Turiya – Sat Sangha Salon

Dreaming has to be Transcended – Osho

The state in which the soul, with the help of the energies of the sun and other gods, and through the instrumentality of these fourteen: mind, intellect, mind stuff, ego, and the ten sense organs – becomes sensitive to sound, touch and such other gross objects, is called the waking state.

When the living being, on account of the unfulfilled desires of the waking state, becomes sensitive to sound, touch and such other gross objects – even in the absence of the latter – it is called the dreaming state of the self or soul.

-Sarvasar Upanishad

The Eastern mind divides consciousness into four states: one is when we are awake, or the first; the second is dreaming; the third is deep sleep, dreamless; and the fourth is beyond all the three, the turiya, the fourth.

What is this which we call the awake state of consciousness? Knowledge, knowing is possible in two ways: mediate and immediate. Mediate knowledge means knowledge through some means, not direct – indirect. Senses are the means, the windows through which we know the extension beyond us. But the knowledge gained is indirect; it is not a face-to-face encounter; the mediator is in between. The senses are mediators, and when senses inform us of something, it is not a simple information, it is an interpretation also. The senses are not just passive receptors; they are positive interpreters also; they impose something, they add something to the information.

So whenever anything is reported by the senses to the consciousness, it is not a passive receptivity; the senses have added something to it, they have interpreted it, they have imposed something on it.

This imposition creates an illusory world around every consciousness, and everyone begins to live in a world of his own. This world, the Eastern esoteric mind says, is the maya, the illusion. It is not the real, the objective, that-which-is: it is something that you have created.

Everyone is within his own world, and there are as many worlds as there are minds. So whenever two persons are near, two worlds are in collision. And otherwise, is not possible, because you have not known the objective as it is.

The second dimension, the alternative dimension to know the world as it is, is not through senses, but through transcendence of the senses. And human consciousness can be in a direct encounter: the senses are just dropped; and still, knowing happens. That knowing is about the truth, because there has been no mediator. Now you have known directly. To know the truth through the senses is maya; to know the truth immediately, directly, face to face, is brahman. That which we know remains the same, but the knower changes. If he is using senses, then he creates an illusory perception; if he is not using the senses, then he is face to face with the reality.

Meditation is the path of how to drop the senses, how to drop the windows and just to be in reality without anyone in between. The rishi says that this contact with the world through the senses is the first state of consciousness, the awake state of mind, jagrut. When you are in contact with the world through the senses, this is jagrut – the awake state of the mind.

Dreaming is the second state, deeper than the state we call the awake. Dreaming is a substitute state, secondary, but deeper. Whatsoever has been left unfulfilled in the state when you were awake, has to be completed. Mind has a tendency to complete things. If you leave something incomplete, then you will create a dream to complete it. The mind tends to complete a thing. You must complete it; otherwise, there is something restless inside.

You have seen a beautiful figure, but you couldn’t look at it as you liked, as much you liked. Now a lingering incompletion will continue inside. You can suppress it when you are awake – you are occupied in many other things, and the suppression is possible – but when you go to sleep, the incomplete link unfolds a dream and completes the thing.

This state of dreaming, the rishi says, means without the instrumentality of your senses. The senses are closed – they are not aware of the world beyond you; now you are within your cells, within your body, but still you can create your own worlds. This creation of your own worlds in dreams becomes possible because your mind is a conditioning of everything you have known, you have felt; everything has been accumulated in it. It is an accumulation, not only of this life, but of all the lives one has lived; and not only of human lives, of animal lives also; and not only of animal lives, but of vegetable lives also.

So in a dream you can become a tree; in a dream you can become a lion. Sometime you have been a tree: that memory is still there – it can unfold. This unfolding of past memories, of past lives, means only that you have never lived totally – always partially. You have not loved totally, you have not been angry totally, you have not been anything totally. Everything is incomplete. So many things incomplete inside, create the situation in which dreaming happens. The moment one begins to live totally, everything is completed, dreaming ceases.

A christ, a buddha, will not dream, because he has not left anything incomplete. A Jesus says this moment is enough – live it totally. Do not think of the other moment that is to come; do not think of the other moment that has gone. That which has gone is no more, and that which has not come yet, has not come yet. Both are non-existential.

This moment, this very moment, this passive moment is the only existential time. Live in it! And leave all else aside. Be totally in it, then there will be no dreaming, then everything is complete. And by the night, when you are dropping into sleep, nothing is incomplete and needs to be completed. And when dreaming ceases, mind becomes more aware.

This is the second state: dreaming. When dreaming ceases you become more awake; and when there is no dreaming in the night, in the morning when you are awake, you have more innocent eyes, more fresh, more alive. In your eyes there is no dust, there is no smoke; the flame is clear without the smoke. Dreaming creates a smoke around your eyes.

And one who has been dreaming in the night, really goes on dreaming in the day also. Deep down there is always a continuous dream film. You are hearing me: just close your eyes and look inside and there is a dream unfolding.

