Tag: self-inquiry

The Vast Space Which Thought Cannot Touch – J. Krishnamurti

When you turn your head from horizon to horizon your eyes see a vast space in which all the things of the earth and of the sky appear. But this space is always limited where the earth meets the sky. The space in the mind is so small. In this little space all our activities seem to take place: the daily living and the hidden struggles with contradictory desires and motives. In this little space the mind seeks freedom, and so it is always a prisoner of itself.

Meditation is the ending of this little space. To us, action is bringing about order in this little space of the mind. But there is another action which is not putting order in this little space. Meditation is action which comes when the mind has lost its little space. This vast space which the mind, the I, cannot reach, is silence. The mind can never be silent within itself; it is silent only within the vast space which thought cannot touch. Out of this silence there is action which is not of thought. Meditation is this silence.

-J. Krishnamurti

From Meditations 1969, Part 3

To see more posts of J. Krishnamurti see:   https://o-meditation.com/category/j-krishnamurti/

To read more of J. Krishnamurti see:   https://o-meditation.com/jai-guru-deva/some-good-books/downloadable-books/j-krishnamurti/

Witnessing is Not a Mental Activity – Osho

Last night you said that the mind cannot do two things together—that is, thinking and witnessing. It seems then that witnessing is a mental faculty and an act of the mind. Is it so? Please explain. Is there anything like partial witnessing and total witnessing?

Witnessing is not a mental activity; thinking is a mental activity. Rather, it would be better to say that thinking is mind. When the mind is not, when the mind is absent, when the mind has disappeared, only then do you have witnessing. It is something behind the mind.

Zen Buddhism uses mind in two ways: the ordinary mind means thinking; then Mind with a capital “M” means the Mind behind thinking. Consciousness is behind the mind; consciousness comes through the mind. If mind is in a state of thinking, it becomes opaque, non-transparent, just like a clouded sky – you cannot see the sky. When the clouds are not, you can see the sky. When thinking is not there, then you can feel the witnessing. It is the pure sky behind.

So when I said that you cannot do two things, I meant either you can think, or you can witness. If you are thinking, then you lose witnessing. Then the mind becomes a cloud on your consciousness.

If you are witnessing, you cannot think simultaneously; then the mind is not there. Thinking is an acquired process; witnessing is your nature. So when I say that you cannot do both or mind cannot do both, I don’t mean that mind is the faculty to witness. Mind is the faculty to think, mind is for “minding.”

Really, many problems are created just by language. There is nothing like mind. There is only a process, not a thing. It is better to call it minding than mind. It is a process of continuous thought, one thought being followed by another. Only in the gaps, only in the intervals between two thoughts, can you have something of the witnessing nature. But thoughts are so speedy that you cannot even feel the gap. If you begin to witness your thoughts, then the thought process is slowed down and then you begin to feel gaps. One thought passes, another has not come yet, and there is an interval. In that interval you have witnessing. And thoughts cannot exist without gaps; otherwise they will begin to overlap each other. They cannot exist! Just like my fingers are there – with gaps in between.

If your thought process is slowed down – and any method of meditation is nothing but a slowing down of the thought process – if the thought process is slowed down, you begin to feel the gaps.

Through these gaps is witnessing. Thought is mind; a thoughtless consciousness is witnessing.

Thought is acquired from the outside; witnessing is inside. Consciousness is born with you: thought is acquired, cultivated. So you can have a Hindu thought, you can have a Mohammedan thought, you can have a Christian thought, but you cannot have a Christian soul, you cannot have a Hindu soul. Soul is just soul – consciousness is consciousness.

Minds have types. You have a particular mind. That particular mind is your upbringing, conditioning, education, culture. Mind means whatsoever has been put into you from the outside, and witnessing means whatsoever has not been put from the outside but is your inside – intrinsically, naturally. It is your nature. Mind is a by-product, a habit. Witnessing, consciousness, awareness, whatsoever you call it, is your nature. But you can acquire so many habits, and the nature can go just underneath.

You can forget it completely. So, really, religion is a fight for nature against habits. It is to uncover that which is natural – the original, the real you.

So remember the first thing: witnessing and thinking are different states. Thinking belongs to your mind; witnessing belongs to your nature. And you cannot do both simultaneously. Mind must cease for your consciousness to be; thought must cease for your real nature to be. So a thinker is one thing, and an Enlightened person is totally different.

A Buddha is not a thinker. Hegel or Kant are thinkers. They use their minds to reach particular conclusions. Buddha is not using his mind to reach any conclusions. Buddha is not using his mind at all. He is really a no-mind. He has stopped using mind. He is using himself, not the mind, to reach any conclusions. So with the mind you can reach conclusions, but all conclusions will be hypothetical, theoretical, because one thought can beget another thought. But thought cannot beget reality, thought cannot beget Truth.

Through witnessing you reach reality – not conclusions, not theories, but direct, immediate facts. For example, I am saying something to you. You can think about it – then you have missed the point.

