Tag: Osho

While You can Do Something, Non-doing is not Possible – Osho

If one experiences or understands inwardly the deep feeling of becoming as a dry leaf to be moved only by the existence itself, then how can one push oneself to breathe or jump or do anything at all but lie flat on the earth and dissolve?

First, to experience and to understand are two different things. If you experience this there is no need to ask the question – just lie down flat on the ground and dissolve. Why ask the question? This is an act, you are doing something. No dry leaf has ever asked. But the very question shows that intellectually you understand, but you have not experienced any such thing – and intellectual understanding is not understanding at all. Intellectual understanding is just appearance of understanding, it is not understanding.

Why do I say this? I will read the sentence, you will feel why. “If one experiences or understands . . .” You cannot use the “or” because they are not the same thing – either you experience or you don’t experience. First thing, intellectual understanding is not equal to experience. ” . . . Or understands inwardly the deep feeling of becoming as a dry leaf to be moved only by the existence itself, then how can one push oneself to breathe or jump or do anything at all but lie flat on the earth and dissolve?”

You will have to do that also – to lie flat. You will have to do that also – to lie flat on the earth. And if you can do that, why can’t you push, jump and breathe?

I will tell you one anecdote.

It happened, one Zen monk, Dogen, used to tell his disciples, “Unless you die, you will not be reborn.”

So one stupid disciple – and there are always many – thought, “If this is the key, then I must try it.”

So one day he came and did just as you have said. He must have lain with closed eyes, flat out in front of the door of the master, just in the morning when the master was expected to come out for the morning prayer. The master opened the door and found that his disciple was lying there not breathing, as if dead. The master Dogen said, “Okay, doing well.”

So the disciple opened one eye just to see the expression on the master’s face, and Dogen said, “Stupid! Dead men don’t open their eyes!”

You will have to do that also – to lie flat on the ground – but that will be your doing. And these breathing exercises are to help you so that it can happen and is not your doing. All these techniques of meditation are to help you to come to this realization when suddenly you feel that it is happening – you have fallen on the ground, dissolving. But that should not be something done on your part, you cannot do it. If it is a doing the whole point is lost. It must be a spontaneous happening.

And right now, whatsoever you do will not be spontaneous, whatsoever you are doing you have to make effort. And I know that you have to make effort for breathing, for catharsis, for the mantra Hoo – and you have to bring all effort possible. These efforts are not going to become your enlightenment, because enlightenment is never achieved through effort, but these efforts will help you; they will bring you to a point where you can become effortless. And when you become effortless, enlightenment is always there. You can stop them, but just by stopping them nothing will happen. Continue them, and do them as totally as possible because then you will come to realize sooner that nothing can be achieved through effort.

Nothing can be achieved through effort – you have to realize this. I can say this, but this will not be of much help. I know well that just by breathing fast you are not going to enter into nirvana. I know it well. And just by crying and dancing no one has ever entered there. Even if their door is open, they will close it, if they see that you are coming doing Dynamic Meditation they will close the door. This I know well.

I have heard, one Christian missionary was giving a sermon to some middle-school students, small boys and girls. After the sermon he asked, “Those who want to go to heaven should raise their hands.”

So all the boys except one raised their hands. Only one boy, someone called Johnny, remained silent.

The missionary asked, “Don’t you want to go to heaven?”

Johnny said, “Not with this bunch!”

So if you go doing Dynamic Meditation even I cannot enter with you, it is impossible. But I know that Dynamic Meditation is not the end, it is just to prepare you so that you can drop automatically. It is to exhaust you and your ego; it is to exhaust your mind, your body; it is to exhaust your individuality.

And when your individuality is exhausted completely you will drop on the ground like a dry leaf. But not like Dogen’s disciple – if he could have done Dynamic Meditation the whole story would have been different. Then there would have been no need to lie down on the ground, he would have fallen on the ground.

And if you have to lie down, that shows only that you are withholding yourself, you are not really exhausted. If you simply move totally in whatsoever I am saying to do you will get exhausted. You have a certain amount of energy, a limited amount of energy – that energy can be exhausted. Once exhausted you will become a dry leaf, a dead leaf.

When you cannot do anything only then can non-doing happen. While you can do something, Non-doing is not possible.

-Osho

From Vedanta: Seven Steps to Samadhi, Discourse #13, Q2

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.

The Dancer is the Witness – Osho

Can one be absorbed in doing something – for instance dynamic meditation techniques – with absolute total intensity, and at the same time remain a witness who is separate, apart?

The same is the problem in many forms. You think that a witness is something apart, separate. It is not. Your intensity, your wholeness, is your witness. So when you are witnessing and doing something you are not two – the doer is the witness.

For example, you are dancing here in kirtan. You are dancing: the dancer and the witness are not two, there is no separation. The separation is only in language. The dancer is the witness. And if the dancer is not the witness, then you cannot be total in the dance, because the witness will need some energy and you will have to divide yourself. A part will remain a witness and the remaining will move in the dance. It cannot be total, it will be divided. And this is not what is meant, because really this is the state of a schizophrenic patient – divided, split. It is pathological. If you become two you are ill. You must remain one. You must move totally into the dance, and your totality will become the witness. It is not going to be something set apart, your wholeness is aware. This happens.

So don’t try to divide yourself. While dancing become the dance. Just remain alert; don’t fall asleep, don’t be unconscious. You are not under a drug, you are alert, fully alert. But this alertness is not a part standing aloof; it is your totality; it is your whole being.

But this is again the same thing as whether two lovers are two or one. Only on the surface are they two, deep inside they are one. Only in language will you appear two, the dancer and the witness, but deep down you are the one. The whole dancer is alert. Then only peace, equilibrium, silence, will happen to you. If you are divided there will be tension, and that tension will not allow you to be totally here and now, to merge into existence.

So remember that, don’t try to divide. Become the dancer and still be aware. This happens. This I am saying through my experience. This I am saying through many others’ experiences who have been working with me. This will happen to you also. This may have happened to many already. But remember this: don’t get split. Remain one and yet aware.

-Osho

From Vedanta: Seven Steps to Samadhi, Discourse #11

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.

Meditation is a Bridge – Osho

Whoever clings to mind sees not the truth of what’s beyond the mind.

If you cling to the mind, thoughts, emotions, then you will not be able to see that which is beyond the mind – the great Mind – because if you cling, how can you see it? If you cling, your eyes are closed by your clinging. And if you cling to the object, how can you see the subject? This “clinging-ness” has to be dropped.

Whoever clings to mind is identified, and sees not the truth of what’s beyond the mind. Whoever strives to practice dharma finds not the truth of beyond practice.

All practice is of the mind. Whatsoever you do is of the mind. Only witnessing is not of the mind, remember this.

So, even while you are doing meditation, remain a witness, continuously see what is happening. You are whirling in a dervish meditation? – whirl, whirl as fast as you can, but remain a witness inside and go on seeing that the body is whirling. The body goes on, faster and faster and faster, and the faster the body goes, the deeper you feel that your center is not moving. You are standing still, the body moves like a wheel, you stand still just in the middle of it. The faster the body goes, the deeper you realize the fact that you are not moving, and the distance is created.

Whatsoever you are doing, even meditation – I make no exception – don’t cling to meditation either, because a day has to come when even that clinging has to be dropped. Meditation becomes perfect when it too is dropped. When there is perfect meditation, you need not meditate.

So keep it constantly in your awareness that meditation is just a bridge; it has to be passed over. A bridge is not a place to make your house. You have to pass it and go beyond it. Meditation is a bridge; you have to be watchful about it also, otherwise you may stop being identified with anger, greed, and you may start being identified with meditation, compassion. Then you are in the same trap again; through another door you have entered the same house.

It happened once: Mulla Nasruddin came to the town bar and he was already too drunk, so the barkeeper told him, “You go away! You are already drunk and I cannot give you any more. You just go back to your house.” But he was insisting, so the barkeeper had to throw him out.

He walked a long distance in search of another bar. Then he came to the same bar from another door, entered, looked at the man with a little suspicion because he looked familiar. The barman said, “I have told you once and forever that tonight I am not going to give you anything. You get away from here!” Mulla was insisting again, he was thrown out again.