You are too occupied outside, that’s why you cannot become attentive to your inside dreaming; but the dreaming continues.

Look at the sky; there are no stars now. Where have they gone? They cannot go anywhere; they are where they have been in the night, but only because of the sun, we cannot see them. Our eyes are so occupied with the sun, they cannot penetrate through to them. They are still there. If you can go down into a deep well, even in the day, you can look at the stars, because then there is a gap of darkness and again stars appear.

Just like this, you are continuously dreaming. But when you are occupied in the outside world, the dreaming continues inside without your being attentive to it. The moment you are not occupied, relaxed, you become again aware of the dreaming. This is a constant state – in fact, continuous. And this dreaming is more indicative about your mind than whatsoever we call being awake, because it is less inhibited, less suppressed, more naked and therefore more true.

So, if your dreaming can be known, if your dream can be known, much is known about you. You cannot deceive – in dreams, at least. They are still not a part of your will, they are not voluntary. You are not the controller; that’s why they are so wild, so animal-like. This second stage must be penetrated, must be transcended. Only then we can come to the third – still deeper, the deep sleep, the dreamless sleep.

The more you go deep inside, the nearer you are to existence. The deeper you go to the center, the nearer you are to the center of the universe. These three are concentric circles around the center: awake, dreaming and deep sleep. These are three concentric circles. If you transcend all these three, then suddenly you are face to face with your own center. Then you are centered in it. That centering is all.

That centering is to achieve the deathless.

That centering is to be deep inside the heart of the universe.

That centering is divine realization.

Dreaming has to cease, one must cease dreaming. Dreaming has to be transcended – dreaming is the barrier. A dreaming mind can never know the truth; a dreaming mind is bound to live in illusory worlds. Dreaming is the problem, and if dreaming stops . . . And it stops when ambition stops, it stops when desiring stops, it stops when one begins to live moment to moment, just here and now. If you can remember two words, “here” and “now,” dreaming stops. Be here and now, and there can be no dreaming, because dreaming is always from the past and for the future. It originates in the past; it spreads into the future.

Dreaming can never be in the present. To be in the present and to be in a dream is impossible; they never meet. So if one is awake, aware, attentive of the time that is just here and now, dreaming stops. And when dreaming withers away, you can become aware, really aware; you can really become awake. And when you are awake, this awareness can penetrate the third state of consciousness: dreamless sleep. Really, in no language other than Hindi, is there a word for it – sushupti. In no language is there a word for it – sushupti.

Sleep is not sushupti – that’s why we have to add dreamless sleep. It is not just sleep, it is nondreaming sleep – without any ripple of the dream, with no waves of the dream. The ocean is totally silent, not even a dream is there to disturb. Then you are in sushupti – the third state, dreamless sleep, the non-dreaming sleep. But you can never become aware of it unless dreaming ceases.

The waves must cease; only then can you become aware of the ocean; otherwise, you are always aware of the waves. Waves are on the surface, so when you see, you see the waves, not the ocean.

The waves must stop totally. Only then, for the first time, do you become aware of the ocean, the waveless ocean – the dreamless sleep. And if one can become aware of dreamless sleep, one transcends sleep. One transcends sleep only when one becomes aware of it. And then you are turiya, the fourth; then you have passed all the three.

This fourth is the being; this fourth is the search. For this fourth, effort is needed. And one may go on continuously dreaming and dreaming and dreaming – one can never achieve this fourth state through dreaming. That’s why there is so much insistence on non-desiring, non-ambition. The buddhas go on saying, “Do not desire,” because if you desire then dreaming cannot cease. The buddhas go on saying, “Do not be attached,” because if you are attached the dreaming cannot cease. Do not be ambitious, do not long for any becoming, do not think in terms of the future; otherwise, dreaming cannot cease. And unless dreaming ceases you will never be. You can never be! You will always be a becoming, just a becoming: “a” changing into “b,” “b” changing into “c,” “c” changing into “d” – and always the longing for the far off. And then you go on running, and you never reach; then you go on becoming this and that and you are never a being.

The being is here and now.

Drop dreaming and you are there where you have really been always, but you were never aware. All meditation techniques are just anti-dream efforts, just dream-negating devices.

-Osho

From That Art Thou, Discourse #4

Dreaming has to be Transcended is from the morning talk, This Fourth is the Being is from the evening talk of the same day.

Here you can listen to the discourse excerpt Dreaming has to be Transcended.

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 Circle is Complete – Osho

There are three ordinary states of consciousness. One is waking, jagrut, the second is swabha, dreaming, and the third is sushupti, dreamless deep sleep.

Man ordinarily lives in these three states, sometimes waking, sometimes dreaming, sometimes fast asleep; this is the wheel man moves in. And because of these three states of mind many things have arisen into human consciousness and in human culture, civilization.

The first kind of consciousness, waking, creates its own culture, its own civilization; the West represents it. The second kind of culture is created by the second kind of consciousness, dreaming; the East represents it. That’s why you find it very difficult to communicate; the Western mind finds it almost impossible to communicate with the Eastern mind. It is not only a question of language – language you may understand – the question is of the orientation.

