I have chosen a path that is not for me, but now I cannot leave it because if I leave, what will I do? I have no education. I was initiated into monkhood when I was just a child. These thirty years of monkhood have made me totally dependent on others. I cannot do anything; I cannot do any physical labor.

“And I am so respected! Even big capitalists come to me and bow down their heads. If I leave the monkhood – and I know now that this is not for me – these same people who touch my feet now will not employ me even as a peon. So what am I to do?” There is much investment. The whole prestige. respect. honor is at stake now.

So I told him, “If you are really a seeker, throw it all out. Be a beggar or be a fool, but don’t be false. When you know this path is not for you then throw everything that comes to you through this path. Don’t be false, don’t be inauthentic.”

He said, “I will think about it. But it seems difficult.”

He has been thinking about it for three years. He has not come back to see me. He won’t come. He is a follower. not a seeker. A seeker can throw everything the moment he comes to realize that something is not for him. There is no hesitation.

This sutra says Seek out the way. Be a seeker; don’t be a believer.

The fourteenth sutra:

Seek the way by retreating within.

Whenever you find something that appeals to you, to your reason, to your logic, to your mind – something that looks rational, looks to be true – it is not enough. Your reason may say it is true, but it may not be true. Unless you experiment with it, unless you experience something through it, nothing has been discovered. Through logic, nothing is discovered. Logic is a help, but don’t make it the ultimate criterion. The ultimate criterion is always within. Experiment and experience. And unless you experience something, don’t believe that you have found it, that the way has become revealed to you. Only through experience do theories become truth.

Seek the way by retreating within. Whenever you have found a technique, a way – retreat within, go within. Experiment with it there: in your subjectivity, in your heart. Experience it. Don’t just go on thinking about what meditation is. Do it! Only then will you know what it is. One technique may not work for you. Then throw it and try another. There are hundreds of meditation techniques. One technique is bound to work for you.

Humanity has been struggling to be liberated for thousands of years, and every type of man has attained liberation. Every type of technique has been found. You are not new; you have been before. Many like you have been before and they have travelled the path. Many techniques have been discovered. Try. But be authentic, be serious when you try. And try with your total energy. If nothing comes out of a particular technique, then throw it and move to another.

In the old days, when a disciple came to a teacher, the first thing the teacher would try to observe would be whether the disciple suited him and whether he suited the disciple. If the teacher thought the disciple was not meant to be with him, if he felt that the disciple would be helped more by someone else – even by someone who was against him – he would tell the disciple, “Go to that master!”

The disciple would say, “But I have heard that he is against you. He says that what you are doing is wrong.”

The teacher would say, “Don’t bother about what he says. He will suit you; his way will suit you. Go to him. Try there.”

Go on trying different techniques, but try with your total heart. Otherwise, you may throw a technique that was right for you. So try with your total heart. If something happens, good. Move on it, move deeply. But if you have tried with your total mind and total energy and nothing happens, then throw the technique; it is not for you. But don’t throw it before you have tried it – before you have tried it with your totality. Seek the way by retreating within.

And the fifteenth sutra:

Seek the way by advancing boldly without.

Even if you experiment with a technique, and experience something within, there is every possibility that it may be just a delusion. It may be just a projection of the mind, it may be just a dream, a wish fulfillment. Don’t think that you have achieved the way. Now, whatsoever you have achieved within, try it without. Whatsoever you know within your heart, now transform it in your character; now live it. You have experienced it. Now live it, make it your life.

If you feel that silence has occurred to you through this experience, allow the silence to move, allow the ripples of the silence around you to move beyond you. Let your silence reach to others. Let others also feel that you have become silent. If you go on being angry outwardly and still you say, “I am a great meditator,” you are just deluding yourself. Don’t delude, don’t deceive, because only you will be the loser, no one else. Whatsoever has happened within you – if you feel that you have experienced the inner light . . . What is the criterion to know whether it is a delusion or a reality? The criterion is that your outer life will change accordingly.

If you have really experienced the inner light, sex will disappear. Love will happen to you, but sex will disappear; sexuality will disappear. Love, a very loving personality, will take its place. There will be no desire for sex. If the desire for sex remains, you have not experienced the inner light. Then the inner light is just a projection of the mind.

And so on and so forth. Whatsoever you have experienced within must come out. It must be allowed to move into your life because that is the real test, the real criterion. If you have come to a deep silence, hatred will go. If it remains, and it has not become transformed totally into love, then you have not felt the inner silence. With hatred, inner silence is impossible. You may have felt something cultivated, you may have cultivated a stillness . . .

If you go on repeating a mantra, you will create a stillness that is cultivated, false, but your outer life will remain the same. If the inner changes, the outer must change, but the reverse is not true. You can change the outer and there is no necessity for the inner to change. That’s what hypocrisy means. You can change the outer – you can be very loving outwardly – and filled with hatred within. You change the outer, you create a false mask. a facade.

You can see it everywhere, particularly in this country where so much religion has been taught. The only end result is this: a hypocritical society. Masks, not real faces. Look at any face and you will find that it is unreal. Something else is hidden behind it, something quite the contrary.

You can change the outer and there is no necessity for the inner to change. But if the inner changes, it is inevitable that the outer must change. When the inner changes, the outer changes automatically.

If it is not changing, then your inner change is just a delusion.

These three sutras are very meaningful:

Seek out the way.

Seek the way by retreating within.

Seek the way by advancing boldly without.

-Osho

From The New Alchemy: To Turn You On, 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.

Desire Peace Fervently – Osho

The eleventh sutra:

Desire peace fervently.

The peace you shall desire is that sacred peace which nothing can disturb and in which the soul grows as does the holy flower upon the still lagoons.

Desire peace fervently. No one desires peace. You go on talking about it and go on deceiving yourself that you desire peace, but no one desires it – because once it is desired, peace happens. and it has not happened to you.

No one desires peace. Even if you say that you desire peace you don’t desire it. because this is one of the ultimate laws: if you desire peace it happens. Then where have things gone wrong?

Many people come to me . . .

One student came to me – he was just going to appear in his final M.A. examination. He asked me, “How can I be peaceful? How can I be silent? Help me. I desire peace. I am so disturbed, so tense.”

I asked him, “Why do you desire peace?”

He said, “I want to achieve the gold medal. The examination is about to happen. I am a first-class student but this is going to be my last examination and I desire the gold medal. And if my mind is so tense, how can I achieve it? So help me to be peaceful.”

Look at the contradiction! And this is happening to everyone.

I told him, “If there was to be no examination, if you had no desire to achieve the gold medal, if you had no ambition to be first class first, would there be any disturbance within you? Would your peace be disturbed?”

He said, “No. Why should it be? Then there would be no problem. I would be at peace. But right now, the examination is there, and I desire the gold medal. So help me to be peaceful.”

Now, ambition is destroying his peace. He goes on clinging to his ambition and still he desires peace. Peace in the service of ambition is impossible; it is contradictory. Ambition cannot be peaceful. The greed to succeed cannot be peaceful.

If you desire peace, desire peace for itself. Don’t make it a means to something else. It cannot be made a means.

When this sutra says desire peace fervently, it means peace as an end not as a means. No one desires means. Ends are desired and, because of the ends. means are desired. But peace can never be made a means. All that is beautiful, all that is true, all that is good, all that is deep in existence cannot be made into a means. It is always the end. But we desire even God as a means. No one desires God for his own sake; we desire God for some other purpose. Then, the desire is false.

That’s what I mean when I say that no one desires peace unless he desires it for its own sake. You can attain it easily if you desire it as an end. Desire it for itself and it happens, because in the very desire for peace, ambition falls; in the very desire for peace, anxiety disappears; in the very desire for peace, anguish disappears. If you go on being ambitious – desiring success. desiring to be this or that, to be somebody – then peace will not happen to you. Then you will remain anxious, anxiety-ridden, tense. You will remain in anguish and whatever you do will not be of any help. So be clear about it. If you want peace, desire it directly as an end. Then the very desire for peace transforms you.

Really, peace is natural. It is not something that has to be desired. You, yourself, disturb it. It is already there. Peace is natural to you; it is your very being. You disturb it by ambition, you disturb it by greed, you disturb it by anger, you disturb it by violence. It is already there, but you have disturbed it.

Don’t disturb it! If you really desire it, you will not disturb it. Then you will begin to feel it. To attain peace, one has to remove the obstacles to it. Find out why you are not at peace. Why? Then, remove the cause. If ambition is disturbing it, get rid of the ambition and peace will happen. Peace is already there; you need not try for it. Just be aware of why you are disturbing it and don’t disturb it, that’s all. And it will happen. That’s why I say that when peace is really desired it happens immediately. Not even for a single moment does one have to wait.

-Osho

From The New Alchemy: To Turn You On, Discourse #5

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 Power that Shall Make you Nothing – Osho

The tenth sutra:

Desire power ardently.

And that power which the disciples shall covet is that which shall make him appear as nothing in the eyes of men.

We will be moving more and more in contradictions. The language of religion is bound to be contradictory. On the face, it looks irrational. In a way it is, because it goes beyond reason, it transcends reason. This sutra says Desire power ardently – but that power which makes you nothing. You become a non-being.

We desire power in order to become something. The power that wealth can give, the power that politics can give, the power that prestige can give. We desire power to be something, and this sutra says Desire power ardently – but that power which makes you nobody, nothing.

There are two types of power. One, that power that you can accumulate from others – that which can be given to you by others or can be taken by you from others. It depends on others. The power that depends on others will make you somebody in the eyes of others. You will remain the same as you were, but in the eyes of others you will become somebody. This somebody-ness is what is meant by the ego. And ego is the barrier.

Desire that power – the second type – that allows you to feel that you are nobody. It is difficult to feel that “I am nobody.” Everyone thinks that he is somebody, whether others agree or not. Everyone thinks that he is somebody! This is ordinariness; every ordinary mind thinks that he is somebody.

The moment you come to realize that you are nobody, you have become extraordinary, rare, a unique flower, incomparable.

This feeling of nobodyness creates a space within you.

The ego dissolves, your false center is no longer there. You have become roomy. Now the eternal can enter in you. This space, this emptiness, can allow the existence to flower in you.

You are filled with your somebodyness. You are this and that. The mind is so cunning that you can even create this somebodyness through nobodyness. I will tell you one anecdote:

An emperor, a Mohammedan emperor, was praying in the mosque on some religious day. He was talking to the divine and saying, “I am nobody. I am nothing. Have mercy on me.”

Then suddenly he heard a beggar who was also praying nearby. He was also saying, “I am nobody. Have mercy on me.”

The emperor felt offended! He looked at the beggar and said, “Listen, who is trying to compete with me? When I say, ’I am nobody,’ who else dares to say, ‘I am nobody’? Who is trying to compete with me?”

Even in nobodyness you can be a competitor. Then the whole point is missed. The emperor could not tolerate someone else claiming nobodyness for himself in front of him. When he is saying to God that he is nobody, he doesn’t mean that he is nobody. Through nobodyness he is creating somebodyness. You can create ego out of nothing also. Remember that ego is power in the world and impotence as far as the divine is concerned. Everything that seems to be power in the world is impotence in the divine dimension. There, powerlessness is power.

Jesus goes on saying to his disciples, “Be poor in spirit.” Not only poor, because you can be poor without being poor in spirit. Then even poverty will become a sort of richness. If you feel egoistic about it, then your poverty is not poverty. It is not poverty in spirit.

So Jesus goes on repeating, “Be poor, poor in spirit.” Otherwise, you can be a beggar on the street – you have left everything – but now you cling to having left everything; you cling to your renunciation. You have made a richness out of your poverty; you are arrogant about it.

