Tag: Mind

The Satori Event – Osho

Before we enter the sutras there are a few things to be noted. Hubert Benoit calls Zen ‘the doctrine abrupt’ as opposed to all others which he names ‘progressive doctrines’. For the first, for Zen, he uses the singular, and for the others the plural – because the doctrine abrupt can only be one. But
there can be as many progressive doctrines as there are people; each one has to progress in his own way. So there can be millions of progressive doctrines – he is right in using the plural – and the abrupt doctrine can only be one. It can’t be different for different people, because it is abrupt.
It doesn’t depend on you, who you are, it depends only on one thing: that you disappear. And the disappearance is abrupt, sudden. This point has to be understood because it is very fundamental to Zen.

Yoga is a progressive doctrine; Zen, the doctrine abrupt. That is its fundamental vision – of great beauty and grandeur. It simply means one thing: that Buddhahood is not something to be attained. In Yoga the samadhi has to be attained: you have to improve upon yourself, you have to go on and on working on yourself. It is a great program of improvement, of achievement, of accomplishment. In Zen all that you have to find is that you are already a Buddha, that there is no accomplishment, that there is no growth, that there is no attainment, that Buddhahood is everybody’s inner nature.

Everybody is a Buddha; whether you know it or not makes no difference. A few Buddhas are fast asleep and snoring, a few Buddhas have become awakened, but both are Buddhas.

In Zen there is no method. Not that Zen Masters don’t give methods to their disciples, they do give – they give methods only to prove to you, to your heart’s desire and contentment, that all methods are useless. They give methods so that you work on the method, and slowly slowly you see the futility of it. The moment you see the futility of one method and you are finished with that, a higher method will be given to you and so on and so forth. Higher and higher methods will be given; and ultimately,
slowly, slowly, you will cling ate all the methods because you will see the futility of them all.

One day you will come to the point where you will see that there is nothing to be attained, nowhere to go. That moment in Zen is called ‘the great doubt’. That moment is known in the West through Christian mystics as ‘the dark night of the soul’. It is really a dark night of the soul, the great doubt. Nothing to be attained, nowhere to go, all future disappears; you are in a kind of shock. Then who are you? Then what are you doing here? Then why this existence? All seems meaningless if there is no attainment, if there is no way to reach and nowhere to reach and nobody to reach. Then what
is all this? A great doubt arises.

This doubt precedes satori. This great doubt, this dark night of the soul, always precedes satori. Either you fall back because of the doubt – you start moving again into methods, you start clinging again to methods, paths and ways, and scriptures and principles and philosophies and doctrines.
You fall back; just to avoid the doubt you start clinging to something again. But if you are really ourageous… And this is real courage: that you remain in doubt, and you don’t fall back, and you don’t cling to anything again. You leave yourself in this dark night of the soul, helpless, lost – utterly
lost, seeing no meaning and seeing no future. If this courage is there, satori happens. Suddenly, out of this great doubt, and the pain and agony of it, you become awakened.

A parallel exists in nightmares. You must have seen it happening again and again: if the nightmare is too horrible, the dream is broken. You can go on dreaming sweet dreams the whole night; there is no problem. The dream is so sweet that it is like a lullaby: it keeps you drunk, intoxicated. But if
the dream is horrible? – you are being chased by a tiger, and the tiger is coming closer and closer and closer; and the fear… and your heart is beating fast, and your breath is no more rhythmic, and you are perspiring; and you are running and running, and there seems to be no escape, and then
suddenly you see that the path has ended in an abyss, there is no way to go; and the tiger is coming closer and closer, you can almost feel his breath on your back; and then his paw… and a fountain of blood rushes out of your back – can you go on remaining asleep? The nightmare is too much; it is
bound to destroy your sleep. Abruptly, suddenly, you are awake. It is like a sudden jump from one state of consciousness to another. A moment before you were asleep, now you are awake. There is no tiger, just your wife – and her hand on your back, and her breath… All has disappeared.

The great doubt is the point where one feels the greatest nightmare, where one’s whole life turns into a nightmare with open eyes. When you see that the whole of life has lost meaning… Because life has meaning only if you have goals. When you are enchanted by goals, life has meaning; when there are no goals, meaning disappears. Suddenly you see that you don’t have any ground underneath your feet; you are hanging in emptiness. You are falling like a dead leaf into some unknown, bottomless pit, and it is all dark, and there is not even a ray of light.