He walked a long distance in search of another bar, but in that town there was only one bar. Again, from the third door, he entered, looked at the man, who looked so familiar. Mulla said, “What is the matter? Do you own all the bars in the town?”

This happens. You are thrown out from one door; you enter from another door. You were identified with your anger, your lust; now you become identified with your meditation. You were identified with your sexual pleasure; now you become identified with the ecstasy that meditation gives. Nothing is different – the town has only one bar. Don’t try to enter the same bar again and again. And from wherever you enter you will find the same owner – that is the witness. Be mindful of it, otherwise much energy is unnecessarily wasted. Long distances you travel to enter into the same thing again.

Whoever clings to mind sees not the truth of what’s beyond the mind.

What is beyond the mind? You. What is beyond the mind? Consciousness. What is beyond the mind? Sat-chit-anand – truth, consciousness, bliss.

Whoever stives to practice the dharma finds not the truth of beyond practice.

And whatsoever you practice, remember, practice cannot lead you to the natural, the loose and the natural, because practice means practicing something which is not there. Practicing means always practicing something artificial. Nature has not to be practiced; there is no need, it is already there. You learn something which is not there. How can you learn something which is already there? How can you learn nature, tao? It is already there! You are born in it. There is no need to find any teacher so that you can be taught – and that is the difference between a teacher and a master.

A teacher is one who teaches you something, a master is one who helps you to unlearn all that you have already learned. A master is to help you unlearn. A master is to give you the taste of the non-practiced. It is already there; through your learning you have lost it. Through your unlearning you will regain it.

Truth is not a discovery, it is a rediscovery. It was already there in the first place. When you came into this world it was with you, when you were born into this life it was with you, because you are it. It cannot be otherwise. It is not something external, it is intrinsic in you, it is your very being. So if you practice, says Tilopa, you will not know that which is beyond practice.

Remind yourself again and again, that whatsoever you practice will be a part of the mind, the small mind, the outer periphery, and you have to go beyond it. How to go beyond it? Practice, nothing is wrong in it, but be alert; meditate, but be alert – because in the final meaning of the term, meditation is witnessing.

All techniques can be helpful but they are not exactly meditation, they are just a groping in the dark. Suddenly one day, doing something, you will become a witness. Doing a meditation like the dynamic, or kundalini or whirling, suddenly one day the meditation will go on but you will not be identified. You will sit silently behind; you will watch it – that day meditation has happened; that day technique is no more a hindrance, no more a help. You can enjoy it if you like, like an exercise, it gives a certain vitality, but there is no need now – the real meditation has happened.

Meditation is witnessing. To meditate means to become a witness. Meditation is not a technique at all. This will be very confusing to you because I go on giving you techniques. In the ultimate sense meditation is not a technique; meditation is an understanding, awareness. But you need techniques because that final understanding is very far away from you; deep hidden in you, but still very far away from you. Right this moment you can attain it, but you will not attain it, because your moment goes on, your mind goes on. This very moment it is possible and yet impossible. Techniques will bridge the gap, they are just to bridge the gap.

So in the beginning techniques are meditations; in the end you will laugh, techniques are not meditation. Meditation is a totally different quality of being, it has nothing to do with anything. But it will happen only in the end; don’t think it has happened in the beginning, otherwise the gap will not be bridged.

This is the problem with Krishnamurti, and this is the problem with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi – they are the two opposite poles. Mahesh Yogi thinks that technique is meditation, so once you are attuned to a technique – Transcendental Meditation or any other – the meditation has happened. This is right and wrong. Right, because in the beginning a beginner has to attune himself to some technique, because his understanding is not ripe enough to understand the ultimate. So approximately . . . a technique is approximately a meditation.

It is just like a small child learning the alphabet – so we tell the child that “m” is the same letter as when you use “monkey,” the monkey represents “m.” With the “m” the monkey is there, the child starts learning. There is no relationship between monkey and “m.” “M” can be represented by millions of things, and still it is different from everything. But a child has to be shown something. Monkey is nearer the child; he can understand the monkey, not “m.” Through the monkey he will be able to understand “m” – but this is just a beginning, not the end.

Mahesh Yogi is right in the beginning, to push you on the path, but if you are stuck with him you are lost. He has to be left, he is a primary school; good as far as it goes, but one need not always remain in the primary school. The primary school is not the university, and the primary school is not the universe; one has to pass from there. It is a primary understanding that meditation is a technique.

Then there is Krishnamurti at the other pole. He says there are no techniques, no meditations, but choiceless awareness. Perfectly right! – but he is trying to help you enter into the university without the primary school. He can be dangerous because he is talking about the ultimate. You cannot understand it; right now, in your understanding it is not possible – you will go mad. Once you listen to Krishnamurti you will be lost, because you will always intellectually understand he is right, and in your being you will know that nothing is happening.

Many Krishnamurti followers have come to me. They say intellectually they understand: “Of course it is right, there is no technique and meditation is awareness – but what to do?” And I tell them, “The moment you ask what to do, it means you need a technique. ’What to do?’ You ask how to do it, you are asking for a technique. Krishnamurti will not help you. Rather, go to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi – that will be better.” But people are stuck with Krishnamurti and there are people who are stuck with Mahesh Yogi.

I am neither – or I am both; and then I am very confusing. They are both clear, their standpoints are simple; there is no complexity in understanding Mahesh Yogi or Krishnamurti. If you understand language, you can understand them, there is no problem. The problem will arise with me because I will always talk about the beginning and will never allow you to forget the end. I will always talk about the end and always help you to start from the beginning. You will be confused because you will say, “What do you mean? If meditation is simply awareness, then why go through so many exercises?”

You have to go through them; only then will that meditation help you . . . that will happen to you which is simple understanding.

Or you say, “If techniques are all, then why do you go on saying again and again that techniques have to be left, dropped?” . . . Because then you feel: “Something learned so deeply, with so much effort and arduous labor has to be left again?” You would like to cling to the beginning. I will not allow you. Once you are on the path, I will go on pushing you to the very end.

This is a problem; with me this problem has to be faced, encountered and understood. I will look contradictory. I am; I am a paradox – because I am trying to give you both the beginning and the end, the first step and the last. Tilopa is talking of the ultimate. He is saying:

Whoever strives to practice dharma finds not the truth of beyond practice. To know what is beyond both mind and practice, one should not cling, one should cut cleanly through the root of the mind and stare naked.

That’s what I am calling witnessing: stare naked. Just staring naked will do, the root is cut. This staring naked becomes like a sharp sword.

-Osho

From Tantra: The Supreme Understanding, Discourse #8

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

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

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

Aham Brahmasmi – Osho

The most fundamental upanishidic statement is aham brahmasmi. Is it connected in any way to satchidanand?

Anando, the statement in the Upanishads, aham brahmasmi, is perhaps the most fundamental and the most essential experience of all the mystics of the world. The Upanishads are the only books which are considered not to belong to any religion, yet they are the very essence of religiousness.

This statement, aham brahmasmi, is a declaration of enlightenment – literally it means, “I am the divine, I am the ultimate, I am the absolute.” It is a declaration that, “There is no other God than my own inner being.” This does not mean that it is a declaration of a single individual about himself. It is a declaration, of course, by one individual, but it declares the potential of every individual.

It denies God as a separate entity. It denies God as a creator. It denies God as a ruler. It simply denies the existence of God, other than in our own existence. It is the whole search of the Eastern genius. In thousands of years, they have discovered only one thing: don’t look for God outside your own being. If you can find him you can find him only in one place and that is in you – other than you all the temples and all the mosques and all the synagogues and all the churches are inventions of the priests to exploit you. They are not in the service of God; on the contrary they are exploiting all the potential gods.

Aham brahmasmi is perhaps the boldest statement ever made by any human being in any age in any part of the world, and I don’t think it can be improved upon in the future, ever. Its courage is so absolute and perfect that you cannot refine it, you cannot polish it. It is so fundamental that you cannot go deeper than this, neither can you go higher than this.

This simple statement aham brahmasmi, – in Sanskrit, is only three words. In English also it can be translated in these few words: “I am the Ultimate.” Beyond me there is nothing; there is no height that is not within me and there is no depth which is not within me. If I can explore myself I have explored the whole mystery of existence.