You can think about it, what witnessing is, what mind is – you can think about it. This is one way; this is the mind’s way. But you can experiment with it and not think. And by “experiment” is meant that you have to know how to stop the mind and feel the witnessing. Then again you reach to something, but then it is not a conclusion; it is not something achieved through the thought process. Then it is something you realize.

Someone was asking Aurobindo, “Do you believe in God?” Aurobindo said, “No, I don’t believe in God at all.” The questioner was perplexed because he had come a long way just because he thought Aurobindo was capable of showing him the path towards God. And now Aurobindo says, “I don’t believe.”

He couldn’t believe his ears, so he asked again. He said, “I am perplexed. I have come a long way just to ask you how to achieve God. And if you don’t believe, then the problem, the question, doesn’t arise.”

Aurobindo said, “Who says that the question doesn’t arise? I don’t believe because I know that God is. But that is not my belief, that is not a conclusion reached by thought. It is not my belief. I know! That is my knowing.”

Mind can, at the most, believe. It can never know. It can believe either that there is God or there is no God, but both are beliefs. These both are beliefs.  Both have reached to these conclusions through “minding,” through thinking. They have thought, they have tried to probe logically, and then they have come to certain conclusions.

A Buddha is not a believer – he knows! And when I say he knows, knowing is possible only in one way. It is not through mind. It is through throwing mind completely. It is difficult to conceive because we have to conceive through the mind; that is the difficulty. I have to talk to you through the medium of the mind, and you have to listen to me through the medium of the mind. So when I say it is not to be achieved through mind, your mind takes it – but it is inconceivable for the mind. It can even create a theory about it. You may begin to believe that the Truth cannot be achieved through mind. If you begin to believe, you are in mind again. You can say, “I am not convinced. I don’t believe that there is anything beyond the mind.” Then again you are within the mind.

You can never go beyond the mind if you go on using it. You have to take a jump, and meditation means that jump. That’s why meditation is illogical, irrational. And it cannot be made logical; it cannot be reduced to reason. You have to experience it. If you experience, only then do you know.

So try this: don’t think about it, try – try to be a witness to your own thoughts. Sit down, relaxed, close your eyes, let your thoughts run just like on a screen pictures run. See them, look at them, make them your objects. One thought arises: look at it deeply. Don’t think about it, just look at it. If you begin to think about it then you are not a witness – you have fallen in the trap.

There is a horn outside; a thought arises – some car is passing; or a dog barks or something happens. Don’t think about it; just look at the thought. The thought has arisen, taken form. Now it is before you. Soon it will pass. Another thought will replace it. Go on looking at this thought process.

Even for a single moment, if you are capable of looking at this thought process without thinking about it, you will have gained something in witnessing and you will have known something in witnessing. This is a taste, a different taste than thinking – totally different. But one has to experiment with it.

Religion and science are poles apart, but in one thing they are similar and their emphasis is the same: science depends on experiments, and religion also. Only philosophy is non-experimental. Philosophy depends just on thinking. Religion and science both depend on experiment: science on objects, religion on your subjectivity. Science depends on experimenting with other things than you, and religion depends on experimenting directly with you.

It is difficult, because in science the experimenter is there, the experiment is there and the object to be experimented upon is there. There are three things: the object, the subject and the experiment. In religion you are all the three simultaneously. You are to experiment upon yourself. You are the subject and you are the object and you are the lab.

Don’t go on thinking. Begin, start somewhere, to experiment. Then you will have a direct feeling of what thinking is and what witnessing is. And then you will come to know that you cannot do both simultaneously, just as you cannot run and sit simultaneously. If you run, then you cannot sit, then you are not sitting. And if you are sitting, then you cannot run. But sitting is not a function of the legs.

Running is a function of the legs; sitting is not a function of legs. Rather, sitting is a non-function of the legs. When the legs are functioning, then you are not sitting. Sitting is a non-function of the legs; running is the function.

The same is with the mind: thinking is a function of the mind; witnessing a non-function of the mind. When the mind is not functioning, you have the witnessing, then you have the awareness. That’s why I said you cannot do both with your mind. You cannot both sit and run with your legs. But that doesn’t mean that sitting is a function of your legs. It is not a function at all; it is a nonfunctioning of your legs.

And you ask, “Is there anything like partial witnessing and total witnessing?” No – there is nothing like partial witnessing and total witnessing. Witnessing is total. It may be for a single moment and then it may go, but when it is there, it is total. Can you sit partially or totally? What can we understand by sitting partially? Witnessing is a total thing. Really, in life, nothing is partial – in life. Only with mind everything is partial. Understand this: with mind, nothing is total and never can be total. And when mind is not there, everything is total, nothing can be partial.

So mind is the faculty to bring partialness and fragmentariness in life. For example, watch a child in anger. The child is yet raw, uncultured. Look at his anger: the anger is total; it is not partial. Nothing is suppressed, it is a full flowering. That’s why children in anger are so beautiful.