This is the work of a Zen Master: to push you into this great doubt. Once this happens, satori is bound to happen unless you fall back again and start dreaming sweet dreams.

To be with a real Master is to be in a fire. To be with a real Master is to face your death, is to face your annihilation. That’s why Zen is known as the sudden enlightenment, the doctrine abrupt.

Hubert Benoit also says that satori has two meanings. One is the satori-state in which everybody is – the birds and the trees and the mountains and you and all the buddhas – past, present, future. The whole existence is in the state of satori. This is another way of saying that godliness is everywhere, in everything; that godliness is the soul of everything. Buddhahood is everybody’s nature. And the second is the satori-event. Every man is from all eternity in the state of satori. The satori-event is only that historic, anecdotal instance when man suddenly ceases not recognizing that he has always been in the satori-state.

You are a Buddha. When you recognize it, or when you remember it, that is the satori-event. The satori-event is only a window into the satori-state, and this satori event has apparent reality only in the eyes of the man who has not yet experienced it. One who has experienced it recognizes
that he has always been in satori. That is why we cannot speak of progress, evolution, attainment, realization, etcetera, etcetera.

-Osho

From The Sun Rises in the Evening, Discourse #1

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

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

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

Let Love Be Your Only Law – Osho

let love be your meditation

let love be your only law

i have only one commandment

because to me the whole religiousness

is contained in this single word

love

all the bibles, all the gitas, all the korans

if in any scripture there is something valuable

then it is bound to be some aspect of love

love has many aspects

it is a multi-dimensional phenomenon

the way to find it is meditation

meditation simply means becoming utterly silent

so that your mind is no more an interference

mind is full of desires, motives, goals, purposes

and love cannot be found by the mind

because love has no motive, no purpose

love has nothing to achieve, nothing to gain

it is not a means to some end

it is an end unto itself

hence mind is incapable of even comprehending

what love is

mind has to be put aside

that putting aside of the mind

is what meditation is all about

when the mind is put aside

you are in a state of meditation

no-mind is meditation

and in that state, love blossoms

suddenly you explode into love

your whole life becomes an overflowing love

but without silence it is not possible

one has to attain to such a deep silence that

not even a slight tremor of the mind remains in it

not even a small ripple of thought, desire

motive, greed, anger, no past, no future

when mind has completely ceased

then one hears the music of silence

the song of silence

the Sound of One Hand Clapping

-Osho

From The Sound of One Hand Clapping

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No Body Is

Jean Klein’s seminars used to consist of two parts, the bodywork and dialogues. He said the ‘bodywork’ was for us to come to know that we are not the body, and the dialogues were for us to discover that we are not the mind.

Recently, the understanding ‘I am not the body’ was expanded to the realization that in fact there is no such thing as ‘body.’ The idea of ‘body’ is just an image that we hold in memory. But if we look carefully, we can see that that memory does not correspond to reality. It is more like ‘bodying.’ It is not a fixed entity.

Intellectually it is easy to understand that there is no independent separate entity called body. If we look from the viewpoint of biologists, we see that there are many organized systems. There are viruses, bacteria, cells, etc., and probably from their standpoint, they would tell you that ‘they’ are independent entities and would not know what you were talking about when you said ‘my body.’ If we look from the viewpoint of physicists, we see that there are atoms, neutrons, electrons, and whatever else they have named, and these objects are found in space. Around and between these particles exists vast amounts of nothingness.

But aside from intellectually, if we look with our own experiencing, we can see that what we refer to as ‘body’ is an ever-changing collection of processes which is not in any way separate from existence. It is sunlight being transformed into energy, elements being absorbed by cells and transformed into physiology. It is oxygen being inhaled and carbon dioxide being expelled.

What we have done with the mind, is drawn a false border around a bunch of processes in a moment in time. This image is then held in memory and we refer to that image as ‘body.’ Of course there is sensing but that is certainly not stagnant. It is constantly changing, and when I investigate, I am unable to find any border that delineates what we call body from the rest of existence except for that which is in memory. When I look with my own experiencing, not relying on hearsay, I simply cannot find the division of body.

And it is through meditation that we find exactly the same situation concerning that which we refer to as our ‘mind.’ Again, with careful examination we find there is simply thinking but not any ‘thing’ as mind. It is simply the activity of thoughts passing through our consciousness that we call the ‘mind.’