Look at sannyasins, monks, bhikkhus. Look in their eyes. They have a deep arrogance that comes from having left the world, from having renounced. They have renounced the world, but now their renunciation has become a bank balance. They are arrogant about it; they feel superior because of it. When Jesus says, “Be poor in spirit,” he means: don’t be superior to anyone. He doesn’t mean to be inferior, remember. This is the problem. He doesn’t mean be inferior because if you are inferior – if you feel that you are inferior – it is again superiority standing on its head, nothing else. Superiority that is standing on its head becomes inferiority. If you feel yourself to be inferior, the longing to be superior is there.

So when Jesus says, “Be poor in spirit,” he doesn’t only mean don’t be superior. He means that, but he also means don’t be inferior: just be yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others; just be at ease with yourself.

Then you will be nobody, because somebodyness needs comparison. How can you be somebody if there is no comparison? You are more beautiful, never simply beautiful. You can never be simply beautiful; you are always more beautiful in comparison to someone else. You are rich in comparison to someone else, you are more knowledgeable in comparison to someone else. Superiority and inferiority are always comparisons. You are somebody when compared to others. If there is no comparison then who are you? You cannot be just beautiful. can you? You cannot be just wise, can you?

Think about this: you are alone on earth; the whole humanity has disappeared. What will you be? Wise or foolish? Beautiful or ugly? A great man or just an ordinary man? What will you be? Alone on the earth – the whole humanity has disappeared – you will just be yourself. You will not be able to say, “I am this or that.” You will not be anybody. You will be nobody.

Real sannyas real renunciation, means that it is as if the whole universe, the whole humanity, has disappeared and you are alone. There is no possibility to compare. Then who are you? Nobody. This nobodyness is power – power in the world of the divine.

Jesus says, “Those who are first in this world will be last in the kingdom of God, and those who are last here will be first in the kingdom of God.” That which is power in the world is powerlessness in the divine journey, and that which is powerlessness in the world is power in the divine journey.

This sutra says Desire power ardently but remember the meaning of ‘power’. It is powerlessness. It is a feeling of nobodyness, nothingness, of emptiness. And that power which the disciple shall covet is that which shall appear as nothing in the eyes of men.

-Osho

From The New Alchemy: To Turn You On, Discourse #6

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.

Desiring the Unattainable – Osho

Desire only that which is within you.

It looks absurd, paradoxical, illogical: Desire only that which is within you. Desire is basically for that which is not within you. Desire means the desire for something that is not within you. If it is already within you, then what is the need to desire it?

We never desire ourselves as we are. We always desire something else. No one desires himself; there is no need. You are already that; you are not missing anything. You desire something that is missing.

This sutra says: Desire only that which is within you for many reasons. One, if you desire something that is not within you, you may get it, but it will never become yours. It cannot. Really, you can never become the master of it; you will just become a slave. The possessor is always possessed by his possessions. The greater the number of possessions, the greater the slavery that is created.

You are possessed by your possessions, and you were desiring to be the master. Frustration sets in because your whole hope is frustrated. You come to a point where the things you wanted are there, whatever you desired has happened, but you have become the slave. The kingdom now appears to be nothing but an imprisonment and whatever you possess, or think that you possess, is not really possessed, because it can be taken away at any moment. Even if no one takes it away, death is bound to take it.

In religious terminology, that which can be taken away by death is not yours. Death Is the criterion. There is only one criterion to judge whether you really possess something. Judge it against death and see whether you will still have it after. your death. If death takes it, you never possessed it. It was just an illusion.

Is there something that death cannot take from you? If there is nothing, then religion is pointless, meaningless. But there is something that death cannot take over and that something is hidden within you. You already possess it. It is your innermost nature. It has come with you; you are born with it. Or rather, it will be better to say that you are it, not that you possess it. If you possess it, it can be taken away.

You are it, it is your very being. It is your very ground; it is your existence. That is what is called atman. Atman means that which you are already. No one can take it away from you; not even death can destroy it. This sutra says: Desire only that which is within you. Desire atman, desire your innermost self, desire the center which you already possess but you have forgotten completely.

Why does man forget? It is a necessity. To survive, attention has to be paid to the outside world. To survive, to exist, to remain in life, you have to continuously pay attention to things: to food, to shelter. The body needs attention. It becomes ill, it is prone to suffering. The body is continuously struggling to survive because, for the body, there is death. The body is in a continuous struggle with death, so constant attention has to be paid to it.

The body is always in a state of emergency because at any moment death can occur. You have to be continually aware and continually conscious of this fight against death, so your whole attention moves outward. No energy is left to move within. This is a survival necessity. That’s why we go on forgetting that one center within us exists that is deathless, one center within us exists that is eternal, one center in us exists that is absolute bliss.

Pain attracts attention; suffering attracts attention. If you have a headache, your attention moves to the head; you become aware that you have a head. If there is no ache in the head, you forget your head. You become headless – as if you have no head.

The body is felt only when it is ill. If your body is absolutely healthy you will not feel it. You will become weightless. Really, you will become bodiless. This is the only criterion of authentic health: that the body is not felt at all. Whenever the body is felt it means that there is some illness, some disturbance. Your attention is called.

There are so many problems that come from the outside that your attention is constantly engaged and occupied there. That’s why you forget that something exists right in the very center of your being that is deathless, that is divine, that is blissful. This sutra says:

Desire only that which is within you.

For within you is the light of the world – the only light that can be shed upon the path. If you are unable to perceive it within you, it is useless to look for it elsewhere.

The eighth sutra:

Desire only that which is beyond you.

Desire only that which is beyond you. Always desire the impossible, because only through that desire do you grow. And what is impossible? Climbing Mt. Everest is not impossible; neither is going to the moon. Both have become possible. Someone has reached Everest. Even when no one had reached there, it was not impossible. Difficult, but not impossible. It was within human capacity to reach. The moon is within our capacity to reach and soon man will reach other planets as well. It is not impossible, only difficult. Someday it will become possible. Only one thing is impossible, one thing is beyond you, and that is your innermost self.

Why? I say that the moon is not so difficult to reach even though the moon is so far away, and I say that your innermost self is more impossible to reach even though it is just within you. Why is it so difficult to reach then? Because it is within you, that’s why. You only know how to reach what is without. Your hands can reach for what is without, your eyes can see what is without. Your senses open to the outside; you have no senses that can help you look within. Your mind moves without; it cannot move within. That’s why the mind has to be thrown. Only then can you enter meditation.

The mind is basically a movement toward the without. You can observe this very easily. Whenever you think, you are thinking of something that is outside of you. Whatsoever you think about is always outside you. Have you ever thought about anything that is within? There is no need to think about what is within because you can experience it. There is no need to think about it; thinking is a substitute. You can realize that which is within you. It is just by the corner. You move your head, you change your direction. From without you turn within, and you can experience it. What is the need to think about it?

But we go on thinking even about the within. We think about what atman is. We think, “What is the self?” We create philosophies and systems. We go on creating theories that the self means ‘this’, the definition is ‘this’, and no one tries to feel it. It is so near to you – what is the need of theories?

Theories are needed for what is far away, because you cannot reach it right now. You have to create a bridge. Theories are needed to reach the moon, but they are not needed to reach the center within you, because there is no gap. Nothing is to be bridged; you are already there. Just a change in your attitude is needed and you can realize it. There is no need of theorizing or philosophizing. But we go on creating philosophies. We have created thousands and thousands of philosophies. and philosophers go on wasting their lives thinking about that which was already within them. They could have jumped within at any moment!

But it is beyond. Beyond the senses, because the senses cannot open toward it; they open in the opposite direction. And beyond the mind, because the mind cannot lead you there; it always leads you somewhere else. The mind is an instrument for the world; it is a mechanism to move without, to move away from you. It is meant for that. That’s why there is so much emphasis that in samadhi there is no mind. Samadhi is a state of no-mind, the mind ceases.

In the techniques of meditation that we are doing, the whole effort is this: how to cease to be a mind, how to drop the mind, how to drop thinking, how to come to a moment where no thinking exists, where simply attention, simply awareness, exists. ‘No thinking’ means that there are no clouds in the sky; just the sky is there. ‘No thinking’ means that there are no clouds in the mind, just consciousness. In that consciousness, you are within.

When you are in the mind, you are without; when you are in no-mind, you are within. This transfer from mind to no-mind is the whole journey. If you can add ‘no’ to your mind, you have reached. That’s why it is called beyond.

Desire only that which is beyond you – beyond your senses, beyond your mind, beyond your ego. ‘You’ will not be there. Your innermost center is not you; you are just the periphery. The periphery cannot be at the center. When you move toward the center you leave the periphery. The periphery cannot exist at the center. It belongs to the center but it exists outside the center, just around it.

Whatsoever you know about yourself is just the periphery: your name, your identity, your image. You are a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian; you are black, or you are white; you are this and that. Your nation, race, culture – all this is just on the periphery; all your conditionings are just on the periphery.

The world cannot enter your center. It can only cultivate the periphery; it can only touch you on your boundaries. Only your boundary can be Hindu, only your boundary can be Christian, only your boundary can be Jain. ‘You’ are not; you cannot be.

Only your boundary belongs to India or to Pakistan or to America. You cannot belong to any nation, to any race. You belong to existence itself. All divisions are false at the center, but meaningful on the periphery.

Whatsoever you know about yourself is your ego. ‘Ego’ is just a utilitarian word. Your whole periphery means ‘you’. But this ‘you’ will drop when you start moving inward. This ‘you’ will drop by and by; this ‘you’ will disappear; this ‘you’ will evaporate. Then a point will come when you are authentically yourself; your old self is no longer there.

That’s why it is said: Desire only that which is beyond you. It is beyond you because when you reach it you have lost yourself.

Desire only that which is unattainable.

Desire only that which is unattainable. What is unattainable? Look around – everything is attainable. You may not have attained it, but it is attainable. If you make enough of an effort, you can attain it. Potentially, it is attainable.

Alexander created a big empire. You may not have created one, but what Alexander can do you can do. It is not impossible; it is not unattainable. You may not have gathered as many riches as Rockefeller or someone else but what Rockefeller can do you can do It is human: it is within your capacity. You may be a failure. you may not be able to attain it, but it is attainable. Your failure is your own failure, but potentially you could have been a success so the thing cannot be said to be unattainable.

Then what is unattainable? That which cannot be attained? If that is the meaning, then what is the point of desiring it? If it cannot be attained, then the desire is futile. Why desire that which is unattainable? What’s meant by it?

The meaning is very deep, esoteric. The meaning is that your innermost self is unattainable because it is already attained. You cannot attain it because you are it. You cannot make it an achievement. It is not something that has to be attained. It is already there; you have never been away from it. You have never lost it; it is your very nature. It is you, your innermost being. You cannot achieve it; you can only discover it. You cannot attain it; you can only uncover it; you can only recognize it.

There is no possibility of inventing it; it is already there. It is not to be earned; it is already there. You just have to give your awareness to it. You have to focus your awareness on it and suddenly that which was never lost is found.

When Buddha attained enlightenment, someone asked him, “What have you attained?”

Buddha said, “Nothing, because whatsoever I have attained – now I know that it was always there. It was never lost. I have simply discovered it. I have known some treasure which was, already, always within me.”

Desire only that which is unattainable.

It is unattainable, because it forever recedes. You will enter the light, but you will never touch the flame.

In another sense also it is unattainable. You will never be able to say, “I have attained it,” because who will say that I have attained it? That ‘I’ which can claim is no more. That ego – the periphery – is no more. In attaining, in discovering, it has to be lost. The ego has to be thrown away, cast away. You can reach only when you have become egoless. You cannot reach with the ego, because the ego itself is the barrier.

So who is there who will claim? It is said in the Upanishads that if someone claims that he has attained, know well that he has not attained, because the very claim is egoistic. If someone says. “I have known God,” know well that he has not known God; because once God is known, who is there to claim? The knower is lost in the very phenomenon of knowing. Knowing happens only when the knower is not When the knower is absent, the knowing happens – so who will claim?

There was one Zen monk, Nan-in. Someone asked him, “Have you known the truth?”