But, unfortunately, even the people of this country – where this statement was made some five thousand years ago – have forgotten all about the dignity of human beings. This statement is nothing but the ultimate manifesto of man and his dignity. Even in this country, where such individuals existed who reached the ultimate awakening and illumination, there are people who are worshipping stones. There are people who are enslaved by ignorant priests. There are people who are living in the bondage of a certain religion, creed or cult. They have forgotten the golden age of the Upanishads.

Perhaps that was the most innocent time that happened in the history of man. At that time the West was almost barbarous, and that barbarousness somehow has remained as an undercurrent in the western consciousness. Otherwise, it cannot be just coincidental that the two great world wars have happened in the West. And preparation for the third is also happening in the West – just within a small span of half a century.

The days of the Upanishads in this land were the most glorious. The only search, the only seeking, the only longing, was to know oneself – no other ambition ruled mankind. Riches, success, power, everything was absolutely mundane.

Those who were ambitious, those who were running after riches, those who wanted to be powerful were considered to be psychologically sick. And those who were really healthy psychologically, spiritually healthy, their only search was to know oneself and to be oneself and to declare to the whole universe the innermost secret. That secret is contained in this statement, “Aham brahmasmi.” The people who followed the days of the Upanishads in a way have fallen into a dark age.

You will be surprised to know that the idea of involution has not appeared at all in the Western mind, only the idea of evolution, only the idea of progress. But the mystics of the Upanishads have a more perfect and more comprehensive approach. Nothing can go on evolving forever. Evolution has been conceived by the Upanishads as a circle and, in fact, in existence everything moves in a circle. Stars move in circles, the sun moves in a circle, the earth moves in a circle, the moon moves in a circle, climates move in a circle, life moves in a circle.

The whole existence knows only one way of movement and that is circular. So that which seems to be going up one day will soon be going down. Again, it will come up – it is just like a wheel and the spokes of the wheel. The same spoke will come up, will go down, will come up, will go down.

Evolution is incomplete if there is not any complementary idea of involution. Materially man has evolved. Certainly, there were no railway trains and there were no atomic weapons and there was no nuclear war material, there was no electricity, there was nothing of the technology that we have become accustomed to living with. Materially, man has certainly evolved, but spiritually, the situation is totally different.

Spiritually, man has not evolved. According to the Upanishads, man has gone deeper into darkness. He has lost his innocence and he has lost his blissfulness and he has lost his simple experience of: “I am the mysterious, I am the miraculous; I am the whole cosmos in a miniature form, just as a dewdrop is the whole ocean in a miniature form.” The dewdrop can declare, “I am the ocean,” and there will not be anything wrong in it. Certainly, a particular individual is only a dewdrop, but he can declare, “Aham brahmasmi,” and there is nothing wrong in it. He is simply saying the truth.

The Upanishads talk about four stages of man’s fall, not of evolution. The first stage, when the Upanishads came into being, is called the “Age of Truth.” People were simply truthful, just as small children are simply truthful.

To lie, one needs some experience. Lying is a complicated phenomenon, truth is not. To lie you need a developed memory, you have to remember what kind of thing you have said to one person and what kind of thing you have said to another person. A lying person needs a good memory. A man of truth needs no memory because he is simply saying that which is the case.

The child has no experience other than the truth, other than what he experiences. He cannot lie. The days of the Upanishads are the days of man’s childhood, of purity and innocence, of deep love and trust. The first age the Upanishads call Satyuga, the Age of Truth. Truth was not a long journey. You were not to go anywhere to find it. You were living in it.

The situation was exactly expressed by Kabir in a symbolic parable: A fish in the ocean, who must have had a philosophic bent, started inquiring of other fish, “I have heard so much about the ocean, but I want to know where it is.”

The poor fish that she questioned had also heard about the ocean but they were not so curious, so they never bothered about where it was. They said, “We have also heard about the ocean, but where it is we have never bothered to ask, and we don’t know the answer.”

And the young philosopher fish went on asking everybody, “Where is the ocean?” And they were all stunned. They had heard about it from their forefathers – it had always been known – but as far as an exact description or experience was concerned, nobody was able to explain it to the young fish.

Finally, the young fish declared, “You are all stupid. There is no ocean at all.” Nobody could answer the fish.

Kabir says the same is the situation of man. Man goes on asking, “Have you seen God? Have you seen the mysterious, the miraculous?” And all he can hear is, “We have heard about it, we have read about it . . .” But there was a day when people were so innocent, childlike, that they knew it – that they are surrounded by the ocean, that the ocean is not to be searched for, it is within and without. They are part of it, they are born in it, they live in it, they breathe in it, and they will one day disappear into it. They are part and parcel of the ocean.

But every child has to grow. And just as every child has to grow, Satyuga, the Age of Truth, could not remain forever. It produced the great scriptures called the Upanishads – the word is so beautiful: it simply means ‘sitting by the side of the master’ – those are recordings from the notes of disciples who were sitting in silence by the side of the master. Once in a while, out of his meditation, he would say something; out of his heart something would be transferred to the disciple, and the disciple would take a note. Those notes are the Upanishads.

Satyuga, the Age of Truth, disappeared – the child grew. The second stage is called Treta – it is compared to a table. The first, Satyuga, the Age of Truth, was almost like a table with four legs, absolutely balanced. Treta means three. One leg of the table has disappeared. Now it is no more a table with four legs, with that certainty, with that trust, with that grounding, with that centering, with that great balance . . . Now it is only a tripod, three legs.

Certainly, something is missing. It is not so certain – some doubt has arisen, trust is no longer complete and perfect, love is no more unpolluted. The disciple’s question is not coming from his whole being, just out of his head. But still, there was much yet to happen. The child went on growing. As far as age is concerned it seems a growth, but as far as innocence is concerned it is an involution. Both are going side by side: evolution as far as age and body are concerned, and involution as far as innocence, trust and love are concerned.

After Treta humanity fell still more. The stage after Treta is called Dwapar. One leg is lost again – now everything is unbalanced. Standing on two legs, how can a table have trust, certainty, security, safety, balance? Fear became the predominant quality rather than love, rather than trust. Insecurity became more prominent than a tremendous feeling of being at home. But things went on growing in one direction: as far as material growth is concerned, there was evolution; in another direction as far as consciousness is concerned, there was a continuous fall.

After Dwapar, the age of two legs, is the age we are living in. It is called Kaliyuga, the Age of Darkness. Even the last leg has disappeared. Man is almost in a state of insanity. Instead of innocence, insanity has become our normal state. Everybody is in some way or other psychologically sick.

I am talking about these four ages for a particular reason, because the statement that was made in innocence in the days of the Upanishads has become absolutely incomprehensible to our people, to our contemporaries. Even the people who are the inheritors of the Upanishads are afraid to declare that, “I am God,” that, “I am the Absolute” – what to say about others? Others have their own prejudices.

For example, when Christians started translating the Upanishads they were shocked. They could not believe that there are in existence scriptures so tremendously poetic, beautiful, but what they are saying goes against Christianity, against Judaism, against Mohammedanism, even against today’s Hinduism. Even the Hindu is not capable today of declaring, “I am God.” He has also become impressed and influenced by Christianity to such an extent.

Christian missionaries started condemning the Upanishads because if the Upanishads are right, then what to do with the Bible? The Bible absolutely declares, just as the Koran declares, that there is only one God. If the Upanishads are right then there are as many gods as there are living beings. Some may have come to manifestation, some may be on the way, some may not have started the journey yet but will start finally.

How long can you delay? You can miss one train, you can miss another train, but every moment the train is coming. How long can you go on sitting in the waiting room? And people go on becoming buddhas, and people go on becoming seers and sages, and you are still waiting in the waiting room with your suitcases. How long can you do that? There is a limit when you see that so many people have left already – the whole platform is empty – you will take courage that perhaps it is time to move.

For Christianity the problem was that everybody cannot be God. They cannot even accept everybody to be the son of God, what to say about God? Only Jesus is the son of God.