The understanding that first we are not the ‘body-mind,’ and even more profoundly that there is no such thing as body-mind, leaves us free to be that which we are, pure subjectivity, consciousness without an object.

-purushottama

This is from the collection of stories, essays, poems and insights that is compiled to form the book From Lemurs to Lamas: Confessions of a Bodhisattva. Order the book Here.

 

God is Not a Ford – Osho

Is knowing an intellectual experience?

The experience of knowing has two dimensions to it. One is objective knowing, the other is subjective knowing. Objective knowing is intellectual. That’s what all of science goes on doing. It is intellectual knowing.

Intellect is enough to know the object. The object is outside – available to your eyes, available to experiments. You can dissect it, you can do whatsoever you want, all kinds of experimentation. It is available to the pure intellect. But your own being is not available to your intellect.

Your own being is available only in silence, not in intellectual activity, but in a silent awareness.

That is a totally different dimension and that is true knowing, knowing yourself. But that cannot be intellectual, because intellect is something that can only reach outwards; it has no way of reaching inwards.

You can see everything with your eyes, but you cannot see – with your eyes – your own eyes. In a mirror you can see, but those are not your eyes; that is only a reflection. Your intellect is capable of knowing everything that is outside, but you are behind the intellect and the intellect has no way to go there.

I am reminded… when Ford first made his cars they had no reverse gear. The very idea of the reverse gear had not happened. So even if you had gone only a few feet past your house and you had to come back to get something, you had to go around the whole city in order to come back. That was too tedious and stupid and a waste of time. So he added a reverse gear.

But as far as intellect is concerned, God is not a Ford. The intellect still has no reverse gear; it simply goes outwards. You can take it to the farthest stars, there is no problem; but it cannot reach within you, which is so close.

Albert Einstein, perhaps the most intelligent man who has explored the stars, died unhappy because he did not know himself. His unhappiness was: what is the point of knowing the whole world – knowing all about electrons and protons and neutrons and faraway galaxies – and not knowing about yourself, who you are?

Just before dying he said, ‘If I am born again I would rather be a plumber than be a physicist, so that I can have time enough to look within myself. This physics has been too much an involvement.”

With intellect you can know everything except yourself.

And if you depend only on intellect then you are going to deny your soul – that’s what atheists go on doing, that’s what communists go on doing. The reason is simply that they have made it a point that to be true something has to be intellectually proved. And the intellect has no way to prove consciousness.

Consciousness has to be discovered in a totally different way. Intellect is thinking, and consciousness is discovered in a state of no-thinking – in such utter silence that not even a single thought moves as a disturbance.

In that silence you discover your very being.

It is as vast as the sky.

And to know it is really to know something worthwhile; otherwise all your knowledge is garbage. It may be useful, utilitarian, but it is not going to help you transform your being. It cannot bring you to fulfillment, to contentment, to enlightenment, to a point where you can say, “I have come home.”

-Osho

From The Path of the Mystic, Discourse #1

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

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

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

Do Not Begin with Advait, Begin with Existence – Osho

So the first thing to remember is not to begin with division. Only then do you begin rightly. I do not mean to begin with the concept that “I am one.” I do not mean that. Then again you begin with a concept. Just begin in ignorance, in humble ignorance; with a basis of “I do not know.”

You can say that body and mind are separate, or you can take the opposite position and can say, “I am one. Body and mind are one.” But this statement still presupposes a division. You say one, but you are feeling two. Against the feeling of two you assert oneness. This assertion is again a subtle suppression.

So do not begin with advait, with a nondual philosophy. Begin with existence, not with concepts.

Begin with a deep, non-conceptualized consciousness. That is what I mean by a right beginning.

Begin to feel the existential. Do not say one or two; do not say this or that. Begin to feel what Is. And you can only feel what Is when the mind is not there, when concepts are not there, when  philosophies and doctrines are not there – really, when language is not there. When language is absent, you are in the existence. When language is present, you are in the mind.

-Osho

From Psychology of the Esoteric, Discourse #5

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

You can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

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

Osho on “Who am I?”

Would you please talk about the sadhana based on holding as much as possible to the “I” thought or the sense “I AM” and on asking oneself the questions, “Who am I?” or “From where does the ‘I’ arise?”