Every totality has a beauty of its own.

When you are in anger, your anger is never total. The mind has come in – it is going to be partial. Something is bound to be suppressed, and that something suppressed will become a poison. Then your love also cannot be total. It is going to be partial. Neither can you hate nor can you love. Whatsoever you do will be partial because the mind is functioning.

A child can be angry this moment, and the second moment he can be in love. And when he is in anger it is a total thing, and when he is in love it is again a total thing. Every moment is total! The mind is still undeveloped. Again, a sage is just like a child. There are many, many differences, but the childhood comes again – he is total again. But he cannot be in anger. The child is without a mind as far as this life is concerned, but past lives and many minds accumulated in the unconscious, they go on working. So a child appears total, but he cannot be really total. This life’s mind is still growing, but he has many, many minds hidden in the subconscious, in the unconscious, in the deeper realms of the mind.

A sage is totally without mind – of this life or of past lives – so he can be only total in anything. He cannot be angry, he cannot be in hate, and the reason is again that no one can be totally in anger.

Anger is painful and you cannot be totally in anything which gives pain to you. He cannot be in hate because now he cannot be in anything in which he cannot be total. It is not a question of good and evil; it is not a moral question. Really, for a sage, it is not a question of being total. He cannot be otherwise.

Lao Tzu says, “I call that good in which you can be total and that bad in which you can never be total.” Partiality is sin. If you look at it in this way, then mind becomes sin – mind is the faculty of being partial. Witnessing is total, but in our lives nothing is total – nothing. We are partial in everything. That’s why there is no bliss, no ecstasy – because only when you are total in something do you have a blissful moment and never otherwise. Bliss means being total in something, and we are never total in anything. Only a part of us goes into something and a part of us remains outside. This creates a tension: one part somewhere and another part somewhere else. So whatsoever we do, even if we love, it is a tension, it is an anguish.

Psychologists say that if you study someone in love, then love appears just like any disease. Even love is not a blissful thing. It is anguish, a heavy burden. And that’s why one gets bored even with love, fed up – because the mind is not in bliss, it is in anguish. In whatsoever we are partial we are bound to be tense, in anguish. ”Partial” means we are divided, and mind is bound to be partial. Why? Because mind is not one thing. Mind means many things. Mind is a collection; it is not a unity.

Your nature is a unity. Your mind is a collection; it is not a unity at all. It has been collected by the way. So many persons have influenced your mind; so many influences have made it. Nothing goes by which is not impressing your mind. Everything that passes you impresses itself upon you: your friends impress you, your enemies also; your attractions impress you, your repulsions also; what you like impresses you and what you don’t like also impresses you. You go on collecting in multi-dimensional ways. So mind is just a junkyard. It is not unitary. It is a “multiverse,” it is not a universe, so it can never be total. How can it be total? It is a crowd with many, many contradictory, self-contradictory openings.

Old psychology believed in one mind, but new psychology says this is a false concept. Mind is a multiplicity, it is not one. You don’t have one mind. It is only a linguistic habit that we go on talking about one mind. We go on saying “my mind,” but this is wrong, factually wrong. It is better to say “my minds.”

Mahavir came upon this fact two thousand years ago. He is reported to have said: “Man is not uni-psychic, man is poly-psychic – many minds.” That’s why you cannot be total with the mind.

Either the majority of your mind is with you or the minority. Any mind decision is bound to be a parliamentary decision and nothing more. At the most you can hope for a majority decision.

And then a second thing comes in: it is not a fixed crowd – it is a changing crowd. It is not a fixed crowd! Every moment something is being added and something is being lost, so every moment you have new minds.

Buddha is passing through a city and someone comes to him and says, “I want to serve humanity. Show me the path!” Buddha closes his eyes and remains silent. The man feels bewildered. He asks again: “I am saying that I want to serve humanity. Why have you become silent? Is there something wrong in my asking this?”

Buddha opens his eyes and says, “You want to serve humanity, but where are you? First BE! You are not! You are a crowd. This moment you want to serve humanity, the second moment you may want to murder humanity. First be! You cannot do anything unless you are. So don’t think of doings – first contemplate about your being.”

This “being” can happen only through witnessing, never through thinking. Witnessing is total because your nature is one. You are born as one. Then you accumulate many minds. Then you begin to feel these many minds as you – then you are identified. This identification is to be broken.

-Osho

From The Ultimate Alchemy, Vol. 1, Discourse #16, Q1

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

Listen to the discourse excerpt Witnessing is Not a Mental Activity.

For a related post see Established in One’s Own Witnessing Nature.

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.

On Silence – Jean Klein

Silence is our real nature. What we are fundamentally is only silence. Silence is free from beginning and end. It was before the beginning of all things. It is causeless. Its greatness lies in the fact that it simply is.

In silence all objects have their home ground. It is the light that gives objects their shape and form. All movement, all activity is harmonized by silence.