The waking consciousness is objective: it thinks of the object, of the reality there outside; it is a kind of concentration. The Western mind has evolved powers of concentration hence the birth of science; out of the powers of concentration, science is born. The East could not give birth to science, and the reason is that the East has not paid much attention to the first kind of consciousness.

The East thinks in terms of dreams. The East thinks in terms of the inner. The East thinks in terms of the subjective. The East thinks with closed eyes; the West thinks with open eyes. The West concentrates; the Eastern mind meditates, that’s why in the East you will find visionaries, poets – people who have experienced great revelations inside. But they cannot prove it; the experiences remain individual, private. The Western emphasis is on the objective, the public: when you are wakeful, whatsoever you see others can also see. You are seeing me here, everybody can see me – one who has eyes can see – there is no need for any proof. The sun rises, and you know: the proof exists in the very experience. And everybody is experiencing it – there can be a collective consensus about it. But when I say I have seen the sun rise in the evening it is no more a collective experience; it is no more objective, it becomes subjective.

In the East you will find people who have experienced kundalini rising in them, great light exploding as if thousands and thousands of suns have suddenly risen on the horizon; you will find people who have seen lotuses blooming inside – and to the Western mind it looks all nonsense. The Western mind has developed technology, science – objectivity. It lives in the first, the waking, state; the visionary is rejected. In the West the visionary is a marginal phenomenon, he exists on the outskirts of civilization. He is at most tolerated; he is harmless, he can be tolerated. But he has no roots in the culture at large, he is not the main current. In the East the scientist lives in the same way – on the margin; he is not the main current. He can be tolerated, he can be used, but the respect goes to the visionary, to the dreamer, to the poet who dreams great dreams.

These are the two ordinary states; the third state happens to both, but you cannot catch hold of it, the mind dissolves. In sushupti, in dreamless sleep, you disappear as an ego, and you disappear so utterly that you cannot even remember in the morning what happened. You can remember your dreams, you cannot remember your dreamless sleep, at most it can be remembered as gaps. You can say ‘I slept so deeply that there were not even dreams.’ But that is guess-work; there is no direct experience of sushupti.

No culture has evolved out of sushupti because there is no possibility to catch hold of it directly. But that is the deepest ordinary state of mind. It is out of sushupti, dreamless sleep, that you get rejuvenated every day. You go to the source, you move to the source, you are again in contact with the primal consciousness, you are again in contact with your ground. You are no more human, you are no more Hindu, no more Christian, you are no more a man or a woman, black or white, you are no more Eastern, Western; all disappears – all distinctions. You are, but there is no identity, that’s why out of dreamless sleep great peace is felt.

If you move into deeper meditation, you will come to the third state where one can become aware of dreamless sleep too. And many have stopped there; because it is so blissful, many religions have stopped there, they don’t go beyond it.

There is a fourth state also, and unless you reach to the fourth, go on remembering that the third is very alluring, the third is very beautiful, very blissful, but still you have not arrived home. The fourth is the home; the Eastern mystics have called it turiya, turiya means the fourth.

Waking is objective, outer; it is a kind of concentration. Dreaming is between the outer and the inner, a link between waking and deep sleep, and deep sleep is the inner. Then what is the fourth, the turiya? It is both and neither. It is both inner and outer, and because it is both, that’s why it is neither. It transcends both, it is non-dual, it is total. Now nothing is outer, nothing is inner. Objects disappear and, simultaneously, the subject too; there is no experience and no experiencer. This fourth state is called samadhi, satori. And the beauty of the fourth is that you can live in the world and yet be not of it.

Zen believes in the fourth. Those who believe in the third have to leave the world, they have to go to the Himalayan caves. Only there is it possible that they can fall into continuous deep dreamless sleep. It is falling into a beautiful coma. Its spiritual worth is nothing, although there is no misery, no anxiety, because the mind is put aside. But it is a state of coma, it is escapist. And the man has not known yet what the truth is. He has chosen one thing: escaping.

The Western mind moves deeper and deeper into the world, into activity, and the Eastern mind moves out of activity, more and more out of the world.

Now, here both kinds of people have gathered. When the Western mind comes to me he always asks how to relate with people – that is his basic question – how to be more loving, caring, how to grow deeper into relationship. No Indian, no Easterner, ever asks this – that is not his question at all, his question is how to get out of relationship, how to forget all this misery – birth and death, and reincarnation, and the whole wheel – how to stop it, how to jump out of it. You can watch it, it is very apparent. The Western mind is clear-cut, logical, rational, mathematical, alert. The Eastern mind is dreaming and, according to Western standards, lousy, sloppy, messy, because in a dream you cannot be very clear-cut, otherwise the dream will disappear. To the Eastern mind the Western mind is worldly, calculating, cunning, clever.