He laughed but kept silent. The man said, “I cannot understand your mysterious laughter. Nor can I understand your mysterious silence. Use words. Tell me. And be dear about it. Tell me yes or no. Have you known the truth, the divine?”

Nan-in said, “You are making it difficult for me. If I say yes, the scriptures say, ‘One who says, “I have known,” has not known.’ So if I say yes, it means no. And if I say no, it will not be true. So what am I supposed to do? Don’t force me to use words. I will laugh again and keep silent. If you can understand, it is okay. If you do not understand, it is also okay. But I will not use words. Don’t force me to, because if I say yes, it means that I have not known, and if I say no, it will not be true.”

You will reach, but in your purity. In that purity, your ego will not be there. The ego is the impure, foreign element within you – just the dust gathered all around you. It is not you. Naked, you will reach. Your ego is just like your clothes. It will not be there.

Desire only that which is unattainable.

-Osho

From The New Alchemy: To Turn You On, Discourse #4

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 Final Secret – Osho

The twelfth sutra:

Inquire of the inmost, the One, of its final secrets which it holds for you through the ages. The great and difficult victory, the conquering of the desires of the individual soul, is a work of ages; therefore, expect not to obtain its reward until ages of experience have been accumulated. When the time of learning this rule is reached, man is on the threshold of becoming more than man.

The knowledge which is now yours is only yours because your soul has become one with all pure souls and with the inmost. It is a trust vested in you by the most high. Betray it, misuse your knowledge, or neglect it, and it is possible even now for you to fall from the high estate you have attained. Great ones fall back, even from the threshold, unable to sustain the weight of their responsibility, unable to pass on. Therefore, look forward always with awe and trembling to this moment, and be prepared for the battle.

Inquire of the inmost, the one, of its final secret, which it holds for you through the ages. Only on the periphery are we many; only on the circumference does the multiplicity exist. The more we move toward the center, the more we move toward the one. On the center we are one.

On the periphery we exist as many. Your personality is different from the personality of your neighbor. Your individuality is different from anyone else. But your innermost center is not different. Your innermost center is the innermost center of all. When you reach the innermost, you reach to the one.

The whole world is just the circumference. The center – you may call it God, or you may call it the supreme soul or whatsoever you like – but when you reach your own innermost center, you have reached the innermost center of all. And there, all secrets are hidden, in that one. And there, all the mysteries can be revealed to you.

You cannot know them beforehand. Unless you enter the innermost temple of the One, mysteries will remain mysteries. You can create many theories about them and many philosophies, but it is of no use, futile, meaningless. You can philosophize much, but nothing can be concluded. It has happened for ages. Centuries have passed and men have been philosophizing, creating thousands and thousands of philosophies, theories and systems with no result. You can create them, but it is mental. You don’t know.

You can imagine. You can create a very coherent system of thoughts, but it is only in your thoughts, in your dreams. Philosophers are creative, but creative of dreams, fantasies. They create logical systems, they argue for them, but the truth cannot be created through logical systems; the truth cannot be reached through arguments. Whatsoever you reach will just be a hypothesis. The truth can be reached only through experience.

That is the difference between philosophy and religion. Religion says that the truth is not known, because you are not capable of knowing it. Unless you are transformed totally – unless you become a different one, unless your perspective changes, your outlook changes, your eyes change, your heart changes – you will not know truth. Truth cannot be known through contemplation; it can only be known through your inner transformation.

Contemplation is possible, but you remain the same; you just go on thinking in your head. You can create many things in the head. You can believe in them, but you know they are your creations. Truth is not a creation; you cannot create it. You can only discover it, uncover it – it is hidden. No arguments will help. Only a real travelling inward will be of any use.

Religion is anti-philosophical. It says that philosophy is of no use; it is just intellectual gymnastics. You can enjoy it, it is a game of words, logic, arguments, but it will not give you anything; you will not reach anywhere. You are just sitting in your easy chair with closed eyes, thinking and thinking and thinking. You can go on thinking for ages. You can think coherently, consistently, but you will still not come any nearer to the truth.

You may even go farther away, because truth is not a mental construct. It is already there; it is not a mental construct. On the contrary, because of your mentation, because there is too much activity in your mind, it is hidden. Your mind creates the clouds. You go on moving in the clouds and the sky is hidden. Disperse the clouds, disperse thoughts, disperse arguments, logic, philosophies, and suddenly it is revealed. It has always been there; it is already the case.

You do not have to do anything to create it. You simply have to be yielding, surrendering to it, thoughtless, alert, aware, and it is there. It has always been there. The truth is hidden within you, so you need not go anywhere else. No need to go to the Himalayas. The only need is to go within.

This sutra says Inquire of the inmost, the One, of its final secrets which it holds for you through the ages. But only through non-thinking can you inquire. This seems contradictory, because whenever we inquire, we use thinking. Our ordinary method of inquiry means thinking and more thinking. But this inquiry, the inquiry of religion, is not thinking. The inquiry of religion can be done only when you are alert and non-thinking.

Remember this: I emphasize non-thinking alertness because in non-thinking you may go to sleep if you are not alert. Then it is of no use. You are alert when you are thinking but that is of no use, because thinking creates the clouds. Or you can be non-thinking and asleep. That too is of no use because the sky is there but you are asleep so you cannot see it. So two things are needed: non-thinking and alertness. No-thought consciousness. No-mind awareness. If you can create this phenomenon within you (no mind on the one hand and awareness on the other hand), this is what meditation is; this is what I call dhyana.

In this situation, truth becomes revealed. And that truth is one, the most inner one. It is not yours. That center is the center of the whole existence.

You exist only on the periphery, the circumference. The more inward you move, the less and less you become. When you reach to the innermost center, you are no more. In a sense, you are no more; the old man is dead. But in another sense, for the first time you are, because now the innermost reality is revealed to you, the eternal is revealed to you. Now you have reached that which never changes.

The great and difficult victory, the conquering of the desires of the individual soul, is a work of ages; therefore, expect not to obtain its reward until ages of experience have been accumulated. When at the time of learning this rule is reached, man is on the threshold of becoming more than man.

When you enter within, toward the one, you are reaching a new state of existence and being. You are becoming more than man; you are becoming superman. You have reached higher than humanity; the human animal is transcended.

The human animal lives in sleep, deep sleep, unconsciousness. You go on doing things while you are deeply asleep. You move on the street, and you are asleep. You eat your food, and you are asleep. You listen to me, and you are asleep. You are not alert; you are not aware. The mind goes on weaving things within, dreams continue.

You may be here physically. Psychologically, you may not be here at all. Then you are asleep. In your mind you may have moved somewhere else. If you have moved somewhere else then you are not here with consciousness. Only your physical body is here.

Remember this: whatsoever you are doing, do it so alertly, with full awareness, that your consciousness is there; it is not allowed to move. Then only will you come to know what awareness is. Moment to moment, move in the present. Don’t go away from the present or you will have gone into dreams.

This awareness makes you totally different from ordinary humanity. You are alert. You have become more than man.

The knowledge which is now yours is only yours because your soul has become one with all pure souls and with the inmost. So don’t get egoistic about it in any way, don’t think that you have now gained a superhuman state because you are alert.

You are alert only, you are aware only, you have transcended humanity only, because now you are becoming one with all the great souls. You are becoming one with existence itself. Don’t get egoistic about it, because if you get egoistic the journey stops. You can fall back. Egoism is the last point from where sleep can enter again. Egoism is the point from where unconsciousness can again come to you. You can again fall back in the trap; you can again start dreaming.

It is a trust vested in you by the most high. This awareness is a trust vested in you by the Most High, the innermost one. Betray it . . . You can betray it still; you can fall back again. You are still fluid; you have still not crystallized. The old state has gone, the new is still forming – it is in a fluid state. You can go back; you can fall back. The transformation has not happened in its totality. Only in part are you different. Part of you is still the old.

It is a trust. Betray it, misuse your knowledge . . . You can betray it. If you become egoistic – if you say, “This is my knowledge,” if you say, “I have come to know. I have realized. I have known God. I have become this and that,” – if you claim, you have betrayed. The claim shows that the ego still persists in you; the ego is there behind it. You have fallen into the trap again. The one who has known will not claim that he has known. There is no need to claim. Any claim comes from the ego; claim means ego. If you claim, you are betraying it.

. . . misuse your knowledge . . . You can misuse it. You can use it to exploit others, you can use it to dominate others, you can use it for ends which are not spiritual, but then you will fall back. Knowledge is dangerous because knowledge is power, and if you use it for ends which are not right, you will lose the grip; you will fall back. That which has been given to you can be taken back. No one takes it back from you – you, yourself, lose it.

. . . or neglect it . . . You can neglect it. If you neglect it, it will stop growing. And remember, if something is not growing you are going backwards. In existence, nothing is static. Either you grow or you fall back; either you move forward, or you are moving backward. You cannot remain at rest. Eddington has said somewhere that the word ’rest’ is the most fallacious word. Nothing like rest exists in the world. Either things are going forward or going backward. Either you are increasing in something or decreasing. There is nothing like rest; you cannot rest no matter where you are, no. If you are trying to rest, you will fall back. Even if you want to rest at the point where you are, you have to grow more. Only through growing can you rest. Otherwise, you will fall back.

. . . neglect it . . .

You can neglect it . . .

. . . and it is possible even now for you to fall back from the high estate you have attained. Great ones fall back, even from the threshold, unable to sustain the weight of their responsibility, unable to pass on. Therefore, look forward always with awe and trembling to this moment, and be prepared for the battle.

Even from the very threshold of the temple of the divine, you can go away. Just a knock and the door would have opened, but without knocking you can move away. The nearer you are, the more possibility there is to move away, because you become more confident that you have reached. This is even more dangerous. Unless you have reached and become one with the flame, do not be too confident. You can lose it at any moment. Confidence can be dangerous.

It always happens that when you have come nearer to the goal you feel more tired. You want to rest. Now you know that the temple is right nearby, and you can reach at any moment; there is no difficulty. “I can relax a little, I can rest a little.” Then you can lose the very thing that was near. It may go far away.

Relaxing near the goal is dangerous because the moment you relax you can fall back. And when you become aware again, you will find that the temple has disappeared.

When the goal is near, don’t relax your effort. Rather, now bring your total energy to it; become totally absorbed in it. This is the moment that the sutra is talking about when it says: . . . look forward always with awe and trembling to this moment. Don’t relax. There is no relaxation unless you have become one with God. Before that, no relaxation is possible.

-Osho

From The New Alchemy: To Turn You On, Discourse #16

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 Path is Found – Osho

Having obtained the use of the inner senses, having conquered the desires of the individual soul, and having obtained knowledge, prepare now, O disciple, to enter upon the way in reality. The path is found. Make yourself ready to tread it.

Having obtained the use of the inner senses . . . We know about our outer senses, but each sense has a double dimension. For example, eyes. They can look out. This is only one dimension of their functioning. They can look inward also. That is their other function. Or ears. You can hear what is happening outside. That is one function, one dimension. You can also hear what is happening within. That is another function, another dimension.

Every sense has two doors. One opens into the outside world; the other opens into the inside world. Each sense is both outer and inner, but we use our senses in only one way. We have become fixated; we have forgotten that these same senses can be used to reach within.

Having obtained the use of the inner senses . . . Having obtained the hidden dimensions of the senses, many things can become possible. A new world opens before you. The inner is as vast as the outer, the inner is as great as the outer. You are just standing in between: you are standing in between the inner and the outer universes.

The outer is vast. They say it is infinite, endless, beginningless; there is no boundary to it. The same is true for the inner also. No boundary – the inner space is again infinite. The outer is being searched by scientific methods. The inner can be searched through yogic methods.

Science has developed much and has come to know much about the outer world. But the inner has become forgotten; it is no longer remembered. We are rich now as far as the outer world is concerned, outer experiences are concerned, and we have become absolutely poor, beggars, as far as the inner is concerned. But what is the use of gaining the whole world if, in gaining it, you lose yourself?