You are only puppets made of earth. God made man with mud and breathed life into it. It is just a manufactured thing, and if a puppet starts declaring, “Aham brahmasmi” – “I am God” – the puppeteer will laugh, saying, “Idiots! You are just puppets and your strings are in my hands. When I want you to dance you dance, when I want you to lie down you lie down, when I want you to breathe you breathe, when I want you not to breathe you can’t do anything.”

For Christianity it was a tremendous challenge, and they started finding arguments against it. Their first argument was that the person, the seer, the sage – whoever he may be, because even the name is not mentioned in the Upanishads – who declared for the first time, “Aham brahmasmi,” the Christian missionaries started saying that he was a megalomaniac, that he was suffering from a big ego. They were full of prejudice. They could not see the simple fact that it was not the ego that was declaring – because the Upanishads say it clearly: unless your ego disappears, you cannot even understand the meaning of “I am the Ultimate.”

It is not the declaration of ego. This declaration is possible only on the death of ego. That is a clear-cut statement in the Upanishads. But Christian missionaries went on misinterpreting the Upanishads to the West, distorting and commenting that these people were almost mad. Obviously, to a Mohammedan or to a Christian, the idea that somebody says, “I am God,” is very shocking. […]

When Christians – particularly the learned, scholarly missionaries – started translating the Upanishads, they distorted it in every way and they made comments, saying, “This is a statement of somebody who is utterly insane, whose ego is too big. And he is not religious at all, because a religious man should be humble. How can a religious man declare, ‘I am God’?”

This is very strange about religions. They can see the faults of each other but they cannot see their own faults. When Jesus declares, “I am the only begotten son of God,” they don’t see any ego – it is humbleness.

The Upanishads are not egoistic. They are not saying that the one sage who declares, “I am God,” is saying something only about himself. He is saying that you are also God – just as I am God, you are God. We are all part of a godliness. We are all part of the same ocean. This fish and that fish are not different; they are all born out of the same ocean and they will all disappear into the same ocean.

The Upanishads’ statement is not egoistic at all, but religions which are God-centered cannot accept it easily. Even Hindus, whose forefathers made this statement, have become so cowardly that now they do not dare to make such a statement. They themselves think that it is egoistic.

Christianity and Mohammedanism have both impressed too much – even on the Hindu mind. The Hindu mind is no longer pure Hindu. […]

And you are asking, Anando, what is the connection between this great statement – it is actually called mahavakya: ‘the great statement’ – with another statement of the same significance, sachchidanand. Sachchidanand consists of three words, as I have told you: Sat – truth; Chit – consciousness; Anand – bliss. These three experiences make one capable of asserting the great statement, “Aham brahmasmi.” They are deeply connected. In fact, if sachchidanand is the flower, then “Aham brahmasmi” is the fragrance, so deep is the connection between the two.

Certainly, “I am the Ultimate” is the very conclusion of the whole search of the East – of all the Buddhas, of all the mystics. A single sentence can be called the conclusion of the whole of India. But God-centered religions will not be ready to accept it. That simply shows that their understanding is not of truth, not of consciousness, not of bliss.

Their understanding is of a very low order: it is not an experience, but only a belief. One is a Christian only by belief; a Jew only by belief; a Mohammedan only by belief. What the Upanishads are saying is not any belief – it is direct, immediate experience. And they are so poetic, so mystic, that there is no comparison in the whole world’s literature.

But this final flowering and fragrance is possible only if you start with meditation and not with prayer. These two ways will take you to different conclusions: prayer will take you more and more into fiction and meditation will take you more and more into truth. Meditation is to go within wards, and prayer is to look upwards, into the empty sky, with all your desires and greed and demands, with all your fears and insecurities. God is to you, if you are on the path of prayer, a consolation and nothing more, but if you are on the path of meditation, God will become one day your very own self, your very own existence. […]

If you want fictions, prayer is the path. All the religions that are based on prayer are not authentic religions.

But meditation is a totally different route. It takes you inwards; it takes you away from the world towards your own being. It is not a demand, it is not a desire, it is not greed, it is not asking or requesting anything. It is simply being silent, utterly silent, moving deeper and deeper into silence . . .

And a moment comes of sublime silence, and then a sudden explosion of light and you will feel yourself saying, “Aham brahmasmi.” Not outwards, because you are not saying it to anybody in particular – it will be just a feeling in the deepest core of your being. No language is needed, just an experience that, “I am the whole, I am the all. And just as I am the whole, everybody else is,” so there is no question of any ego or megalomania.

The Christian missionaries who interpreted the Upanishads were absolutely prejudiced and had no understanding about meditation and no understanding about the higher qualities of a true religion. They knew only an organized church. In comparison to the Upanishads, every religion of the world looks so ‘pygmy’, so childish.

Those organized religions don’t give you freedom. On the contrary, they give you deeper and deeper bondage and slavery. In the name of God, you have to surrender, in the name of God you have to become a sheep and allow a Jesus or a Mohammed to be a shepherd. It is so disgusting, the very idea is so self-disrespectful that I cannot call it even pseudo-religious. It is simply irreligious.

The Upanishads are the highest flights of consciousness. They don’t belong to any religion. The people who made these great statements have not even mentioned their names. They don’t belong to any nation, they don’t belong to any religion, they don’t belong to those who are in search of some mundane thing.

They belong to the authentic seekers of truth.

They belong to you.

They belong to my people.

-Osho

From Sat Chit Anand; Truth, Consciousness, Bliss, Discourse #12

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The More Light is Yours, The More Life is Yours – Osho

Many times, I have heard you say that the disciple should not stop until he arrives, and that peace and bliss are not the end. I wonder why you say this so often, and how a disciple could stop. It seems inconceivable to me to be able to let go of peace and bliss in view of how hard it is to let go of misery.

Kaveesha, I can understand your problem. It certainly is inconceivable that anybody should even think of stopping on the way when bliss is growing, when life is becoming more and more juicy, when love is showering, when it is spring all over the path. In this fragrant, blissful state, it should be natural to go on and on, because the farther and deeper you go, the more light is yours – the more life is yours.

But still, what seems to be inconceivable happens almost without fail to everybody. It is one of those strange things to which man is vulnerable. You know that man clings to misery; in fact, clinging becomes his habit, his second nature. Whatever is known to him he clings to, even though it is misery, suffering; it is better to be miserable than to have nothing and be lonely. If man cannot even give up his misery . . . then what to say about blissfulness?

Misery is certainly a consolation – at least you have something. People brag about it; people exaggerate their misery. They may have a small sickness, and they pretend – perhaps they have tuberculosis. […]

People exaggerate their misery; they make it as big as possible. Because they are not ordinary people, they can’t have small sicknesses, just a little cold, or a headache – these are for ordinary people. They have very special . . . Just any small thing will happen, and they have cancer. […]

Kaveesha, man clings to anything that he has, and he makes much fuss about it. It is just a desire to be special, to be extraordinary – just a poor desire, just a pitiable condition. Because of this habit, I have to remind sannyasins, “While on the path, don’t stop,” because they will find something small, a little wildflower, and they will think they have found the lotus paradise of Gautam Buddha . . . because less than that is not possible for such great men like them. They will stop there, they will cling to it, they will not go further. They have to be pushed continuously. It is inconceivable, but this is the trouble with man; much is inconceivable about him, but it is factual.

The police car stops Levy on the main highway. “Sir, do you know your wife fell out of the car five miles back?”

“Ah, thank God, officer. I thought I had gone deaf.”

Five miles . . . there was so much silence; otherwise, the wife was constantly chattering, so he was worried. What seems to be inconceivable is possible.

“These are extra strong pills, Mr. Cohen,” the doctor advised him. “Take one on Monday, skip Tuesday, one Wednesday, skip Thursday, and so on. I will come round next week to see you.” When the doctor calls, he is met by a weeping Mrs. Cohen. “He’s dead,” she tells him.

“What!” said the doctor in surprise. “There was very little wrong with him. The pills should have cleared it up.”

“It was not the pills,” wailed Mrs. Cohen. “It was the skipping.”

He was skipping the whole day. It would kill anybody.

So, Kaveesha – even if something seems impossible, be gullible and believe it.

It can happen.

Man is a very strange animal.