The third kind has happened both in the East and the West very rarely. In the West monasteries have existed, and people have renounced the world and moved – in the East too. One who becomes interested in dreamless sleep — and it is greatly satisfying – no doubt about it, there is great pleasure in it, it is very tranquil, undisturbed, but it is a kind of death, not life. And there is fear that it can be disturbed – any small thing can disturb it – a small thought can move, and all is lost. A small dream is enough to destroy it.

Zen people have worked for the fourth. The fourth means: live in the world like a lotus leaf in water, be awake and yet remain centred. So all that is needed to be done, be in the cyclone and yet remain in the centre of it, unaffected by it. Naturally, the Zen man creates the most alive, living, streaming, pulsating life. The Zen man creates action in inaction, or inaction through action. Polarities meet and merge, and wherever polarities meet and merge there is God.

The fourth is the primal state, the very basic and fundamental state out of which these three have arisen. These three are branches, the fourth is the root.

The sutras of today you will be able to understand only if you understand this approach, the approach through the fourth, through totality. One has not to escape, one has to go into the deepest world but is not to be lost there. One has to remain conscious, one has to remain alert, and one has to go deep into the world. The meeting of the extremes will bring you the richest crop of life.

It happened…

Vivekananda once told his Master, Ramakrishna, that his highest spiritual aspiration was to remain immersed for days on end in nirvikalpa samadhi, the disappearance of all forms into absolute Godhead. He sincerely longed for what he then considered to be the ultimate spiritual experience. But Ramakrishna, who had once spent six months in unbroken nirvikalpa, his body kept alive only by force feeding, relied ‘You are a fool. There is a realization higher than nirvikalpa samadhi.’ Vivekananda was at that time dedicated to the third dimension of contemplation, and Ramakrishna was attempting to turn him toward the fourth dimension, or turiya.

Nirvikalpa samadhi is a state of deep sleep. All has disappeared; it is absent, it is negative. The cup is empty, utterly empty; ready to be filled, but not yet filled. The empty cup is not the goal – cannot be the goal; emptying is only the method so that one day the cup can be filled with the presence of God. But God exists as the world – there is no other God. God has appeared as the world; God is not somewhere else. The world is God manifest. One has to empty oneself to prepare, but one has to remain in close contact with the world otherwise one becomes disconnected.

This is my approach to sannyas too. That’s why I don’t say leave the world, I say live in the world, accept the challenge of it because behind it, behind the screen of it, is God himself. If you accept the challenge and if you live the challenge totally, you will find that all that is needed is here. It has to be discovered. Become more and more alert and conscious.

So don’t get too much into the objects – don’t become a Westerner, and don’t get too much into the dreams – don’t become an Easterner. Don’t get too obsessed with kundalini and experiences like that because those are all mind things. Remain alert while moving with people, while moving in the world, remain alert while moving in dreams. And there are beautiful dreams too, spiritual dreams too – remain alert, don’t get distracted by them. And when you are able to be alert in the objective world and then alert in the dreaming world, slowly, slowly you will become alert in the dreamless deep sleep too. And then you are at the gate of the fourth. And when you enter the fourth, you are back into the world; the circle is complete. But now you are the center of the cyclone.

-Osho

From The Sun Rises in the Evening, Discourse #7

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

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

This Fourth is the Being – Osho

The sleeping state is one in which all the fourteen organs are still and tranquil, and when – for lack of real knowledge – the self of soul is insensitive to sound, touch and such other objects.

And the one which is aware of the creation and dissolution of these three states – waking , dreaming and sleeping – but which is itself beyond creation and dissolution, is known as turiya – the fourth state of consciousness, the state of turiya.

-Sarvasar Upanishad

Consciousness in itself is nothing. One is always conscious about something; so the “about” is important. Consciousness is always objective: you are conscious of something. If there is nothing in front of you, consciousness will drop – you will not be conscious.

This state, the oriental religious perception says, is the sushupti; this is the third state. When there is no object to be known, the knower is lost. When then is no object in the outside world to be aware of, and when there is no object in the mind, dream object, when all objects have dropped – outside all are dream objects – then consciousness drops. Then you are not conscious; then you are unconscious. This unconsciousness is sushupti, the third stage.

But this is amazing: it means that we are not conscious really, we are only objectively conscious.

We have not known ourselves, we have known only objects and things. Our consciousness is other oriented; it is not self-centered. I can be conscious only when something else is present. When nothing is present I will go to sleep. I have not known any subjective consciousness which can exist without the object. That’s why in the third state, consciousness equals unconsciousness – it becomes unconscious. When there is no object as a challenge, one becomes unconscious.

So this consciousness, this so-called consciousness, is just a struggle, just a challenge, just a constant stimulus-response; it is not anything in itself. You are not the master of it; you are not really conscious: you are only being forced to be conscious constantly. Everything is forcing you to be conscious; otherwise, to go to sleep will be the spontaneous act – one will just drop into a coma. So can we call it consciousness? It is not. This state is not the state of self-consciousness, it is just a constant tension between you and the world, between you and the thoughts. If there are no objects and no thoughts, you drop… and be unconscious. This is the third state, sushupti. And unless one transcends it, one cannot be called conscious.

