There are two kinds of non-attachment: the ordinary and the sublime. That attitude of non-attachment to the objects of desire in which the seeker knows that he is neither the doer nor the enjoyer, neither the restrained nor the restrainer, is called ordinary non-attachment. He knows that whatever faces him in this life is the result of the deeds of his past life.
Whether in pleasure or in pain, he can do nothing. Indulgence is but a disease and affluence of all kinds a storehouse of adversity. Every union leads inevitably to separation. The ignorant suffer maladies of mental anxiety.
All material things are perishable, because time is constantly devouring them. Through the understanding of scriptural precepts, one’s faith in material things is uprooted and one’s mind freed of them. This is called ordinary non-attachment.
When thoughts like: “I am not the doer, my past deeds are the doers, or God himself is the doer,” cease to worry the seeker, a state of silence, equilibrium, and peace is attained. This is called sublime non-attachment.
-Akshi Upanishad
On the path, in the search, every step has two sides: the beginning of the step, and the conclusion. The beginning will always be with conscious effort, it is bound to be so. A struggle will be there, constant need to be alert will be there. Sometimes you will fall, sometimes you will fall asleep, sometimes you will forget, sometimes you will go astray. Again and again, you will have to remember, come back to the path. Again and again, you will have to make more intense effort to be conscious.
So the beginning of every step will be struggle. There will be ups and there will be downs. Sometimes you will feel very miserable, frustrated; whenever the contact with the method is lost, whenever you have gone astray, frustration will happen, you will feel depressed, sad, lost. There will be moments of intense happiness also. Whenever you regain the control again, whenever even for moments you become the master, whenever even for small glimpses you become capable, you will feel intense joy spreading all over your being.
Peaks and valleys will be there. They will disappear only when the conscious effort has disappeared, when the method is no more a method, when the method has become your very consciousness, when you need not remember it, when you can completely forget it and it still grows, continuous, flows, when you need not maintain it, when you need not even think of it – and then it becomes spontaneous, sahaj. This is the end aspect of every step. Remember this: through constant practice a moment comes when you can drop the practice completely, and unless you can drop the practice you have not attained.
Taoist masters have used many dimensions: poetry, painting, and many other crafts have been used as training grounds. Painting has been used for centuries in China and Japan. Taoist painting has a principle, and that principle is that first one should become proficient in painting, in the technique of painting – it takes many years – and then for a few years one has to drop painting completely. One has to forget that one is a painter; throw the brushes, colors, inks, and just drop from the mind that one has learned something. For a few years one has to be completely away from painting. When the thought has dropped, then again, the master says, “Now you start.” Now this man is not a technician. He knows the technique but he is not a technician, because there is no need to be aware of the technique. Now he can paint like a small child. The effort has ceased, to paint has become effortless. Only then master-teachers are born.
I remember one story I would like to tell you. It happened once in Burma that a great temple was to be built, and the main door had to be something unique on the earth. So many painters, Zen masters, Taoist masters, were asked, and the one who was the greatest was invited to design the door. That great master had a habit that whenever he would paint something, design something, his chief disciple would sit by his side, and whenever he would complete the design, he would ask the chief disciple whether it was okay. If the disciple said no he would throw the design and he would again work on it. Unless the disciple said, “Right, this is the thing,” he would go on. Designing this main gate of the temple became a problem, because the chief disciple continued to say no. The master painted at least one hundred designs. Many months passed. He would work for weeks, and when the design was complete, he would look at the disciple who was sitting beside him. The disciple would shake his head and he would say, “No,” and the master would put aside the design and start again. He was also worried, “What is going to happen? When will this design be complete?” – and he had been doing hard work such as he had never done in his life.
Then one day it happened. The ink with which he was painting was almost finished, so he told the disciple to go out of the house and prepare more ink. The disciple went out to prepare the ink, and when he came back he started dancing in ecstasy and he said, “Now this is the thing! But why couldn’t you paint it before?”
The master said, “Now I know. I was also worried, what was happening? Now I know, your presence was the disturbance. In your presence I remained the technician. I was aware that I was doing something, effort was there; I was conscious of the effort, and I was thinking, expecting, that this time you would say yes. That was the disturbance. I could not be spontaneous. When you went out I could forget you, and when I could forget you I could forget myself also.” . . . Because the self is the reaction to the other. If the other is in your consciousness you will remain the ego. They both drop simultaneously; when the other has disappeared, the ego has disappeared.