-Osho

From The Rebel, Discourse #4

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The Three Initiations – Osho

Is it true that to be in communion with the master is the initiation?

The word ‘initiation’ is very significant and profound. There are three initiations: first, when a student becomes a disciple; second, when a disciple becomes a devotee; and third, when the devotee disappears in the master. To understand the whole process, all three steps have to be understood.

Everyone begins as a student, as an inquirer into what this life is all about, with a curiosity to know the mysteries that surround us. But the desire is for knowledge; hence, superficial. Because the desire is for knowledge, it is of the mind. And mind is the periphery of our being, the most superficial part of our individuality.

The student has questions, but he has no quest. His questions are easily answerable, he is easily satisfied – just borrowed knowledge is enough for him. He does not yet need a master; he only needs a teacher. He accumulates answers, becomes an intellectual, but does not become intelligent. The accumulation of answers happens in the memory part of the mind, and the part that functions in accumulation is mechanical, it has nothing to do with intelligence. It is possible to find very educated, cultured, sophisticated intellectuals behaving in life in a very unintelligent way. They are very efficient whenever some question is asked for which they are already prepared. But if life raises a new question for which they are not prepared, they are completely at a loss, they are as ignorant as one can be. And the problem is, life goes on posing new questions, new challenges.

Memory is good in the marketplace; memory is not good as a lifestyle. And all your universities only teach you how to memorize. It has been found that the people of very great memory are generally unintelligent people. […]

It is a well-known fact that a student is interested in collecting knowledge. His questions are easily satisfied. His mind functions like a computer. But once in a while, a student falls into the trap of a master. He is not in search of a master; he does not know any difference in the words ‘master’ and ‘teacher’. In the dictionaries both words mean the same. But in actual life, a teacher simply transfers knowledge from one generation to another generation – it is not his own experience. The master does not transfer knowledge from one generation to another generation; what he gives out is his own realization.

But if the student is caught in the trap of a master, then it is very difficult to get out of it because soon it becomes clear that knowledge and knowing are two different things. Questions and quest are two different things. Questions are simply curiosities. Quest is a risk, is a pilgrimage, is a search.

A question is easily satisfied by any logical, rational answer. The quest is not satisfied by logical or rational answers; the quest is like thirst. You can go on repeating that scientifically, H2O means water, but that is not going to quench the thirst. It is an answer, and a perfectly right answer. If somebody is asking what water is, as a question, it is very simple to answer it. But if somebody is asking about water because he is thirsty, then H2O is not going to help. Then, only real water will do. Quest means thirst, hunger. No borrowed knowledge can satisfy it. And the master slowly makes the student aware that if you are really a man, then just to be curious is childish. Maturity demands that you should go on a quest, that you should not ask only for knowledge, you should ask for ways and means and methods so that you can know – not knowledge that has come from generation to generation. No one knows whether somebody invented it, whether it is fiction, whether somebody realized it or not, how much is lost in transferring it, how much is added, how much is edited out. Knowing means “I want a personal experience.”

A genuine seeker has no questions, but a tremendous thirst.

This is the first initiation – when the master changes the student’s focus from knowledge towards knowing, from memory towards intelligence. And it is not an ordinary phenomenon, it happens to only a very few fortunate ones. Millions of people simply remain curious, childish, immature for their whole life.

Once the emphasis has moved from knowledge to knowing, your concern is no more with the past, your concern is with the present. Your concern is no more with the great philosophers, wise people; your concern is about your own consciousness. For the first time you become interested not in objects but in your subjectivity, not about other things but about the one who wants to know: Who is this who wants to know?

This is the first initiation: the student dies, and the disciple is born. The second initiation is when the disciple also disappears, into a devotee. A disciple is still interested in gaining methods, disciplines, ways to know himself. The master has to be used; hence, he is grateful. But he is the end, and the master is the means; he is using the master for his own ends. As he comes closer to the master, the master takes him into the second initiation. And the second initiation is that unless you drop this obsession with yourself you will never know yourself. It appears contradictory; it is not. Your very obsession is preventing you; it is egoistic. You drop the ego, surrender the ego; you forget yourself, and in the very moment you forget yourself you will find yourself.

From knowledge to knowing, the student was never interested in himself. He was interested in things, objects, the whole world. The first initiation brought him into a new world of interest about himself. The second initiation takes away the ego. The second initiation teaches him love. Because knowing oneself is a byproduct – if you can love, you will know yourself without any difficulty.

Only in loving light does the darkness within you disappear. Love is light, and the flame of love has to be taught.

The master loves, his presence is love. His very presence is magnetic. Without saying a Word . . . just to be close to him, you will feel a certain pull, a certain love, a trust. And you don’t know the man, you don’t know whether he is trustworthy or not. But you are ready to risk. The presence of the master is so convincing that there is no need of any argument to prove it. […]

The master is not a teacher. He loves; it will be better to say he is love. He respects; it will be better to say he is respectfulness. Naturally he creates a gravitational field of love, respect, gratitude. In this gravitational field, the second initiation happens. The disciple is no longer interested in knowing about himself. His only interest is in how to be dissolved into the master, how to be in harmony with the master. And the day the harmony comes to its peak, the disciple disappears; the devotee is born.

The devotee is miles away from the student. The whole journey has taken such revolutionary changes. The devotee is on the verge . . . the life of the devotee is not long. The longest life is that of the student. In the middle is the disciple. And the life span of the devotee is very small. It is something like a dewdrop on a lotus petal in the early morning sun, slipping slowly, slowly towards the sun into the ocean. The dewdrop is just that small fragment of time that it takes to slip from the lotus leaf into the ocean.

The devotee’s life is not long, it is very short – because once you have tasted the harmony, you cannot wait to taste oneness. It is impossible to wait. The dewdrop runs fast, drops into the ocean, becomes one with the ocean.

There are two ways to say it. Kabir, one of the great mystics of India, is the only one who has used both ways. When for the first time he slipped into the ocean, he wrote a small statement in which he said, “I had been searching for myself, but, my friend, instead of finding myself, I have disappeared into the ocean. The dewdrop has disappeared into the ocean.”

After almost twenty years, when he was on his deathbed, he asked his son, Kamal, “Bring the notes you have been taking of my statements. Before I die, I have to correct one thing.” He said, “I have said at one place that the dewdrop has disappeared into the ocean. Change it. Write down, ‘The ocean has disappeared into the dewdrop.’”

His own words are tremendously beautiful. The first words are Herat herat hey sakhi rahya kabir herayi; bunda samani samunda men so kat heri jayi. And the second: Herat herat hey sakhi rahya kabir herayi; samunda samana bunda men so kat heri jayi. In the first, the dewdrop has disappeared in the ocean. In the second, the ocean has disappeared into the dewdrop. Perhaps two sides of the same coin . . .

This is the third initiation, and only after the third initiation is there communion – because there is union, there is no more separation, there is at-oneness.

The path of a mystic begins as a student, ends as a master . . . begins as a dewdrop, ends as an ocean.

-Osho

From Beyond Enlightenment, Discourse #12, Q1

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You Are Alone – Osho

The first truth to experience is that one is alone. The first truth to experience is that love is illusory. Just think of it, just think of the enormity of it, that love is illusory. And you have lived only through that illusion . . .

You were in love with your parents, you were in love with your brothers and sisters, then you started falling in love with a woman or a man. You are in love with your country, your church, your religion, and you are in love with your car, and ice cream – and so on and so forth. You are living in all these illusions.

And suddenly you find yourself naked, alone, all illusions have disappeared. It hurts.

Just this morning, Vivek was saying – and she has been saying again and again with these Ikkyu discourses – “These discourses are heavy, depressing.” They are bound to be so, because whenever any of your illusions are touched it creates great restlessness. You become afraid; somehow you were managing it – and you know deep down that there is no bottom to it but you don’t want to look. Seeing will be frightening; you want to go on remaining in the illusion.

Nobody wants to see that his love is false. People are ready to believe that their past loves were false – but this? No, this love is true. When it has disappeared, they will say it was also false – but then another love is true. In whatsoever illusion they are living, they pretend that this one is true. “Others – Ikkyu may be right, Osho may be right about other loves, they were false, we know. But this one? This one is a totally different thing. This is not an ordinary love, I have found my soul mate.”