In what way does this approach to meditation differ from that of watching the gaps between one’s in-breath and out-breath? Does it make any difference whether one witnesses the breath focusing on the heart center or on the lower belly center?

It is an ancient method of meditation but full of dangers. Unless you are alert, the greater possibility is that you will be led astray by the method rather than to the right goal. The method is simple — concentrating yourself on the concept of I, closing your eyes and inquiring, “Who am I?”

The greatest problem is that when you ask “Who am I?” . . . who is going to answer you? Most probably the answer will come from your tradition, from your scriptures, from your conditioning. You have heard that “I am not the body, I am not the mind. I am the soul, I am the ultimate Brahma, I am God” — all these kinds of thoughts you have heard before.

You will ask a few times, “Who am I? Who am I?” — And then you will say, “I am ultimate Brahma.” And this is not a discovery, this is simply stupid. If you want to go rightly into the method, then the question has not to be verbally asked. “Who am I?” has not to be repeated verbally. Because as long as it remains a verbal question, you will supply a verbal answer from the head. You have to drop the verbal question. It has to remain just a vague idea, just like a thirst. Not that “I am thirsty,” — can you see the difference? When you are thirsty, you feel the thirst. And if you are in a desert, you feel the thirst in every fiber of your body. You don’t say, “I am thirsty, I am thirsty.” It is no longer a linguistic question, it is existential.

If “Who am I?” is an existential question, if you are not asking it in language but instead the feeling of the question is settling inside your center, then there is no need for any answer. Then it is none of the mind’s business. The mind will not hear that which is non-verbal, and the mind will not answer that which is non-verbal.

All your scriptures are in the mind, all your knowledge is gathered there.

Now you are entering an innocent space. You will not get the answer. You will get the feel, you will get the taste, you will get the smell. As you go deeper, you will be filled more with the feeling of being, of immortality, blissfulness, silence . . . a tremendous benediction.

But there is no answer like, “I am this, I am that.” All that is from the scriptures. This feeling is from you, and this feeling has a truth about it. It is a perfectly valid method.

One of the great masters of this century, Raman Maharshi, used only this method for his disciples: “Who am I?” But I have come across hundreds of his disciples — they are nowhere near the ultimate experience. And the reason is because they know the answer already.

I have asked them, “Do you know the answer?”

They said, “We know the answer.”

I said, “If you know the answer, then why are you asking? And your asking cannot go on very long — do it two or three times and the answer comes. The answer was already there, before the question.” So it is just a mind game. If you want to play it, you can play it. But if you really want to go into it as it was meant by Raman Maharshi, and by all the ancient seers, it is a nonverbal thirst.

Not knowing oneself hurts, it is a wound. Not knowing oneself makes the whole of life meaningless. You may know everything, only you do not know yourself — and that would be the first thing to know. So if you can avoid the danger of falling into a verbal question, it is perfectly good, you can go ahead.

You have also asked about witnessing, watching the breath and where one should watch. Anywhere — because the question is not where you are watching, the question is you are watching. The emphasis is on watching, watchfulness. All those points are just excuses. You can watch the breath at the tip of the nose when the breath goes in, you can watch it while it is going in, you can watch it when it returns — you can watch it anywhere. You can watch thoughts moving inside. The whole point is not to get lost in what you are watching. That is not important. The important thing is that you are watchful, that you have not forgotten to watch, that you are watching . . . watching . . . watching.

And slowly, slowly, as the watcher becomes more and more solid, stable, unwavering, a transformation happens. The things that you were watching disappear. For the first time, the watcher itself becomes the watched; the observer itself becomes the observed. You have come home.

-Osho

From Beyond Enlightenment, Discourse #9, Q3

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

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

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remain passive and know that ‘you are’ – Whosoever (Chaitanya Bharti)

I constantly think of other people. Is this also considered going out of myself, running away from myself? What to do?

Basically, you don’t think. But somewhere, without your cooperation, it cannot happen. The senses do the contacting; if there are no senses, you cannot contact others, you cannot relate. For relating, for contacting, senses are needed. But then the problem starts… that what we know, what we experience, what we perceive through the senses, goes on piling up inside.

When you close your eyes, that which was outside, is now inside. As if there is a film that goes on projecting, as if many films… many-many movies go on projecting. Sometimes part of this movie, sometimes part of that movie – they go on projecting… and you think that you are thinking.

But you are not thinking, you are just watching… just witnessing. This is a spontaneous, or call it automatic, process.