If the self is lost, what is gained? Even if you gain the whole world, nothing is gained. If you lose yourself then the very meaning of life, the very significance – the beauty, the truth, the good, everything – is lost. Man can accumulate things, can accumulate powers, at the cost of losing himself. Then, the whole point is missed.

Science tries to magnify the outer senses. Now, through mechanical devices, we can look far away into space. Eyes are magnified by the scientific method. Now we can hear long distances. Scientific technology magnifies your ears.

The same is possible for the inner senses also. Through meditation, through yoga, through tantra – the inner technologies – your inner senses are magnified. And once they are magnified, many things are revealed to you.

Unless they are revealed to you, they appear like myths, superstitions. We hear, we read, many things about Buddha, Jesus, Krishna which cannot be believed. Mohammed, Zarathustra, Moses – they look mythological now because whatsoever they say we cannot experience ourselves. We have lost the touch. Moses says that he heard the voice of God on Mount Sinai. How can we believe it? We have never heard anything like it.

If you go to a primitive tribe and tell them that on radio, we hear voices travelling long distances, they will not be able to believe it. Or, if you say that on television, we see pictures travelling far, far distances, they will not believe it, because they have no experience of it.

In the same way, we have become primitives as far as the inner is concerned. Moses says he hears God. Jesus talks with his father who is in heaven. They look neurotic to us. They must be mad. There are many studies on Jesus, psychological studies, that say he must have been insane. “What does he mean, talking with God? Where is God? How can you talk to him? And how can God talk to you? Jesus must have been insane. Illusions must have happened to him and he believed in his illusions. He was neurotic.” He looks neurotic because we have become primitives as far as the inner world is concerned.

If your inner senses are penetrating, if your inner senses are alive, if you have come to know how to use them, you can also tune yourself to the divine. You can hear, you can listen, you can see, you can touch the mysteries. They are always there. Moses is not neurotic – we have become primitives. Jesus is not mad – we have lost contact with the inner.

Having obtained the use of the inner senses, having conquered the desires of the outer senses – because if the desires of the outer senses are still alive, you cannot move within. Desire means the way to go out; desire is the path that leads you out. If your mind is still desiring, you cannot move within.

That’s why there is so much insistence on desirelessness. It is not a moral concept. Desirelessness is a very scientific concept. If you want to move within, your mind must lose all desire to move without. Otherwise, how can you move within? It is simple mathematics. If you want to go to the left, you must leave the desire to go to the right. Otherwise, one leg moves to the right; the other moves to the left. You will become mad; you will go insane. You cannot move in two directions simultaneously. Desire leads without. Desirelessness, within.

. . . having conquered the desires of the outer senses, having conquered the desires of the individual soul . . . If you are still self-centered, you always think in terms of your own ego; you always think in terms of your own individuality, your own selfishness. Then the deeper truths of existence cannot be revealed to you. You are not yet capable of it; you are not worthy of it. And, it is dangerous also.

Try to understand it: for example, science has now come to understand some very basic mysteries of matter. Science has forced matter to reveal certain secrets about atomic energy. It has become destructive. Man was not yet capable, not yet worthy to know such a great secret. Science forced matter. Science is aggressive.

Einstein is reported to have said, “If I am born again, I would not want to be a scientist. Rather, I would like to be a plumber. Whatsoever I have done is destructive. Whatsoever I have revealed, my whole life is wasted. It seems that I may be one of the persons responsible for the destruction of the whole humanity.”

His last days were of deep suffering. A secret had been revealed, but man was not yet ready, not yet worthy of the revelation. Man is still childish, stupid. foolish. Such a great power – atomic energy – cannot be given to his hands.

And now, politicians have captured the secret. And politicians are bound to be stupid, they cannot be anything else, because any person who has political ambitions is an egoist. The desire to capture power is the desire of the ego. and the ego is the most foolish thing possible. It can force you to do anything; it is mad. Political ambition is an obsession with the ego.

Scientists have uncovered certain secrets and politicians have captured those secrets. Then they destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And now, they are ready to destroy the whole planet. At any moment, the whole earth can be destroyed. We have more destructive forces now than is needed to destroy the earth seven times more. We can destroy seven earths like this; this is nothing. And we are developing more and more destructive powers. For what? Why is there so much hankering after death and destruction? Einstein says that it was foolish on the part of scientists to force nature to reveal certain secrets for which man was not yet worthy. But you can do it, because matter can be forced.

You cannot do it inwardly. Consciousness cannot be forced. No inner secret can be revealed to you unless you are ready for it. Unless it is going to be beneficial to you and others, it cannot be revealed. So this sutra says: having conquered the desires of the individual soul – ambition, ego, power-lust, thinking yourself to be the center of the universe – unless you have conquered these, the innermost secrets of consciousness cannot be revealed to you.

. . . having conquered the desires of the individual soul, and having obtained knowledge, prepare now, O-disciple, to enter upon the way in reality. Whatsoever we were dealing with up until now was a work on the consciousness: your own consciousness, subjective consciousness. All the sutras until now were meant to work, to function, to change, to transform, to mutate, subjective consciousness. When one comes to be totally aware in his subjective world, he can enter into reality.’

Remember this: if you move within, you move into the subjective; if you move out, you move into the objective; if you move beyond both, you move in reality. Objectivity is not reality; objectivity is only part of reality. Subjectivity is also not reality. It is, again, part of reality. When subjectivity and objectivity are both transcended, you enter reality.

If you use your senses for the outer journey, you will reach objects. If you use your senses for the inner journey, you will reach the subject, the knower. Through the outer, the object: the known. Through the inner, the knower: the subject, the self. But both are just a part. Reality consists of both.

In reality, both are one. This we have called brahman: the ultimate reality. You cannot enter into the ultimate reality either through object or through subject. You have to lose both. That’s why to know the soul you have to use the inner senses and to know matter you have to use the outer senses; but to know brahman you do not have to use any senses, neither the outer nor the inner. If you want to enter the ultimate reality, senses have to be dropped completely, outer and inner both. Without the senses, one enters reality.

That’s why Shankara cannot concede that science knows reality. He says that science only knows the objective. And he cannot concede that those who say there is no brahman know reality, because they know only the subjective self. Only those who go beyond both – this duality of object and subject – know the ultimate truth.

. . . prepare now, O disciple, to enter upon the way in reality. The path is found; make yourself ready to tread it.

The tenth sutra:

Inquire of the earth, the air and the water, of the secrets they hold for you.

If you are ready to lose objective and subjective distinctions, you can ask directly: Inquire of the earth, the air and the water, the secrets they hold for you. You can ask the elements directly. If you are ready to lose the division between subject and object, if you are ready to lose all thoughts, if you are ready to lose your mind, your mentation, if you are ready to be vacant and empty, you can ask the elements about the secrets they hold for you.

And what secrets do they hold? Buddha happened in this world. He is recorded by the earth, by the air, by the water, by the sky, by the space, by everything. The happening of a Buddha is such a great phenomenon that the universe records how it happens. Krishna danced on this earth. He is recorded. The very phenomenon is such a peak that the earth cannot forget it, the sky cannot forget it. They record it. Whatsoever happens of such great magnitude is recorded by the elements.

You can ask directly. If you are totally empty, you can ask directly, and the earth will reveal its secrets. If Krishna really delivered the sermon of Gita on the battlefield of Kurukshetra it must be hidden somewhere in the air, in the heart of the air. If you are ready, if you are worthy, the air can reveal the most secret doctrines to you.

You will feel very strange when it is revealed, you will feel very puzzled, because the Gita that has been recorded by man is nothing; it is deeply erroneous. Many things have been projected into it, many things have been deleted from it. It is not the real thing; it is just a human record. And it is natural for the human mind to err.

But the elemental forces of nature also record, and their records are absolutely true, because there is no mind to interpret, to change, to add or to delete. The purest is recorded there. If Mohammed spoke, if Jesus spoke, it is recorded there. The earth cannot lose contact with so highly evolved, highly developed, transformed beings. It cannot lose contact with them; the contact remains. It can be revealed to you. The development of your inner senses will enable you to do this.

The eleventh sutra:

Inquire of the holy ones of the earth the secrets they hold for you.

The conquering of the desires of the outer senses will give you the right to do this.

Inquire of the holy ones of the earth the secrets they hold for you. We exist in the body, but there are many holy ones around you who exist in a bodiless state. The human spirit can exist either in a body or in an unembodied form. The unembodied form is still part of the universe; it is still in the world. It has not escaped it; liberation has not yet happened. It is prone to come back, it tends to come back. It simply waits for the right womb.

There are many holy masters existing in an unembodied form who are not absolutely enlightened. When one is absolutely enlightened he disappears from the body and from the form itself. He disappears completely; he dissolves into the world’s source. A Buddha, a Jesus – they dissolve back to the original source. But there are many who are not absolutely enlightened but who have come to know many things, who have realized many beauties, who have realized many truths (but not ‘the’ truth). They have realized many, many things and have reached a certain level. They’re not enlightened, but they have reached a certain level.

That is why they are called ‘the holy ones’. They can be of much help to you. If you are open to them, you can be in contact with them. In theosophy, they are called ‘the Masters’.

This book, Light on the Path, was dictated by the Masters to Mabel Collins. The Masters know many secrets that have disappeared from the earth, from the records of humanity, or have been distorted. Or, we just cannot read them because the language is forgotten. It is still not possible to know what is written in the Harappa Mohenjodaro culture. It remains a secret. We know something is written, but what is written we don’t know. The form remains but the keys are lost. We know many scriptures from many cultures, but the language is lost.

These holy ones can reveal many things which go on lasting. They can make us remember. You can have contact with them if you are silent, innocent, moving inward. If you are using your inner senses you can have contact with them and your life can very easily become transformed. You, alone, may take lives to reach the goal, but with these holy ones, you can be helped easily.

And there are many of them. You just need to be open, unafraid, ready to receive the guidance, and the guidance will be given to you. But before you can receive it, you have to prepare yourself in receptivity, in deep receptivity. Through meditation. that receptivity will happen to you. And there is no other way. Only through silence will you become capable of hearing something that comes from the beyond.

Remember one thing continuously: that you have to be more and more silent, and more and more centered within. Whenever you have time, close your eyes and move within. Don’t be busy when there is no business, don’t remain occupied unnecessarily.

I see people who are unnecessarily engaged. I have seen people reading the same newspaper again and again. They don’t have anything else to do so they read the same newspaper over and over again. They cannot remain empty; they cannot remain vacant. To be meditative means to learn how to remain vacant, unoccupied. Close your outer senses and just fall within.

Use any time you find for this and soon the day will come when it will become as easy as moving in and out of your house. You come out of your house without any difficulty; you go back into your house again without any difficulty. You need not even think about how to go in and how to go out. You come out when you are needed outside; you go in when you are not needed outside. The phenomenon becomes this simple if you practice it. Then you can jump out at any moment, and you can jump in at any moment.

And once you have become capable of this easy movement, you have become free. Then the world cannot disturb you. Nothing can disturb you, because nothing reaches you when you are at your innermost center. When you are on the periphery, the world touches you. When you are at the center, you are beyond the world.

-Osho

From The New Alchemy to Turn You On, Discourse #15

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.

To Loosen the Bonds of Personality – Osho

The ninth sutra:

Regard most earnestly your own heart.

For through your own heart comes the one light which can illuminate life and make it clear to your eyes.

Only one thing is more difficult to know – your own heart. Not until the bonds of personality are loosed, can that profound mystery of the self begin to be seen. Not till you stand aside from it will it in any way reveal itself to your understanding. Then, and not till then, can you grasp and guide it. Then, and not till then, can you use all its powers and devote them to a worthy service.

Regard most earnestly your own heart. The most basic thing to be understood is that you cannot understand your own nature, your own heart, your own being, because of your personality, because of a false entity that you have created around you.