Nobody has ever found one – how can you find your soul mate? Aloneness is absolute. These are just efforts to deceive yourself – and you can go on deceiving. That’s what you have been doing down the ages, for so many lives . . .

-Osho

From Take it Easy #15, previously Take it Easy, V.2 #1

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Enlightenment – Osho

Enlightenment is the greatest revolution you can conceive of because it destroys all fictions, all rituals, all gods, all traditions, all scriptures. It leaves you with only the essential consciousness of your own being. Its trust in consciousness is so total that there is no need of anything else.

It has not been said as clearly as I am putting it . . . I want to make it absolutely clear that the very idea of enlightenment is against all religions. Or, in other words, the only authentic religion is that of enlightenment. All other religions are part of the marketplace; they are businesses exploiting human helplessness, exploiting human weakness, exploiting human limitations.

Religions have done so much harm to man that it is unparalleled. Nothing else has been so dangerous. In every possible way they have been preventing man from even hearing the word ‘enlightenment’. You should not become aware that raising your hands to the sky is stupid — there is no one to answer your prayers, no prayer has ever been answered. […]

Enlightenment is a rebellion against all traditions, against all priests, against all religions, because it declares that there is nothing higher than man’s consciousness. And man is not suffering because some stupid man in the past disobeyed a fictitious God; man is not suffering because of millions of lives of evil acts. Man is suffering for the simple reason that he does not know himself. His ignorance about himself is the only cause of his suffering, misery, torture.

Enlightenment brings everything to a very simple and scientific conclusion. It pinpoints that all that you need is to learn the art of awareness.

Ta Hui is right to say that enlightenment is the key, the only key which opens all the realities and all the blessings and all the potentials which have been hidden within you. You are a seed: enlightenment is nothing but finding the right soil and waiting for the spring to come.

Enlightenment is such a radical standpoint.

It is not another religion.

It is the only religion.

All other religions are pseudo.

Ta Hui says, Some take sitting wordlessly with eyes shut beneath the Black Mountain, inside the Ghost Cave, and consider it as the scene on the other side of the primordial Buddha, the scene before their parents were born — They also call it “silent, yet ever illuminating,” and consider it ch’an. This lot don’t seek subtle wondrous enlightenment. They consider enlightenment as falling into the secondary.

This word ‘secondary’ has to be understood because it has a context, and without the context you will not be able to grasp the meaning. Gautam Buddha has said, “To experience enlightenment is primary, but to say anything about it is secondary.” To know it is fundamental, but to say anything about it — howsoever articulate, howsoever intelligently worded — falls into the secondary, into the nonessential. The essential is the experience; the expression is nonessential.

But this is one of the great misfortunes of humanity, that even great truths are destined to be misunderstood by people. What Buddha is saying is one thing; what people hear is another.

There is a school which says enlightenment is secondary, and Gautam Buddha himself has said it. Don’t be bothered by it. Certainly, Gautam Buddha has said it, but he has not said that enlightenment is secondary. He has said that to say anything about it is to go wrong . . . even the very word enlightenment, and you have gone far away from the experience.

And you know in your ordinary life there are situations . . . When you see a beautiful rose, is it the same to experience the beauty of the rose and to say that it is beautiful? Can the word ‘beautiful’ contain your experience of the rose? You experience love, but is it possible to say through the word ‘love’ exactly what you experience in the silences of your heart? The love that you experience and the word ‘love’ are not synonymous. The word is not even an echo of your authentic experience. And these are ordinary realities: beauty, love, gratitude. Enlightenment is the ultimate experience of being one with the whole. There is no way to say it.

Lao Tzu refused his whole life to say anything about it: “You can talk about everything, but don’t mention the ultimate experience” — because he cannot lie, and to say anything about the ultimate truth is a lie.

Gautam Buddha was right, but he was not taking into consideration the stupid people who are always in the majority. He would never have thought that there would be a school quoting him, saying that enlightenment is secondary; the real thing is to worship, the real thing is to pray. Gautam Buddha has denied . . . His last words were, “Don’t make statues of me, because I don’t want you to be worshipers, I want you to be buddhas. And a buddha praying before a stone statue is simply ridiculous.”

But such is the ignorance of man that the first statues made of any man were those of Gautam Buddha. There had been statues, but those were of fictitious gods. Gautam Buddha is the first historical person whose statues were made and made on such a great scale that even today he has more statues in the world than anybody else. And the poor fellow had said, “Don’t make my statues, because I am not teaching you to worship, I am teaching you to awaken. No worship is going to help; it is simply a waste of time.”

But the priest is interested in worship; hence Buddha’s words were not taken care of, and priests started making statues. Rituals were created, and he had been fighting for forty-two years continuously against rituals, against temples, against scriptures. Exactly what he had been fighting against was done afterwards — and done with all good intentions by people who thought they were doing some service to humanity, by people who thought that they were followers of Gautam Buddha.

It is a strange history. Every master has been betrayed, without exception, by his own people in different ways. The betrayal of Judas was very ordinary, superficial. But the betrayal of those who have created statues of Buddha, made temples of Buddha, created scriptures in the name of Buddha, brought everything back against which that man had fought for forty-two years continuously . . . From the back door everything has come in.

These people say . . . and they are many, and of many different sectarian ideologies. There are thirty-two Buddhist sects in the world, and they all think they are teaching exactly what Gautam Buddha has said. But there are only a few who can be said to have understood Gautam Buddha — because the only way to understand him is to become him, is to become an awakened being.

Except for that, there is no way to understand Buddha. You cannot study him from scriptures and you cannot persuade him by your prayers. You can be in his company only by being awakened the same way as he was. On those same sunlit peaks of consciousness, you will be able to understand him. In other words, the day you understand yourself you will have understood the message of this strangest man who has walked on the earth. The priests have been trying to misquote him, to distort him, to interpret him for their own interests. They consider enlightenment as falling into the secondary.

They think that enlightenment deceives people . . . The fact is, only enlightenment does not deceive people. Except enlightenment, everything in the name of religion deceives people.

. . . That enlightenment is a fabrication . . . And I say again to you: only enlightenment is the ultimate reality. Other than that, everything else is a fabrication. All your gods, all your messiahs, all your prophets are nothing but your own imagination, your own projection. They are fulfilling certain needs in you, but those needs are sick. They are providing you with father-figures.

It is not strange that people call God “the father,” because everybody feels alone in the world, unprotected. Always death is walking by your side; it can grab you any moment. Life is so insecure and unsafe that you need some insurance, some guarantee. God comes in handy; he is your father. In times of trouble, you can always rely on him, although he has never helped anybody.

Even Jesus on the cross is praying. Finally, he freaks out and shouts at the sky, “Father, why have you forsaken me?” But still, he goes on looking, hoping that God will be coming on a white cloud to save him, with angels playing on their harps, singing “Alleluia!” But not a single white cloud appears.

Jesus can be taken as the greatest example of all those who believe in fictions. He believed too much . . . The sky is not responsible for his beliefs, and if the sky is not fulfilling his expectations, only he is responsible — nobody else. He had immense belief, but he was not enlightened; he did not trust. He believed in a God; he believed madly that he was the only son of God.

These very ideas show that the man was a little neurotic. Instead of helping him and giving him the right treatment, there were other idiots who crucified him . . . but crucifixion is not a treatment. So one sort of idiots crucified him and another sort of idiots, in their imagination, have resurrected him. Now half of humanity is following a man who was a mental case.

But why has he been able to influence so many people? The reason is not that he had a great, convincing philosophy — he had no philosophy at all! The reason is that humanity at large is also neurotic. It feels very good to believe in Jesus Christ, to believe in God; it creates a protection — just in your mind. You will be deceived, finally you will be disillusioned, but to be disillusioned at the time of death is meaningless. Then there is no time is left to do anything else.

The people who say that enlightenment deceives people, the people who say that enlightenment is a fabrication, are people who since they have never awakened themselves, they don’t believe anyone has awakened either.

It is like blind people who don’t believe that there is light — and there is no way to convince them. Even the greatest logician will not be able to convince a blind man that there is light, because light is not an argument but an experience. You need eyes — you don’t need great philosophical proofs.