Actually, you don’t think.

When you are watching all these thoughts, you are focused on the “other,” you are focused “outside.” Even though you are watching inside, the focus is still “outside.” The distance may be small or big – it does not matter. When you are watching, when you are seeing something, you are there. And when you are there, you are not your-Self – that is for sure. When you are your-Self, you are not seeing this or that – “you are seeing you”… or, better to say, “you are feeling you”… or even more accurately “you are being you.” You are… that’s all. And when you are, you are not moving out of your- Self. So just be as you are… just be.

This process fluctuates very fast… again and again; from here to there the attention jumps. Psychologically, mentally, the whole energy goes there again and again, again and again… so what to do? The question is, what to do?

Come back. This is the only answer. Remain passive. Just remember this word “passivity.” It will do wonders.

So the first thing to remember is: Be passive.

And the second thing is: When you see that you are going out of your-Self …Gurudev clicks his fingers… come back inside of your-Self. Actually, there is no inside of your-Self – there you just are. There is no “in” or “out.” When you move, you have gone out. Whenever there is a thought, it is always out, it is never in.

Thought is needed to know things, to recognize objects, to understand the world outside. Nothing is needed to know your-Self. It is direct – you are. You can know directly because your very being has the quality of knowing. Knowing and being are one; they are not two. Just be… and knowing is there. Knowing of what? …Knowing of nothing, knowing of just being. And you have to do nothing! Just BE.

“…Is this also considered going outside of myself, running away from myself?

You are not running away, thoughts take you away. You are not going anywhere – you are just forgetting your-Self, that’s all. Your thoughts are like little children, beautiful babies that appear and hold your hand and say: “Look at me, Mama, look at me”… and you are gone! Thoughts are like your children – and you really love them! All kinds of thoughts… whatsoever… you love them. And that is why you go with them, again and again.

So this is a great opportunity… especially now that we are in silence… to practice. And what is the practice? …Remain passive… and remember your-Self… remember that you are. Come back, come back – again and again.

When there is a thought, your attention is there… on the thought. When there is no-thought, your attention is no-where… it just is. It is nothing but you – pure “you.” When attention is not moving at all, what remains is “you.” Call it your existence, your true nature, your soul… whatever you like. And sooner or later, you will discover that it is, that’s all. It is.

And in this “is-ness” is the real joy of being. It is complete, full, whole. Now you lack nothing: You are just happy, just peaceful.

“…What to do?”

Come back, Priya! Come back again and again, but remain passive and remember that you are… that “I am.”  30.12.02, 4.15 pm, Goa, India.

– Whosoever aka Gurudev (Chaitanya Bharti)

From …and nothing has ever happened, Chapter Eight

 

You can find Whosoever’s site here.

Being the Understanding – Jean Klein

We have come together to find out what we mean by truth, or our real nature, globality. This inquiry calls for a certain quality of attention, an attention free from any expectation. It is really a state of not-knowing, where we are simply open. It should also be clear that what we are looking for, we already are. It is completely objectless. Truth cannot be known by the mind and requires a different kind of perceiving than the mind uses. It is not a functional perceiving which is in duality—“I perceive this”—but a being the perceiving, where there is only perceiving without any perceiver or thing perceived. In other words, where we are the perceiving.

All that can be obtained, perceived, thought, is an object, but we are the subject of all objects. So if we remain in a state of trying to achieve understanding, we will only find an object and not the objectless truth. This object may be a subtle state, but what we are fundamentally is not a state. In trying to obtain ourselves, we go away from ourselves. When this is understood, our mind is automatically brought to a stop where all the energy used in projecting and attaining is no longer directed, and we find ourselves in non-directionless openness, waiting without waiting. This is really the most profoundly relaxed state of the body and the mind. We are simply open, open to the all-possible, open to the unknown. We can never go to it, because there is no one to go and nowhere to go. We can never take it. We can only be taken by it. So we must allow it.

We are accustomed to using the mind to understand, so we must go until the end of the mind, until it comes to the point of being completely exhausted. In other words, the mind must know its limits. This brings an absolutely relaxed state. The mind functions in space and time, but what we are, profoundly, is out of time. So time, the mind, can never understand what is beyond time. When the mind is exhausted, we are at the threshold of our real being. This threshold is a global feeling, free from any conceptualization. What is important is that when we say, “I have understood,” we feel how the understanding has acted on us. Intellectual understanding dissolves in silence, and this silence is our real being. We may have a clear geometrical understanding in our mind, but this understanding is still objective; the geometrical understanding must dissolve in being understanding, which is a global feeling. It is really this global feeling that is meant when we speak of being the understanding.