We live encased in personalities. Personalities are false. They are simply masks, facades to be shown to others. But the practice becomes so deep that you forget your original face completely. Showing your false faces to others, by and by you get identified with them and you begin to think that these are your faces. Then your original face, your real face, remains hidden.

Whatsoever you do, howsoever you act, whatsoever you say, remember well whether it comes from your heart or from your personality. Make the distinction clear. It will be a great help to you in the inner search.

When you say to someone, “I love you,” from where are these words coming? From where? What is the origin of them? Are they coming from your heart? Really, is your heart filled with love? Or are they just coming from your personality, just from your false face? Are you saying them just as a way of manners, a formality, an etiquette, or are you saying them as a means to something else?

You may desire someone’s body, you may desire sex with someone, but you say, “I love you.” This saying is just a deception. It would be better if you said, “I desire sex with you, but no love is there. Your body is attractive to me, magnetic to me, but there is no love. It may grow, but right now there is no love. I am interested only in your body.”

But if someone says that only your body is attractive to him, you are not going to be in love with the man. You will escape! You will say, “What nonsense are you saying?” The false face must be there. Only then can the body be given or taken.

So you go on cultivating your personality. When you are feeling hurt within, sad, even then you go on smiling. Consider whether your smile is just a painted smile, just on the lips, an exertion by the lips, or whether it is coming from deep down and spreading on the lips. Is the source rooted somewhere deep, or is there no source, is it just a painted smile? When you smile, observe it and you will come to know when the smile is false and when the smile is real.

When someone is sad, or someone is in misery, or someone has lost a friend, a beloved, a husband, a wife, you go to him. Your face looks sad and sorrowful. Remember, and consider deep within, whether this sadness is real or whether you are just displaying it and deep down you are simply bored, deep down you are trying to figure out how to leave, deep down you are thinking of other things, not at all interested in the person: his misery, his suffering. Go on considering this and you will come to know two different layers within you. The false one is the personality.

The word ‘personality’ is very significant. It comes from a Greek word persona. Persona means ‘the mask’. In Greek drama the actors used masks, false faces. Those false faces were called personae. And from that, the word ‘personality’ comes. It is beautiful. It means that you are acting with a false face. It is not you. You are hiding behind the false face, because you cannot reveal your real face.

I am not saying to necessarily go on revealing your real face everywhere. There is no need. Somewhere, the persona is needed. But be clear that this is the persona; this is not you. Inside, you must know when you are acting and when you are real. You must not be deceived by your acting! You must not become identified with your acting! I know that faces are needed. Otherwise, it will be difficult to live in society, very difficult. Faces are good in a way. They facilitate, they work as lubricants. And in a big society with so many people, you need not reveal your reality everywhere.

Someone meets you in the morning. You feel disturbed by it. You think, “Why have I seen this man’s face this morning? His face may destroy my whole day.” But, outwardly, you smile and say, “Good morning. How happy I am to see you.” Inwardly, you are not happy at all!

But this is okay as far as manners are concerned. It will not be good to say to the man, “I am feeling very unhappy. You have destroyed my morning. Your face is dangerous. I am afraid that seeing you will ruin my whole day.” This will not be good. Unnecessary. Unnecessarily disturbing to the other man. There is no need.

But you must know what is a mask and what is real. You must be aware of what is going on within. What is within is your real being and what is going on on the surface is just a social utility. If you can make a clear-cut distinction between you and your personality, then personality becomes just like clothing. You can drop it at any moment and become naked.

If you cannot drop it, it means that you are so attached to it that the distinction is not there, the separation is not there; there is no gap. A gap is needed so that at least in your room, in your bathroom, you can put your personality away and become real. At least in meditation, you can throw the personality and become real. There, it is not needed.

Meditation is nonsocial. It is not concerned with anyone else; it is concerned only with yourself. So no mask is needed; you can be authentic. But you cannot be authentic because you don’t know the distinction. Even in meditation I feel that you are doing many false things.

Freud became aware – when he first started psychoanalysis, he was not aware of it, but by and by he became aware that patients would say things that were not real just to make Freud happy, to confirm his theories – because when Freud was happy, they also felt happy. Only after twenty years of psychoanalysis did he become aware that what they were saying was not real.

For example, Freud says that sex is the root of every mental disturbance. Patients would come to him and tell him about their disturbances. Then they would reveal that sex was the root of their disturbances. Freud thought that his theories were confirmed by thousands and thousands of examples. Only later on did he become aware that many of them were lying just to make him happy, to confirm his theory.

Sometimes I feel the same thing. When I say, “Go mad!” and you go mad, I know that you are going mad just to make me happy. But there is no need. I am already too much happy! There is no need. Don’t do anything that is not real. It is not going to help anyone. Be authentic, be real, at least in your meditation – because there, you alone are concerned.

Tillich has said somewhere that religion is the concern of the individual, a totally personal concern with oneself. It is not concerned with anyone else. Religion is individual, so you need not think of anyone else while meditating, not even of me. Be real. Throw your masks. Anything authentic will help you to move inward, anything unreal will help you to move outward.

That is the reason why Shankara calls the world illusion. The more you move away from yourself, the more you are moving into illusion; and the more you go inward, the more you are moving into reality. Your personality is the gateway toward illusion, toward an unreal dream world. Throw that gate, throw that bridge completely. At least in meditation.

I am not saying for you to go and move in society and be authentic. You will be in difficulty. If you feel happy to do it you can do it, but I’m not saying that; don’t put the blame on me. The society will create troubles for you. It doesn’t want your real faces; it wants your unreal faces.

And it is okay as far as the society is concerned. Use an unreal face when you go out, but when you go within, throw that face completely. Don’t get identified with it, don’t carry it inward. A day may come when you will become so strong that even in society you would like to move with a real face, but that depends on you. First, look inward and, at least momentarily, put aside your personalities.

For through your own heart comes the one light which can illuminate life and make it clear to your eyes.

Only one thing is more difficult to know – your own heart. Not until the bonds of personality are loosed, can that profound mystery of self begin to be seen.

The personality works as a barrier and the light from your heart cannot come to you. Discard the personality, even momentarily, temporarily and the light will flood you, and you will enter in a different world: the world of the heart.

Not till you stand aside from it will it in any way reveal itself to your understanding.

You have to put yourself aside: your personality, your ego.

Not till you stand aside from it will it in any way reveal itself to your understanding. Then, and not till then, can you grasp and guide it. Then, and not till then, can you use all its powers, and devote them to a worthy service.

And before the moment that you yourself have come into deep contact with your innermost heart, you cannot do anything that is good, that is worthy. You cannot be of any service to anyone. Whatsoever you do, even with good will, will create evil, because the doer is ignorant. What you do is not significant. Who you are is more significant.

If you are ignorant, living in total darkness – if the light from the heart has not penetrated in you, has not filled you yet – you may have good wishes, good will, but whatsoever you do will result in evil, because nothing good can come out of a dark heart.

So don’t try to be of any service to anyone unless you have come to the inner light. Then, your whole life will become a service. Then there will be no need to make it a duty, then you will not serve anyone as a duty. Then service will flow out. Of you spontaneously. And when service becomes spontaneous, with no concept of duty in it, when service becomes love – you cannot do anything else but serve; when there is no question of making others happy; when really the contrary has happened: you are so happy that now the happiness overflows in you and reaches to others – only then does good result from whatsoever you do.

It has happened that even without any goodwill, good happens – if you are filled with light and happiness. But much goodwill, without the inner light, may be dangerous for others. People who are engaged in service toward others without any inner sadhana create much mischief. The whole society is suffering from these mischievous people who go on serving others without in any way having realized their own inner light. Remember this: the first thing is your own self-realization. Serving others is secondary. And don’t think that, through serving others, you can realize your self. Through realizing your self you can move into serving others, not vice versa.

It is impossible to help others till you have obtained some certainty of your own. When you have learned the first fifteen rules and have entered the hall of learning you’re your powers developed and sense unchained, then you will find there is a fount within you from which speech will arise.

These notes are written only for those who can read what I have written with the inner as well as the outer sense.

Remember this. It is impossible to help others till you have obtained some certainty of your own. Resist the temptation to help others. It is evil unless you have obtained some certainty of your own.

Don’t try to be a guru, don’t try to be a helper. because you will disturb; you will create more problems. Remember well that you cannot help. you cannot guide anyone. unless you have got the inner light. When the inner light is there, the help, the guidance, will flow from you.

Resist the temptation. The temptation is great, because the ego feels very fulfilled. Someone comes to ask your advice. The temptation is there to give advice without knowing what you are doing, without being aware that you don’t know. If someone asks you whether God is, you are not strong enough to say, “I don’t know.” You say something. Either you say, “Yes. God is. I am a believer,” or you say, “No, God is not. I am a disbeliever,” but in both cases you give advice. In both cases you confirm something that you don’t know.

Remember this, for the spiritual seeker a very basic, very significant point: whatsoever you really know, confirm only that. If you don’t know, it is better to say, “I don’t know.” Someone asked Albert Einstein once, “What is the difference between science and philosophy?”

His reply is one of the wisest. He said, “If you come to a scientist and ask a hundred questions, about ninety-nine he will say, ‘I don’t know.’ Only about one will he say, ‘I know. But this too,’ he will say, ‘is only relative knowledge. Tomorrow it can change. It is not absolute.’

If you go to a philosopher and ask one question, he will give a hundred answers. And with absolute conviction that this is so. If someone says something else, he will be condemned to hell. “He is wrong!” That’s why philosophy leads nowhere. Answers and answers and answers leading nowhere. Answering so much and not even answering a single question. The basic thing is lacking: the philosopher is not strong enough to say, “I don’t know.”

The scientist is stronger. He can say, “I don’t know.” And even when he says, “I know,” he says, “Up until now this has been true. But I cannot say anything about tomorrow. Things may change, many new facts may become known and then the truth will have to be readjusted.” I would like to tell you that yoga is also a science; it is not a philosophy. Meditation is a science: it is not a philosophy. Remember this, don’t guide anyone unless you have a certain knowledge, a certain experience. And even then, tell others that “this is my experience. It may not be so for you. It is how I have come to it. Your way may differ; it may not prove true for you. So don’t take my advice blindly. You can experiment with it. It is an open experiment.”

Then you can be of some help. Otherwise. you can create disturbances. Don’t get tempted. Don’t advise unless you really know. Don’t guide. First be a disciple; don’t try to be a master. Mastership will come. When your discipleship has become complete and total, the master will emerge within you. But not before that moment, not before that time. Wait for it. It happens.

-Osh0

From The New Alchemy to Turn You On, Discourse #14

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.

Look Into the Hearts of Men – Osho

The seventh sutra:

Regard earnestly all the life that surrounds you.

Regard the constantly and moving life which surrounds you, for it is formed by the hearts of men, and as you learn to understand their constitution and meaning, you will by degrees be able to read the larger world of life.

Reverence for life, regard for life. Ordinarily, the so-called religious are life negative. They are against life. Look at their faces, look at their eyes. They are condemning everything. This negative attitude has created a denial of life all over the earth. Religion has appeared to become an ally of death not a friend of life. It appears to be against life because it constantly goes on telling you, “Leave life. Transcend it. Move to some other life which is beyond this life.”

God seems to be against you being a part of life. It is as if life has been taken as a punishment. “You are here because you sinned. You would not be here if there was no sin in your life.” But this whole attitude is ill, pathological. Really, the divine and life are not two things. Rather, they are an extension of one phenomenon.

Here and there (this and the beyond) are not two things. What is here, this life, is a step toward the beyond. If you deny this life, you will not reach the other; you cannot go beyond. To go beyond this, no denial is needed.

To go beyond, a deep insight into life is needed. How to create a deep insight into life? Unless you have a reverence for life it is impossible. Revere life wherever you find it; help it to grow. Be creative toward it; don’t be destructive.