Silence has no opposite in noise. It is beyond positive and negative. Silence dissolves all objects. It is not related to any counterpart which belongs to the mind. Silence has nothing to do with the mind. It cannot be defined but it can be felt directly because it is our nearness. Silence is freedom without restriction or center. It is our wholeness neither inside nor outside the body. Silence is joyful not pleasurable. It is not psychological. It is feeling without a feeler. Silence needs no intermediary.

Silence is holy. It is healing. There is no fear in silence. Silence is autonomous like love and beauty. It is untouched by time. Silence is meditation, free from any intention, free from anyone who meditates. Silence is the absence of oneself. Or rather, silence is the absence of absence.

Sound which comes from silence is music. All activity is creative which comes from silence. It is constantly a new beginning. Silence precedes speech and poetry and music and all art. Silence is the home ground of all creative activity. What is truly creative is the word, is Truth. Silence is the word. Silence is Truth.

The one established in silence lives in constant offering, in prayer without asking, in thankfulness, in continual love.

-Jean Klein

From The Book of Listening

You can read more from Jean Klein here.

All that Exists is in You – Jean Klein

How can I come to know consciousness free from relation to things?

Become more aware of the moment a thought or activity comes to an end. Live in identity with this moment. You will feel the ego looking for a new thought to continue its existence. It cannot survive without the fuel of subject-object relation. When you are free of the self-image, your thinking is only an occasional vehicle. When there is nothing to think, you don’t think. Continual thinking is a defence, a fortress for the ego, nothing else. Become familiar in daily life with looking at situations without the intervention of the ‘I’ and its desires, aversions, resistances, preferences, etc. Sustain this motiveless looking and you will find that when the observer and observed are no longer fueled, they disappear. You will then be in looking itself. This simple looking, free from the doer and the done, is the timeless consciousness, the background of all activities.

-Jean Klein

From Who Am I? The Sacred Quest, page 88-89

Will you clarify the difference between being and existence?

Being, pure consciousness, is not in the categories of time and space any more than we can speak of infinity in terms of in and out. Existence is consciousness objectifying itself without cause or reason. It is energy dispersed or actualized in space and time. We could say functional consciousness is the link between being and existence. It is energy in repose, potential energy.

Your real nature is prior to all function. You are the light that makes function possible. Be this light. All that exists is in you. Nothing is outside. When you sit here the ground is affected in China, Paris and Benares. You are war and you are peace.

-Jean Klein

From Who Am I? The Sacred Quest, page 89-90

You can read more from Jean Klein here.

Purposelessness in Infinite Existence – Meher Baba

Reality is Existence infinite and eternal.

Existence has no purpose by virtue of its being real, infinite and eternal.

Existence exists. Being Existence it has to exist. Hence Existence, the Reality, cannot have any purpose. It just is. It is self-existing.

Everything—the things and the beings—in Existence has a purpose. All things and beings have a purpose and must have a purpose, or else they cannot be in existence as what they are. Their very being in existence proves their purpose; and their sole purpose in existing is to become shed of purpose, i.e., to become purposeless.

Purposelessness is of Reality; to have a purpose is to be lost in falseness.

Everything exists only because it has a purpose. The moment that purpose has been accomplished, everything disappears and Existence is manifested as self-existing Self.

Purpose presumes a direction and since Existence, being everything and everywhere, cannot have any direction, directions must always be in nothing and lead nowhere.

Hence to have a purpose is to create a false goal.

Love alone is devoid of all purpose and a spark of Divine Love sets fire to all purposes.

The Goal of Life in Creation is to arrive at purposelessness, which is the state of Reality.

–  Meher Baba

From The Everything and the Nothing, # 61


For more posts on Meher Baba see:   https://o-meditation.com/category/meher-baba/

To read more from Meher Baba see:   https://o-meditation.com/jai-guru-deva/some-good-books/downloadable-books/meher-baba/

Who is Watching the Mind? – Osho

Can the mind commit suicide?

The mind cannot commit suicide, because whatsoever the mind can do will strengthen the mind. Any doing on the part of the mind makes the mind more strong. So suicide is impossible.

Mind doing something means mind continuing itself — so that is not in the nature of things. But suicide happens. Mind cannot commit it — mm? — let me make it absolutely clear: mind cannot commit it, but suicide happens. It happens through watching the mind, not by doing anything.

The watcher is separate from the mind, it is deeper than the mind, higher than the mind. The watcher is always hidden behind the mind. A thought passes, a feeling arises — who is watching this thought? Not the mind itself — because mind is nothing but the process of thought and feeling. The mind is just the traffic of thinking. Who is watching it? When you say, “An angry thought has arisen in me,” who are ‘you’? In whom has the thought arisen? Who is the container? The thought is the content — who is the container?

The mind is like when you print a book: on white, clean paper, words appear. That empty paper is the container and the printed words are the content. Consciousness is like empty paper. Mind is like written, printed paper.