– Jean Klein

From Open to the Unknown: dialogues in Delphi, Chapter One, pp.1-2

You can read more from Jean Klein here.

Just Being is Zazen – Osho

When energy goes inward it turns into thoughts, feelings, emotions, and when energy goes outward it turns into relationships with beings and nature. But when energy does not move inward or outward, it is just there pulsating, vibrating. Then it is one with the existence, one with the whole. Is this Zazen?

Exactly. When the energy is just there – not going anywhere, just pulsating at the original source, just radiating its light there, blossoming like a lotus, neither going out nor going in – it is simply here and now.

When I say go inward, I am simply saying don’t go on moving in the head.

The whole society forces your energy to move in the head. All education consists of the basic technique of how to pulsate the energy only in the head – how to make you a great mathematician, how to make you a great physician. All the education in the world consists of taking the energy into the head.

Zen asks you to come out of the head and go to the basic source – from where the educational system around the world has been taking the energy, putting it into the head, and turning it into thoughts, images, and creating thinking. It has its uses. It is not that Zen is not aware of the uses of energy in the head, but if all the energy is used in the head, you will never become aware of your eternity. You may become a very great thinker and philosopher, but you will never know, as an experience, what life is. You will never know as an experience, what it is to be one with the whole.

When the energy is just at the center, pulsating . . . When it is not moving anywhere, neither in the head nor in the heart, but it is at the very source from where the heart takes it, the head takes it… pulsating at the very source – that is the very meaning of Zazen.

Zazen means just sitting at the very source, not moving anywhere. A tremendous force arises, a transformation of energy into light and love, into greater life, into compassion, into creativity. It can take many forms, but first you have to learn how to be at the source. Then the source will decide where your potential is. You can relax at the source, and it will take you to your very potential. It does not mean that you have to stop thinking forever, it simply means you should be aware and alert and capable of moving into the source. When you need the head you can move the energy into the head, and when you need to love, you can move the energy into the heart.

But you need not think twenty-four hours. When you are not thinking you have to relax back into your center – that keeps the Zen man constantly content, alert, joyful. A blissfulness surrounds him; it is not an act, it is simply radiation.

Zazen is the strategy of Zen. Literally it means just sitting. Sitting where? Sitting at the very source.

And once in a while, if you go on sitting in the source, you can manage all mental activities without any disturbance; you can manage all heart activities without any difficulty. And still, whenever you have time, you need not unnecessarily think, you need not unnecessarily feel, you can just be. Just being is Zazen.

And if you can just be – only for a few minutes in twenty-four hours – that is enough to keep you alert of your buddhahood.

-Osho

From The Zen Manifesto: Freedom From Oneself, Discourse #11

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

Here you can listen to the discourse excerpt Just Being Is Zazen.

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

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Birth of Universal Man – Dada Gavand

Birth of Universal Man

A Journey from Personality to Divinity

When the seeker begins to arrive nearer the spirit, he starts to feel the signs of opening. Here at this stage the seeker has to remain utterly silent, inward and innocent. Knowledge, imaginations, hopes and the authority of books, gurus or one’s own strong opinions are all barriers. Only the factual experience within, in that moment, is real.

One has to be alert and obedient only to the inner happening. There the seeker must wait in total silence, without any movement of thought, with humility and in the spirit of anonymity.

At this point, abundant patience and openness are needed without any movement of thought — which is faith. Such faith is not in someone or in some idea created by the wishful mind. Faith is the state of humility, aloneness and total inwardness. This is surrender to the unknown.

In this state of surrender — which is humility, inwardness and anonymity — Life energy undergoes a mystical change. This is a point of transition, a critical point in consciousness when a dimensional change begins to take place. Here, in this state of absolute aloneness, the radical revolution occurs.

When the whole energy attentively awaits in the inner space without any fragmentation, the alchemy of Cosmic Intelligence begins to unfold within. One stands the chance to witness the magic of a radical revolution only when the mind comes to total silence through the in-depth understanding of itself.