If you are deaf, no music exists for you. If you are crippled, it hurts you that somebody else can dance. And if the majority is crippled — which is the case as far as enlightenment is concerned . . . If once in a while there is a dancer and millions of people are crippled, they cannot believe that he is real. Maybe he is a dream, maybe an illusion, maybe a magical trick — but he cannot be real. Their own experience does not support his reality.

The awakened ones have found themselves in utter aloneness in a world where everybody is capable of becoming a dancer, but people have chosen to remain crippled, people have chosen to remain blind. There are people who can exploit you only if you are blind, if you are crippled, if you are deaf, if you are dumb. These parasites are your prophets, these parasites are your priests.

Enlightenment is a rebellion against all these parasites.

-Osho

From The Great Zen Master Ta Hui, Discourse #34

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I am not Going to Give You a New Pattern

You said that through chaotic breathing you want to destroy our old wrong patterns – to rebuild us in a new dimension. Please explain how this rebuilding in a new dimension happens after the old has been destroyed.

You have misunderstood me. The chaotic method is to destroy the old patterns, not to create a new one. It is not to create a pattern at all. Just the old pattern has to be destroyed. The method, all meditative methods, just destroy your conditioning without conditioning you in any way; otherwise there will simply be a change of fetters, a change of prisons. The new prison may look a little better but it is still a prison.

The unconditioned mind is the end – a mind which has no pattern around it. The old pattern has to be destroyed, and the new is not to be created because the new will become the old again. Nothing has to be created in its place; you are to be left alone without a pattern. But you have lived so long in patterns that you cannot conceive of how you can live without a pattern. How can you live without conditioning? How can you live without a discipline? How can you live without fetters? You have lived so long in slavery, in conditioning, that you cannot conceive of what freedom is. But you can live; really, only then will you live.

A conditioned mind is not alive. For instance, people come to me and they say, “You do not give us any discipline: what to eat, what not to eat, what to do, what not to do. You simply give us meditation and let us go into chaos. You do not give us something to live by. You just push us into chaos without any discipline.”

I do not give you any discipline because only those who are enemies to you can give you disciplines. I give you awareness, not discipline. And your awareness will give you spontaneous light about what to do and what not to do. And who can decide beforehand? And what is the need to decide it beforehand? When the moment arises, when the situation is there, you will be alert enough to do whatsoever happens to you – what is felt by your awareness itself to be done.

If you are aware, you do not need any discipline. Only people who are fast asleep need discipline because they do not know what to do. They need a pattern to follow. Their whole life becomes a misery because no pattern can be helpful in a changing life. Every pattern will become a prison because life is constantly changing. This moment one act may be good but the next moment it may become bad because the situation has changed. And you go on following a dead pattern; you never fit anywhere. […]

You will not fit because you can fit only when you are flux like, changing. A fixed entity cannot fit in a riverlike existence. You must be fluid. Only when you are liquid, fluid, flowing, changing, alert, aware, will you not repent. You will never feel guilty; you will never feel that something was better than what you did. Nothing can be better because you responded totally. That was all that could have been. Nothing else was possible.

My meditation technique is not to give you a new pattern; it is simply to drop the old pattern, to destroy it and leave you completely free without any imprisonment around you – without any prison. Of course, you will feel difficulty because the prison was also a shelter. Now there will be rains and there will be no shelter, and the wind will come and there will be no shelter, and the sun will be there, hot and burning, and there will be no shelter, and you would like to hide somewhere. Your eyes have become so accustomed to darkness that in the light you will feel uneasy. But this is what will make you free. You will have to get the feel of the new life under the open skies. Once you know the freedom and the beauty of it, once you have become aware, once you have come out of the prison, the old habit, you will not ask for any pattern or any discipline.

And this doesn’t mean that your life will become a chaos – no! Your life will be the only ordered life possible. The life that you are leading is a chaos. It only seems to be ordered on the surface. Behind it, underneath, there is disorder and turmoil. Only on the surface have you created the appearance of order. Look within yourself: there is disorder. Ordered life will be disordered; disciplined life will be chaotic within. This looks paradoxical but this is so, this is the truth. Only an alert life will have an order – not forced but spontaneous, alive. The order will go on changing with life. It must.

A spontaneous life is just like your eyes. Do you know that your eyes go on changing continuously? And when they stop changing, then you need some technical help. When I am looking at you and you are ten feet away from me, my eyes have one kind of focus. When I start looking at the hills which are far away, my eyes immediately change. The lenses of the eyes change immediately. Then only can I see the hills. When I look at the moon, my eyes change immediately.

You come into the house, it is dark; your eyes change. You come out of the house, it is light; your eyes change. And when your eyes become fixed, they are ill. They must be flux like; only then are you capable of seeing. The more flux like the eyes, the more liquid they are, without any pattern, the more they are just changing with the situation, then the more alert your consciousness will be.

Meditation will give you an inner eye which will be constantly changing, constantly aware of the new situation, constantly responding. But the response will come from your total being, not from a pattern. The response will come from you, not from a conditioning. […]

So I am not going to create a new pattern for you. I am a destroyer. I am not going to create anything, really. I am just going to destroy, because there is no need to create. You are already there behind the structure. If the structure is destroyed, you will be freed. If the structure which binds you is no more there, you will be there. You are not to be created; you are already there. Only the walls of the prison have to be destroyed and you will be under the open sky.

You have misunderstood me. I told you this chaotic meditation is to destroy your conditioning, your slavery, your mind, your ego – in a deep sense, you. It has to destroy and then the new will be born. I am not saying I will create it. No one can create it. And there is no need: it is already the case. It is there. Only the shell has to be broken and it will come out.

All religion is destructive in this sense. The society is constructive, religion is destructive. Society constructs the conditioning. Society makes you a Hindu or a Christian or a Jaina. Society never allows you to be yourself. It gives you a pattern, because society is an organization. The society wants you to fit into that organization according to its own rules. The society doesn’t want you; the society only wants your efficiency. You are not the point; you are not the target. You must behave like a mechanical thing. The more mechanical you are, the more society will appreciate you because you will be less dangerous.

No machine can be dangerous. It never goes out of the way: it never disobeys, it never rebels, it is not revolutionary. No machine is revolutionary; it cannot be. All machines are orthodox: they obey, they follow. Society tries to change you into a mechanical thing. Then you are more efficient, less dangerous, reliable, responsible. And there is no fear, no danger; you can be relied upon.

The society creates a mechanical device around you: that is the conditioning. And it allows you only certain outlets and closes certain things completely. It chooses some fragments from you and approves them, then rejects all else. It says that only a part of you is good and the other parts are bad, so deny those parts. Society doesn’t accept you as a whole, as a unity; it accepts only certain parts. Hence, the conditioning.

Religion is always destructive; in a way, religion is always antisocial. But society is very cunning. It tries to convert religion also into its managerial system. It wants to make religion also a part of it.

Jesus is rebellious, the church is not. Jesus is against society – he has to be, because he is trying to destroy the mechanical part and he is trying to free your spontaneity. He is bound to be against the society; the society will crucify him. But just by crucifying him you cannot destroy Jesus. Really, if you want to destroy Jesus, crucifixion will be of no help. You will have to organize a church around Jesus; only then will he be destroyed.

It is said that once it happened that the devil was very much disturbed because one man had achieved enlightenment on earth. He called his advisers and he asked them, “What to do now? One man has again achieved truth, he has become enlightened, and our whole profession is now in danger. What to do? How to prevent people from going to this man?”

The oldest follower of the devil said, “Do not be disturbed. We should go and we should organize a church around him. Do not worry. Then the church will become the prevention, then people will not be able to come to him directly. The church will be in between, and whatsoever he says will not be heard by the people directly. The church will first interpret it, and through interpretation you can destroy anything.”

Truth can be destroyed most easily if you order it, organize it. When religion becomes a sect, it becomes a part of society. Whenever religion is alive and not a sect, it is against society. Jesus is against society, Mahavira is against society, Buddha is against society. But Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity, they are all parts of society. They are religions no more. Religion has to be rebellious. And this is the rebellion: religion tries to destroy the mechanicalness because the mechanicalness is your hell. Spontaneity is your heaven; mechanicalness is your hell.