Whatsoever exists as an object inside you, whatsoever you can see and observe, is the mind. The observer is not the mind, the observed is the mind.

So if you can go on simply observing, without condemning, without in any way creating a conflict with the mind, without indulging it, without following it, without going against it, if you can simply be there indifferent to it, in that indifference suicide happens. It is not that mind commits suicide: when the watcher arises, the witness is there, mind simply disappears.

Mind exists with your cooperation OR your conflict. Both are ways of cooperating — conflict too! When you fight with the mind, you are giving energy to it. In your VERY fight you have accepted the mind, in your very fighting you have accepted the power of the mind over your being. So whether you cooperate or you conflict, in both the cases the mind becomes stronger and stronger.

Just watch. Just be a witness. And, by and by, you will see gaps arising. A thought passes, and another thought does not come immediately — there is an interval. In that interval is peace. In that interval is love. In that interval is all that you have always been seeking — and finding never. In that gap, you are no more an ego. In that gap you are not defined, confined, imprisoned. In that gap you are vast, immense, huge! In that gap you are one with existence — the barrier exists not. Your boundaries are no more there. You melt into existence and the existence melts in you. You start overlapping.

If you go on watching and you don’t get attached to these gaps either… because that is natural now, to get attached to these gaps. If you start hankering for these gaps… because they are tremendously beautiful, they are immensely blissful. It is natural to get attached to them, and desire arises to have more and more of these gaps — then you will miss, then your watcher has disappeared. Then those gaps will again disappear, and again the traffic of the mind will be there.

So the first thing is to become an indifferent watcher. And the second thing is to remember that when beautiful gaps arise, don’t get attached to them, don’t start asking for them, don’t start waiting that they should happen more often. If you can remember these two things — when beautiful gaps come, watch them too, and keep your indifference alive — then one day the traffic simply disappears with the road, they both disappear. And there is tremendous emptiness.

That’s what Buddha calls ‘Nirvana’ — the mind has ceased. This is what I call suicide — but mind has not committed it. Mind cannot commit it. You can help it to happen. You can hinder it, you can help it to happen — it depends on you, not on your mind. All that mind can do will always strengthen the mind.

So meditation is not really mind-effort. Real meditation is not effort at all. Real meditation is just allowing the mind to have its own way, and not interfering in any way whatsoever — just remaining watchful, witnessing. It silences, by and by, it becomes still. One day it is gone. You are left alone.

That aloneness is what your reality is. And in that aloneness nothing is excluded, remember it. In that aloneness everything is included — that aloneness is God. That purity, that innocence, uncorrupted by any thought, is what God is.

-Osho

From The Discipline of Transcendence, V. 3, Discourse #2

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

Here you can listen to the discourse excerpt Who Is Watching the Mind?

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.

“Pain” is not Painful – Jean Klein

Dr. Klein, would you please talk about perception and exactly what you mean when you say that we must be open to pain? To accepting pain?

The non-accepting of the pain contributes to the pain.

I don’t understand very well what it means to accept the pain. How do I do it?

It is not a fatalistic way of accepting. It is not a masochistic succumbing to the pain. It is passive-active, with a view to knowing something about the pain. The knower of the the pain has nothing to do with the pain. When you feel this strongly, then you are distanced from the object, pain, and it is no longer painful. As long as you live in the “concept,” pain, you cannot face the percept. So to come to the percept, first free yourself from the concept. The concept “pain” is not painful.

I don’t quite understand what it is to accept, how to do it, how can I be fee of the pain, how can I change the pain into a stream of energy?

You know your pain through your reactions on the body level. When you look at how you function, you will see that you stay for a very short time with the perception of the pain because you immediately conceptualize it. And as the perception and the conception can never happen simultaneously, the moment you conceptualize you lose contact with the perception. So now the question is, how to face what you conceptualize as “pain.” You must go back to the body level. See where the pain is localized, explore the localization. Simply take note of it without interpreting it as “pain.” In doing so you will experience space between the knower and the known, and you become free of the identification with the pain.

This is what I was trying to find out: Do you mean to detach myself from the pain and to look at it simply as an observer?

Yes. When you see it as a fact, there is a space between the observer and the observed. And then comes a very important observation: You will see that the pain is in you, but you are not in the pain.

– Jean Klein

From Beyond Knowledge, Third Millennium Publications

You can read more from Jean Klein here.

Appa Deepo Bhava – Osho

The first question.

Osho, how can I become a light unto myself?

These were the last words of Gautam the Buddha, his parting message to his disciples: “Be a light unto yourself.”  But when he says, “Be a light unto yourself,” he does not mean to become a light unto yourself. There is a great difference between being and becoming.