But we are destructive in many ways. Look around you. Everything that is deeply connected to life is condemned. Sex is condemned, love is condemned, because they are the source of life.

A person who is religious must be a monk, a celibate. Why? Why should a seeker of the divine be a celibate? What is the need? Why is there so much propaganda against sex, against love, against life? It is because sex seems to be the source of life; it seems to be the original energy that moves the world. Those who are against the world are bound to be against sex. “Cut sex completely from your life!” – that is their teaching. But if you cut sex, you cut all of life. If you are against sex, you cannot revere life. You have gone against life itself.

These sutras are very meaningful. They say to revere life in all its forms because the more reverence you have the deeper you can go. God is not really beyond, but rather within this life. God is the center, the very center. and life is just the periphery. Move deeply in life and you will reach to the very center, the very ground of life itself.

God is not the creator; he is the very creativity. Christian and Mohammedan concepts about ‘God the creator’ have created much confusion. These attitudes are a little childish. Good if you are talking to children, but nonsense if you are talking to persons of understanding.

It appears from the Christian and Mohammedan dogmas that God created the world somewhere in the past. He created the world within six days and then, on the seventh, he relaxed. And after that, he has not done anything. The world started running on its own.

This concept creates a divisive attitude: that God and the world are two different things. That’s not true. God has not created the world and made it separate from himself. It is not like when a painter paints a picture. The painter is one thing; the picture is something different. The Hindu concept is deeper. It says that God is not like a painter but, rather, like a dancer: Shiva the dancer. Like a dancer, because the dance and the dancer are not two. You cannot separate them. The painter can be separated from his painting, but the dancer cannot be separated from his dance. Dancer and dancing are one.

God is not the creator, not a separate entity. God is the very creativity, the very life. So if you are against life, you are against God.

Gurdjieff is reported to have said somewhere a very paradoxical but very true statement. He has said that the so-called religions are all against God because they are against life.

But authentic religiousness is always for life, never against it.

If you move deeper in the dance, you will reach the dancer. The dance is just the form. If you move deeper in the dance, you will reach to the very heart of the dancer. And if you move deeply into life, you will reach to the life-originating principle: God.

God is creativity. Or, if you allow me to say it, I would like to say that God is the very existence itself. God is life. Jesus has said, “God is love.” That was one of the reasons he was crucified – because he called God ‘love’. Love is condemned, it is a sin, and he called God ‘love’. He must have looked very rebellious; he must have seemed to be too much in favor of the life on earth. The old Jewish mind, the old religious mind, couldn’t tolerate it. This is sacrilege! Jesus talking about God in terms of love? God is beyond life and love! You must leave everything: life, love, everything. Only then can you find him. And this man Jesus – he brings God down to earth, and he talks in terms of love.

Really, God is life, God is love. God is this very world. Don’t create a division, don’t create a dualism. Only then can you revere life. Whenever you see life anywhere – a seed sprouting, a tree flowering, stars moving, a river flowing, a child laughing – remember God is near you. When a child laughs, look at the laughter. Enter into it. You have entered the very temple. When the river flows, watch lovingly. Be one with its flow; be in a deep reverence.

Hindus have called all rivers goddesses; they have called all hills deities. They have made the earth holy. It is one of the most beautiful things that has ever happened in human consciousness. Hindus call the Ganges: Mother. This is reverence for life. Hills they call gods. This is reverence for life. They worship trees. Those who have become intellectually sophisticated think they are stupid, superstitious people, but they are not. The tree is not the thing. When they are worshipping a tree or a river, they are worshipping life.

A tree is more alive than any temple, than any church; a river is more alive than any mosque. The stone idols in your temples are dead; a tree is more alive. You may be superstitious, but the person who is worshipping a tree is not. He may not be aware of what he is doing, but a deep reverence for life in all its forms is there, a deep respect.

And celebrate. Wherever you feel that life is growing, celebrate it, love it, welcome it, and a great transformation will happen to you because if life is revered in all its forms, you become more alive. You become more receptive to life, and life begins to flow abundantly in you; it overflows in you. That is what bliss is: life overflowing.

But you are more interested in death and less interested in life. More interested in destruction, in hate; more interested in wars than in love, in life. It makes you dead and dull. Before you are really dead, you are dead. When death really occurs to you, you are already dead.

Whatsoever you revere you will become. If you revere life, you will become life and more life. If you revere death, you will become death and more death.

Remember this:

Regard the constantly changing and moving life which surrounds you, for it is formed by the hearts of men; and as you learn to understand their constitution and meaning, you will by degrees be able to read the larger world of life.

The eighth sutra:

Learn to look intelligently into the hearts of men.

Study the hearts of men, that you may know what is that world in which you live and of which you will be a part.

We never look directly into anyone’s heart. It is dangerous, insecure, because then you may become involved; you may have to do something. So we never touch anyone. We just remain aloof, far away, removed. We move without touching anyone. And when I say this, I don’t only mean physically. Psychologically also.

We move without touching anyone physically. We are afraid to touch anyone or to have anyone touch us. Psychologically also we live in a shell: enclosed, encapsulated.

There are reasons for it. If you penetrate into somebody’s heart, you will have to do something about it. You will be filled with love, you will be filled with higher, superior values. Then you cannot remain as mean as you are, you cannot remain as unkind as you are, you cannot remain as self-centered as you are. If you look into the heart of the other, you will have to melt. The very looking into the heart of the other will become a merging of your egos.

So, no one looks at anyone. We don’t even look into the hearts of our friends. We take them for granted. We never even look into the hearts of our wives and husbands, our lovers and beloveds. We create an image, and we live with the image. We never talk to each other directly, because if you talk directly, you don’t feel safe; you become vulnerable. Remember this, if you penetrate into anyone’s heart, simultaneously your own heart becomes vulnerable. Otherwise, is not possible. If I look deeply inside you, I become available to you. You can also look deeply within me.

But that feels dangerous. I don’t want anyone to look deeply within me, because on the surface I am different, a false person. Deep down, I am someone else. On the surface I go on smiling – very kind, very loving – and deep down much hatred is there, much ugliness is there. So I don’t want anyone to penetrate within me.

But if I penetrate within you, the very effort to penetrate you simultaneously makes me available to you. We are afraid. We don’t want anyone to trespass, to look within us. It is dangerous to look into anyone’s heart and to be looked into by anyone. We become encapsulated, dead. We go on moving within an imprisonment.

Then how can you know life? If even a human heart is strange to you, and you have not looked into it, how can you move deeply into the greater heart of the divine, the very center of existence? Learn to look. From looking into the hearts of others you can learn to look deeply. It is the person’s depths. The depth of the person is his heart.

We talk through the mind. That is not the depth. The mind is on the surface, on the periphery. We talk, we discuss, we communicate only with words. We never remain silent even for a few minutes. Even those who are in love go on talking constantly, because if you are silent the heart can be penetrated. So we go on talking and talking.

The husband comes home. He starts talking. Nonsense, irrelevant things. What happened in the market, what happened in the shop, what is in the news, what’s come on the radio. He goes on talking. And the wife also goes on talking: what other wives are talking about in their houses and so on. They go on talking, they go on talking, until they fall asleep. Why so much talking? What is the purpose of it? Are they really interested in communicating something? No! They are afraid to communicate. If they are silent then their hearts will start communicating, so they go on talking. Talking creates a barrier. Mind to mind they meet so that heart to heart they will not meet. A heart-to-heart meeting is possible only in silence.

This is the way we are living. Then we say that we are living in misery. What else is possible? Misery will be your fate. But it is not your destiny. It is your own created misery; it is you who have created it. Encapsulated, you will be in misery. Open, vulnerable. you will become capable of being blissful. This opening is to be learned through looking into the hearts of men.

This sutra says:

Learn to look intelligently into the hearts of men.

Intelligence is impartial: no man is your enemy: no man is your friend. All alike are your teachers. Your enemy becomes a mystery that must be solved, even though it takes ages: for man must be understood. Your friend becomes a part of yourself, an extension of yourself, a riddle hard to read.

The sutra says Learn to look intelligently . . . By intelligently is meant be impartial. If you are partial, you cannot reach to the heart. All partiality focuses you in the mind; only impartial consciousness comes to the heart.

The heart is impartial; the mind is always partial. The mind is always party-bound, sectarian, for this and against that. The heart is neither for nor against. The heart is simply an opening, a receiving, a welcoming. It has no enemies and no friends; only the mind has enemies and friends. By ‘intelligence’ is meant impartiality. Only then are you intelligent.

If you are partial, you are not intelligent. You may appear to be sophisticated, educated, logical, but you are not wise, not really intelligent. Intelligence has the quality of no prejudice, no partiality, no feeling for and against, because only then can you look at the whole.

For example, if I say that you are my friend, it will be impossible for me to enter your heart. Or if I say that you are my enemy, then too it will be impossible to reach your heart. When I say you are my friend, or my enemy, I have taken you for granted. I feel that I know you. I understand that I have understood you. Otherwise, how is friendship possible? When I say you are my friend, I show that I like you; I’m saying that I like you. And when I say I like you, I have become partial. Then I cannot reach your heart. My liking will become a barrier.

When I say I like you, I am really imposing myself upon you. My liking. I say you are good because how you are is according to my liking. Now I have entered in you, I have imposed myself upon you. I cannot reach your heart, I cannot know you as you are, because of my liking.

When I say you are my enemy, I am saying I don’t like you, I dislike you. This dislike becomes a barrier. When I say I like you, I try to find out things which I like. When I say I dislike you, I try to find out things which I dislike. Then I am just trying to prove myself, not trying to know you as you are. Liking/friendship, disliking/enmity are my interpretations, my fictions. Your naked fact, your naked facticity, is forgotten.

Intelligence means that you are neither my friend nor my enemy. You are you; I am I. I am not going to impose myself upon you. Now I will try to understand what you are. Not according to my likes and dislikes, but what you are. Every man is a mystery, every man is a riddle. If you try to solve the mystery of even one single individual, if you are capable of solving even one single riddle, you will have become capable of much more, because even one individual is understood through the heart. You have come to know the art: how to penetrate into the heart.

And the same technique, the same method, will help you to penetrate into the divine heart. The divine heart is greater, infinite, but the human heart is a glimpse of it. The human heart is a fragment of it, alive. So don’t be dead toward the humanity that is around you. Learn to love it, revere it. And, learn to look intelligently into the hearts of men.

This learning will make you more mature; this learning will make you more sensitive toward a higher learning, which is divine. The heart of the divine can be penetrated only by those who have become capable of knowing the human heart for what it is.

-Osho

From The New Alchemy to Turn You On, Discourse #13

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 Lesson of Harmony – Osho

The fifth sutra:

Store in your memory the melody you hear.

Only fragments of the great sound come to your ears while yet you are but man. But if you listen to it, remember it faithfully, so that none which has reached you is lost, and endeavor to learn from it the meaning of the mystery which surrounds you. In time you will need no teacher as the individual has voice, so has that in which the individual exists.

Store in your memory the melody you hear. There are moments – rare, unique, but still there are moments when you come nearer to the melody of existence. Situations may be different, but the melody is the same.

A child running after a butterfly, a child picking flowers in a garden, a child just lying relaxed on the grass, feels a certain harmony in the existence, feels a certain melody. In that moment, lying on the grass relaxed or running – running for a butterfly, or running to gather flowers – or not doing anything: just playing with pebbles on the shore – in that moment, the child is totally one with existence. There is no regret, no negativity. The child accepts the existence as it is and is accepted by existence.

When you accept existence, the existence accepts you. When you reject, you are rejected. You are echoed by existence. Whatsoever you do with it is done with you.

The child accepts. There is no past for the child, no future. The moment, the present moment is enough. The child exists here and now. Then he feels a certain harmony; a melody is felt.

That is why, later on, even when you become very old, you go on remembering childhood; you go on saying childhood was a paradise. Why? Because many moments happened when you were totally accepting. And a child is totally accepting. The moment the child starts rejecting, he is no longer a child. Childhood is lost, paradise is lost.