Gurdjieff used to say that man has no soul. He used to say that you have got no self, because self means self-consciousness; otherwise, how can you be said to have a self? If you are not conscious, how can you be a self? How can you be an individual? So Gurdjieff’s teaching doesn’t believe that every man has got a soul. He says, “Every man has got a potentiality he can develop, he may not develop.”

If you become self-conscious, then you develop the individual; then you become the individual. If you are not self-conscious then you are just one object among other objects, and there is nothing more. Gurdjieff’s teaching makes this central point the supreme point. He says, “Try to remember yourself without any object. Try to remember yourself without any object, without any relation to anything else. Remember yourself directly, simply.” It is very arduous; in a way it seems impossible. You cannot remember yourself without in any way relating to something else – Can you?

Can you remember yourself?

Can you feel yourself?

Whenever you feel, you feel in relation to: someone’s son, someone’s daughter, someone’s husband, being rich or poor, belonging to this country or that, being healthy or ill – but this is all in relation to something else. Can you remember yourself without any relation? – Unrelated? Without any context? Just you? It becomes inconceivable. Really, we have not known ourselves, we have known only in relation. And this is the miracle: you know yourself in relation to someone, who knows himself in relation to you. See the absurdity of it! Everyone knows themselves because of others – and the others know themselves because of him.

Everyone is ignorant, but by being related with other ignorant people, you become wise. You know yourself because you know your name, you know your house, your address, your city, your country – and not for a single moment have you known who you are. This sushupti, this third state of unconsciousness must be broken apart, must be penetrated beyond. One must become aware of oneself without being related to anything else – this is self- knowledge. This fourth is known as the turiya.

We must make a distinction between the being and the states. Any state, whether it is awake, or dreaming, or non-dreaming sleep, cannot be synonymous with the being, because the being is that upon which these states happen. The being is one who goes through all these three states. He cannot be identified with any; otherwise, he cannot move.

You cannot be awake if you are identified with dreaming: if you are dreaming, then you cannot be awake. If you are awake, then you cannot go into sleep. But you move – just as one moves into one’s house and out of one’s house, you come in and you go out; so you cannot be identified with the inside of your house or the outside of your house. You move: you can come in; you can go out; so you become the third. You move from dreaming to non-dreaming; you move from sleep to dream, from dream to wakefulness.

So this mover must be something else, more than all the three – this is the fourth; hence, it is called “the fourth.” And therefore no name is given to it . . . because from the fourth it can never move. From the fourth it can never move. When I say this, a question must come into your mind: “But this fourth goes into sleep, goes into dreaming and other states?”

This is something very subtle to be understood. No, this fourth never goes anywhere; those states come upon it and pass – this fourth remains in itself constantly. Dreaming comes over it just like clouds coming over the sun. The sun remains, then there are clouds, then the clouds have gone. This fourth is the non-moving center within you. Dreams come, then objects are seen, then thoughts are seen; then objects drop, and thoughts drop, and you are engulfed in a dark sleep; but the fourth remains its center – it has never moved. That’s why no name has been given to it; no name is needed – it remains the nameless. One has to penetrate to this fourth.

This is not a state really; when we talk we have to call it the fourth state, but it is not a state. All the three are states; this fourth is beyond these states. This fourth is the being – this fourth is the very nature of one’s self. Unless one goes to this fourth, unless one becomes aware of this non-moving center, unless one is centered in it, there is no freedom and there is no bliss. Really, there is nothing except dreaming, many many dreams, many types of dreams; but nothing else – just bubbles in the air.

This fourth . . . How to achieve this fourth? How to reach this fourth? How to penetrate this deep sleep? How to destroy this darkness within? What to do?

The one basic thing is to be aware first: in the first state when you are awake, be aware. Be aware whatsoever you are doing. Walking on the street, then be aware that you are walking. Let your awareness be double-arrowed: one arrow conscious of the act of walking, another arrow going deep inside and aware of the walker. Listening to me, be aware, double-arrowed: one arrow of your consciousness going outside listening attentively, another going inside constantly aware of the listener.

Mahavira has a very beautiful word. He used “listener”, shravak, with a very original meaning, and he has given a very new shape, a new nuance to it. He says if you can be simply a right-listener, nothing else is needed. This much will do: if you can be a right listener – samyak shravak. If you can listen attentively with double-arrowed attention, then this much is enough, you will be awakened. No other discipline is needed.

Buddha has used the word, “mindfulness” – samyak smriti, right mindfulness. He says whatsoever you are doing, do it mindfully; don’t do it in sleep, do it mindfully – whatsoever you are doing. Do it consciously, then consciousness begins to crystallize in the first state, wakefulness. When you have become conscious, when you are awake, the your consciousness can penetrate the second state, dreaming. It is not difficult then. Then you can become conscious of your dreams; and the moment you become conscious of your dreams, dreams disappear. The moment dreams disappear you become conscious of your dreamless sleep, and the arrow goes on. Now be aware that you are asleep, and by and by the arrow penetrates – and suddenly you are in the fourth.