“And when I was not,” the master said, “the painting flowed by itself. This design I have not done. All those hundred designs you rejected were my doings. This design is through Tao, through nature; it has dropped from the cosmos itself. I was just a vehicle. I could forget and become a vehicle.”
When you can forget the method, the effort, the self, the other, when everything has been dropped and you have become simply a flow of energy, spontaneous, then really something is attained – not before. And look at the difference in the Eastern and Western attitudes about painting, and about everything else also. In the West you have to make conscious effort and bring the effort to a peak. You become a technician and the other part is missing. In the East you have to become a technician, and then drop that whole technicality and become again innocent, simple, as if you were never trained.
Once somebody asked Winston Churchill, one of the greatest orators the West has produced, “Don’t you get afraid of the audience? Thousands of people staring at you – don’t you get afraid, scared? Don’t you get a little fear inside?”
Churchill said, “This has been my constant practice: that whenever I stand to speak, I look at the audience and I think, ‘So many fools!’ The moment this thought comes to my mind I am okay, then I don’t worry.”
Somebody asked the same question of a Zen master, Rinzai: “You speak to thousands, don’t you ever get worried about it? Don’t you ever get scared? Don’t you ever get an inner trembling? – because so many persons are present, judging, observing, looking at you.”
Rinzai said, “Whenever I look at people I say, ‘I am sitting there also. Only I am in this hall.’ Then there is no problem. I am alone, these people are also me.”
This is the Eastern and Western difference. Churchill represents the West: if others are fools, then you are okay, then the ego is strengthened. You don’t worry about them, because who are they? – nobodies. And Rinzai says: The other is not. They are just me, my forms. I am alone. I am the speaker and I am also the audience. Then what is the fear?”
In your bathroom when you are alone you can be a good singer – everybody is, almost everybody. And bring the same man out of the bathroom, let him stand here, and the moment he sees you he is no more capable of singing – even humming becomes impossible. The fear grips the throat; he is not alone, the others are there, they will judge. The moment the other is there fear has entered. But the same man was humming beautifully, singing beautifully in the bathroom – nobody was there.
The same happens when you can see in the other your own self. Then the whole earth is your bathroom; you can sing, you can dance. The other is no more there, there is nobody to judge. Through these eyes you are looking, and through others’ eyes also you are looking. Then it becomes a cosmic play of one energy in many forms. But the ultimate of any method is to become methodless, the ultimate of every technique is to become nontechnical, innocent. All effort is only to attain an effortless spontaneity.
There are two kinds of non-attachment: the ordinary and the sublime.
The ordinary is the first aspect of vairagya, non-attachment. The sublime is the spontaneous, the end; the other aspect of the same when things have become spontaneous.
That attitude of non-attachment to the objects of desire in which the seeker knows that he is neither the doer nor the enjoyer, neither the restrained nor the restrainer, is called ordinary non-attachment.
The emphasis is on the word knows. He has to maintain that; he has to remember it: “I am not the doer. I am just a witness. Whatsoever happens I am not involved. I am an outsider, just a spectator.” But this has to be remembered, this has to be maintained. This point must not be lost. And it is very difficult to remember it constantly. To remember even for a few minutes is difficult, because for many many lives you have been the doer, constantly you have been the enjoyer.
When you are eating you are the eater, when you are walking you are the walker, when you are listening you are the listener. You have never made any effort to remember that while doing anything you are not the doer but the witness. While eating, try it. The food is going into the body, not into you. It cannot go into you, there is no way, because you are the consciousness and the food cannot enter consciousness. It will go into the body, it will become the blood and the bone, whatsoever the body needs, but you remain a witness.
So while sitting at your table eating your food, don’t be the eater. You have never been the eater; this is just an old habit, an old conditioning. Look at the eater, the body, and the eaten, the food, and you be the third. You just witness, you just hover above, you just look from a distance. Stand aloof and see your body eating, the food being eaten, and don’t get involved in it. But you can maintain it only for a few seconds – again you will become the eater. It has been such a long, long conditioning; it will take time to break it.
You are walking on the street. Don’t be the walker, just watch the body walking. For a few seconds you may remember; again you will forget and you will enter in the body and become the walker. But even if for a few seconds you can maintain it, you can remember that you are not the walker, then those few seconds will become satori-like, those few seconds will be weightless, those few seconds will be of a joy such as you have never known. And if this can happen for a few seconds, why not for ever?