Remember some moments of your childhood when you had the feeling that life was bliss, that just to be was ecstatic. Just to be, just to breathe, was enough. You didn’t need anything to make you blissful. Whatsoever you were was enough to be blissful.

Gather those moments. Remember them, relive them. Sometimes, forget your age. Close your eyes and move back, regress, be a child again. Not just remembering, but reliving. Be a child again. In your memory, run as a child, sing as a child, play as a child. Just replay your childhood again and you will get a new light, a new awakening. A new life energy will run through you.

When you were young, you loved someone. Again, there was ecstasy. Again, you felt absolutely okay. Nothing was wrong. Life was good; everything was as it should be. Again, a moment. Gather, nourish, such moments. Go into them again and again.

Then you were old – sitting in some temple meditating, or in some mosque praying, or in some church. And again, you felt a silence entering you.

Collect all these moments, because they will make you more capable and sensitive to hear the greater music of the spheres. They are only fragments, but you have heard in them something that goes beyond you. Whatsoever the situation – if a certain happiness descended upon you, cherish that moment and make a part of your heart vacant from all other memories. Collect these memories of blissful music that you have sometimes heard; it will be helpful.

You cannot hear the whole of the music suddenly. You can hear it only in fragments, because the mind is such a small thing. The aperture of the mind is very small, and the sky is very big. You can only see fragments. But collect those fragments. Create a unity in them, feel a certain oneness in them, and you will become more capable, more sensitive, more alive to receive more. You will become more receptive.

But look at the human mind. It collects miseries, it collects sufferings, it collects pains. It never collects happy moments. It goes on collecting misery upon misery. Then life becomes a hell. It is your collection; it is your way of looking at things.

You go on saying that happiness is just momentary. But no one says that suffering is momentary, no one says that anguish is momentary. You go on feeling that anguish is permanent, suffering is permanent, and happiness is just momentary. This is wrong. Both are similar and equal. Both are momentary.

And ultimately, the reverse is true. Suffering proves to be momentary, and bliss proves to be eternal. But right now, with this mind, everything is momentary. Suffering comes and goes; bliss comes and goes. But you go on collecting suffering, so it appears to be permanent; and you never collect, you never cherish and nourish, happiness and happy moments so they look momentary.

This is your choice. Change this choice – because with too much suffering collected, you will gather more suffering. Suffering will increase; you are helping it to increase. Then a moment may come when you are so clouded with suffering that you cannot see any possible bliss. Then you become totally negative.

Do quite the contrary. Only that will be a help for your meditation. Whenever suffering happens, don’t collect it. Allow it to happen, but don’t nourish it. Why go on talking about it? Everyone talks about his suffering. Why is there so much emphasis on it? Why give so much attention to it? Remember one of the laws: that whatsoever you pay much attention to grows. Attention is a growth helping element. If you pay attention to something, it grows more.

Now, biologists say that a child grows more if he is loved, because through love, he gets more attention. Even a plant grows more if the gardener gives attention to it. If it is neglected, if everything else is given to it – the right soil, fertilizers, rain, sunrays; everything is given to it except conscious attention – it takes a longer time to grow. Now this is a scientific fact: observed and found correct. If you love the plant and you pay much attention to it, if you talk to it, if you sometimes say to it, “I love you,” it grows faster. Attention is a vitamin. The most vital thing in existence is attention.

If no one loves you, you start withering away. If no one pays attention to you, death settles in. You want to die. If someone pays attention to you, you become alive again. Attention is life, elan vital.

If no one loves you, you will commit suicide, because you are not capable of loving yourself. If you were capable of loving yourself, if you were capable of giving attention to yourself, you would not need anyone else’s attention. A Buddha can live alone on this earth. You cannot. If you are alone, you will immediately commit suicide. You will say, “What is the use? Why should I live? Who will love me? Whom shall I love?”

Inside also, psychologically also, the same law applies. If you pay much attention to suffering, you help it to grow. If you pay much attention to happiness, you help it to grow. Don’t be your own enemy. If you are immersed in suffering it is because you have been paying attention to the wrong things. Shift your attention. Even if you have only one memory of a blissful moment it is enough. Pay attention to it and it will grow. The seed will grow, and it will become a big tree. Then you can rest in its shade, you can dance in its shadow. You can relax under it.

This sutra says: Store in your memory the melody you hear. Wherever you have heard the melody of life, wherever . . . Happiness means a melody. Suffering means an anarchic experience, a chaotic experience. Suffering means a crowd of unrelated experiences: noise, with no music in it. Happiness means music. Not noise but an inner harmony, not chaos but an inner unity.

Store in your memory the melody you hear, and then it will grow and one day you will become capable of hearing the whole of the universal music. Then you will need no teacher. Then you will not need to learn from anyone else. Then you will be directly in contact with the divine and no mediator will be needed.

A teacher is a mediator. You cannot hear, and he can hear. You cannot see, and he can see. You cannot feel, and he can feel. He is needed only up to the point when you yourself have become capable of hearing, seeing, merging. Then the teacher is of no use. Then you are immediately, directly, in contact with the universal force. Now you are in the river itself.

And once you have become capable of remaining blissful, once you have become capable of remaining in the melody, once you have entered the river, God can talk with you directly.

I remember a story about a Sufi mystic, Bayazid, who remained in one village for many years. One day the villagers said to Bayazid, “We have been seeing you and hearing you for at least five years. You were always praying and talking to God. Now we see that you never talk, you never pray. Why this change? Have you become an atheist? Have you lost your belief in the divine? You never talk now, you never pray.”

Bayazid laughed and said, “Before, I was talking and praying. Now God has started talking to me, so I have to be silent and listen. The whole process has changed. Now I need not talk. Now, he talks to me.”

This moment comes. But this moment comes only when your heart is filled with melody and a divine silence has come into you. There is no more noise. Wherever you look you feel the music; wherever you look you feel the unity; wherever you look you feel the one in different forms. Now you have become aware of the sea. Waves have disappeared for you. There are no waves; only the ocean exists. Then, the divine talks to you directly.

It is not a metaphor. Existence speaks to you directly; it is not a metaphor; it is not a poetic expression. It happens! But you have to be ready. And that readiness means a heart filled with music, a heart filled with silence.

The sixth sutra:

Learn from it the lesson of harmony.

Life itself has speech and is never silent. And its utterance is not, as you that are deaf may suppose, a cry. It is a song. Learn from it that you are part of the harmony, learn from it to obey the laws of the harmony.

As you are right now, life appears to be a cry. It is not. It appears to be a cry because you are disturbed. Life is a song, but to hear the song you must become a song yourself, because only the like can understand the like.

You are a cry. That is why the song of life appears like a cry and like a scream. It is because of you. You destroy it, you disturb it, you distort it. When it comes to you it comes as a song, but when it hits you, it becomes a cry, because you are a cry. You are ill, you are diseased. You are fragmentary; you are not total. The song is destroyed within you.

Become a song yourself and then the whole of life appears to be a song. Then there is no negativity. When you are positive, the whole of life becomes positive.

This is what I mean by a theist. Theism doesn’t mean a belief in God; theism doesn’t mean believing in a theology. Theism means a total yes to existence, saying yes to existence.

But when can you say yes? You can say it only when you have heard the song. How can you say yes to a cry; how can you say yes to a noise, a mad noise; how can you say yes to the insanity that appears all around, the death, the misery? How can you say yes to it? But it is there because of you, because of your eyes. Your eyes are a distorting factor. It is because of your heart. Your heart is filled with suffering and misery, so it cannot find anything else. It is your own echo.

This sutra says:

Learn from it the lesson of harmony.

Whatsoever beautiful moments, whatsoever ecstatic moments, happy moments you have had – collect them, cherish them, live with them, live them. You will become more sensitive to happiness. Happiness will be more attracted toward you, love will happen to you more, meditation will come to you more easily. Life will become a benediction; existence will become a celebration. But you have to create a happy heart.

And then, in the fragmentary experience of bliss, find out the common note. A child picking flowers, a young man loving a girl, an old man sitting under a tree meditating. They all say it is blissful – there must be something common to all of them. On the periphery, from the outside, nothing appears to be common. A child picking flowers, a young man loving a girl, an old man chanting a mantra. Nothing seems to be common between them. But if they all say, “This was blissful!” there must be something common. Find out that common element. Find out the one thing that is always there and without which they cannot say that all these moments are blissful moments.

It may be that the old man will deny any common element. He may say, “This young man is just foolish. There is nothing in girls, only bones and flesh and everything dirty. This young man is just foolish. He is wasting his time.”

Or the young man may say, “This small child picking up flowers is living in a fantasy. It is not real. When he becomes more knowing he will throw these flowers. This is stupid. Collecting flowers is useless; he is wasting time. He is ignorant.”

But, still, there must be something common to all of them. If the old man says that the young man is foolish or the young man says that the child is foolish, this simply means that for the old man life has not yet become a unity. It simply means that the old man is still angry at his own childhood. He couldn’t absorb it into his life current. His youth has not become a part of his life. The old man is fragmented, divided.

If the old man is really undivided, if he has been searching for the common element in all experiences, that is wisdom. To find out the common element in all experiences, the essential element is wisdom. If the old man has come to realize what is essential in all blissful experiences, he will see that when he was sitting with a girl in deep love the same thing was happening that is now happening in his meditation. When he was picking flowers in the garden as a child, or playing with pebbles on the seashore, it was the same thing.

What is the common element? Attention, deep attention, absorption. The child was absorbed with his stones, playing with them. The whole existence was forgotten. The child forgot himself. Nothing existed in that moment, no mind existed. The child was totally absorbed. Because of that absorption, that total annihilation of the ego, bliss happened. It became a meditation.

The young man was absorbed in his beloved. The whole existence dropped away as if nothing else existed. Only the beloved existed. Even that disappeared: the lover and the beloved disappeared. Only love existed. A moment existed that was eternal, a moment that was eternity itself. No past, no future. The now was all. It was a meditation. Love is a meditation. And then bliss happened.

Now, the old man is chanting under a tree, or sitting in a temple listening to the bells of the temple and feeling very happy, ecstatic. What is happening? The same thing is happening in a different situation, in a different age, in a different experience. The same thing is happening. The world disappears. The old man is no more, the temple disappears. The present moment becomes total. He is here and now. The bells go on ringing. They don’t ring in the future: they ring in the present. No past memory enters no future desire. The old man is here and now.

Whenever you are here and now, bliss happens.

As a child playing with stones, as a young man playing with your beloved, or an old man playing with chanting and meditation. If all three experiences can be felt as harmonious, you have found one of the ultimate laws of life. You have become wise. Wisdom has happened to you.

-Osho

From The New Alchemy: to Turn you On, Discourse #12

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.

Listen to the Song of Life – Osho

The fourth sutra:

Listen to the song of life.

Look for it and listen to it first in your own heart. At first you may say it is not there; when I search, I find only discord. Look deeper. If again you are disappointed, pause and look deeper again. There is a natural melody, an obscure fount in every human heart. It may be hidden over and utterly concealed and silenced – but it is there.

Listen to the song of life. Life is a melody; existence is musical – for so many reasons. Existence is harmony; it is not anarchy. It is not a chaos; it is a cosmos, a unity. So complex, so vast, but still united. And life pulsates – from the lowest atom to the highest star. Wave lengths differ, pulsations are of different frequencies, but the whole pulsates in a deep unity, in a harmony. Plotinus has called this ‘the music of the spheres’. The whole existence is a music. It is musical in another sense also. Yoga, tantra and all the schools that have been working esoterically for the inner journey of human consciousness say that life consists of sound; existence consists of sound.

Science differs, but not very much. Science says that the basic particle is electricity not sound. But science also says that sound is a mode of electricity, a sort of electrical expression – that sound consists of electrical particles.