Religion cannot be a belief.

Religion cannot be a tradition.

Religion cannot be an accepted dogma.

Religion is totally individual:

One has to discover it again and again.

One has to know it for oneself, for oneself.

Unless you know there is no knowledge.

All knowledge gathered from others is just false, it is pseudo, it is deceptive. One has to encounter the reality oneself. This is just like love – you know if you love. If you have not loved you may know everything about love, but love will not be known, because love is not really a knowledge, it is a realization, it is an experience… rather, not even experience, but experiencing. Experience means something which you have experienced and now it is dead. Experience means something which has finished, which is finished with a full stop. Experiencing means a process, a continuous process. You have to go on discovering, discovering – and there is no end to it.

Religion is like love: There is a beginning to it but no end.

You have to begin it but you never reach it – you go on reaching. You go on reaching, but it is never of the past. It is not that there comes a full stop and you can say, “I have reached.” No, never. That’s why we call the religious search, the ultimate search. By “ultimate” we mean that which begins, which never ends. Rather, on the contrary, a moment comes when you are lost but the end has not been achieved. But this, this seeker being lost is the explosion.

So unless you know, never believe. Unless you know, never feel at ease with words, doctrines, scriptures. Unless you know, remember continuously that you have to seek and find, that you have to go on a far, faraway journey. And that’s why religion really is the only adventure; all else is just childish. That which can be found is just childish; that which can be found is not really the adventure; that which is possible needs no courage. Only the impossible needs courage, only that which cannot be found. If you go on the search for it, you have gone on an adventure.

But the moment one is ready for the impossible, the impossible become possible. The moment one is ready to take the jump, the miracle happens. You are not in a way, in the jump – you are lost. And still, for the first time, you are – you have found yourself.

The states are lost, the identities are lost, the names and forms are lost. There only remains the original source of all This rishi says: These are the states; these three are the states. The fourth is the knower of all these states. These three states come out of the fourth, again are dissolved in the fourth, and the fourth never comes out of anything and is never dissolved in anything else.

The fourth is the eternal principle, the eternal life, the eternal aliveness.

-Osho

From That Art Thou, Discourse #5

This Fourth is the Being is from the evening talk, Dreaming has to be Transcended is from the morning talk of the same day.

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.

Charaiveti, Charaiveti – Osho

A while ago you said something about silence which startled me. In my sleepiness I’d simply thought of it as just an absence—an absence of noises. But you were saying it had positive qualities, a positive sound. And in my meditations, I’ve noticed the distinction between a silence in my body and a silence in my mind. I can have the first, without the second. Beloved Master, please talk to me about silence.

Anand Somen, silence usually is understood to be something negative, something empty, an absence of sound, of noises. This misunderstanding is prevalent because very few people have ever experienced silence. All that they have experienced in the name of silence is noiselessness. But silence is a totally different phenomenon. It is utterly positive. It is existential, it is not empty. It is overflowing with a music that you have never heard before, with a fragrance that is unfamiliar to you, with a light that can only be seen by the inner eyes. It is not something fictitious; it is a reality, and a reality which is already present in everyone—just we never look in. All our senses are extrovert. Our eyes open outside, our ears open outside, our hands move outside, our legs… all our senses are meant to explore the outside world.

But there is a sixth sense also, which is asleep because we have never used it. And no society, no culture, no educational system helps people to make the sixth sense active.

That sixth sense, in the East, is called “the third eye.” It looks inwards. And just as there is a way of looking in, so there is a way of hearing in, so there is a way of smelling in. Just as there are five senses moving outward, there are five counter-senses moving inward. In all, man has ten senses, but the first sense that starts the inner journey is the third eye, and then other senses start opening up.

Your inner world has its own taste, has its own fragrance, has its own light. And it is utterly silent, immensely silent, eternally silent. There has never been any noise, and there will never be any noise. No word can reach there, but you can reach. The mind cannot reach there, but you can reach because you are not the mind. The function of the mind is again to be a bridge between you and the objective world, and the function of the heart is to be a bridge between you and yourself.

The silence that I have been talking about is the silence of the heart. It is a song in itself, without words and without sounds. It is only out of this silence that the flowers of love grow. It is this silence that becomes the Garden of Eden. Meditation, and only meditation, is the key to open the doors of your own being.

You are asking, “A while ago you said something about silence which startled me in my sleepiness. I had simply thought of it as just an absence—an absence of noises. But you were saying it had positive qualities, a positive sound. And in my meditations, I have noticed a distinction between a silence in my body and a silence in my mind.”

Your experiences are true. The body knows its own silence—that is its own well-being, its own overflowing health, its own joy. The mind also knows its silence, when all thoughts disappear and the sky is without any clouds, just a pure space. But the silence I am talking about is far deeper.

I am talking about the silence of your being.