Somebody is insulting you – it will be more difficult than with walking or eating to remember that you are the witness. One Indian mystic, Ram Teerth, went to America in the beginning of this century. He never used the word ‘I’, he would always use the name Ram. If he was hungry, he would say, “Ram is hungry.” It looked unfamiliar and strange. If there was a headache he would say, “Ram has a headache.”
One day it happened that a few people insulted him. He came back laughing and his disciples asked, “Why are you laughing?”
So he said, “Ram was insulted very much, and I enjoyed. I was standing out of Ram and looking. Ram was in much difficulty; much inconvenience, discomfort, was there in Ram.”
You become an object of your own consciousness. This is coming out of the body, out of the ego, out of the mind. This is difficult not because it is unnatural, this is difficult only because of a long conditioning. You may have observed that small babies in the beginning never say ‘I’; they say, “Baby is hungry.” They seem to be witnessing the phenomenon. But we train them to use the ‘I’ because it’s not good to say, “Baby is hungry,” or “Baby wants to play.” We train them to use the ‘I’.
‘I’ is not existential, ‘I’ is a social entity; it has to be created. It is just like language: it is needed because if people go on speaking like babies or like Ram Teerth, if like Ram Teerth people go on saying their names, it will be very difficult to say whether they are talking about themselves or about somebody else. It will create confusion. If you say, “I am hungry,” immediately it is meant that you are hungry. If you say, “Ram is hungry,” if people know that you are Ram then it’s okay; otherwise they will think somebody else is hungry, not you. And if everybody uses it, it will create confusion.
It is a social convenience to use the ‘I’; but this social convenience becomes truth, it becomes the center of your being, a false thing. The ‘I’ never existed, can never exist. But just because of social utility the child is trained, the consciousness becomes fixed around a center which is just utilitarian, not existential – and then you live in an illusion. And the whole life of a person who has not come to know that there is no ego will be false, because it is based on a false foundation.
To be a witness means to drop the ‘I’. The moment you can drop the ‘I’, immediately you become the witness. Then there is nothing else to do, you can only be the witness. This ‘I’ creates the problem. Hence the emphasis of all religions to become egoless, to be egoless, to be humble, not to be proud, not to be conceited about it. Even if you have to use it, use it as a symbol. You have to use it but use it knowingly – knowing that this is just a social convenience.
That attitude of non-attachment to the objects of desire in which the seeker knows that he is neither the doer nor the enjoyer, neither the restrained nor the restrainer, is called ordinary non-attachment.
When you become capable of remembering that you are the witness, this is the first stage of nonattachment.
He knows that whatever faces him in this life is the result of the deeds of his past life.
Try to see that whatsoever action is there, it is not arising out of you but rather arising out of the chain of actions you have done in the past. Try to understand this distinction clearly. Whenever you do something – if somebody insults you, you think that the reaction is arising from you. That is wrong. It is arising not from you but from the chain of your mind which has come from the past. You have been trained in the past that this is an insulting word. […]
You have a mind trained through many lives. Things come out of that, not out of you. You have a long chain of actions; whenever a new act is born in you it comes out of that chain. It is a new link in that chain; it is born out of that chain, not out of you. When somebody insults you, you get angry. That anger comes from your past angers, not from you.
This difference has to be noted, because it will help you to become a witness. And that is what is meant by living moment-to-moment – that is the moment. Don’t allow the chain of the past to react. Put aside the chain and let your consciousness function directly. Don’t be influenced by the past, respond here and now, directly. The whole life will be different if you can act out of the present moment. But all your actions are almost always out of the past, never out of the present. And action that is born out of the present is nonbinding, an action that is born out of the past chain is a new link in your bondage. But first one has to become aware.
When you get angry just look: from where is that anger coming? from you or just from your past memories? You have been insulted before; you have been angry before – that memory is there waiting, that memory works like a wound. Again something happens and that memory starts functioning, that memory creates the same reaction again. If you watch and observe for twenty-four hours you will see that you are just a mechanical robot, you are functioning out of memories, out of the past. The past is dead, and the dead is so weighty on you that your life is crushed under it. Look at the chain. This sutra says:
He knows that whatever faces him in this life is the result of the deeds of his past life.
Not only that his reactions come from his past memories, but others’ actions in connection with him are also part of his past actions.