At this point, the Life energy is utterly still, transparent and dynamic, awaiting in readiness for its ultimate freedom. In its creative intelligence, the whole energy acts upon itself to explode the old structure of the crystallized mind.

This is the moment of breakthrough. In this revolutionary action the old, time-bound structure of the ego/me is shattered, giving the experience of a new-dimensional energy flow. This is the true re-birth of a human being. It is the blessing and the grace of the Causeless Creation.

This celebration is the outcome of the alchemy of Life, an act of the unknown. It is a spiritual opening, a turn toward new-dimensional existence.

When one begins to perceive and feel the bondage of the mind very clearly, without any reservation, this sets in motion a counter-force in consciousness. This counter-force is a catalyst for change, for the radical revolution. This is a natural unfoldment toward the final flowering of the human mind.

In all types of matter particles there are corresponding anti-matter particles. When the matter particles collide with the anti-matter particles, both are destroyed, leaving only energy.

In true meditation — which is free from the frame of technique and tradition, and carries all-around awareness to all that is within and without — the alchemy of transformation begins. There is an important change in the energy particles when attentive awareness is going totally inside. You become internally silent and free from any outward movement, and energy is actively pulsating only within.

When the energy particles of unbiased perception of the present collide with the particles of the past memory-mind, the annihilation of this psychological memory structure occurs. In this annihilation the perceiver and the past memory-mind are both negated. Awareness and the content of awareness are both annihilated, and there remains only energy.

This energy, being of a different dimension, will free us from the bondage of thought, which is time. It is elemental energy — that which is impersonal, spontaneous and intuitive. It functions in absolute freedom, beyond the realm of time and tradition. This timeless energy is pure Intelligence, the wisdom of Life, the Divine.

Eminent scientists working in the field of particle physics and genetic engineering also seem to have reached the conclusion that there exists an energy of a higher frequency which is beyond the dimensions of time and space and which behaves in mysterious ways.

True meditation opens up the possibility of entering this sphere of the mysterious, the unknown, the timeless, which may be eternal as well. Intense sensitivity is the outcome of thought-free inward pondering. It is an inward movement of exalted innocence — a movement of thinking without thought as well as feeling without emotional drive.

When this movement is free from the reflections of any reference to the past, it is detached from the shadow of Time. By entering deeper into one’s own inner space, quite inadvertently, one would arrive at a point where one can get the first insight to behold the dawn of the Timeless. The rigidity of thought is then loosened; thought comes into No man’s Land — a state of not-knowing, which is complete innocence.

Such a state of intense sensitivity loosens the hold of the genetic code. This prepares the ground for the eventual rushing in of the mysterious Life energy, which operates with its own Intelligence, without reference to the brain or nervous system.

At the moment of breakthrough, the mysterious Life energy explodes within and shatters the very foundation of one’s personality, along with one’s well-organized, conditioned memory-mind. The dawn of freedom is experienced!

The liberated man is completely freed from the clutches of the genome and lives from moment to moment, with a sense of being complete, contented, fully attuned and alive. He is also extremely creative, being governed by intuitive intelligence rather than bound by one’s conditioning or genetic code. This is a great achievement for man on earth, a historical landmark in the unfoldment of creative intelligence in the human being. Here lies the beauty, mystery and alchemy of Nature. Here also lies the hope and assurance of the liberation of human beings.

Yet, this stage is only the right beginning, like opening a door to something new. The door is open, and you are experiencing that other energy flow. The mold of mind has been broken, but even then one has to guard that new opening by remaining vigilant and totally faithful to it. Here is the need for, that classical state of ‘shraddha’ or faith. Faith is not a wishful mental choice of anything, either inside or outside. Faith is a total state in itself. It is anonymity with humility and inwardness, untouched by the desiring mind.

After the breakthrough, there is a possibility that that the surrounding environmental influences will affect this new opening. They can overshadow and engulf it again, just as a few dark clouds can subdue and block the light of the mighty sun. The whole basin of ego-mind has to become empty and cleaned of the residue gathered by the personality during its centuries of travel.

So even after the door has been opened, the old habits do linger on. The mind, with its ingrained self-interest, very cleverly tries to turn every new experience into an idea.

Truth is destroyed by making an idea of it. Thought embalms the Truth in time to keep it dead. This way the intellect can use Truth easily and conveniently whenever needed — to fulfill the vested interest of the ego. Be aware of the idea, the thought or concept. Thought is the slayer of Truth. Memory is a barrier to the Timeless.