These silences that you are talking about can be disturbed. Sickness can disturb the silence of your body, and death is certainly going to disturb it. A single thought can disturb the silence of your mind, the way a small pebble thrown into the silent lake is enough to create thousands of ripples, and the lake is no longer silent. The silence of the body and the mind are very fragile and very superficial, but in themselves they are good. To experience them is helpful, because it indicates that there may be even deeper silences of the heart.

And the day you experience the silence of the heart, it will be again an arrow of longing, moving you even deeper.

Your very center of being is the center of a cyclone. Whatever happens around it does not affect it; it is eternal silence. Days come and go, years come and go, ages come and pass, lives come and go, but the eternal silence of your being remains exactly the same – the same soundless music, the same fragrance of godliness, the same transcendence from all that is mortal, from all that is momentary.

It is not your silence.

You are it.

It is not something in your possession; you are possessed by it, and that’s the greatness of it. Even you are not there, because even your presence will be a disturbance. The silence is so profound that there is nobody, not even you. And this silence brings truth, and love, and thousands of other blessings to you. This is the search, this is the longing of all the hearts, of all those who have a little intelligence.

But remember, don’t get lost in the silence of the body, or the silence of the mind, or even the silence of the heart. Beyond these three is the fourth. We, in the East, have called it simply “the fourth,” turiya. We have not given it any name. Instead of a name we have given it a number, because it comes after three silences — of the body, of the mind, of the heart—and beyond it, there is nothing else to be found.

So, don’t misunderstand. Most of the people… for example, there are people who are practicing yoga exercises. Yoga exercises give a silence of the body, and they are stuck there. Their whole life, they practice, but they know only the most superficial silence. Then there are people who are doing concentrations like transcendental meditation, of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It can give you a silence which will be only of the mind. Just by repeating a name or a mantra… the very repetition creates in its wake, a silence in the mind. But it is not meditation, and it is not transcendental.

And there are Sufis who know the third, which is the deepest of the three. But still it is not the goal, the target; your arrow is still falling short. It is very deep because Sufis know the heart more than anybody else. For centuries they have been working on the heart, just as yogis have been working on the body, and people of concentration and contemplation have been working on the mind.

The Sufis know the immense beauty of love. They radiate love, but still the home has not been reached. You have to remember the fourth. Unless you reach the fourth, continue the journey.

People misunderstand very easily. Just a little bit of experience and they think they have arrived. And mind is very clever to rationalize.

There is a Sufi story about Mulla Nasruddin. The Mulla hears a commotion in the street outside his house in the middle of the night. His wife tells him to go down, and after many arguments he puts a blanket on his shoulders and goes down to the street. There were many people in the street and a lot of noise, and in the crowd somebody steals his blanket.

The Mulla goes home naked, and his wife asks him, “What was that all about?” The Mulla says, “It seems to be about my blanket, because as they got the blanket they all disappeared. They were just waiting for the blanket. And I was telling you `Don’t force me to go there.’ Now I have lost my blanket and I have come naked. It was none of our business.”

He has found a rationalization, and it looks logical, that as they got his blanket they all disappeared. And the poor Mulla thinking that perhaps that was the whole problem….

“Their argument and their noise just in front of my house in the middle of the night, and my foolish wife persuaded me finally to lose my blanket!”

Mind is continuously rationalizing, and sometimes it may appear that what it is saying is right, because it gives arguments for it. But one has to beware of one’s own mind, because in this world nobody can cheat you more than your own mind. Your greatest enemy is within you, just as your greatest friend is also within you.

The greatest enemy is just your first encounter, and your greatest friend is going to be your last encounter—so don’t be prevented by any experience of the body or the mind or the heart. Remember always one of the famous statements of Gautam Buddha. He used to conclude his sermons every day with the same two words, charaiveti, charaiveti.” Those two simple words—just one word repeated twice—means “Don’t stop; go on, go on.”

Never stop until the road ends, until there is nowhere else to go—charaiveti, charaiveti.

-Osho

From The Golden Future, Discourse #1

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.

Prayer by Shankarcharya – Vimala Thakar

Translation & Commentary by Vimala Thakar

Pratah smarami hridi samsphura ta twam
Satchitsukham paramahansa gatim turiyam
Yat swapna jagara sushupta mavaiti nityam
Tad brahma nishkalamaham na cha bhuta sanghaha.

In the morning as I meet the dawn, I remember that my heart contains the God, the Beloved, who has not yet been defined and described. I remember that it is He who vibrates within my heart, enables me to breathe, to talk, to listen, to move. When I am thus aware, that it is He who lives and moves within me, then the three phases of consciousness, jagrat, swapna, sushupti : wakefulness, dreaming, and profound sleep, they are transcended into turiya, the fourth dimension, which is behind the wakefulness, the dream-consciousness, and the sleep-consciousness.

When I thus remember, that the underlying current behind the wakefulness, the dream, and the sleep-consciousness is He, who lives and moves within me, then that awareness gives me sat chit sukham, the flavor of the truth, the reality, and the bliss that is the nature, the basic primary nature of life.