Yoga says that the basic element, the basic unit of existence, is sound, and electricity is a mode of sound. That’s why we have the myth that, through music, fire can be created. If fire [if electricity] is nothing but a combination of sounds, then fire can be created.

This difference between the scientific attitude and the yoga attitude is worth understanding. Why does science say that sound is nothing but electricity and yoga say that electricity is nothing but sound? Because science approaches existence through matter, and yoga approaches it through life.

The deeper you penetrate within yourself, the more you will find a new world of sound and silence. When you reach to the innermost core of your being, you will find the soundless sound. That’s what Hindus have called nad: anahat nad – sound which is uncreated, which is your very life. It is not created by anything; it is not produced. It is just there. It is cosmic.

Aum is the symbol of that sound. If you go deeply within, when the ultimate core is reached, you hear the sound aum. It is not that you produce it. It is simply there, vibrating. It is the basic element of life.

This sutra says Listen to the song of life. But you cannot listen to it unless you have already heard it within your own heart. Whatsoever you can see must be seen first within your own heart otherwise you cannot see it. You cannot hear it. The basic experience must be the inner. Only then can the outer be experienced.

Whatsoever you know in the outer world is nothing but a reflection or a projection. If you are filled with love, the whole of life appears to be filled with love. If you are sitting with your beloved or with your lover, the whole existence is okay. Nothing is wrong, there is no misery. The whole existence is filled with a deep music, because you are filled with a deep music. There is no discord in you; your heart feels a deep harmony. You are so one with your beloved or your lover or your friend that this oneness spreads all over.

But if you are in deep agony – suffering, sad, depressed – the whole existence seems to be depressed. It is you, not the existence. The existence remains the same, but the climates of your mind change. In one climate the existence appears sad. In another climate the existence seems to be celebrating. It is not; existence is always the same. But you go on changing, and your mind goes on being projected. Existence works as a mirror. You are mirrored in it.

But if you think that whatsoever you have interpreted is the fact and not just a projection, you will fall into deeper and deeper illusions. But if you can understand that it is not a fact but a fiction of the mind – that it depends on you, not on existence itself – then you can change. You can go through a mutation, an inner revolution can happen, because now it is up to you.

The world can be a chaos if you are a chaos. The world can be a cosmos if you are a cosmos. The world can be dead if you are dead inwardly; the world can be alive, abundantly alive, if you are alive within. It depends on you. You are the world. Only you exist really, nothing else. Everything else is just a mirror.

I remember one anecdote.

An emperor, a very powerful emperor, created a palace, a palace of mirrors. All around, all over the palace, there were mirrors. The emperor was a very beautiful person and he was so infatuated with his own beauty that he was never attracted in any way to anyone else. He was a narcissist. He loved only himself and he thought that everyone else was ugly.

Finally, he debarred everyone else from entering his palace. He lived alone there, looking at his own face everywhere in the palace. There were mirrors everywhere, thousands and thousands of reflections of his own face.

But then by and by he got bored, fed up. He started disliking himself. He kept meeting himself the whole day, encountering himself. He became ill; he became sad and depressed. He became so dull that he was almost on the verge of death. He was simply fed up with himself.

Then suddenly he remembered: “This palace is my own creation. I need not be here. There is no one forcing me to be here.”

So he broke one mirrored wall – he threw a chair through it. And for the first time in many years, the sky looked within. It was a full-moon night and the full moon peeped within. A fresh world, a new world, alive. He came in contact with it.

He jumped out of his hellhole, out of the prison. Now he was not dead, not dull, not on the point of death. He started dancing, he started celebrating. He forgot his face completely. And it is said that he never looked in a mirror again.

This is what is happening to each one of us. It is not an anecdote about some unknown emperor. It is about you. You live in a mirrored house. When you look at your wife’s face it is not her real face that you see. It is a projection. It is your own face reflected in your wife’s face. When you look at a flower it is not the flower you are looking at. It is your own mental flower projected onto the real flower that you are looking at.

Everywhere, you move with your own mirrors, your own images. And then, of course, you are bored, you are fed up with the whole thing, and you say, “Life is misery.” You say, “There seems to be no meaning to it.” You say, “It would be better to commit suicide. There seems to be no purpose to life. I’m going nowhere, moving around and around in a circle. It leads nowhere. Every day is the same, the same repetition.” But it is not because of existence; it is because of you.

Throw out those mirrors, break those mirrors. Come out of your palace, come out of your imprisonment, and look at the world not through thoughts, not through moods. Look at the world with a naked eye, listen to it with a naked ear. Don’t allow any mental state to come between you and the world.

This is what I call meditation: looking at the world without the mind. Then everything is new, fresh. Everything is alive, eternally alive; everything is divine. But to come to this point you will have to make deep contact, a deep penetration, into your own heart; because there, life’s juice is awaiting you. You may call it ‘elixir’. It is awaiting you.

This sutra says:

Listen to the song of life.

Look for it and listen to it first in your own heart. At first you may say it is not there; when I search, I find only discord. Look deeper. If again you are disappointed, pause and look again. There is a natural melody, an obscure fount in every human heart. It may be hidden over and utterly concealed and silenced – but it is there.

When, for the first time, one tries to enter within, one encounters noise: crowds, thoughts, madness; everything but silence. But don’t be disheartened. Be indifferent to all this noise that you encounter within.

When I say, “Be indifferent,” I mean don’t do anything about it; just be indifferent. Don’t say, “This is bad.” Don’t say, “How can I stop it?” Don’t try to stop it; you cannot. Allow it to flow – just as if clouds are floating in the sky and you are watching them. Or as if traffic is going on in the street and you are watching. Just stand aside and watch the traffic moving on, or stand on the bank and look at the river flowing. Don’t do anything; just stand there. Indifferent, not interested, not in any way involved.

If you can do this – this is what witnessing is. If you can do this, by and by you will penetrate deeper and deeper. Don’t be disheartened, because ultimately, finally, a deep musical source, a deep harmony, a deep rhythmic existence is waiting within you. Penetrate this crowd and you will reach it.

At the very base of your nature, you will find faith, hope and love. He that chooses evil refuses to look within himself, shuts his ears to the melody of his heart, as he blinds his eyes to the light of his soul. He does this because he finds it easier to live in desires. But underneath all life is the strong current that cannot be checked; the great waters are there in reality. Find them . . .

At the very base of your nature, you will find faith, hope and love – these three things. If you can make contact with your inner music, these three things will flower spontaneously within you: faith, hope and love. But these words have very different meanings. They don’t mean the ordinary things we mean by them.

When we say faith what we mean is belief. Belief is not faith. Belief means a forced thing. Doubt is hidden there, but you have wrapped yourself in a belief and pushed the doubt within.

For example, you say, “I believe in God.” What do you mean? Is there really no doubt? Doubt is there. The belief cannot cancel the doubt; it can only hide it. Really, because of the doubt you believe. You are afraid of the doubt. If you don’t believe, if you are doubtful, you will feel inconvenienced. Belief gives you convenience, comfort, solace, consolation. You feel at ease. But the belief is just a mental, intellectual facade. Behind it, the doubt is always lurking.

You will find doubt hidden within every belief. If you say, “I believe strongly,” that means you have very strong doubts behind it. Those who say, “I believe absolutely,” have absolute doubts within them. What is the need of belief? The need is because doubt is there and you feel inconvenienced by it.

That’s why so many people are theists and so few are atheists. But in reality, the world is full of atheists and to find a theist is very difficult; it is impossible. The whole thing is just false. People say that they believe in God because it seems difficult not to believe, inconvenient. Socially, formally, it is not good.

Not that they believe. They doubt, they know they doubt, but they deceive themselves. Their life remains untouched by their beliefs; their religion remains a Sunday religion. Their life is not touched at all. On Sunday they go to church and pray as a social formality, as good manners. Then, out of church, they are the same again. For six days they remain irreligious; for one day they become religious. Is it possible? Six days you remain ugly and one day you become beautiful? Six days you remain bad and one day you become good? Six days you remain evil and suddenly one day you become saintly? Is it possible?

It is impossible. The seventh day must be the false day; the six days are real. The seventh day is just a trick to deceive oneself and others. Belief is false. It is helpful, utilitarian, but untrue. Faith is totally different. Belief means doubt is hidden there; faith means doubt has disappeared. This is the difference.

Faith means the doubt has disappeared. Belief means the doubt is there and you have created a belief against it You doubt whether God exists or not but you say, “I believe,” because your wife is ill and if you don’t believe, who knows? God may be there. Or your job is in danger of being lost. Who knows? God may help. And if you don’t believe, then he will not help. Utilitarian; it has some utility for you. But doubt is there.

Faith means doubt has disappeared. It is the absence of doubt. But it can disappear only when you have known something within; when belief has not been given to you, knowing has arisen in you. When you have come to know, to realize, then faith arises.

And hope. This hope is not that of desire. This hope doesn’t mean hope for the future. It is not in any way concerned with the future. This hope means simply a hopeful attitude about everything. About everything. An optimistic view, a hopeful attitude. Looking at the golden side of things. Whatsoever happens you remain hopeful; you are not depressed.

Depression comes only if you look at the wrong side of things. Everything has two sides: the wrong side and the right side. You can look at the wrong side and then you will be depressed, or you can look at the right side, the golden side, and you will be happy. So, it depends.

The person who is hopeless always looks at what is wrong. The first thing he tries to find is what is wrong. If I tell him, “This man is a beautiful flute player,” he will first look at him and say, “No, I cannot believe that he can play the flute because he is a thief.” What is the concern? A man can be a thief and a good flute player. But he will deny the possibility. He will say, “No, he cannot be. He is a thief, a well-known thief. How can he be a good flute player?”

This is the hopeless mind. With a mind which is filled with hope, if I say, “This man is a thief,” he will say, “But how can he be a thief? He is such a good flute player?”

How do you look at things? With hope or with hopelessness? Ordinarily, unless you have touched the inner music, you will look at the world with a hopeless attitude. Then everything is wrong and whatsoever is done is wrong. And from everywhere, you will derive misery. You will become an expert at being miserable. Anything will help you to be miserable, anything.

When you touch this inner silence, this inner music, you become hopeful; you become hope. Whatever is, you see. You always touch the innermost core of it, the heart of it. And then, there is no depression.

And love. Ordinarily, love is a relationship. But when you touch the innermost being, love becomes your state not a relationship. It is not between you and someone else. Now it is that you have become love, you have become loving. It is not a relationship. Even if you are alone, sitting under a tree, you will be loving. Lonely, alone, with no one there, you will be loving.

It is just like a lonely flower that grows on an unknown path. No one passes there, but the flower goes on spreading its perfume. It is its state. It is not that when some king passes the flower will give its perfume. It is not that if some beggar passes the flower will not give its perfume. If a beggar passes, the flower gives its perfume. If a king passes, the flower gives its perfume. If no one passes, then too the flower goes on spreading its perfume. The perfume is the flower’s very state of being. It is not a relationship.

Our love is a relationship. And when love is a relationship, it creates misery. When love is a state of being, it creates bliss.

A Buddha is also in love, but he is not trying to love you. Simply because of the way he is, love spreads. Love becomes a perfume and goes to the far corners of the earth.

These three qualities will evolve: faith, hope and love. And if these three are there, you don’t need anything else. These three will lead you to the ultimate peak of life and existence.

. . . know that it is certainly within yourself. Look for it there, and once having heard it you will more readily recognize it around you.

If you can feel your inner music, inner truth, inner faith, inner love, inner hope, you will start recognizing it around you. The whole universe will change for you because you have changed. And whatsoever you feel within, now will be felt all around.

The world remains the same; but when you change, everything changes. With you, your universe becomes different. If you are rooted in the divine, the whole existence is rooted in the divine. If you are rooted in evil, the whole universe is a hell. It depends on you. It is you, magnified.

-Osho

From The New Alchemy to Turn You On, Discourse #11

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.

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