Becoming is a process, being is a discovery. The seed only appears to become the tree; that is an appearance.  The seed already had the tree within itself, it was its very being. The seed does not become the flowers. The flowers were there unmanifest, now they are manifest. It is not a question of becoming, otherwise a pebble could become a flower. But that doesn’t happen. A rock cannot become a rose; that doesn’t happen because a rock has no potential to become a rose. The seed simply discovers itself through dying into the soil: dropping its outer shell, it becomes revealed in its inner reality.

Man is a light in the seed. You are already buddhas. It is not that you have to become buddhas; it is not a question of learning, of achieving. It is only a question of recognition–it is a question of going within yourself and seeing what is there. It is self-discovery.

You are not to become a light unto yourself, it is already the case. But you don’t go in, your whole journey is outward. We are being brought up in such a way that we all become extroverts. Our eyes become focused on the outside. We are always seeking and searching for some goal “there,” far away. The farther the goal, the more challenging it appears to the ego. The more difficult it is, the more attractive it appears. The ego exists through challenges; it wants to prove itself. It is not interested in the simple, it is not interested in the ordinary, it is not interested in the natural, it is interested in something which is neither natural, nor simple, nor ordinary. Its desire is for the extraordinary. And the reality is very ordinary, it is very simple.

The reality is not there but here, not then but now, not outside but in the innermost sanctum of your being. You have just to close your eyes and look in.

-Osho, Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen, Chapter 13

The last words of Gautam Buddha were, appa deepo bhava: Be a light unto yourself. And those words were said to his chief disciple, Ananda, who had been with him for forty-two years, just like a shadow, non-stop, day out, day in. But he had not become enlightened. And many others who had come afterwards had become enlightened.

Buddha said, “That is the barrier. You think I can make you enlightened – that’s why these forty-two years have gone by and you have not attained. Perhaps after my death, within twenty-four hours you may become enlightened. For these forty-two years there was a hope that I would do something. Nobody can do anything. Be a light unto yourself.”

-Osho, Razor’s Edge, Chapter 12

This statement of Gautam Buddha is one of the milestones in the history of human growth: Appa deepo bhava – be a light unto yourself. Nobody before him was courageous enough to say this. They were all trying to say, “We are the light, follow us. Be surrendered to us and whatever we say never doubt it.” These people were not really for human freedom, human integrity, they destroyed all self-respect in man, they reduced him to a slave, a spiritual slave.

Gautam Buddha has brought a great revolution to the world. He says, “Be a light unto yourself” – because there is no other light. You are not to surrender to somebody because every surrender is slavery, and spiritual surrender is the greatest of all because it is so subtle. The chains are so invisible that you may never become aware of it, and the imprisonment is not something outside you, it is something imposed on the very being of your interiority. You are carrying your prison wherever you go, whatever you do.

-Osho, Sword and the Lotus, Chapter 19

Don’t live on borrowed concepts.The last words of Gautam Buddha on the earth were, “Be a light unto yourself. Don’t be bothered about what others say, don’t be bothered about traditions, orthodoxies, religions, moralities. Just be a light unto yourself.”Just a small light is enough, and you can go on with that small light for ten thousand miles without any difficulty. Your light may be falling only four feet ahead of you – just go on moving. As you move, the light will be moving ahead, and if you can see four feet ahead, that’s enough. You can go as far as you want. You can go on an eternal pilgrimage with just a small light of your own.Don’t live on borrowed light.Don’t live on borrowed eyes.

Live according to your own light, and your life will be, each and every moment, a greater joy, a greater blissfulness, a greater ecstasy.

-Osho, The Great Zen Master Ta Hui, Discourse #10

Buddha says nobody can deliver you. You have created the mess, you have to sort it out. Nobody has created it, so nobody can deliver you either. Your bondage is created by you, so only you can come out of it. Hence his last statement on the earth was: Be a light unto yourself. This is a totally different dimension: Be a light unto yourself. The buddhas only show the way, but you have to work upon your being; you have to work hard to discover your innermost core.

-Osho, Wild Geese and the Water, Discourse #8

Buddha’s last words to his disciples were: Be a light unto yourself. And how can you be a light unto yourself? Go beyond the body, the mind, the heart. Find the center of your being and suddenly there is light. It is already there, it is already burning bright. It is your very being; you just have to discover it.

-Osho, Dhammapada V. 12, Discourse #5

The last words of Gautama the Buddha on the earth were: Be a light unto yourself. Do not follow others, do not imitate, because imitation, following, creates stupidity. You are born with a tremendous possibility of intelligence. You are born with a light within you. Listen to the still, small voice within, and that will guide you. Nobody else can guide you, nobody else can become a model for your life, because you are unique. Nobody has there been ever who was exactly like you, and nobody is ever going to be there again who will be exactly like you. This is your glory, your grandeur – that you are utterly irreplaceable, that you are just yourself and nobody else.

-Osho, Dhammapada V. 2, Discourse #9

But if you want to end this whole nonsense that has persisted down the ages for so many lives, the same repetitive wheel of birth and death moving; if you want to stop it, then the other, the way of the intelligent person, the way of the wise…be a light unto yourself.