Sat chit sukham. When I am always thus aware of the real nature of life, then I arrive at paramahan sagatim turiyam. I arrive at a state of being that has been called by the ancient wise Indians “Paramahansa”, a swan that swims through the waters of duality. That is how a sanyasi is called a paramahansa, one who lives in the renunciation of that austere awareness that it is not he who lives, as separate from the universe, but that he is only an expression of the universal.

The state of paramahansa is the state where a person is aware that he is not a conglomeration of sense organs and only the five elements, but he is the nishkala Brahman, the supreme Brahman, the divinity, who has taken the dense form of a mind and a physical body.

Pratara bhajami manaso vachasam agamyam
Vacho vibhanti nikhila yadanugrahena
Ya neti neti vachanaih nirgama avochu
Tamdeva devam ajam achyutam ahuragryam

But my mind, when I am awake, needs some work to do. It cannot remain without movement. So I give it a job. “Pratara bhajami manaso” – by the mind – “vachasam agamyam” – by the mind I move. On the frontiers of the mind I give the mind a job to explore that which lies beyond its own frontiers, that which is not accessible to the word, to the speech, as well as to the mind.

My mind asks me, “How shall I do it?” And I ask the mind to travel back, through the word, to the source of the word, the sound, and find out how the sound is born. I ask my mind to travel with the breath, to go inside: with the breath to travel. That is the only way you can find out how the sound is born, because breath and sound are woven together.

All speech and all sound is a blessing of that unspoken, unstruck sound. And unless one discovers the source from which all sound is born, one shall never set oneself free from the power of the word, that intoxicates and distorts the mind; that intoxicates the mind and sweeps it off its balance.

All the Upanishads and the Vedas have been searching for that source of sound. That source of breath. They arrived only at two words: na iti, na iti: it is “not this”, it is “not this.” So even the Vedas arrive at the point where nothing can describe and define. The source can only be experienced, the source can only be perceived and understood, but never defined and described. That is how the mind becomes silent. Not because I ask it, but while it is searching for the source of its own activity it takes a dive deep into silence, where the mind becomes the no-mind, where the knowing becomes the not-knowing.

Then I understand that silence is the only speech through which life speaks, and I feel blessed when I am in that silence.

Pratarnamami tamasah param arkavarnam
Purnam sanatana padam purushottamakhyam
Yasminnidam jagadashesham ashesamurtau
Rajjuam bhujangama iva pratibhatitam vai.

But then comes the body. It wants to do something. To worship, to admire, to adore. So I give it a job. I ask my body to bow down before the light of the earth, the sun, who dispels darkness from all the corners of the earth. And I ask my body to expose itself to that darkness dispelling sun – ask it to find out how that sun enters into the body through the doors of the eyes, and through the pores of all the veins and nerves, every pore of my being. I want my body to find out which are the avenues through which the light is received.

And when the body says, “It is the eyes through which the light enters,” I say, “Find out how the eyes can see the light. Is the light outside the eyes, or is it inside?” With the help of the mind, the body travels inward, to find out the source of the light.

And it discovers that it is not a blind person who can receive the light from outside. He who has an eye can receive the light. So that which receives the light is greater than the light seen from outside.

So I arrive at the source of light within me. And the awareness of that light dispels the illusion – the illusion and the fear that a man experiences when he sees “rajo bhujangama” : when he sees a rope in the darkness and he mistakes that for a snake, a cobra. I had mistaken the rope of duality for the snake and cobra of misery and sorrow. But the light dispels the darkness and I see that the duality is only a rope that cannot bind me in any way unless I bind myself with it.

That light is the purushottam, that is sanatana – eternal. Purnam – that is perfect. The perfect eternity. The God divine. That is really my nature. I had mistaken the tensions of duality to be me, but then the light dispels all the darkness, and I get rooted back into the ajam, the aychutam – that which can never be swept off its feet. Ajam – that which was never born, and can never die. I am that.

This is the prayer composed by Shankaracharya, the majestic exponent of the philosophy of non-dualism, vedanta or advait. This was sung by Vivekananda very often, and it is really on this prayer that Vivekananda’s “Song of Sanyasin” is based, where he sings, in great ecstasy:

They know not truth who dream such vacant dreams
As father, mother, children wife and friend –
The sexless Self, whose father, whose mother is he?
The self is All in All,
None else exists, and thou art that,
Sanyasin bold, say ‘Om Tat Sat Om’.

Where seekest thou that freedom?
This world nor that can give you.
Thine only is the hand,
That holds the rope that drags thee on.
Then cease lament, let go thy hold!
Sanyasin bold! Say ‘Om Tat Sat Om!’

-Vimala Thakar
Hunger Mountain, MA, October, 1972

Here is a link to an audio recording of Vimalaji chanting part of the above prayer. Prayer by Shankarcharya – Vimala Thakar

For more posts on Vimala Thakar look here.

There are quite a few of Vimala Thakar’s books that are downloadable.

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