It happened, Buddha became enlightened and one of his cousins, Devadatta, tried to poison him, tried to kill him, in many ways tried to murder him. He was always a failure, fortunately. Somebody asked Buddha, “Why don’t you do something about it? This man is constantly trying in many ways to kill you.”
Once he brought a mad elephant and left the elephant near Buddha. The elephant was mad, in a rage. The elephant came running, but suddenly just near Buddha it stopped, bowed down and closed its eyes as if it was meditating. So somebody asked, “Why don’t you do something about this man? And why is he doing such things?”
Buddha said, “Because of my past actions. I must have hurt him in the past. He is simply reacting out of that chain. It is not his doing; I must have done some wrong to him in the past. And I must have done something good to this elephant in the past, otherwise there was no possibility . . . And I should remain now a witness. If I do something again in connection with Devadatta, then again, a chain will be created. So let him be finished with my past deeds – but I am not going to create a new karma for the future.”
When someone insults you, the attitude of a witness, of a person who is practicing nonattachment, is this: “I must have insulted him before in some past life somewhere, because nothing is born without a cause. The cause must be there, this is only the effect. So I must wait and take it, accept it as part of my destiny and be finished with it, because if I do something again a new future is created and the chain continues.”
Someone insults you. If you answer in any way then the account is not closed, it remains open. If you don’t respond then the account is closed. And this is the difference between the Eastern attitude and Christianity. Even very beautiful things sometimes can be basically wrong. Jesus says, “If someone hits you on one cheek, give him the other.” This is a beautiful saying, and one of the most beautiful sayings ever uttered in the world. But ask an Eastern buddha. He will say, “Don’t do even that. When someone hits you, remain as you were before he hit you. Don’t change, don’t do anything, because even giving him the other cheek is a response – a good response, a beautiful response, but a response – and you are creating karma again.”
Nietzsche somewhere criticizes Jesus for this. He says, “If I hit Jesus on one cheek and he gives me the other, I will hit even harder on the other, because this man is insulting me, he is treating me like an insect. He is not giving me the same status as him.” Nietzsche says, “It would be better if Jesus hits me back, because then he is behaving with me on equal terms. If he gives me the other cheek he is trying to play the god and he is insulting me.”
That’s possible. You can insult a person just by becoming superior – not that Jesus means it, but you can do it. And just trying to become superior will be more insulting, and the other person will feel more hurt than if you had given him a good slap. The Eastern attitude is to not do anything in any way, to remain as if nothing has happened. Somebody hits you; you remain as if nothing has happened. And this hit has come not from this person but from your past deed. So accept it – it is your own doing, he has not done anything – and remain as if nothing has happened. Don’t hit him back and don’t give him the other cheek, because both will create a new chain. Be finished with it, so the account is closed with this man at least. And this way you close the accounts with all.
When all the accounts are closed you need not be reborn. This is the philosophy of going beyond life and death. Then you need not be reborn again; you simply disappear from this phenomenal world, from this bodily, physical world. Then you exist as cosmos, not as individuals. Jesus’ saying is beautiful, very moral. But Buddha’s attitude is spiritual, not only moral: not to do anything, because whatsoever you do creates future, and one has to stop creating future.
He knows that whatever faces him in this life is the result of the deeds of his past life. Whether in pleasure or in pain, he can do nothing.
If you think you can do something you can never become a witness; if you think you can do something you will remain a doer. This has to be very deeply realized – that nothing can be done. Only then can the witness arise.
Life has to be observed, and if you observe life you will come to feel that nothing can be done. Everything is happening. You are born – what have you done about it? It has not been any choice; you have not chosen to be born. You are black or white – you have not chosen to be black or white, it has happened. You are man or woman, intelligent or stupid – it has happened, you have not done anything about it. You will die, you will disappear from this body, you will be born in another. Look at all this as a happening, not as a doing on your part. If you feel that you are doing something you can never become a witness.
The modern mind finds it very difficult to become a witness, because the modern mind thinks he can do something, the modern mind thinks he has willpower, the modern mind thinks that it is in its hands to change things and destiny. The modern mind goes on insisting to children, “You are the master of your destiny.” This is foolish. You cannot do anything, and whenever you feel that you are doing something you are under a wrong impression.