I am not going to give you any new pattern – neither new nor old. I am simply going to destroy the pattern and leave you alone to live without a pattern. A life without a pattern is a religious life. A life without any forced order is a religious life. A life without any discipline, but with inner awareness, is a religious life.

-Osho

From The Supreme Doctrine, Discourse #7

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.

 

Your Body has to Release Many Poisons – Osho

The first few days of active meditation tend to tighten muscles, causing pain everywhere. Is there any way to get over that?

Go on doing it! You will get over it – and the reasons are obvious. There are two reasons. First, it isa vigorous exercise and your body has to get attuned to it. So for three or four days you will feel that the whole body is aching. With any new exercise it will happen. But after four days you will get over it and your body will feel stronger than ever.

But this is not very basic. The basic thing goes deeper, and the basic thing is what modern psychologists have come to know. Your body is not simply physical. In your body, in your muscles, in the structure of your body, many other things have entered through suppressions. If you suppress anger, the poison goes into the body. It goes into the muscles; it goes into the blood. If you suppress anything, it is not only a mental thing, it is also physical – because you are not really divided. You are not body and mind; you are bodymind – psychosomatic. You are both together. So whatsoever is done with your body reaches to the mind and whatsoever is done with the mind reaches to the body, as body and mind are two ends of the same entity.

For instance, if you get angry what happens to the body? Whenever you get angry certain poisons are released into the blood. Without those poisons you will not get mad enough to be angry. You have particular glands in the body, and those glands release certain chemicals. Now this is scientific, this is not just a philosophy. Your blood becomes poisoned.

That is why, when you are angry, you can do something which you cannot do ordinarily – because you are mad. You can push a big rock: you cannot do it ordinarily. You cannot even believe afterwards that you could have pushed this rock or thrown it or lifted it. When you are back to normal again, you will not be capable of lifting it again because you are not the same. Particular chemicals were circulating in the blood. You were in an emergency condition; your total energy was brought to be active.

But when an animal gets angry, he gets angry. He has no morality about it, no teaching about it. He simply gets angry and the anger is released. When you get angry, you get angry in a way similar to any animal. But then there is society, morality, etiquette, and thousands of things. You have to push the anger down. You have to show that you are not angry; you have to smile – a painted smile! You have to create a smile, and you push the anger down. What is happening to the body? The body was ready to fight – either to fight or to fly, to escape from the danger, either to face it or escape from it. The body was ready to do something: anger is just a readiness to do something. The body was going to be violent, aggressive.

If you could be violent and aggressive, then the energy would be released. But you cannot be – it is not convenient, so you push it down. Then what will happen to all those muscles which were ready to be aggressive? They will become crippled. The energy pushes them to be aggressive, and you push them backwards not to be aggressive. There will be a conflict. In your muscles, in your blood, in your body tissues, there will be conflict. They are ready to express something and you are pushing them not to express. You are suppressing them. Then your body becomes crippled.

And this happens with every emotion. And this goes on day after day for years. Then your body becomes crippled all over. All the nerves become crippled. They are not flowing, they are not liquid, they are not alive. They have become dead; they have become poisoned. And they have all become entangled. They are not natural.

Look at any animal and see the grace of the body. What happens to the human body? Why is it not so graceful? Why? Every animal is so graceful: why is the human body not so graceful? What has happened to it? You have done something with it: you have crushed it and the natural spontaneity of its flow has gone. It has become stagnant. In every part of your body there is poison. In every muscle of your body there is suppressed anger, suppressed sexuality, suppressed greed – and everything – suppressed jealousy, hatred. Everything is suppressed there. Your body is really diseased.

So when you start meditating, all these poisons will be released. And wherever the body has become stagnant, it will have to melt, it will become liquid again. And this is a great effort. After forty years of living in a wrong way, then suddenly meditating, the whole body is in an upheaval. You will feel aching all over the body. But this aching is good, and you have to welcome it. Allow the body to become again a flow. Again, it will become graceful and childlike; again, you will gain the aliveness. But before that aliveness comes to you the dead parts have to be straightened and this is going to be a little painful.

Psychologists say that we have created an armor around the body and that armor is the problem. If you are allowed total expression when you get angry what will you do? When you get angry, you start crushing your teeth together; you want to do something with your nails and with your hands, because that’s how your animal heritage will have it. You want to do something with your hands, to destroy something.

If you don’t do anything your fingers will become crippled; they will lose the grace, the beauty. They will not be alive limbs. And the poison is there. So when you shake hands with someone, really there is no touch, no life, because your hands are dead.

You can feel this. Touch a small child’s hand – a subtle difference is there. When the child really gives you his hand . . . if he is not giving, then it is alright – he will withdraw. He will not give you a dead hand, he will simply withdraw. But if he wants to give you his hand, then you will feel that his hand is as if it is melting into your hand. The warmth, the flow – as if the whole child has come to the hand. The very touch, and he expresses all the love that it is possible to express.

But the same child when grown up will shake hands as if a hand is just a dead instrument. He will not come in it, he will not flow through it. This has happened because there are blocks. Anger is blocked . . . really, before your hand becomes alive again to express love, it will have to pass through agony, it will have to pass through a deep expression of anger. If the anger is not released, that anger is blocking and love cannot come out of it.

Your whole body has become blocked, not only your hands. So you can embrace someone, you can take someone near your chest, but that is not synonymous with taking someone near your heart. These are two different things. You can take someone near your chest: this is a physical phenomenon. But if you have an armor around your heart, a blocking of emotions, then the person remains as distant as he ever was; no intimacy is possible. But if you really take a person near, and there is no armor, no wall between you and the person, then the heart will melt into the other. There will be a meeting, a communion.

Your body has to release many poisons. You have become toxic, and you will have pain – mm? – because those poisons have settled down. Now I am creating a chaos again. This meditation is to create chaos within you so that you can be rearranged – so that a new arrangement becomes possible. You must be destroyed as you are, only then can the new be born. As you are, you have gone totally wrong. You have to be destroyed and only then can something new be created. There will be pain, but this pain is worthwhile.

So go on doing the meditation and allow the body to have pain. Allow the body not to resist; allow the body to move into this agony. This agony comes from your past but it will go. If you are ready it will go. And when it goes, then for the first time you will have a body. Right now, you have only an imprisonment, a capsule, dead. You are encapsulated; you do not have an agile, alive body. Even animals have more beautiful, more alive bodies than you. […]

We have done much violence to our bodies. So in this chaotic meditation I am forcing your bodies to be alive again. Many blocks will be broken; many settled things will become unsettled again; many systems will become liquid again. There will be pain, but welcome it. It is a blessing and you will come over it. Continue! There is no need to think what to do. You simply continue the meditation. I have seen hundreds and hundreds of people passing through the same process. Within a few days the pain is gone. And when the pain is gone, you will have a subtle joy around your body.

You cannot have it right now because the pain is there. You may know it or you may not know it but the pain is there all over your body. You have simply become unconscious about it because it has always been with you. Whatsoever is always there, you become unconscious about. Through meditation you will become conscious and then the mind will say, “Don’t do this; the whole body is aching.” Do not listen to the mind. Simply go on doing it.

Within a certain period the pain will be thrown out. And when the pain is thrown out, when your body has again become receptive and there is no block, no poisons around it, you will always have a subtle feeling of joy wrapped around you. Whatsoever you are doing or not doing, you will always feel a subtle vibration of joy around your body.

Really, joy only means that your body is in a symphony, nothing else – that your body is in a musical rhythm, nothing else. Joy is not pleasure; pleasure has to be derived from something else. Joy is just to be yourself – alive, fully vibrant, vital. A feeling of a subtle music around your body and within your body, a symphony – that is joy. You can be joyful when your body is flowing, when it is a riverlike flow.

It will come but you will have to pass through suffering, through pain. That is part of your destiny because you have created it. But it goes. If you do not stop in the middle, it goes. If you stop in the middle, then the old settlement will be there again. Within four or five days you will feel okay – just the old, as you have always been. Be aware of that okayness.

-Osho

From The Supreme Doctrine, Discourse #5, Q2

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.