-Osho, Dhammapada V. 2, Discourse #9

In the same way, Krishnamurti is also contained in Buddha. Krishnamurti is Buddha’s latest edition, the freshest – in today’s language. But the difference is only of language. Krishnamurti is just an elaboration of Buddha’s ultimate sutra: “Be a light unto yourself.” A commentary on this sutra – deep, profound, tremendously vast, immensely significant – but he is just an elaboration.” These were Buddha’s last words on this earth. Before leaving his body he had given this essential sutra, poured his whole life’s treasure, his whole life’s experience, into this one small sutra.

-Osho, Die O Yogi Die, Discourse #1

Don’t search for any light outside. The last words of Buddha were, “Be a light unto yourself. Be a lamp unto yourself.” Don’t search for light anywhere else; the light is already there, the fire is already there. Just probe a little deeper into your being. Inquire. Maybe much ash has gathered around the fire…just probe deep inside, and you will find the spark again. And once you have found a single spark inside yourself, you will become a flame soon, you will be a fire – a fire that purifies, a fire that transforms, a fire that gives you a new birth and a new being.

-Osho, The Sun Rises in the Evening, Discourse #3

The last message on his deathbed was…Ananda, his chief disciple asked “Bhagwan, give us your last message.” And he said “Ananda, appa deepo bhava: become a light unto yourself. There is no other light, so don’t look into the sky, don’t look at me. There is no other light. Be a light unto yourself. Your own intelligence has to become your light, depend utterly upon yourself – no other dependence, no shelter anywhere, no refuge.”

-Osho, I Say Unto You V. 1, Discourse #2

It is good that religious experience has to be experienced individually. Nobody can lead you there. People can indicate the way and those indications are very subtle. Don’t take them literally. Buddha said, “Be a light unto yourself.” He is saying, “Remember, my truth cannot be your truth, my light cannot be your light. Imbibe the spirit from me, become more thirsty from me. Let your search be intense and be totally devoted to it. Learn the devotion of a truth-seeker from me but the truth, the light, will burn within you. You will have to kindle it within you.”

-Osho, Ancient Music in the Pines, Discourse #4

The master said, “Buddhas can only show the way, but you have to travel alone – and with your own light. Be a light unto yourself.”

-Osho, Nirvana the Last Nightmare, Discourse #5

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.

From Lemurs to Lamas: Confessions of a Bodhisattva

Hardbound edition released!
I am happy to announce that the hardbound edition of the book that Amido and I created, From Lemurs to Lamas is now available.
 
All told there are four different versions to choose from: by far the hardbound is the nicest with many color photos bringing to life the words on the pages; the paperback edition with b&w photos; the Kindle e-book, and for those friends in the U.S. there is even a deluxe paperback edition also with color photos.
 
Whichever edition that you choose I do hope that you enjoy the journey, From Lemurs to Lamas. Love.
 

From Lemurs to Lamas: Confessions of a Bodhisattva is a travelogue of the heart, a diary of the soul, and a handbook for meditation. Combining From Lemurs to Lamas with the author’s second book, Here to Now and Behind, and adding some new content, makes this a collection of stories, essays, poems, and insights spanning more than fifty years of inquiry.

The book first relates stories of the mysteries of life and travels on an overland journey through Africa, Madagascar, Nepal, and India, finally arriving at the Shree Rajneesh Ashram in Poona. There are stories of the magic of Being in the Poona ashram, the opening of a Rajneesh Meditation Center in the heart of the USA, and the transformation of living life to its fullest in Osho’s Rajneeshpuram, Oregon commune of Wild Wild Country fame.

In addition to the stories of the journey to Osho, and life in his communes, the book relates stories of meeting several masters, teachers, and misfits, including: the 16th Karmapa, Jean Klein, U.G. Krishnamurti, and Vimala Thakar.

Layered throughout the book are essays, poems, insights, and photos that have occurred along the Way, on this journey, Here to Now and Behind.

From the Foreword:

As the editor of From Lemurs to Lamas: Confessions of a Bodhisattva, I have had the pleasure of reading this book several times, from varying perspectives. I coined the term ‘mediting’ to describe attempts to really get to the meaning of the more potent essays. Before I could even attempt to consider what little tweaks I could make to optimize readability and comprehension, I had to first accept the invitation to consider a slew of questions that occur on the pathless path.

Purushottama from at an early age experiences the futility of a life spent in the material world, the outer world where ambition, wealth, power, etc. beckon. He has a glimpse of the riches found in the interior, through grace, through LSD, through discovering a heart connection with Meher Baba. This prompts a leap into the unknown – into a life of more immediate experience – embarking on a journey that took him to India where he met the living master he sought.