It happened once, under a tree many stones were piled. A building was soon going to be constructed and those stones were piled there for that building, to fill in the foundations. One small boy was passing, and as small boys do, he took a stone and threw it in the sky. The stone was rising upwards . . . It is very difficult for stones even to imagine that they can go upwards, they always go downwards. Just because of gravitation stones always go downwards, they cannot go upwards. But every stone must be dreaming somehow or other to go upwards. In their dreams stones must be flying, because dreams are fulfillments of those things which we cannot do. They are substitutes.
So all those stones must have dreamed somewhere, sometime, about flying. And this stone must have dreamed that someday he would fly, he would become a bird – and suddenly it happened. He was thrown, but he thought, “I am rising.” He looked downwards. Other stones, his brothers and sisters, were lying down, so he said, “Look! What are you doing there? Can’t you fly? I have done a miracle! I am flying, and I am going to the sky to see moons and stars!”
The other stones felt very jealous, but they couldn’t do anything so they thought, “This stone must be unique, an avatar, a reincarnated superior being. We cannot fly. This stone must be a Krishna, a Buddha, a Christ. He has miraculous power; he is flying” – and this is the greatest miracle for a stone.
They felt jealous, they wept over their destiny, they were sad, but they couldn’t do anything. Then they started feeling – because this is how mind goes on consoling – “Okay, you are one of us. You belong to us, to this pile, to this nation, to this race. We are happy that one of our brothers is flying.”
But then the moment came when the momentum of that small boy’s throw was lost, the energy finished and the stone started falling back. For a moment he felt dizzy, for a moment he felt, “What is happening?” and he couldn’t control it. But suddenly, as everybody rationalizes, he rationalized, “It is enough for the first day. I have gone too far, and I must go back now to my home.” Then he thought, “I am feeling homesick. It is better now to go back, to rest a little. I am tired. I must go back to my brothers and sisters, to my community, and tell them what beautiful phenomena I have seen – the sky, infinite sky, and such vast space, stars, moons – so near. This has been a cosmic event, an historical event; it should be written for the generations to come, for them to remember that one of us had flown once into the sky, had become just like a bird. The dreams are fulfilled.”
He started falling back. When he came just near the pile he said, “I am coming back. Don’t look so sad. I will not leave you; I will never leave you. The world is beautiful, but nothing is like home.” And he fell down.
And this is the story of your whole life. You are thrown, existence throws you. Then for certain moments you enjoy – life, flying, beauty, love, youth – but this is happening. It is happening just like breath coming in and going out. You are not doing anything; everything is a happening. Once you understand this, ego disappears, because ego exists only with the idea that you can do. To realize that nothing can be done is the highest point for the spiritual seeker to begin with, the climax of understanding. After that is transformation.
And if you cannot do anything, then when someone insults you, you can remain a witness – because what can be done? You can look at what is happening, you can be detached. A pain comes, a suffering happens – what can you do? You can be a witness. Pleasure comes, you are happy – what can you do? It has happened. It is happening just like night and day, morning and evening.
Watch your mind. There are moments of sadness, and immediately after them moments of pleasure, then again moments of sadness. When you are sad you are just on the brink of being happy, when you are happy you are just on the brink of being sad. This goes on revolving. And you have not done anything really, you are just like that stone. He takes a happening for a doing – that is fallacious. When you fall in love what have you done? Can you do anything to fall in love? Can you fall in love consciously? Try it and then you will see the impossibility; you cannot do anything. And if you have fallen in love, you cannot stop that falling.
There are foolishnesses which belong to youth and there are foolishnesses which belong to old age. This is the foolishness of the youth: he thinks, “I am doing something when I am in love.” So he thinks, “This is something of my doing.” It is a happening. And this is the foolishness of old age: old people go on saying, “Don’t fall in love. Stop yourself, control yourself” – as if love can be controlled. But the whole society exists around the ego – control, doing, not happening. If you can look at life as a happening, witnessing comes easily.
Whether in pleasure or in pain, he can do nothing. Indulgence is but a disease and affluence of all kinds a storehouse of adversity.
This is not condemnation; this is just giving you a hint that the opposite is hidden. When you are in pleasure, pain is there hidden, will come soon.
Indulgence is but a disease and affluence of all kinds a storehouse of adversity.
It is not a condemnation; this is simply the fact. But you go on forgetting. When you are happy you forget that you were ever sad before, you forget that sadness will follow again. When you are sad you forget that you were ever happy before, and you forget that happiness will follow again. You are in a moving circle, in a moving wheel. That’s why in the East life is called a wheel, just a wheel – moving. Every spoke will come up and every spoke will go down and will again come up. You may not be able to connect – that’s your misery. If you can connect you can see.
Go into loneliness for at least twenty-one days and then watch. There is nobody who can make you happy or unhappy, there is nobody who can make you angry, pleased, or anything. You are alone there. Have a diary and watch and note down every mood that comes to you. Then for the first time you will become aware that there is no need for anybody to make you angry – you become angry by yourself. There is no need for anybody to make you sad – there are moments when you suddenly feel sad. And there is no need for anybody to make you happy – there are sudden glimpses when you are happy.
And if you can watch for twenty-one days and go on noting down, you will see a wheel emerging. And this wheel is so subtle, that’s why you are not aware and you never connect it. If you watch deeply you can even say that one mood is passing and you can say what will follow, which spoke is going to come. If you have observed basically, deeply, you can predict your moods. Then you can say, “On Monday morning I will be angry.”
Much research is going on in Soviet Russia about moods, and they say a calendar can be made for every person. On Mondays he will be angry; on Saturdays, in the morning, he will be happy; on Tuesdays, in the evening, he will feel sexual. If you observe yourself, you can also approximately fix a routine, a wheel of your life. And then many things become possible. Russian psychologists have suggested that if this can be done – and this can be done – then family life will become more easy, because you can look at your wife’s calendar and your wife can look at your calendar. Then there is no need to get angry about anything, this is how things are going to happen.
You know that on Tuesdays the wife is going to be terrible, so you accept it. You know from the very beginning that it is going to be on that day, so from the morning you can remain a witness, you need not get involved in it; it is your wife’s inner work. Two beings moving side by side need not get concerned with the other’s spokes. And when she is unhappy, sad, it is just foolish to get angry about it, because you create more sadness through it. The day when your wife is unhappy it is better to help her in every way, because she is ill. It is just like menses, a periodical thing. […]
This calendar can be maintained. You can observe your life for two or three months impartially, and then you can know that you are moving in a wheel and others are only excuses; you impose upon them. You get sad when you are alone also, but if you are with someone you think the other is making you sad. And man and woman are not different, cannot be. They are not two different species, they are one species, and everything has a positive-negative relationship. […]
Everyone is bisexual; no one belongs to one sex, and cannot belong to one sex. Half of you is man and half of you is woman. So the difference is only of which part is visible. You may be man only because the male part is visible on the surface and the female part is hidden behind; you are a woman if the female part is visible on the surface and the male part is hidden behind.
That’s why if a woman gets ferocious, she will be more ferocious than a man, because then she simply comes out of her surface, and what is hidden is the man. Ordinarily when a woman is angry, she is not so angry as a man, not so aggressive as man, but if she is really angry then a man is nothing compared to her. A man can be more loving than a woman. He is not ordinarily so, but if he is then no woman can be compared with him, because then the hidden part comes out. And man has not used the hidden part; it is fresh, alive – more alive than woman. So if a man is really in love he is more loving than any woman, because then his hidden woman which is fresh, unused, comes out. And when a woman is angry, filled with hatred, no man can be compared, because the hidden, fresh aggression comes out. […]
And this happens in life: as people grow old, men become more effeminate and women become more manly. That’s why old women are very dangerous; the stories about mother-in-laws are not just inventions. They are dangerous.
This is not to condemn.
Every union leads inevitably to separation.
Every union leads to separation, every marriage is a preparation for divorce.
The ignorant suffer the maladies of mental anxiety.
The ignorant suffer because of ignorance – because they cannot see this polarity. If they can see that every union is going to become a separation, they will neither be happy about the union nor unhappy about the separation. And if you are not happy about the marriage and not happy about the divorce you have transcended both. Then a relationship grows which cannot be called marriage and cannot be called divorce. That relationship can be eternal.
But marriage implies divorce, union implies separation, birth implies death. So be aware of the opposite, that will help you to become a witness. It will lessen your happiness, it will lessen your misery also. And a moment will come when happiness and misery will become the same. When they become the same you have transcended.
And this is the way they can become the same: when happiness comes, search for the hidden unhappiness somewhere in it. You will find it. When unhappiness comes, search for the happiness hiding somewhere – you will find it. And then you know that happiness and unhappiness are not two things but two aspects of the same coin. And don’t believe too much in the aspect that is visible, because the invisible will become visible, it is only a question of time.
All material things are perishable, because time is constantly devouring them. Through the understanding of scriptural precepts, one’s faith in material things is uprooted and one’s mind freed of them. This is called ordinary non-attachment.
This is through effort, understanding. With mind you can achieve this ordinary non-attachment. But this is not the goal, this is just the beginning.
When thoughts like: “I am not the doer, my past deeds are the doers, or God himself is the doer . . .”
Even such thoughts drop. These were the base of the first, these thoughts were the base of the ordinary nonattachment. When even they:
. . . cease to worry the seeker, a stage of silence, equilibrium, and peace is attained. This is called sublime non-attachment.
. . . Because to constantly think, “I am not the doer,” shows that you believe you are the doer; otherwise why go on constantly saying “I am not the doer”?
Once it happened, one Hindu sannyasin, a traditional monk, stayed with me for a few days. Every day in the morning, in the brahmamuhurt, just before the sunrise, he would sit and repeat constantly, “I am not the body, I am the soul supreme. I am not the body . . .”
So I heard him doing it, saying that for many days, and then I said, “If you really know that you are not the body, why repeat it? If you really know you are the supreme self, then who are you convincing every morning? That shows you don’t know. You are just trying to convince yourself that you are not the body, but you know you are the body; that’s why the need to convince.”
Remember this: the mind works in this way. Whenever you try to convince yourself of something the contrary is the case. If a person tries too much to say, “I love you,” know well that something is wrong. If a person tries to say too much about anything, that shows that the contrary exists within; he is trying to convince himself, not you. Whenever a husband feels guilty that he has looked at another woman, or has been friendly, or was attracted, then he comes home and that day he will be more loving to the wife. He will bring ice cream or something. So whenever the husband brings ice cream beware – because now he is not trying to convince you, he is trying to convince himself that he loves his wife more than anybody else.
Whenever mind becomes aware that something has gone wrong, that wrong has to be put right. The first effort for non-attachment is such effort. You go on insisting to yourself, “I am not the body, I am not the doer,” but you know well that you are the doer, you are the body. But this will help. One day you will become aware of both these polarities: that you are insisting that you are not, and still, you believe that you are the body. Then both drop, you simply remain silent, you don’t say anything. Neither do you say, “I am the doer,” nor do you say, “I am the witness.” You simply drop this whole nonsense. You allow things as they are. You don’t say anything, you don’t make any statement. Then silence, equilibrium, and peace are attained – when you don’t make any statement.
Somebody asked Buddha, “Are you the body or are you the soul?” Buddha remained silent. The man insisted, and Buddha said, “Don’t force me, because whatsoever statement I make will be wrong. If I say I am the body, it is wrong, because I am not. If I say I am not the body, that too shows that somehow, I am attached to the body, otherwise why this denial? Why this botheration to say that I am not the body? So I will not make any statement. If you can understand, look at me, at what I am.”
When you simply are – without any statement, without any idea, without any theory, without any concept . . . when you simply are, when you have become a tree, a rock, you exist, that’s all. And you allow existence to flow from you, within you. You don’t create any resistance, you don’t say, “I am this,” because every statement will be a definition, and every statement will make you finite.
But this will not happen immediately and directly, remember. You cannot drop unless you have made the first effort. So first try, “I am the witness.” And bring it to such intensity that in that intensity you become aware that even this is futile. Then drop it and be yourself.
It happened once, Mulla Nasruddin went to England. His English was not very good, just like me – that is not much. He had a very beautiful dog, but very ferocious. So he put a plaque on the door, and instead of writing “Beware of the dog,” he wrote, “Be aware of the dog.” That is wrong English – but wrongly he did a right thing, because the whole emphasis is changed. When you say “Beware of the dog,” emphasis is on the dog. When you say “Be aware of the dog,” the emphasis is on you. And this English word beware is beautiful. Make it two, be plus aware.
Be plus aware is the first step. In the second step, awareness also has disappeared. Simply be. Don’t be even aware, because that will create an effort. Simply be. When you are in that state of being – not doing anything, not even witnessing, because that too is a subtle doing . . .
A state of silence, equilibrium, and peace is attained. This is called sublime non-attachment.
-Osho
From Vedanta: Seven Steps to Samadhi, Discourse #10
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