Thus one needs to go deeper, to intensify the awareness, to remain faithful to that new beginning. The social mind and strong collective environmental pressures are always there. Those have the capacity to influence, to cast their own dark shadow, to take over again. You are open to a new freedom, yet the past is always lingering around to overcome the present. This, too, is a Law of Nature.

So one has to be vigilant and very aware even at this stage. Constant vigilance is the price of freedom. This new opening is not something that is permanent once it takes place. Life is a constant movement, a momentum of moments. One needs to be awake at every moment, which deepens one’s own faith.

Faith depends on what depth one has entered into oneself. One can play on the shore with the ocean water, or enter further into it to experience the full depth, the immensity. It is the depth that helps one loosen the grip of the foothold and thus become free from one’s own identity. Then one is carried aloft by the celestial current beyond the horizon to witness the panorama of unbounded space — the infinity.

Before that, the possibility is still there that the ego-mind will restructure itself and come back very subtly in a new guise. Some seekers see the glimpse through the door, but then they start glorifying the door, worshipping the light, singing songs about it. This can and does happen. The past is still there; the influences are still around. Any indulgence in glorificatory thought and idea about anyone or anything is a subtle and dangerous backward step. It implies that you are not yet completely free of mind.

The explosion almost completely breaks the mold, but the mold has the capacity to remake itself. That is why constant awareness is necessary. The mold of ego-mind has come into being through centuries and has created its own powerful vested interest. The mind mechanism, by utilizing all of the energy of Life, has rooted itself firmly. It does not let one move easily beyond itself towards divinity.

Even after this breakthrough, simplicity and austerity along with humility are essential, and deepening of the alert watchfulness is crucial. The explosion does bring a new order. It shatters the shell of the ego, the mind, and gives the experience of freedom and peace. But that freedom and peace have to unfold and flower to touch the source of one’s own inner being — the enormity of Life, the Divinity.

So there is not only the explosion but the deepening beyond it as well. You still have to let go of the foothold, to enter into the deeper eternal waters of Life. Then you become the water, the ocean, that vastness itself, in the flow of the Timeless. The ‘I’ as center merges into the circumference, which is limitless. You as a separate identity are not.

Here you come in Universality, the cosmic reality of Nature. You are not individual; you are not personality. That Universal state of being is the final point of arrival for human being. From personality to impersonality — which is Universality — is the unfoldment and fulfillment of life. He who merges with his own inner space becomes impersonal, becomes the whole. He is then not just in the world, but is one with it. And from there, when he loves one, he will love all.

This is the birth of the universal being, the impersonal one, and to experience this is our destiny. Here one is related to that vastness, to the infinity. In that enormity one experiences love and empathy. The entire world will then be in one’s orbit of relationship and love. What is love but one’s relationship with the impersonal intelligence beyond thought? When that comes into play, spirituality becomes much higher than just a religion, doctrine, philosophy, or tradition.

When one is operating from this impersonal state, intuitive expression brings forth the Truth that is the Cosmic Law. This Law will naturally guide one, rather than ethics prescribed by society or religion.

Love is the expression of cosmic creation in its highest form, beyond ethics, social morality and the rules of man. Intuitive expression from one’s inner space becomes the way of life. One finally embraces the Law of Divinity, which is not created by thought and so shall never perish. In this realm the creator and creation are one, subject and object are one.

Mankind is now facing its greatest challenge, with humanity on the brink. Sensitive and intelligent people are recognizing the fact that everybody is adding his bit to the world problems. Now their obligation is to become part of the solution. Only the individual acting and inquiring alone, within himself, can take up this challenge. Each one must explore within, with utmost urgency and honesty, to invite the radical revolution in the age-old mind.

Therein alone lies the hope for mankind. The mindless mind, freed from its fetters, will transform our perception, way of living and relationships. The human being will rise above individuality and nationality to embrace the Law of Universality.

Only through total upheaval and revolt, with a radical revolution of mind, can one discover the supreme fulfillment, with peace, love and the benevolence of Life. Universal human beings will live by the intelligence beyond thought, manifested in lives of creativity and intuitive spontaneity. This is the birthright of every human being on earth, the mystery which the Eternal is offering.

Let that Life lead you on…

With love,

Dada

From Intelligence Beyond Thought, Chapter twenty-eight

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