From Lemurs to Lamas details the insights that occur in all stages of his life. Descriptions of life in the Buddhafield that emanated from Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, later named Osho, evoke the very presence itself, the magic and the melting. Every aspect of life in the ashram in Poona, India, and later at the ranch in Oregon — from the therapy groups to the actual assigned job to interactions with fellow workers and bosses, not to mention daily discourses and occasional darshans – supported a deeper understanding and an opening of the heart.

The second section of this book distinctly turns from out to in. The gifts of the master and commune have been embraced and internalized. Now Purushottama finds the inner guru. His musings, poetic expressions, aphorisms, and essays are compelling. He thoroughly examines the questions that arise from his inward exploration, for example, what is turning in.  With impeccable logic he uncovers the meaning of I am not the body. He acknowledges the human desire to help others and illuminates the pitfalls of such intent.

The most significant overarching theme, however, is the steady encouragement for each of us to begin the journey, or to pick it up again if it has paused, that permeates these essays. He so clearly conveys that in meditation one is always beginning for it is the reverse of accumulation. Wherever we are on the journey is the place to begin.

-Amido

Now available in four editions.

There are many ways you can read From Lemurs to Lamas, the newly released hardbound edition, two paperback versions and the Kindle e-book. Not all of the editions are available in every market. All of the editions are available in the United States. To see which editions are available elsewhere check these Amazon sites: Amazon.com; Amazon.in; Amazon.co.uk; Amazon.de; Amazon.fr; Amazon.es; Amazon.nl; Amazon.co.jp; Amazon.com.br; Amazon.ca.

Just released hardbound edition!

Hardbound edition now available in the U.S. and E.U.

 

Paperback edition

 

Kindle E-Book

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And for our friends in the U.S. there is also a deluxe paperback edition with color photos.

special color photo Paperback edition

 

If these editions are not available to you in your country or if you feel that you cannot afford to buy a copy, here you can download a PDF copy of From Lemurs to Lamas: Confessions of a Bodhisattva. Enjoy!

 

 

Where There is Happiness, Nobody is Happy – Jean Klein

Do you live in a state of emptiness? I mean, when you are in meditation or even walking down the road, are you always in a state of emptiness?

Emptiness is not a state; I correct you, it is a non-state.

I’m curious to know whether, when thoughts spring up out of that emptiness, do they go on a quarter of your time, or three-quarters of your time, and if they do, how can you keep your mind still all the time like that? Aren’t you wanting to think about things?

I never think.

You never think. When you answer a question, are you not thinking?

No. I hear the question in silence, and the answer comes out of silence.

Don’t you yearn for something? Isn’t there a yearning, a magnet that is pulling you or bringing thoughts into you that makes you want to think? I’m trying to understand, because it used to be that I did not think; I used to space out when I was a child and I would just be nowhere. I would repeat a phrase over and over again or I would have a picture in my mind and would go through a whole picture and repeat the picture again and again. So I would not think. To get out of that, I worked to think, and now it is like a process—always wanting to go on. I always have to have my intellect going on.

What is the motive of this intentional thinking?

Knowledge, excitement, discovery.

But in the end what do you want really? Happiness? Joy? Peace?

Yes, joy; exciting joy.

So you think in order to find happiness. And have you found it?

Oh, yes.

So you are happy?

Yes, I am.

Well, marvelous!

I have states of spontaneous ecstasy where it… these time periods of incredible ecstasy, just joy and excitement and wonder… there have been time periods in my life, and then they go away and are not there any more….

You go away.

You mean, I go away?

Yes, be aware of these moments when you go away.

When I go away from the ecstasy, or when the ecstasy is not there any more?

You go away from your real self.

Oh, I see. So, you are saying that the joining of the self is the ecstasy?

You go away from your real self. Be aware in the moment when you go away. In happiness and in joy you cannot say, “I’m happy,” “I’m in joy”—it is not possible. When you think, “I’m happy,” you objectify it, make it a state. Where there is happiness, nobody is happy, nothing is happy. There is only happiness. You are still involved in calculative thinking, looking for a result, an experience. Real thinking is when you go away from thinking. When you look away from thinking, that is real thinking. All real thinking starts free from any thought. Real thinking comes out of silence. You may have a certain forefeeling of what you are looking for.

I get really confused with the terms: what is thinking and what is not.

What you understand by thinking starts with thinking. That is intentional thinking, superficial thinking, surface thinking. That is not thinking at all.

Just an exercise.

Yes. Real thinking starts from the unknown, from silence. This thinking has a completely other way of flowing, I would say. There is never assertion, there is never domination, never manipulation. This thinking is constantly in a state of “I don’t know.” The background of real thinking is “I don’t know.”

So is the excitement that comes out of the “I don’t know” the excitement of the non-state?

Yes. You are completely open to the unknown. In any case, what you are looking for you cannot know. All that you know is representation. When you say “I know,” you represent it. Thinking is in representation, but your totality—what you are fundamentally—can never be thought. You can only be it.

-Jean Klein

From Living Truth 

This book can be purchased from Non-Duality Press

You can read more from Jean Klein here.

%d bloggers like this: