Tag: witness

In the Gap Descends the Witness – Osho

You describe witnessing as a knack. Often, late at night, which I am in a very relaxed state, witnessing happens. At other times, though, it just seems to be mind watching mind watching mind. Please comment on this knack.

The moment I say that witnessing is a knack, it implies that there is no way to explain it, no way to teach someone about it, no way to train someone in it.

That’s the whole meaning of the word “knack.”

I can say things which are close enough, but they can never be exact descriptions of the knack. It is not an art, not a craft that can be explained in detail, step by step. But if it is happening to you, there is no problem. You should know what it is; you should know the taste of it.

The problem is arising because you must be trying to do it; not allowing the knack to happen, but trying to make an art of it, so that you can control it. Man wants to control everything; it is part of his basic ego.

The knack cannot be controlled. Either you know it or you don’t know it. You can play around it, and sometimes by chance you stumble upon it: suddenly you have come to know it. That is the moment when you have to be aware in what situation it is happening.

In the night, when you are relaxed, you find it happening. That gives you a clue that relaxation, not an effort to attain witnessing, allows the knack to happen. At other times when you are trying, making an effort, an endeavor to get it, then it is mind watching mind watching mind. It is always the mind.

Mind cannot get the knack.

Mind can learn any art, any technique, any craft: a knack is beyond it. It is not its language, it is not its world. A knack is something beyond mind.

So you have to be clearly aware: the thing is happening to you, the failure of the mind is happening to you. Whenever you are trying, you watch – then you find that it is mind watching another part of the mind. And then you find the one who has found this is also another part of the mind. And this can go on ad infinitum.

Mind is capable of dividing itself infinitely. But finally you will find only mind – you will not come to meditation, you will not come to witnessing.

So your failure is helpful. It says, “Don’t make the effort, don’t try.” Your success indicates that it happens when you are relaxed, when you are not trying. In relaxation, mind is no longer functioning.

The mind is going to be in sleep, it is ready to go into sleep; it is not going into an effort because effort will keep you awake. You cannot fall into sleep by effort.

Sleep and witnessing have something in common.

You cannot make the effort – one thing. Every effort is going to be a failure – another thing. Unless you learn that every effort fails, you cannot get the knack. But once in a while when your mind is getting ready to go to sleep – in between, when you are still awake, and the mind is relaxing to go into sleep – suddenly, witnessing happens. You have got the knack!

Now don’t ask me what it is. That may destroy even your night witnessing, because you may start trying it. Just let it happen as it is happening in the night. You can, at the most, create the same atmosphere whenever you want it to happen, and wait. You cannot force it.

One has to learn a great lesson – that there are things beyond you which you cannot force; you can only remain open, available, waiting, and they come. The moment you become tense to get hold of them, they slip away. It is just like in the open fist you have all the air possible. With the closed fist all the air disappears.

You may be thinking that with a closed fist you are catching hold of the air. No, it has slipped out. It does not belong to the closed fist, it belongs only to the open hand – and it is easily available. You just have to see when it happens, what the surroundings are.

The surroundings mean you are going into sleep, you are tired of the whole day’s work – you don’t want to work anymore. In the gap, before the mind slips into sleep and you lose consciousness – the mind is preparing, is getting ready to go into sleep, but you are still awake – in that minute gap, witnessing happens.

Now, you cannot try the knack. You can simply create the outer situation. In the day, anytime, let the mind go into relaxation. Don’t try – as if you are going to create witnessing: you are simply allowing mind to rest. And at a certain point, that same gap will appear, and in the gap descends the witness.

This is the mystery of a knack – its strangeness and its simplicity too.

– Osho

From Light on the Path, Discourse #32

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

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

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

Your Lost Innocence – Osho

While watching the changing world outside and the movement of thoughts and emotions within, I become aware of a presence that doesn’t change. It is impossible to define what this is in words, but I do know that it is always the same presence, that when it comes, it is everywhere and nowhere at once; that nothing I’m thinking or feeling can connect with it; that it is so still it doesn’t exist and so sublet that at times it is too alive to bear. I remember encountering this presence first as a child. Beloved Master, am I rediscovering my lost innocence?

Dhyan Arjuna, yes you are rediscovering your lost innocence. Religion is a rediscovery. It is something that we had known, that we had lived, but we have left far behind – so far behind that it seems almost as if it was not a reality but only a dream scene, just a faint memory, a faraway echo. But if you become meditative that echo starts coming closer, the dream starts changing into a reality and the forgotten language of innocence is suddenly remembered. Hence it is not a discovery, it is a rediscovery.

Every child is born feeling the whole universe, not knowing his separation from it. It is by slow education that we teach him to feel separate. We give him a name, we give him an identity, we give him qualities, we give him ambitions – we create a personality around him.

Slowly, slowly, the personality becomes thicker through upbringing, education, religious teaching; and as the personality becomes thicker, he starts forgetting who he used to be in his mother’s womb – because there he was not a doctor, an engineer, there he had no name, there he was not separate from existence. He was so together with the mother – and beyond the mother there was nothing.The womb was all, his whole universe, a very tiny experience of the ultimate reality.

What happens to the child in the mother’s womb happens again to the sage when the whole universe becomes just a womb, and he becomes part of the womb. The child in the mother’s womb never worries, “What will happen tomorrow?” He has no money, no bank account, no business, utterly unemployed, no qualifications. He does not know when night comes, when day comes, when seasons change; he simply lives in utter innocence, in deep trust that everything will be okay, as it has been before. If it is okay today it will be okay tomorrow. He does not think this way, it is just an intrinsic feeling – not words because he does not know words. He knows only feelings, moods, and is always in a jubilant mood, rejoicing – absolute freedom without any responsibility.

Why does every child coming out of the womb give so much pain to the mother? Why is every child born crying? If you try to look deeply into these small matters, they may reveal to you great secrets of life. The child resists getting out of the womb because it has been his home. He does not know any calendar. Nine months are almost an eternity – forever. Since he has known that he is, he has been in the womb, always and always.

Now suddenly his home is being taken away. He is being thrown out, expelled; he resists with all the power that he has. He clings to the womb, that is the problem. The mother wants him to be born sooner, because the longer he remains inside, the more pain she has to suffer. But the child clings, and he is always born crying – every child, without exception.

Only about one man, Lao Tzu, is it said that he was born laughing. It is possible; he was an exceptional man, crazy from the very beginning. Not knowing exactly what to do, that this is the time to cry, he laughed. And he remained that way his whole life, just doing wrong things at wrong times. And the story of his whole life’s strangeness begins with the laughter. Everybody was shocked because no child has ever done that.

But that is the only exception – which may be simply a myth, which may be just a retrospective idea. Seeing Lao Tzu’s whole life, the people who wrote about him must have thought that his beginning could not be the same as everybody else’s; it has to be a little crazy. His whole life . . . his beginning has to be consistent with his life. Perhaps it is only a myth. But even historically, if he had laughed it is an exception, not the rule.

Why is every child born crying? Because his home is being deserted, his world is destroyed – suddenly he finds himself in a strange world amongst strange people. And he continues to cry because every day his freedom becomes less and less, and his responsibility becomes more and more weighty. Finally, he finds there is no freedom left but only duties to be fulfilled, responsibilities to be carried out; he becomes a beast of burden. Seeing this with the clarity of innocent eyes, if he cries you cannot condemn him.

The psychologists say the search for truth, for God, for paradise, is really based on the experience of the child in the womb. He cannot forget it. Even if he forgets it in his conscious mind, it goes on resounding in his unconscious. He is searching again for those beautiful days of total relaxation with no responsibility, and all the freedom of the world available.

And there are people who have found it. My word for it is enlightenment. You can choose any word, but the basic meaning remains the same. One finds that the whole universe is just like a mother’s womb to you: you can trust, you can relax, you can enjoy, you can sing, you can dance. You have an immortal life and a universal consciousness.

Dhyan Arjuna, what is happening to you is exactly a rediscovery. It has to happen to every sannyasin. But they don’t allow it.

People are afraid to relax. People are afraid to trust. People are afraid of tears. People are afraid of anything out of the ordinary, out of the mundane. They resist, and in their resistance, they dig their own grave and they never come to juicy moments, to ecstatic experiences, which are their right; they just have to claim them.

A Jewish man living in Los Angeles goes to see a psychiatrist. He introduces himself as Napoleon “So what seems to be the problem?” asked the doctor.

“Well, Doc, actually everything is great. My army is strong, my palace magnificent and my country is prospering. My only problem is Josephine, my wife.”

“Ah,” says the doctor, “and what is her problem?”

Throwing his hands up in despair, the man says, “She is thinking she is Mrs. Goldberg.”

In his tensions, in his anxieties, in his problems, man loses himself in the crowd. He becomes someone else. He knows that he is not the role he is playing; he is somebody else. This creates a tremendous psychological split in him. He cannot play the role correctly because he knows it is not his authentic being, and he cannot find his authentic being. He has to play the role because the role gives him his livelihood, his wife, his children, his power, his respectability, everything. He cannot risk it all, so he goes on playing the role of Napoleon Bonaparte. Slowly, slowly he starts believing it himself. He has to believe it, otherwise it will be difficult to play the part.

The best actor is the one who forgets his individuality and becomes one with his acting; then his crying is authentic, his love is authentic, then whatever he says is not just the prompted role, it comes from his very heart – it looks almost real. […]

When you have to play a part, you have to be deeply involved in it. You have to become it. Everybody is playing some part, knowing perfectly well that this is not what he is supposed to be. This creates a rift, an anxiety, and that anxiety destroys all your possibilities of relaxing, of trusting, of loving, of having any communion with anybody – a friend, a beloved, a master. You become isolated. You become, with your own decisions, self-exiled, and then you suffer.

So much suffering in the world is not natural; it is a very unnatural state of affairs. One can accept once in a while somebody suffering, but blissfulness should be natural and universal. But you have to deserve it, and for deserving you don’t have to do some great acts – go to the moon or climb Everest.

You have to learn small secrets. But there are people who are not ready to learn small secrets – it is against their egos to learn anything. I have been getting rid of such people continuously, because they are unnecessarily wasting their time and occupying other people’s places.

Just the other day one man wrote, “I enjoy very much when you come in and I enjoy very much when you go back, but in the middle, sitting for one or two hours, I don’t enjoy at all.” Now what to do with such a case? If there are many such cases I can manage a special session for them: I will come and I will go and they are free. There is no need to sit in between. But these stupid people go on hanging around my neck unnecessarily.

Hymie sees an old friend standing on the other side of the road from the Thames Bridge. “David, what are you standing there for?”

“I am going to jump off that bridge. My wife has left me, my children won’t speak to me, and I am bankrupt.”

“So why stand there?”

“The traffic. I could get killed crossing the road.”

He wants to commit suicide by jumping from the bridge and he is afraid of the traffic. Such is the wavering mind of man – one moment one wants to commit suicide, the next moment one wants to live. There is no decisiveness. And without decisiveness, your life will remain wishy-washy. It cannot become a splendor.

-Osho

From The Rebel, Discourse #4, Q2

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

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

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

Bring the Dawn, Dispel the Darkness – Osho

When I was a student at a Japanese Buddhist University I heard the word consciousness. Beloved Osho, what does it mean?

Kranti Satbodha, consciousness you already have, but only in a very small proportion. It is just like an iceberg – one tenth is above water and the rest is under water. Just a little bit is conscious in you.

I am saying something and you are listening to it; without consciousness it is not possible. These pillars of Chuang Tzu Auditorium are not listening – they don’t have consciousness. But we are aware only of a very small piece of consciousness.

Meditation is the whole science of bringing more and more consciousness out of darkness. The only way is to be as conscious as possible twenty-four hours a day. Sitting, sit consciously, not like a mechanical robot; walking, walk consciously, alert to each movement; listening, listen more and more consciously, so that each word comes to you in its crystal-clear purity, its definitiveness. While listening, be silent, so that your consciousness is not covered by thoughts.

Just this moment, if you are silent and conscious you can hear small insects singing their song in the trees. The darkness is not empty, the night has its own song; but if you are full of thoughts then you cannot listen to the insects. This is just an example.

If you become more and more silent, you may start listening to your own heartbeat, you may start listening to the flow of your own blood, because blood is continuously flowing all through your body. If you are conscious and silent, more and more clarity, creativity, intelligence, will be discovered.

There are millions of geniuses who die without knowing that they were a genius. There are millions of people who don’t know why they have come, why they lived and why they are going.

It happened . . . George Bernard Shaw was traveling from London to some other place in England. The ticket checker came and Bernard Shaw looked in all his pockets, opened his suitcase – he was perspiring – the ticket was missing.

The ticket checker said, “I know you; everybody knows you, there is no need to be worried. You must have put it somewhere, don’t be so tense”. Bernard Shaw said, “Who is being tense about the ticket?” The ticket checker said, “Then why are you perspiring and looking so nervous?”

He said, “The problem is that now the question arises of where I am going. It was written on the ticket. Now, are you going to tell me where I am going? Who is going to tell me?” The ticket checker said, “How can I tell you where you are going?”

So Bernard Shaw said, “Then you should go and leave me alone. I have to find the ticket. It is a question of life and death. Where am I going? I must be going somewhere, because I have come to the station, purchased the ticket, entered the compartment. So one thing is certain, I must be going somewhere.”

This is the situation most people never come to know – their consciousness is a hidden treasure. One does not know what it contains unless you awaken it, unless you bring it into light, unless you open all the doors and enter into your own being and find every nook and corner. Consciousness in its fullness will give you the idea of who you are, and will also give you the idea of what your destiny is, of where you are supposed to go, of what your capacities are. Are you hiding a poet in your heart, or a singer, or a dancer, or a mystic?

Consciousness is something like light. Right now you are in deep darkness inside. When you close your eyes there is darkness and nothing else.

One of the great philosophers of the West, C.E.M. Joad, was dying, and a friend, who was a disciple of George Gurdjieff, had come to see him. Joad asked the friend, “What do you go on doing with this strange fellow, George Gurdjieff? Why are you wasting your time? And not only you . . . I have heard that many people are wasting their time.”

The friend laughed. He said, “It is strange that those few people who are with Gurdjieff think that the whole world is wasting its time, and you are thinking that we are wasting our time.” Joad said, “I don’t have much longer to live; otherwise, I would have come and compared.”

The friend said, “Even if you have only a few seconds more to live, it can be done here, now.” Joad agreed. The man said, “You close your eyes and just look inside, and then open your eyes and tell me what you find.”

Joad closed his eyes, opened his eyes and said, “There is darkness and nothing else.” The friend laughed and he said, “It is not a time to laugh, because you are almost dying, but I have come at the right time. You said that you saw only darkness inside?” Joad said, “Of course.”

And the man said, “You are such a great philosopher; you have written such beautiful books. Can’t you see the point, that there are two things – you and the darkness? Otherwise, who saw the darkness? Darkness cannot see itself – that much is certain – and darkness cannot report that there is only darkness.” Joad gave it consideration and he said, “My God, perhaps the people who are with Gurdjieff are not wasting their time. This is true, I have seen the darkness.”

The friend said, “Our whole effort is to make this “I,” the witness, stronger and more crystallized, and to change the darkness into light. And both things happen simultaneously. As the witness becomes more and more centered, the darkness becomes less and less. When the witness comes to its full flowering, that is the lotus of consciousness – all darkness disappears.”

Satbodha, we are here in a mystery school, doing nothing else than bringing more and more crystallization to your witness, to your consciousness; so that your inner being, your interiority, becomes a light, so full and overflowing that you can share it with others.

To be in darkness is to be living at the minimum. And to be full of life is to live at the maximum.

– Osho

From The Razor’s Edge, Discourse #11

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

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

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

Listen to the Song of Life – Osho

The fourth sutra:

Listen to the song of life.

Look for it and listen to it first in your own heart. At first you may say it is not there; when I search, I find only discord. Look deeper. If again you are disappointed, pause and look deeper again. There is a natural melody, an obscure fount in every human heart. It may be hidden over and utterly concealed and silenced – but it is there.

Listen to the song of life. Life is a melody; existence is musical – for so many reasons. Existence is harmony; it is not anarchy. It is not a chaos; it is a cosmos, a unity. So complex, so vast, but still united. And life pulsates – from the lowest atom to the highest star. Wave lengths differ, pulsations are of different frequencies, but the whole pulsates in a deep unity, in a harmony. Plotinus has called this ‘the music of the spheres’. The whole existence is a music. It is musical in another sense also. Yoga, tantra and all the schools that have been working esoterically for the inner journey of human consciousness say that life consists of sound; existence consists of sound.

Science differs, but not very much. Science says that the basic particle is electricity not sound. But science also says that sound is a mode of electricity, a sort of electrical expression – that sound consists of electrical particles.

Yoga says that the basic element, the basic unit of existence, is sound, and electricity is a mode of sound. That’s why we have the myth that, through music, fire can be created. If fire [if electricity] is nothing but a combination of sounds, then fire can be created.

This difference between the scientific attitude and the yoga attitude is worth understanding. Why does science say that sound is nothing but electricity and yoga say that electricity is nothing but sound? Because science approaches existence through matter, and yoga approaches it through life.

The deeper you penetrate within yourself, the more you will find a new world of sound and silence. When you reach to the innermost core of your being, you will find the soundless sound. That’s what Hindus have called nad: anahat nad – sound which is uncreated, which is your very life. It is not created by anything; it is not produced. It is just there. It is cosmic.

Aum is the symbol of that sound. If you go deeply within, when the ultimate core is reached, you hear the sound aum. It is not that you produce it. It is simply there, vibrating. It is the basic element of life.

This sutra says Listen to the song of life. But you cannot listen to it unless you have already heard it within your own heart. Whatsoever you can see must be seen first within your own heart otherwise you cannot see it. You cannot hear it. The basic experience must be the inner. Only then can the outer be experienced.

Whatsoever you know in the outer world is nothing but a reflection or a projection. If you are filled with love, the whole of life appears to be filled with love. If you are sitting with your beloved or with your lover, the whole existence is okay. Nothing is wrong, there is no misery. The whole existence is filled with a deep music, because you are filled with a deep music. There is no discord in you; your heart feels a deep harmony. You are so one with your beloved or your lover or your friend that this oneness spreads all over.

But if you are in deep agony – suffering, sad, depressed – the whole existence seems to be depressed. It is you, not the existence. The existence remains the same, but the climates of your mind change. In one climate the existence appears sad. In another climate the existence seems to be celebrating. It is not; existence is always the same. But you go on changing, and your mind goes on being projected. Existence works as a mirror. You are mirrored in it.

But if you think that whatsoever you have interpreted is the fact and not just a projection, you will fall into deeper and deeper illusions. But if you can understand that it is not a fact but a fiction of the mind – that it depends on you, not on existence itself – then you can change. You can go through a mutation, an inner revolution can happen, because now it is up to you.

The world can be a chaos if you are a chaos. The world can be a cosmos if you are a cosmos. The world can be dead if you are dead inwardly; the world can be alive, abundantly alive, if you are alive within. It depends on you. You are the world. Only you exist really, nothing else. Everything else is just a mirror.

I remember one anecdote.

An emperor, a very powerful emperor, created a palace, a palace of mirrors. All around, all over the palace, there were mirrors. The emperor was a very beautiful person and he was so infatuated with his own beauty that he was never attracted in any way to anyone else. He was a narcissist. He loved only himself and he thought that everyone else was ugly.

Finally, he debarred everyone else from entering his palace. He lived alone there, looking at his own face everywhere in the palace. There were mirrors everywhere, thousands and thousands of reflections of his own face.

But then by and by he got bored, fed up. He started disliking himself. He kept meeting himself the whole day, encountering himself. He became ill; he became sad and depressed. He became so dull that he was almost on the verge of death. He was simply fed up with himself.

Then suddenly he remembered: “This palace is my own creation. I need not be here. There is no one forcing me to be here.”

So he broke one mirrored wall – he threw a chair through it. And for the first time in many years, the sky looked within. It was a full-moon night and the full moon peeped within. A fresh world, a new world, alive. He came in contact with it.

He jumped out of his hellhole, out of the prison. Now he was not dead, not dull, not on the point of death. He started dancing, he started celebrating. He forgot his face completely. And it is said that he never looked in a mirror again.

This is what is happening to each one of us. It is not an anecdote about some unknown emperor. It is about you. You live in a mirrored house. When you look at your wife’s face it is not her real face that you see. It is a projection. It is your own face reflected in your wife’s face. When you look at a flower it is not the flower you are looking at. It is your own mental flower projected onto the real flower that you are looking at.

Everywhere, you move with your own mirrors, your own images. And then, of course, you are bored, you are fed up with the whole thing, and you say, “Life is misery.” You say, “There seems to be no meaning to it.” You say, “It would be better to commit suicide. There seems to be no purpose to life. I’m going nowhere, moving around and around in a circle. It leads nowhere. Every day is the same, the same repetition.” But it is not because of existence; it is because of you.

Throw out those mirrors, break those mirrors. Come out of your palace, come out of your imprisonment, and look at the world not through thoughts, not through moods. Look at the world with a naked eye, listen to it with a naked ear. Don’t allow any mental state to come between you and the world.

This is what I call meditation: looking at the world without the mind. Then everything is new, fresh. Everything is alive, eternally alive; everything is divine. But to come to this point you will have to make deep contact, a deep penetration, into your own heart; because there, life’s juice is awaiting you. You may call it ‘elixir’. It is awaiting you.

This sutra says:

Listen to the song of life.

Look for it and listen to it first in your own heart. At first you may say it is not there; when I search, I find only discord. Look deeper. If again you are disappointed, pause and look again. There is a natural melody, an obscure fount in every human heart. It may be hidden over and utterly concealed and silenced – but it is there.

When, for the first time, one tries to enter within, one encounters noise: crowds, thoughts, madness; everything but silence. But don’t be disheartened. Be indifferent to all this noise that you encounter within.

When I say, “Be indifferent,” I mean don’t do anything about it; just be indifferent. Don’t say, “This is bad.” Don’t say, “How can I stop it?” Don’t try to stop it; you cannot. Allow it to flow – just as if clouds are floating in the sky and you are watching them. Or as if traffic is going on in the street and you are watching. Just stand aside and watch the traffic moving on, or stand on the bank and look at the river flowing. Don’t do anything; just stand there. Indifferent, not interested, not in any way involved.

If you can do this – this is what witnessing is. If you can do this, by and by you will penetrate deeper and deeper. Don’t be disheartened, because ultimately, finally, a deep musical source, a deep harmony, a deep rhythmic existence is waiting within you. Penetrate this crowd and you will reach it.

At the very base of your nature, you will find faith, hope and love. He that chooses evil refuses to look within himself, shuts his ears to the melody of his heart, as he blinds his eyes to the light of his soul. He does this because he finds it easier to live in desires. But underneath all life is the strong current that cannot be checked; the great waters are there in reality. Find them . . .

At the very base of your nature, you will find faith, hope and love – these three things. If you can make contact with your inner music, these three things will flower spontaneously within you: faith, hope and love. But these words have very different meanings. They don’t mean the ordinary things we mean by them.

When we say faith what we mean is belief. Belief is not faith. Belief means a forced thing. Doubt is hidden there, but you have wrapped yourself in a belief and pushed the doubt within.

For example, you say, “I believe in God.” What do you mean? Is there really no doubt? Doubt is there. The belief cannot cancel the doubt; it can only hide it. Really, because of the doubt you believe. You are afraid of the doubt. If you don’t believe, if you are doubtful, you will feel inconvenienced. Belief gives you convenience, comfort, solace, consolation. You feel at ease. But the belief is just a mental, intellectual facade. Behind it, the doubt is always lurking.

You will find doubt hidden within every belief. If you say, “I believe strongly,” that means you have very strong doubts behind it. Those who say, “I believe absolutely,” have absolute doubts within them. What is the need of belief? The need is because doubt is there and you feel inconvenienced by it.

That’s why so many people are theists and so few are atheists. But in reality, the world is full of atheists and to find a theist is very difficult; it is impossible. The whole thing is just false. People say that they believe in God because it seems difficult not to believe, inconvenient. Socially, formally, it is not good.

Not that they believe. They doubt, they know they doubt, but they deceive themselves. Their life remains untouched by their beliefs; their religion remains a Sunday religion. Their life is not touched at all. On Sunday they go to church and pray as a social formality, as good manners. Then, out of church, they are the same again. For six days they remain irreligious; for one day they become religious. Is it possible? Six days you remain ugly and one day you become beautiful? Six days you remain bad and one day you become good? Six days you remain evil and suddenly one day you become saintly? Is it possible?

It is impossible. The seventh day must be the false day; the six days are real. The seventh day is just a trick to deceive oneself and others. Belief is false. It is helpful, utilitarian, but untrue. Faith is totally different. Belief means doubt is hidden there; faith means doubt has disappeared. This is the difference.

Faith means the doubt has disappeared. Belief means the doubt is there and you have created a belief against it You doubt whether God exists or not but you say, “I believe,” because your wife is ill and if you don’t believe, who knows? God may be there. Or your job is in danger of being lost. Who knows? God may help. And if you don’t believe, then he will not help. Utilitarian; it has some utility for you. But doubt is there.

Faith means doubt has disappeared. It is the absence of doubt. But it can disappear only when you have known something within; when belief has not been given to you, knowing has arisen in you. When you have come to know, to realize, then faith arises.

And hope. This hope is not that of desire. This hope doesn’t mean hope for the future. It is not in any way concerned with the future. This hope means simply a hopeful attitude about everything. About everything. An optimistic view, a hopeful attitude. Looking at the golden side of things. Whatsoever happens you remain hopeful; you are not depressed.

Depression comes only if you look at the wrong side of things. Everything has two sides: the wrong side and the right side. You can look at the wrong side and then you will be depressed, or you can look at the right side, the golden side, and you will be happy. So, it depends.

The person who is hopeless always looks at what is wrong. The first thing he tries to find is what is wrong. If I tell him, “This man is a beautiful flute player,” he will first look at him and say, “No, I cannot believe that he can play the flute because he is a thief.” What is the concern? A man can be a thief and a good flute player. But he will deny the possibility. He will say, “No, he cannot be. He is a thief, a well-known thief. How can he be a good flute player?”

This is the hopeless mind. With a mind which is filled with hope, if I say, “This man is a thief,” he will say, “But how can he be a thief? He is such a good flute player?”

How do you look at things? With hope or with hopelessness? Ordinarily, unless you have touched the inner music, you will look at the world with a hopeless attitude. Then everything is wrong and whatsoever is done is wrong. And from everywhere, you will derive misery. You will become an expert at being miserable. Anything will help you to be miserable, anything.

When you touch this inner silence, this inner music, you become hopeful; you become hope. Whatever is, you see. You always touch the innermost core of it, the heart of it. And then, there is no depression.

And love. Ordinarily, love is a relationship. But when you touch the innermost being, love becomes your state not a relationship. It is not between you and someone else. Now it is that you have become love, you have become loving. It is not a relationship. Even if you are alone, sitting under a tree, you will be loving. Lonely, alone, with no one there, you will be loving.

It is just like a lonely flower that grows on an unknown path. No one passes there, but the flower goes on spreading its perfume. It is its state. It is not that when some king passes the flower will give its perfume. It is not that if some beggar passes the flower will not give its perfume. If a beggar passes, the flower gives its perfume. If a king passes, the flower gives its perfume. If no one passes, then too the flower goes on spreading its perfume. The perfume is the flower’s very state of being. It is not a relationship.

Our love is a relationship. And when love is a relationship, it creates misery. When love is a state of being, it creates bliss.

A Buddha is also in love, but he is not trying to love you. Simply because of the way he is, love spreads. Love becomes a perfume and goes to the far corners of the earth.

These three qualities will evolve: faith, hope and love. And if these three are there, you don’t need anything else. These three will lead you to the ultimate peak of life and existence.

. . . know that it is certainly within yourself. Look for it there, and once having heard it you will more readily recognize it around you.

If you can feel your inner music, inner truth, inner faith, inner love, inner hope, you will start recognizing it around you. The whole universe will change for you because you have changed. And whatsoever you feel within, now will be felt all around.

The world remains the same; but when you change, everything changes. With you, your universe becomes different. If you are rooted in the divine, the whole existence is rooted in the divine. If you are rooted in evil, the whole universe is a hell. It depends on you. It is you, magnified.

-Osho

From The New Alchemy to Turn You On, Discourse #11

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

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

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

Obeying the Warrior Within – Osho

These are the sutras achieved by ultimate wisdom. They are deep and sometimes very complex, even contradictory, but they are the ultimate flowering of wisdom.

When a Buddha becomes a Buddha or a Christ becomes a Christ, these sutras are revealed. If you can understand them, even understanding will transform you. If you can feel the reality hidden in them, you will be a different man altogether. So try to understand them very deeply.

The first sutra:

Stand aside in the coming battle, and though thou fightest be not thou the warrior.

He is thyself, yet thou art but finite and liable to error. He is eternal and is sure. He is eternal truth. When once he has entered thee and become thy warrior, he will never utterly desert thee, and at the day of the great peace he will become one with thee.

Stand aside in the coming battle, and though thou fightest be not thou the warrior. We are in a constant fight with ourselves. The struggle continues night and day. The whole life is a battlefield, but you reach nowhere. You are neither defeated totally nor are you victorious. The struggle continues, and life energy is dissipated unnecessarily. You just waste yourself and your existence. What is the cause? Why are you never victorious? Why does the struggle never end?

You fight with sex, you fight with anger, you fight with greed. You fight with everything, but you still remain in the grip of those things you are fighting. The more you fight sex, the more you are in its grip and the more you feel you have to fight more. It is a vicious circle. You fight more and then sex becomes more attractive; sex becomes more magnetic. You take many decisions not to be angry, but every decision is a failure. And the total result is this: that in the end you feel you are guilty, inferior; in the end you feel that you are not capable of doing anything, you feel an inner defeat.

This has happened to the whole of humanity. Humanity is so sad now not because of anything else that has happened in this age but only because so many ages of religious fight, so many centuries of continuous religious struggle, have proven to the human mind that nothing can be achieved. The human mind feels a deep failure. This creates sadness and depression.

Hope has become hopeless. There seems to be no way out of it. You can struggle, but everything is futile, a wastage; no one achieves anything. This has happened not because the human mind is not capable of victory. This has happened because the base of the struggle is wrong, the whole effort of the struggle is wrong. Why? Because you are fighting with yourself. How can you win?

If I create a conflict between my two hands, left and right, I can go on fighting but there will be no victory and no defeat, because both hands belong to me. The urge for sex belongs to me and the urge to go beyond sex also belongs to me; they are both my hands. I can go on fighting, I can go on changing from one to the other – sometimes siding with the right hand, sometimes with the left – but nothing is going to happen because I am within both. How can there be defeat or victory? For defeat and victory at least two are needed and I am alone, fighting with myself. This whole fight is a shadow fight, nonsense.

Then what to do? This sutra gives you the key: Stand aside in the coming battle and though thou fightest be not thou the warrior. Stand aside. Be a witness.

Remember this word ‘witness’. This is one of the key words in the search for spirituality. If you can understand this word and practice it, you don’t need anything else. Even this one key will open all the doors of paradise. This is a master key. Any lock can be opened by it. What does it mean to stand aside?

When sex arises in you, you get identified with it. Then, when you have moved through the sex act, depression sets in, because you hoped so much and nothing has happened. You longed too much, you expected too much, and nothing has happened. The whole thing has just been a fraud. You feel betrayed, deceived. Then repentance sets in and you start thinking in anti-sex terms. You start thinking how to be brahmacharya, how to be a celibate. You think in terms of how to be a monk; you go against sex. Then you get identified with that ‘anti’ attitude.

Witnessing means that when sex arises, stand aside and look at it. Don’t get identified. Don’t say, “I have become sex.” Say, “Sexual desire has arisen in me. Now I must observe it.” Don’t be for it and don’t be against it. Remain quiet and calm – just an observer.

That doesn’t mean to suppress it, because suppression will not allow you to know what it is. Don’t suppress it. Suppression means that you are identified with the ‘anti’ attitude. Remember this: if you suppress, you are identified with the ’anti’ attitude. Don’t suppress, don’t get identified. Allow it to happen. Don’t be afraid; just wait and watch.

Move in the sex act but with a watchful eye, knowing well what is happening and allowing it to happen. Not disturbing it, not suppressing it – allowing it to become manifest in its totality, but standing aside as if you are watching someone else.

The act will move to its peak. Go with it, but always standing by the side. Know whatsoever is happening in detail. Be alert; don’t lose awareness. Then, from the peak, you will start falling down and the ‘anti’ attitude will set in. Be alert again. Don’t get identified with the ’anti’ attitude. Look at what is happening: the wave has gone up to a peak; now the wave is falling down. Sex is the wave arising. brahmacharya, the ‘anti’ attitude toward sex, is the wave falling down.

Be aware, be alert. Don’t be for or against; don’t condemn; don’t make any judgement. Don’t be a judge; just be a witness. Don’t say, “This is good. That is bad.” Don’t say anything. Just be alert and watch what is happening. Be true to the facts; don’t give any interpretation. That’s what witnessing means.

If you can be a witness to sex, and to the anti-sex attitude, you will come to a great understanding. That understanding will tell you that sex and anti-sex are two poles of one wave. They are not really opposite to one another. They are just the rising and falling down of the same wave. They are one, so there is nothing to choose. If you choose one you have already chosen the other, because it is part of it, the hidden part of it. If you choose one you have already chosen the other because the other cannot be separated from it. They are one, so there is no choice. Then, choicelessness happens to you.

That choicelessness is the path of victory. Now you don’t choose; there is nothing to choose. And a miracle happens: when you don’t choose, both fall down. Sex and brahmacharya both disappear and for the first time you are not in their clutches, for the first time you are not in the hold of the opposites.

Witnessing is the beginning, and witnessing is the end. The first step and the last step are one. Witnessing is the means and witnessing is the goal. Then the fight goes on, but you are not the warrior. Now the fighting is on a different level. What is that level?

Now, sex and anti-sex are both present to you simultaneously. This simultaneous presence of the opposites is the fight. They fight with each other, and you remain a witness. Because they are opposites, anti-poles, they destroy each other completely and both disappear. They are of the same strength and the same energy. They cut each other, they negate each other.

This is the fight. But you are not the warrior; you are just a witness. You are just looking from without: a watcher on the hills. Down in the valley the fight will go on, but now you are just a watcher on the tower. You just look down and you know they are fighting; the opposites are fighting. But they negate each other, because they are of the same strength.

Remember this: only a very deeply sexual person can become a brahmacharya. Much sexual desire can be converted into brahmacharya. If you are just ordinarily sexual you cannot become a brahmacharya because to become a brahmacharya much energy is needed. And the opposite energies are always equivalent, so only very deeply sexual persons become brahmacharyas. Ordinary persons, with ordinary, natural sex, never move to that extreme. They cannot. The energy to move comes from sex. Opposite energies are equivalent.

You need not fight; you need not take part from this side or that side. That is the way of defeat. Just remain aside, get out of the circle – be a witness.

It is difficult, because the mind wants to choose; the mind always chooses. Mind is the chooser because, without choosing, there will be no mind; you will fall out of the mind. That’s why it is so difficult not to choose.

Even what I am saying . . . Many of you may choose to follow what I am saying, but you will choose to do so for a reason. People come to me and when I say, “Be a witness,” they immediately ask, “If I become a witness will sexuality disappear?” Then they cannot become a witness because they have already chosen. They ask, “Will sexuality disappear if I become a witness?” They are even ready to become a witness if sexuality will disappear!

But they have made a choice. They have decided that sexuality is bad and brahmacharya is good. They ask me, “If I become a witness will I become brahmacharya, will I become celibate?” They are missing the whole point. I am saying, “Don’t choose,” and they have already chosen. They want to use witnessing as an instrument for their choice. But you cannot use witnessing that way.

One man came to me. He was a seeker, a serious seeker. But stupid. There are many stupid seekers: serious. And when I say stupid I mean this: they can’t understand what they are doing.

The man was suffering from sex. Everyone is suffering because of sex. The suffering has gone so deep that you don’t only suffer because of your own sexuality; you suffer because of others’ sexuality also. This seems to be madness. You suffer because of your own sexuality and you suffer because of others’ sexuality also, because of what others are doing.

Enough misery can be created by your own sexuality. Why be concerned with others? But that misery doesn’t seem to be enough for you so you go on collecting what others are doing: who is doing wrong and who is being good. Who are you to decide? From where have you been given the right? Who are you to become a policeman?

The man who came to see me was a policeman. He was suffering because of what everyone else was doing. But I told him, “Don’t be worried about others. The real problem must be within you. You have not yet come to terms with your sexuality, that is the problem. Why suffer because of others? Why create other problems? Just to escape from your own problems? Just to be occupied? Who has appointed you to be a policeman? Why waste your life? You must be deeply sex-obsessed; that’s why you are concerned with others.”

So he said, “You have touched the right wound. I am now sixty-five, and I am still suffering. As I become older, I suffer more. It seems that sexuality is growing with my age. The energy is less, but the sexuality is more. As death is coming near, I feel to be more and more sexual. My whole mind, for twenty-four hours, is obsessed with sex.”

I told him, “You have been fighting sex continuously.” He is a great seeker. He has remained with so many saints, so many gurus. I told him, “They have destroyed you. You have reached nowhere. Whatsoever you have been doing is wrong. Now, don’t fight sex anymore.”

The man became afraid. He said, “I have been fighting sex. And this is the reason: even with fighting I am so sexual. Now you say, ‘Don’t fight it!’ Then I will become completely mad.”

So I told him, “You have tried fighting. Now try the other. You have reached nowhere. Now, don’t fight!”

“Then what,” he asked, “am I supposed to do?”

I told him, “Be a witness.”

He asked, “Will sexuality disappear then?”

I told him, “If you become a witness with a partisan view – for brahmacharya, against sex – you cannot become a witness. And if you cannot become a witness, sexuality cannot disappear. Become a witness. Sexuality will disappear, but remember, brahmacharya will also disappear with it.” There is no need of brahmacharya when sexuality disappears. It is part of the same game. When the disease has disappeared, what is the use of the medicine? You will throw the medicine with the disease. So I told him, “Brahmacharya will also disappear. But remember not to choose.”

He said, “I will try.”

After three months – I told him to come back after three months – he came and he said, “But sex has not yet disappeared.” This is what I call stupidity. “Sex has not yet disappeared, and I have been practicing witnessing for three months.”

The unconscious choice remains: sex must disappear. Then you cannot be a witness. Witnessing means no choice, choiceless awareness. This is one of the most fundamental keys for all the diseases of the human mind. If you can become a witness, the opposites fight against each other, kill each other, and both are dead, both disappear. But if you choose one thing over the other, you cannot be a witness.

The second sutra:

Look for the warrior and let him fight in thee.

. . . Look for him, else in the fever and hurry of the fight thou mayest pass him; and he will not know thee unless thou knowest him. If thy cry meets his listening ear, then will he fight in thee and fill the dull void within.

Look for the warrior and let him fight in thee. Don’t be the warrior; there is no need. The warrior is this phenomenon: presenting to your consciousness both of the opposites simultaneously.

Ordinarily, only one is present. When sex is present? you are not thinking of brahmacharya. When brahmacharya is present, you are not thinking of sex. One is present and the other is hidden. This is the misery.

Bring out the other simultaneously and this will become the warrior for you. Bring them out simultaneously. When you are filled with anger, bring in repentance immediately. You always repent – but later on. When you are angry, you are angry. When the anger has done its devastation, then repentance comes in and you start taking oaths that you are not going to be angry again. But the anger and the repentance never meet. Allow the opposites to meet. They will negate each other.

If you go on moving from one opposite to another, you will never be victorious. You have wasted many lives like this, and you can waste infinite lives. But this is the secret: bring the opposites out simultaneously; allow them to be present before you simultaneously. Don’t follow one. If you follow one, the other is waiting for you. When you are bored, when you get fed up with one, the other will catch hold of you.

If the opposites cannot meet, they cannot negate each other. You need not do anything. This is the miracle; this is the inner chemistry. Bring the opposites together and just watch them. They will fight; allow them to fight. You need not get involved in it; just remain by the side. They will disappear together. Once they are present together, they will not persist; both will disappear.

So a Mahavir is not a brahmachari. Sex and brahmacharya have both disappeared. He is just innocent; he’s just like a child. A Buddha has not become nonangry; anger and non-anger both have disappeared. He is innocent; both are not there. A Krishna is neither a sansari nor a sannyasi; he neither belongs to the world nor belongs to the other anti-world of renunciation. Both have disappeared; he is innocent. The perfection, the wholeness of consciousness, is in innocence.

And when I use the word ‘innocence’ I mean absence of the opposites. Absence of the opposites is the purity. If you have chosen one, you are not pure. The other is hidden in the unconscious; both are there.

Both will be there if one is there. The other cannot be separated; it can only be hidden. And if the one is not there, the other cannot be there. Both will disappear; the whole field of opposites disappears. Then you are innocent. That innocence is liberation, that innocence is divine, that innocence is nirvana.

The third sutra:

Take his orders for battle and obey them.

Obey him not as though he were a general but as though he were thyself, and his spoken words were the utterance of thy secret desires, for he is thyself, yet infinitely wiser and stronger than thyself.

Find out the witness and then obey him. First find the witness and then obey him, because to find the witness means to find one’s own innermost core.

We live on two layers, two levels. One is the periphery: the world of action. The other is the inner being, the world of no-action: the world of existence, not of doing.

All that we do is on the periphery and all that we are is at the center. We have to continuously move from the center to the periphery to do some thing. Whenever you are doing something, you are on the periphery. Whatsoever you are doing, you are on the periphery. When you are non-doing, not doing anything, then you are at the center.

Witnessing is a non-act. Meditation is a non-act.

We are doing meditation here. For thirty minutes you are on the periphery doing something: breathing, catharsis, the hoo mantra. You are doing something; you are on the periphery. When I suddenly say, “Stop!” I mean: now be in the non-act, in non-doing. When you suddenly stop you are thrown from the periphery to the being, to the innermost center, because when you are not doing anything, you are not needed on the periphery. You need to be on the periphery only while you are doing something. Now you are thrown back to your center. That center is your witness.

Once you know this center, once you recognize this center, once you have felt this center – follow the orders. You will be directed; you have found your master. Now follow whatsoever is said to you from the center and don’t listen to the periphery. The periphery is cultivated by others and your center is untouched, virgin; it is from the divine.

The periphery comes from the society. That’s why we say that a sannyasin goes beyond society. Not against society, beyond society. Now he follows his own innermost center; he’s not following anyone else. All orders from others are meaningless now.

You have found your own inner being, and now that being can direct you. That being is infinitely stronger and wiser than thyself. The ‘you’ on the periphery is a weakling; the ‘you’ at the center is infinitely potent. The ‘you’ on the periphery is just a worldly thing; the ’you’ at the center is God himself.

But first find out:

Jesus has said, “First seek ye the kingdom of God. Then all else will follow.” Don’t bother about other things. First find out the innermost core of the kingdom of God. Then you need not worry about anything; all else will follow.

Just follow the inner voice. But how? You don’t know what the inner voice is, you don’t know what the inner is. Society has confused you deeply. It goes on saying that its own voice is your inner voice. The society has placed many voices in you just to control you from within.

It is a social need. Society controls you in two ways. One, by outer arrangements: the policeman on the street, the court, the judge, the law, the government. This is the outer arrangement, but it is not enough. You can deceive the law, you can manipulate the court. And the policeman, of course, is just another human being. So that arrangement is not enough. You can do whatsoever you like and you can play tricks with the law; you can find loopholes because human-made laws can be violated by other humans very easily. All that is needed is more intelligence, more intelligence than the law makers. Then you can deceive it. So society cannot rely on the outer law because there are intelligent people, more intelligent that law-makers. They will find loopholes, and they will be illegal in a legal way, and you cannot do anything. And the more laws you create, the more loopholes.

Then society tries another way – and that is a more effective thing. It creates a conscience in you: the inner policeman, the inner court. It gives you a feeling “This is wrong” – and from the very childhood it goes on reinforcing it: “This is wrong. Don’t do this. Don’t be a thief. Don’t deceive your wife. Don’t love another’s wife,” it goes on saying.

This becomes an inner conditioning, so whenever you feel an attraction toward another’s wife, the inner voice . . . This is not the inner voice. This is society’s voice playing within you. The voice comes: “This is wrong, this is a sin!” and you start trembling. This is the social trick: the policeman outside and the policeman within.

I am not saying to and love someone’s wife – I am not saying that. I am simply saying that this is a social mechanism, a social device to make you a slave through yourself. And it is more successful, remember. It is more successful.

Today’s world has become less moral because this “inner voice” is not so strong; society has become incapable of reinforcing it. The outer law is greater, more complex, but the inner law has weakened for many reasons: when people, societies lived aloof and along it was easy to create the inner conscience. Now, the whole earth has become a village, with many societies, many inner voices conflicting. Now no one can rely on . . . Every child knows that whatsoever you say is “good” in India is “bad” in Pakistan.

What is good for a Hindu may not be good for a Jain. No matter what you say is true, the contradictory is also true somewhere; it is not absolute. Now we have become aware of the whole complexity of the human conscience, we know that your conscience is just a social product.

So many societies exist together that the hold has become weak. Human societies are less moralistic now because the inner policeman is dead, almost dead. You know that what it says means nothing: don’t bother about it. Just observe the outer law . . . and try to find a way around it. What I’m saying is that the voice of the inner policeman is not your voice. Find out the witness. Only then will you find out the inner voice.

The inner voice will direct you. Its directions will be absolutely different from what society says – absolutely different. But for the first time you will become religious, not simply moral. You will be moral in a much deeper sense.

Morality will not be a duty; it will not be something imposed upon you. It will not be a burden; it will be spontaneous. You will be good, naturally good. You will not become a thief – not because society says, “Don’t be a thief,” but because you cannot be. You will not kill because it is impossible. You love life so much now that violence becomes impossible. It is not a moral code; it is an inner direction.

You affirm life, you revere life. A deep reverence comes to you, and through that reverence everything follows. That is what Jesus says. “Find out the kingdom of God first, and then everything will follow.”

Find the inner voice, and then everything will follow.

-Osho

From The New Alchemy: to Turn You On, Discourse #10

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.

All You Can do is Drop Your Mind – Osho

Maneesha, the way of Zen requires certain conditions to be fulfilled. They are not the conditions that other religions require; they are the conditions of receptivity, of awareness, of listening, of an understanding of the wordless, a deep penetration into silence. No other religion asks you these things. They want you to be virtuous, to be moral, not to indulge in adultery. Their requirements are very superficial.

Zen requires real qualities of being. Only then the master can impart his understanding of the ultimate. In other words, Zen is not a theology, but a being-to-being communion. The disciple has to rise to the same height as the master, otherwise he will miss whatever is being said to him. These qualities will bring him very close to the height of the master.

A master certainly knows at what height you are and he speaks accordingly. He never wastes a single word or a single moment.

Maneesha has brought this small anecdote, which will explain to you what Rinzai, who was the founder of Zen in Japan, is about.

When Rinzai once visited Horin, Horin said: “Into the sea, the moonlight falls clear and shadowless, but the wanton fish deceive themselves.”

Rinzai commented: “If the moonlight on the sea is without shadows, how can the fish be deceived?”

All deception is taking the shadow for the real. But strangely enough – perhaps you have never observed it – a shadow itself cannot cast a shadow. Hence the ancient law that if you see a man without a shadow, remember he is a ghost, because a real man will have a shadow. Only a man who appears as a man but is transparent – you can pass your hand through him and you will not touch anything – will not make any shadow.

The reflection of the moon in the lake is a shadow itself. How can it cast a shadow? That is impossible. But what Horin wanted to say is not anything unnecessary or non-essential.

He said, “Into the sea, the moonlight falls clear and shadowless, but the wanton fish deceive themselves.”

What do they deceive themselves about? What is their deception? What is their illusion? Their illusion is to take the reflection as the real moon.

But Rinzai commented: “If the moonlight on the sea is without shadows, how can the fish be deceived?”

The fish can certainly be deceived, because even men are deceived by shadows. Rinzai’s question is clear and from a height of consciousness. Everybody in the world is deceived by shadows. What are all your imaginations? What are all your dreams?

Have you ever considered the fact that while dreaming you never think that this is unreal? While awake you may think perhaps that all you are saying is unreal, only a dream; but in a dream you can never think that it is a dream, for the simple reason that if you are so much aware as to experience the dream as a dream, the dream will stop. Dreaming can continue only in a very unconscious, unaware state.

The real question is not about the fish. The fish is only a symbol. The real question is about the man.

“If the moonlight on the sea is without shadows, how can the fish be deceived?”

There is only one way for the fish to be deceived, and that is to take the reflection as the real moon.

Horin missed the point. He started explaining why the fish gets caught into a deception. That was not what Rinzai wanted him to do. For him the fish was not the point at all, neither was the reflection of the moon. His concern was this, that what to say about a fish, even men are deceived by shadows – and not only in dreams, but in actual life when they are awake. Every day you continue to get deceived, but you are not aware, hence it does not hurt you and your dignity.

You see a woman as very beautiful – and she is certainly beautiful, but where does that beauty go after the honeymoon? Then you want to kill the same woman for whom you were ready to die one day.

You can appreciate other women’s beauty, but I have never heard of any husband appreciating his own wife’s beauty. Perhaps what he saw was not the real woman as she is; he saw the woman as he wanted to see her.

It was a dream projection, and a dream projection cannot be prolonged for long. Sooner or later the dream projection drops away, and suddenly you see the real person. Nothing has changed: the woman is the same, the man is the same, but neither the woman thinks you are the same man she fell in love with, nor do you think she is the same woman you had fallen in love with.

What happened? Just within a week . . . and if you are intelligent enough, then just over the weekend. It depends on intelligence. The idiots can live out their whole lives. The more intelligent a person is, the sooner he will see his projections, imaginations dropping, the clouds disappearing, and he will see the pure sky without any clouds – and it is going to change his opinion.

Rinzai is saying that we are all living in shadow. You think, you project, you imagine, you dream. The greatest lovers in the world were those who never met; their love is eternal. People sing songs of Siri and Farhad, of Laila and Majnu, of Soni and Mahival, and the only reason why their love is remembered is that they were never allowed by their parents and the society to be together.

If Laila and Majnu had got married, you would never have heard their names. Have you ever heard any story, any poetry concerning a married couple? I at least have searched enough, and I have not found it. It seems to be intrinsically impossible, because as they come close, their projections start falling. If they are kept away, forced to be apart, then their dreams become even more beautiful. Their imagination takes wings.

And not only in this matter but in other matters also, you live in shadows, in your hopes. What have you got in your hopes? Just empty imagination that tomorrow something will happen that has not happened up to now, and you will feel fulfilled. It never happens. What happens tomorrow is death, and death creates fear for a simple reason you may not be aware of.

The fear of death is that it takes the future out of your hands. You have been living in the future in your imagination, and death comes and puts a full stop. No more tomorrow. The future is simply your idea of how things should be. The existence has no obligation to you to fulfill your desires and your hopes. People even give promises, people say to each other, “I will love you my whole life,” not knowing at all that the whole life is a long thing.

One man was saying to his girlfriend, “I will love you my whole life.”

Then for a moment he became silent, and the woman said, “Why have you become silent suddenly?”

He said, “Just tell me one thing. In your old age, will you start looking like your mother? – because then I cannot give that promise. Suddenly I thought, ‘What am I saying? In the old age this woman is going to look like the mother-in-law!’” And mother-in-laws . . . it is just strange that people don’t shoot them.

I have heard, a hunter was going into the forest for hunting. His wife insisted on going and she also insisted on taking his mother-in-law. Not to create any trouble he said, “Okay, there is no harm in it. You can sit in the top of a tree and you can see.”

The mother-in-law was not too old to climb a tree, so she was sitting in a small tree when a lion came near. The wife saw it from her tall tree and shouted to her husband, “Just see, one lion is very close to my mother.”

The husband said, “It is not my problem, it is the lion’s problem. Now he has got into trouble. If he wants to get out, he will get out. You just keep quiet.”

People expect something, and it is never fulfilled. There is always frustration all around. People are living in despair, and the reason is that what they expected… existence has no desire, no reason to go according to their expectations. If you want to be happy, go along with existence and its ends wherever it takes you.

That’s what I mean by let-go: you simply drop your projections, your imaginations, and let the existence take hold of your whole life. Then there is no despair, because there is no possibility of being frustrated. There is no anguish and no anxiety; you are relaxed with existence. Whatever happens, that is good.

The whole existence is wiser than you, so whatever happens – Buddha says suchness – just whatever happens, remember, such is the nature of existence. Don’t stand aloof and against existence; be part, and feel a certain oneness.

That oneness can be called suchness, or isness, or thisness, but the meaning is that whatever happens is good. You have to find out the beauty of it and the joy of it. Only such a man can be blissful; otherwise there is always the feeling of being deceived.

Every man – out of a thousand, perhaps one man dies without the idea that he has been deceived by life. Almost everybody dies with the idea, “What was it? Seventy years I struggled; what is the game?” All your expectations are shattered, all your dreams are broken, all your promises remain unfulfilled. You are dying a bankrupt.

Almost everybody dies a bankrupt as far as his expectations are concerned. Only a man of let-go is not deceived by anything. He takes everything that comes in the way happily and joyously, and if things change, he allows the change without any hindrance, without creating any barriers to prevent the change. Such a man knows no deceptions. He knows life has never deceived him, but has always fulfilled those longings which he was not even aware of.

Horin then said: “Seeing there is wind, waves arise; playing with the water, the rough sail flaps.”

He did not understand that Rinzai was not talking about the fish, and he is trying to explain his own statement without listening to what Rinzai has raised as a question.

Rinzai said: “The frog in the moon shines brightly alone, and all rivers and hills are at peace. The long breath of the wind is the voice of autumn in earth and sky.”

Everything is as it should be. So peaceful are the hills in the full moon night . . . rivers are at peace, dancing in the full moon night. Because of their dance the full moon’s reflection becomes a silver spread over all. Everything is silent and peaceful, there is no frustration in the hills, there is no frustration in the rivers. Even the frog in the moon shines brightly alone.

If you look at nature, just taking man and his mind away, everything is bliss, everything is buddha. It is only man’s mind that creates trouble, because it cannot allow a let-go.

The long breath of the wind is the voice of autumn in earth and sky.

And there is great joy that autumn is coming. The moon is full of blissfulness and all that shines in the moonlight, except man . . .

Man can also be as happy as the hills and as peaceful as the rivers if he looks at the moon and the surroundings without any mind. With no thought, he will also become part of the whole scene.

But man remains always concerned with his own stupid ideas. When the whole existence is rejoicing, it is only man who is worried. Have you ever seen a tree worried? No animal is ever worried. Even in dying, it dies peacefully. Such is the way of existence, that anything that is born is going to die.

But man’s mind intrudes, always creates problems, because it expects things to be different than they are. He is not ready to accept the suchness of existence; he wants it according to him. This, according to him, is the whole misery. Everybody is trying that everything should be according to him. One may say it, one may not say it, but even without saying it, your mind is weaving thoughts about how things should be brought according to your idea – and this is impossible.

You cannot change existence.

All that you can do is drop your mind.

Horin said: “Though you may spread your three inches of tongue, and illuminate the celestial quietness, just try and say a single word to fit the occasion!”

Rinzai responded – and his response is of fundamental importance: “When you meet a master swordsman, show him your sword. When you meet a man who is not a poet, do not show him your poem.”

Each according to his worth, each according to his receptivity. You are not yet able to receive one word and understand it. I cannot recite a poem to you, because you will not understand it; you will certainly misunderstand.

I have heard, a thief was brought into the court, and the judge said, “Why have you entered this man’s house?”

The poor thief said, “I have entered to steal something. But the man was so strange: he caught hold of me, and when I tried hard to escape he said, ‘Don’t be worried, just sit down and listen. I have written a new poem.’ I thought it was better to listen silently, but the poem went on and on and on. And he was holding me by the hand, so this way the whole night he tortured me. I didn’t understand a single word of what he was saying, and I could not escape either.

“By the morning the police came, and now I am standing here before you with only one hope: that you will not give me the punishment to listen to this poet again. I am ready even to go to the gallows. I had no idea that this house belongs to a poet, otherwise I would not have entered.”

Poets are like that. It is very difficult for them to find audiences. They go on searching around to see if they can find somebody, and everybody goes on running away saying, “I have to do some special work. Right now, I am not available.” Who wants to waste time?

“Unless you are a poet,” Rinzai is saying, “don’t say anything to a person who is not worthy of it, because that is insulting him, that is degrading him, that is taking his dignity, that is bringing up his unworthiness. So don’t ask me for a single word; you are not yet capable of receiving it. You have not understood a single thing, and you went on explaining. You are not a fish and you don’t know what goes on in the mind of the fish.

“Talk about man and talk about his deceptions, and find out the reason why he gets deceived. It is his own resistance to existence, and an effort to give a mold to the whole life – which is not possible. He is trying the impossible and goes on failing.”

This failure is not just his mistake. It is not that he has not been doing rightly; whatever he does he will be a failure. Nobody can be wiser than the cosmic existence. So the wise people allow themselves to go along with the existential river, not even asking, “Where are we going?”

Existence is going nowhere. It is simply here, just playing with thousands of forms, thousands of situations, creating more and more consciousness, more and more happiness, more and more love. If it is not happening to you, it simply means you are keeping your doors closed.

Just open your heart and relax with existence and suddenly you will see, The frog in the moon shines brightly alone. No company is needed, no richness is needed – just a poor frog. No political position is needed – and all rivers and hills are at peace. They don’t have anything, but they have peace, which you cannot purchase.

The long breath of the wind is the voice of autumn in earth and sky. Just be with existence wherever it is going and you will be unworried. Your tensions will disappear. You will be as happy as a child, you will be as beautiful as a flower.

Ikkyu wrote:

When you break up a cherry tree

And look,

There are no flowers at all;

The flowers are brought by the

Spring wind.

Even though you soar boundlessly

Even beyond the clouds,

Just don’t rely on

The teachings of Gautama.

Two things Ikkyu is saying: one, you cannot bring the flowers, which will come in their own time. You have to wait; you have to be patient. You cannot ask, “Why are the cherry flowers not coming?” The tree is there, you are watering the tree . . . You can even, Ikkyu says, break up a cherry tree and look inside the tree to find where the flowers are hidden. There are no flowers at all.

The flowers are brought by the spring wind. Let the spring come, let the right moment and the climate and the right wind reach the cherry tree. It will blossom suddenly; it will explode into immense beauty.

The cherry tree is waiting; it is not in a hurry; it is not running somewhere to catch up with spring. It is simply waiting silently, joyously. Spring comes; even if it is a day or two late, what does it matter? It has always been coming.

The second thing Ikkyu says: Even though you soar boundlessly even beyond the clouds, just don’t rely on the teachings of Gautama. That can be said only by the Zen masters about their own originator: “Don’t rely on Gautama the Buddha’s teachings” – because his teachings were in a different context. He was talking to a different kind of people. You may not be that kind of person at all, and the times have changed; those teachings may be no more relevant.

Only rely on your own consciousness. Even Gautama’s consciousness is not reliable. He is not saying that Gautama is wrong; he is saying that Gautama was dealing with situations fifteen hundred years before.

I have told you of an instance when just in a single day . . . In the morning a man asked Gautam Buddha, “Is there a God?”

And Gautama said, “No, there is no God.”

In the afternoon another man asked, “What do you think about God?”

Gautama said, “Yes, God is.”

You can understand the trouble Ananda, who was continuously with him, was in. He started having a migraine. What kind of man is this? In the morning he says, “There is no God,” and in the afternoon he has forgotten completely, and he is saying, “There is God.”

He waited for the time in the night when there would be nobody around, but before that a third person came in the evening, sat down and asked Gautama, “I have no conception either for or against God. Just help me to understand.”

And Gautam Buddha did not say anything to the man, but on the contrary simply closed his eyes, remained silent. Seeing this, the other man also closed his eyes and sat. He thought perhaps Buddha was going to say something in his silence and they both remained in silence for two hours.

The man felt so beautiful and so fresh and so young, so rejuvenated, that after two hours he opened his eyes and he was a changed man. He touched Gautam Buddha’s feet, thanked him and told him, “I was not expecting that much. You have given me more than I had asked. You have given me a taste. I had come only to ask a question; you have taken me to the experience itself. I will remain grateful to you my whole life.”

In the night Ananda said, “You should at least think of me. The whole day I have been in such a trouble. What kind of man are you? In the morning you say no, in the afternoon you say yes, in the evening you don’t say anything, but just remain silent – and that fellow gets the answer and you have not said anything.”

Buddha said, “The first man, to whom I said, ‘There is no God,’ was an atheist, and he had come to get a confirmation of his atheism, that if Gautam Buddha also is an atheist, then there is no problem. Atheism is certainly the right approach. There is no God. “The second man had also come for confirmation of his own prejudice. He was a theist and he wanted support. They were not seekers; they were only asking for consolation. They had already got the idea; they were simply asking me to support their ideas. They were satisfied with their ideas without ever moving into any new space.

“But the third man was really a seeker. He plainly said, ‘I don’t have any idea for or against.’ For such a man only, silence is the answer. And because he had no prejudice, seeing me closing my eyes and becoming silent, he immediately understood the hint. He closed his eyes and he went deep into silence. Although I had not said anything to him, he went away immensely richer than he had come.

“And Ananda,” Buddha said, “you should not be disturbed, because none of these questions were yours. It is not your problem.”

Ananda said, “It is not my problem, but I have ears and I am always close to you.”

Buddha said, “You will have to learn that I don’t have any fixed philosophy so that I can hand over immediately ready-made answers. I have to see the person, his capacity. I don’t want to insult anybody. I don’t want to give something which they cannot understand, which is going to be over their heads.”

If this was the situation in Buddha’s own time, Ikkyu is right: Just don’t rely on the teachings of Gautama. Find out your own sources. Go deeper into your own being. You will find there the affirmation of Gautam Buddha.

But don’t rely on the teachings. Just don’t sit with the scriptures, reading them for years, studying them for years. That is not going to help. Gautam Buddha had not read those scriptures before he became enlightened, so it is absolutely certain that they cannot be the cause of anybody’s enlightenment. Just do what he did; don’t be too much concerned what he said. Whatever he said was meant for his contemporaries, for his time, for the people he was talking to.

Do what Buddha did. He became a no-mind, and becoming a no-mind, you will have to throw even Buddha and his scriptures out of your being. Only in this emptiness is there a possibility of the cherry blossoms of your being coming from the potential to the actual. You can bring the spring by bringing the no-mind.

As no-mind comes, thousands of miracles follow. But don’t desire those miracles; if you start desiring them, you will never have the no-mind, because those desires will not allow the mind to be empty.

So remember, it is one of the most significant things for a seeker that he should not become too much concerned about the search. He should remain playful. “If there is a truth in existence, someday, somewhere I am going to encounter it.”

But don’t be serious, just be playful. In playfulness you are relaxed, and in relaxation, utter relaxation, you will find Gautam Buddha himself, so why bother about his teachings? When you can find Gautam Buddha himself, then why bother about dead scriptures? Ikkyu is right, absolutely right.

Maneesha has asked a question:

Our beloved master,

Is the witness a presence or simply an absence – the absence of identification with body and mind?

Maneesha, it is a difficult question – difficult only because your mind never accepts contradictions, and existence absolutely is in favor of contradictions. In fact, existence is made of contradictions. So these two words, presence and absence, are both right.

In the witness there is absence, certainly, of your personality, of your mind, of your thoughts, feelings – anything that you are carrying within your mind is absent. If you look from this side, it appears that no-mind is empty mind.

But the moment all these things are emptied out, the potential of your being starts growing – a new presence which was hindered from growing by all the furniture that you have been carrying in the mind. Now that all that furniture and all those stones are thrown and the soil is ready, there comes a new presence.

So both are there as far as your mind is concerned. Meditation is an effort of creating absence. But when the mind is really absent, in that silence, in that unlimited space, your potential starts glowing, radiating, flowering. Suddenly you are full of cherry blossoms, a new presence, a new fragrance.

So absence and presence are both together in your meditation. On the one hand you are emptying, on the other hand the empty space is being filled with your potential. Before there was no space for it to blossom.

Meditation is simply creating a space for your potential to come to flower. A man of meditation has such a presence that you can feel it.

In my dining room I have got a small statue of Buddha. It is only a statue, but when Jayesh came for the first time and saw it, he said, “This statue has a great presence.” I have loved that statue and carried it from India to America, from America to India, because it has a presence. It is only a statue, but a statue of a meditating buddha. Something of meditation in that very posture radiates a very alive aura.

I have brought another statue for your Buddha Auditorium, to be placed just at the gate, so you can see that even a statue, because it is in a meditative posture, radiates something. Just sitting by the side of the statue you will find something flowing from the statue towards you. It is not a worship; it is just being silently close and watching the posture. Because the posture is of meditation, something of meditativeness radiates even from the stone.

So when you are meditating, you are doing both the things: on one hand you are throwing away all that is garbage, and on the other hand you are helping roses to blossom. You will have an absence and you will have a great presence, together: absence of all that was ugly in you, and presence of all that is beautiful.

-Osho

From Rinzai: Master of the Irrational, Discourse #6

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

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

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

The Master of the Shouts – Osho

A little note about Rinzai, master of the irrational.

Rinzai, also known as Lin-Chi, was born in the early ninth century and was to become the founder of one of the most significant schools of Zen.

Brilliant as a child, later, when Rinzai became a priest, he studied the sutras and scriptures. Realizing the answer did not lie within them, he went on pilgrimage, visiting Obaku and Daigu, two great masters. After his enlightenment he became priest of a small temple on the banks of the Hu-t’o River.

Maneesha has asked:

Our beloved master, Rinzai became known as the master of the shouts. His specialty consists . . . he used shouts as a method to silence you – a sudden shout. You are asking about God, you are asking about heaven, you are asking about great philosophical or theological problems and the master immediately shouts. Your mind gets a shock, almost an electric shock. For a moment you are not, only the shout is. For a moment the mind stops, time stops – and that is the whole secret of meditation.

Many mystics around the world have used sounds, but in a very superficial way. Rinzai used shouts in a tremendously deep way. His shouts would become just like a sword entering in you, piercing to the very center.

You can understand . . . when you shout Yaa-Hoo! your mind disappears. Yaa-Hoo! has no meaning, but shouting it you get suddenly thrown to your own center, and once you have touched your own center, even for a simple glimpse, your life has started changing.

Rinzai would shout at the disciples to give them a first experience of their centering. You are both a circumference and a center. You live on the circumference; the shout simply pushes you to the center. Once you experience being at the center you suddenly see the whole world changing. Your eyes are no more the same; your clarity and transparency are absolute. You see the same green leaves greener, the same roses rosier, the same life as a festival, as a ceremony. You would love to dance.

And then the disciples, once they learned that the shout can help them to reach to their very center . . . It was a strange sight when Rinzai started accepting disciples near the river. The disciples would be shouting around the whole valley, and the valley would resound with shouts. You could tell from miles away that you were somewhere close to Rinzai. It was not only that he was shouting, but that shouting was a method to throw you from the circumference to the center.

There are many ways to throw you to the center. Every way is valid if you reach to your center, because your center is the only immortal part in you. Everything else is going to die.

Today Professor Barks is here. He has done a tremendous job in translating Rumi. He has come as close as possible, but I don’t think he knows that Rumi’s whole effort by whirling is to find the center. If you whirl for hours, you will see slowly that something at the very center is not moving at all, and that is you. Your body is whirling, but your consciousness is a pillar of light.

Rumi attained his first enlightenment by whirling for thirty-six hours continuously. People thought he was mad. Even today a small group of his followers continues. They are called whirling dervishes. But the point is the same: whirling, your whole body becomes a cyclone, and your witnessing self becomes the center. Everything moves around you, but the center remains unmoving. To know this unmoving center is to know the very master key of all the mysteries of life.

Rinzai had no idea about Rumi, neither did Rumi have any idea about Rinzai, but both were working on the same strategy – somehow to force you to the center. As your consciousness becomes deeper, as it becomes an easy thing to go to the center just like you go in your house and come out, you have become a buddha.

Then slowly, slowly your center starts changing your circumference. Then you cannot be violent, then you cannot be destructive; then you are love. Not that you love – you are love. Then you are silence, then you are truth, although the old you has disappeared. That was your circumference, that was the cyclone that is gone. Now, only the center remains.

Rinzai’s method is far simpler than Rumi’s. Very few people will be able to whirl for hours, but shouting is a simpler method. Anybody can shout and can shout wholeheartedly, and it can be very intense and urgent. Whirling you will take hours to find out the center; shouting, a split second and you are at the center.

The anecdote…

Rinzai became known as the master of the shouts. On one occasion a monk asked, “What about the cardinal principle of the Buddha-dharma?”

Now, he is asking something important. What is the cardinal principle of the religion of Buddha?

Rinzai shouted – the monk bowed.

“Do you say that’s a good shout?” Rinzai asked.

The monk commented: “The thief in the grass has met complete defeat.”

“What is my offence?” Rinzai asked.

The monk replied, “It won’t be pardoned a second time.”

Rinzai gave another shout.

The first shout of Rinzai was perfectly good. The monk bowed down because he felt a great relief by moving from the circumference to the center. But Rinzai was a little suspicious. Because everything in this world becomes traditional, it had started becoming traditional that Rinzai will shout and you have to bow down to show that you have understood it, that it has reached to your center. It was becoming a tradition.

This is very unfortunate. Everything becomes a habit, a ritual, a tradition, and loses all meaning. Now, his bowing down may be true or may be just a mannerism. That’s why Rinzai asked, “Do you say that’s a good shout?”

The monk commented: “The thief in the grass has met complete defeat.”

What does he mean by this? The monk is saying, “You have been found being unsuccessful. Your shout missed.”

The monk commented: “The thief in the grass has met complete defeat.”

“What is my offense?” Rinzai asked.

The monk replied, “It won’t be pardoned a second time.”

The monk is saying, “Your shout missed.” He is not saying that shouting at him a second time will not be pardoned; he is saying, “Your being a failure will not be pardoned – It won’t be pardoned a second time. The first time I forgive you; you missed, you did not reach to my center. I bowed down because you tried, you tried hard. But the second time it will not be pardoned.”

Anybody reading it will think that he is saying, “If you shout a second time it will not be pardoned.” That is not the case. He is saying, “Your failure will not be pardoned a second time.”

Rinzai gave a shout – and the anecdote ends suddenly. After the shout there is silence. The second shout succeeded. Now the monk is silent, Rinzai is silent.

There have been long progressions for reaching to yourself, like yoga. But devices like Rinzai’s are very simple, don’t require any discipline as a prerequisite. Anybody . . . no need of having a certain character; good or bad, sinner or saint, it does not matter. What matters is to reach to the center, because at the center you are neither a sinner nor a saint. Your being a sinner or a saint are all on the periphery. Our whole society lives on the periphery; all our divisions are very superficial.

I am reminded of a great follower of Buddha, Nagarjuna. He lived naked. Perhaps Nagarjuna is the greatest logician that has walked on the earth. Aristotle is no comparison to him, neither is Shankara; Nagarjuna’s argumentation is the most refined. But he used to live naked – a beautiful man – and even kings and queens were disciples to him. In a certain capital the queen was his disciple. She asked him, “You will have to give me a favor. I want to take away your begging bowl.”

He said, “That is not a problem. You can have it.”

She said, “That is only half of it. I have prepared a begging bowl for you. This one you give to me; it will be a present, the most precious to me in the whole world. And I have made a begging bowl which you cannot reject, you have to accept it.”

He said, “I have not seen it either.”

She said, “Seeing or not seeing is not the question. First, give me the promise that you will not reject it.”

So he said, “Okay, I will not reject it.”

She brought out the bowl, and it was made of solid gold, studded with diamonds. Nagarjuna said, “You don’t understand the situation. Whether I reject it or not, I will not be able to keep it even for a few hours. A naked man carrying a begging bowl made of solid gold, studded with great diamonds – do you think I will be able to keep it? But I have promised, so I will accept it.”

A thief was watching the whole transaction. He followed Nagarjuna. He knew that this fellow lives outside the city in a dilapidated temple, and every afternoon after he has taken his food, he goes to sleep. This is a very good time to take this begging bowl away. Anyway, somebody is going to take it away . . .

So he went and he was hiding behind a wall by the side of a window watching that somebody else does not enter inside. Nagarjuna made his place to sleep and he had complete awareness that somebody had been following him.

“Why keep him unnecessarily waiting? Anyway, I am going to sleep and he will take the begging bowl. It is better to give it him. Why make him a thief?” So he threw the begging bowl outside the window where the thief was sitting.

The thief could not believe it. This is really a strange man. A strange desire arose in the thief that it would be good to have a little time to sit at this man’s feet, so he asked from the window, “Can I come in?”

Nagarjuna said, “What do you think I have thrown the begging bowl for? – to bring you in. Come in. That was just an invitation.”

The thief could not understand, but was very much impressed by the man.

Nagarjuna said, “I did not want to make you a thief, that’s why I have thrown the begging bowl. Now you can have it.”

The thief said, “It is so precious; you are a man of great mastery over yourself. I also hope one day I will not be a thief but a master like you.”

Nagarjuna said, “Why postpone it? It is a very simple secret. You can become a master.”

He said, “You don’t understand. I am a thief; I am a born thief. I cannot resist the temptation.”

Nagarjuna said, “It does not matter at all. You can remain a thief. I will give you a small meditation: whatever you do, even if you go to steal in the palace, just be a witness of what you are doing. I don’t want you not to be a thief; do whatever you want to do, but do it with full awareness. Just be a witness.”

He said, “This seems to be simple. I have been going to many saints. They say, ‘First you drop stealing, otherwise you cannot be religious.’ You are the first man who is not asking me to drop stealing.”

Nagarjuna said, “Those saints that you have met are not saints. No saint will ask you to drop stealing. Why? Do it perfectly well. Just remain a witness.”

The thief could not understand the strategy. After the third or fourth day he came back to Nagarjuna and said, “You are very clever. In these four days there have been so many opportunities to steal, but as I go to steal, to take something, immediately my hand relaxes. The moment I witness myself stealing it seems to be so embarrassing that I pull my hand back. For four days I have not been able to steal anything.”

Nagarjuna said, “Now it is your problem; I have nothing to do with it. You can choose. You can choose witnessing, or you can choose stealing.”

The man said, “Only in these four days have I been able to feel my own dignity. I cannot drop witnessing. I am coming with you.”

What witnessing does is again throw you back to your center. At the center you are a buddha. On the periphery, who you are does not matter. Once you start living at the center, slowly, slowly your circumference will start changing its colors. It will become as pure as you are at the center. It will become as compassionate as you are at the center. It will take all the fragrance of the center in all your activities.

The authentic religion does not preach morality. Morality comes on its own accord. The authentic religion teaches you to be centered in yourself. Then everything that is good follows, and what is bad simply does not arise. It is not a question of choice; choicelessly you are good. It is not that you are being good; you cannot be otherwise.

This is the miracle of Zen.

Zen simply means witnessing.

These shouts throw you to the center, and once you have learned to be at the center, you will know that on the periphery you are always a beggar, and at the center you are always an emperor. And who wants to be a beggar?

Religion is the alchemy of transforming beggars into emperors.

A great Zen poet, Ikkyu, wrote:

Crazy madman,
Blowing up a crazy wind,
Wandering here and there,
Amidst brothels and wine shops.

Is there an enlightened monk
Who can match me
Even for a single word?

I paint the south; I paint the north;
I am painting the west and east.

He is saying “People think I am crazy . . . ” Crazy madman, blowing up a crazy wind, wandering here and there, amidst brothels and wine shops.

An authentic buddha is not afraid of brothels and wine shops. The saints who are afraid are really repressed people; they are not transformed beings.

Is there an enlightened monk who can match me?

A buddha can move with absolute freedom in the marketplace. Those who renounce the world are the cowards, the escapists, and they have destroyed all the religions of the world. All the religions are in the hands of the cowards.

An authentic religious man is a lion, and he is so centered in himself that he is not worried about being anywhere. He is so certain of his purity, of his eternity, of his divinity that he knows that if a thief comes to him, it is the thief who will have to change; if a prostitute comes to him, it is the prostitute who will have to change.

Our so-called saints are so much afraid. Their fear shows their repressions. A repressed man is not a religious man; he is simply sick, he needs psychiatric treatment.

-Osho

From Rinzai: The Master of the Irrational, Discourse #1

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

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

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

 

Sakshi Means the Witness – Osho

That which is aware of the creation and dissolution of the knower, the known and the knowable, but is itself beyond creation and dissolution is called the sakshi or the witnessing self.

That which dwells in the minds of all beings, from brahma(the creator) down to an ant, and which lives everlastingly even after the destruction of their gross and subtle bodies is called the kutastha or the crest indweller.

From among the kutastha and its different forms, the self, for the sake of the realization of its nature, permeates the body like a thread threading a necklace, and it is called antaryami or the imminent.

-Sarvasar Upanishad

Now, two more diseases, two more complexes, two more illusions. We discussed three in the night: mind, lust for life, and desiring. Now the fourth is sattva – it means virtue. It means an inner accumulation of being good.

This feeling of being good is also a disease – for so many reasons. One is: you cannot feel you are good, unless you feel others are bad. Mm? that’s impossible. You cannot feel you are good unless you feel others are bad, and the feeling that others are bad is a disease; the feeling of good is just a relative term. So a person who wants to feel good is bound to condemn others as bad; and the more you condemn others as bad, the more you can feel you are good. So these so-called good men go on condemning everyone.

Bertrand Russell has criticized Jesus for this reason. He says, “Everything is divine, everything looks holy, except one thing: why Jesus condemns the sinners so much – that they should be thrown into hell, and they should be condemned? Jesus cannot feel good unless he condemns.” I don’t think that Jesus ever condemned – a person like Jesus cannot condemn. The condemnation has come through the tradition; it is really St. Paul who speaks through Jesus, and he is one of the most deeply involved personalities who feels himself to be good. But whosoever it may be – whether Jesus says so, or St. Paul puts is in Jesus’ mouth – the criticism is valid.

A good man can never be good if he is condemning others as bad, but you can never feel good unless you condemn. So a good man must be unaware of his goodness; only then it is not a disease. He must not be aware at all that he is good; only then is he not aware that others are bad. No religion other than Hinduism has condemned even goodness – even goodness becomes a sin, because it is ego-strengthening. It feeds your ego – of course with very pure food. But sometimes poisons can also be pure, so purity in itself is not something to be hailed. Poisons can also be pure, and when the ego becomes strengthened by purity, by virtue, by being good, it is pure poison – it is dangerous. That’s why you can never feel at ease with any so-called good man. Around him there is always restlessness; no one can feel at ease. and unless you can feel at ease, the man is not good, not good at all.

So around mahatmas you cannot feel at ease – never. There is a very strained atmosphere, because their feeling of goodness can exist only if they create a very tense atmosphere around them. Everyone is bad, and they are on the high pedestal. Only they are good; everyone is bad.

That’s why two mahatmas condemn the other. They have always condemned. So only confirmed sinners, only persons who feel themselves inferior, who are suffering from an inferiority complex, can be around them. Two mahatmas cannot meet, because that is the meeting of two diseases, two strong egos – purified, poisonous. These are the pious sinners.

This disease must cease. Not that goodness is bad, but to feel good is bad, because to feel good is comparative; it is always in relation to someone else. And anything that is related to someone else is not of any worth for the inner journey. And man is so cunning and so deceptive that he can go on being cunning, he can go on being deceptive. He may change methods, he may change devices, but the basic disease remains the same.

For example, one can even boast of one’s humility. This is the deceptiveness: one can boast even of one’s humility, one can say, “There is no one more humble than me!” Now, through humility, ego is strengthened – I am again asserting my superiority in humility! But the contradiction is never seen. You can even say, “I am just a sinner,” and feel good about it.

Tolstoy remembers that once he went to a church early in the morning. The streets were dark and there was no one in the church, only Tolstoy. Then the richest person of the city came. He didn’t know that Tolstoy was there; Tolstoy was praying. This rich man began to pray and confess. He began to say, ‘I am one of the most fallen, deeply fallen, from the right path. I am a sinner. Forgive me” – and he began to relate his sins.

Tolstoy was just bewildered, because this man was known as one of the most virtuous. He listened silently; then the darkness withered away, and the rich man felt someone’s presence. He looked around and he saw that Tolstoy was there. So he said, “Were you here when I was confessing?” Tolstoy said, “I was already here. When you came, I was here; I was praying.” So the man said, “Look, I must make you aware of the fact that I have confessed to God, not to you. So please forget whatsoever I have said! And don’t talk about it in the city, because this was a dialogue between me and my God.”

This is the deceptiveness of the mind. Really, he is confessing so as to feel good. He is not authentic – he is not feeling that he is a sinner. By confessing his sins he is now feeling a very holy man. This is a disease.

The fifth disease is punya – the feeling of holiness, the feeling of serving others, the feeling of doing good to others. And there is a difference: To be good is one thing, and to feel that one is doing good to others, is another. Punya means doing good to others. There are so many do-gooders. Really, the world would be less confused and in less conflict if there were less do-gooders, because their do-gooding just creates more mischievousness in the world. They are not concerned with good at all, really. They are concerned to be doers of good – so anyhow they must do good.

Kirkpatrick has written a book; a very strange statement is in it. He says, “If there will be no poverty, then what will we do service to others?” So poverty must remain, because when you cannot do Service . . . And without service, these scriptures say, you cannot go to heaven. So if poverty is completely destroyed on the earth, then there is no bridge from the earth to the heaven. Kirkpatrick is a good man, and whatsoever he is saying, he means it. It is not just a statement, he means it. He feels it, that if there is no poverty, then how can you serve others? And service is such a necessary thing, that even poverty is needed for service to remain, it must remain.

This is a disease. Then service itself becomes the end, not the served one – he is irrelevant. There are social workers, servants of the people; and psychologists say, “It is their need really – not the need of the people. They cannot remain without doing good to someone else; they cannot remain without serving others. This is an occupation for them.” What will happen to them if a society is really there which needs no service? This has happened so many times.

Revolutionaries are chronic revolutionaries. By “chronic” I mean, if they succeed and their revolution succeeds, they become anti-revolutionary. Stalin had to face these revolutionaries, and he killed all of them. The phenomenon was that those revolutionaries were just chronic revolutionaries. A Trotskyite is a chronic revolutionary; he cannot be without a revolution around him. The revolution must be there; otherwise, where will the revolutionary be?

So there are only two possibilities; whenever there is a revolution, a social revolution, there are two possibilities. If the revolution succeeds, then there are two possibilities: either the revolutionary has to turn traditionalist and orthodox and anti-revolution, or he has to continue his revolution. Stalin chose the first alternative; he became one of the most orthodox minds possible. Not even a czar was such as Stalin was – he became a czar.

Trotsky chose the other, or was forced to choose the other. He continued to be a revolutionary. And how then can you be a revolutionary? You have to go against your own revolution. Trotsky made endeavors for this revolution, and then he was against it. He was trying for a proletarian dictatorship, and then he was against it. And Stalin was doing the same. Stalin, in a way, is more consistent; but he himself turned anti-revolutionary. He was for the revolution he had started, but then he became anti-revolutionary, because no revolution could now be allowed. So Russia, after the great revolution, has been the country without revolutions. So the chronic revolutionaries had to escape and they continued there.

If really, there is a society where no one needs your help and your do-gooding, your service and your revolution and reformation, then all these do-gooders will be just mad, insane – they cannot do anything.

This fifth disease doesn’t mean don’t do good to others – it doesn’t mean that – but don’t be a do-gooder. Let it be just a spontaneous thing. Don’t make it a plan, don’t seek it, don’t go for it; let it be just your spontaneous behavior. Whenever there is a situation, do whatsoever you feel; but don’t plan it, don’t make it a scheme. Don’t sacrifice yourself, because persons who sacrifice themselves are very dangerous: when they sacrifice themselves they begin to sacrifice others. And they have a right because they can say, “We have sacrificed ourselves, so now we have the right to sacrifice others.” They become violent. Persons who have been violent to themselves in doing good to others, ultimately turn to being violent to others. But now they have the credit of being good, and their violence can continue in the garb of being good. And when someone is good and violent, it is the most criminal, the deepest criminal combination.

If the father is good, then he can be a criminal to his son. If the mother is good, then she can be a criminal. This happens daily. Women are more good than men; not that there is any inner necessity, but they are more fearful of being bad, more suppressed. That’s why wives become dictatorial, because the husband feels a bit inferior. He is bad in many ways: he smokes, he drinks, he looks all around at other beautiful faces.

Then the wife becomes dictatorial; she becomes a do-gooder. Now she can sacrifice her husband; now she can virtually kill. And because she is good, the husband is just helpless – he cannot argue. Smoking is bad – of course; and he is smoking, so he is bad. And really, to smoke is not so bad as to feel good on account of someone smoking. It is deeply criminal . . . it is deeply criminal; it is very violent. This is the disease.

Don’t feel good on account of others, and don’t try to be a do-gooder. Be good, simply naturally. That is completely different. If someone feels restless around you, know that you are not a good man, just a do-gooder.

I have read somewhere about a Tibetan mystic, Milarepa. It is written that Milarepa was a saint, because sinners could feel at ease with him – at ease, totally at ease. There was no condemnation in his eyes, in his words, in his behavior. Really, a saint means this: one with whom sinners can feel at ease, friendly; otherwise, the do-gooder is there. That is the ego, and the ego is always destructive of others. And you can destroy in such good ways that you may not even be aware what you are doing. A good mother can destroy the whole life of the child, just by being good – too good.

This, the rishi says, is the fifth disease. And if one is identified with these five diseases, there comes into existence a personality which is not your being. That personality is known a lingasharir – the subtle personality.

This word “personality” is very meaningful. It is a Greek word; it is derived form “persona.” Persona means a mask. Actors use masks in Greek drama; that mask of the actors is known as persona. You are not that, but you use a mask and become that. Mm? You are not a lion, but you use a mask of a lion and you behave like a lion.

Personality is not your being, it is a mask. This mask is very subtle, and this mask is created by being identified with these five diseases. If you become totally identified, and feel that you are this – this disease of the mind, this disease of desiring, this disease of being good, this disease of being virtuous – if you begin to feel that you are a combination of all these five, these five classifications, then you create a persona, a personality. That personality is known as lingasharir – the subtle body. And behind this subtle body, lingasharir – behind this identification, behind this barrier – is the knower.

So to dissolve the personality, to withdraw yourself from the personality, to renounce the personality, is the essential renunciation. That is what is sannyas: to renounce . . . not the world, because how can you renounce the world? – It has never belonged to you. Mm? What nonsense talking about renouncing the world. When? When you are master of it? – it has never belonged to you. Really, again the trick of the ego: one says, “I renounce the world,” and feels very good that one has renounced the world. A beggar renouncing the empire, renouncing the throne, the palace – renouncing everything . . .  It has never belonged to him, so how can he renounce it?

So really, a sannyasin doesn’t mean a person who renounces the world. A sannyasin means a person who renounces the personality – that belongs to you! You are the creator of it, so you can renounce it. Nothing else! You cannot renounce anything that doesn’t belong to you. The personality belongs to you; you can renounce it, but you can renounce only when you begin to be aware that you are not the personality. This is known as kshetragya, the knower of the field. The field is personality, and the knower, the center which becomes aware of this personality. If you become aware of the center, of the knower, then there is not difficulty in renouncing the personality. It is just a clothing, just a clothing, and very dirty and very diseased.

Now, three situational dimensions of the being: We discussed personalities; we discussed bodies; we discussed complexes of diseases. Now the enquiry into the being itself. What is the being? Behind all, beyond all, transcending all – what is the being itself? Three definitions have been given. One is called sakshi; sakshi means the witness. Another is called kutastha; kutastha means the eternal, the indestructible, the immortal. And the third is named antaryami: the innermost, the inner one. It is good and helpful for the seeker to understand these three definitions. They define the one and the same, but they define indifferent contexts.

First is the witness. This is the essential character, the essence, the very essence of the being. Whatsoever is named is never the knower; whatsoever is objectified is never the subject. The moment we know something, we are different form the known, from the object, because the knower cannot be the known, the observer cannot be the observed. A distance is created by knowledge, by knowing. Knowing is the bridge between the known and the knower.

The being is not, and never is the known; it is always the knower – always and always the knower. Whatsoever you know, remember one thing certainly – that you are not that. This much is certain, that whatsoever you have known and experienced, you are not that. That’s why the Upanishads say, “Neti, neti – not this not that.” Whatsoever you say, the Upanishads say, “No, not this, not that – never!” This is the nature of the being; it always transcends objects. It is pure subjectivity, and this pure subjectivity can never be turned into any object. So in a way, you can never know yourself in the same way as you have known all else. So “self-knowledge” is in a way, a very contradictory word, because really the self cannot be made an object of knowledge. But still, self-knowledge exists. But that knowledge has to be defined and guarded, and defined in a specific way. Self-knowledge means: where all knowledge stops. Self-knowledge means: where there is no self.

Self-knowledge means: the knower is not, the known is not, the knowledge is not. But when I say that you are never the known, then one thing must be understood: if you are not the known, how can you be the knower – because the knower is just in reference to the known. The knower is just in reference to the known. If you are never the object, how can you be called a subject? – because subject means in relation to object; it means the other end of the object. That’s why the Upanishads say, “It is just a witness – not even a knower.”

It witnesses all the three: the known, knowledge, the knower. They come up, they dissolve, and the witnesser remains. It will be better not to call it even a “witnesser,” but a witnessing, because when we say “witnesser,” a subtle crystallization comes into the world, a subtle feeling of the ego and “I.” So it is better to say “witnessing.” Then there is simply a process of knowledge without any ego, without any “I” crystallizing it.

And then in the world, there are not things, but processes. This is the difference between a materialist and a spiritualist. This! – a materialist sees in the world, and a spiritualist sees in the world events – not things. The difference is not whether matter is or not; the difference is not whether mind is or not. The difference is basically this: a spiritualist sees in the world energy, processes – energy processes, events, alive events – not dead things.

Now physicists are ready to accept this as far as matter is concerned. They say now, “There is no matter. Matter is dead; matter is not there – only energy waves, only quanta, only processes.” Even a stone is just a process, it is not static; it is dynamic, it is moving. Not only is a river moving, the Himalayas also.

A Zen fakir, Bankei, has said, “I have not seen only rivers moving, I have seen bridges also moving. And once it happened that the river was not moving, and the bridge was moving.” He means by this that there are not things – static, dead – but movement, continuous processes, waves and waves and waves; and each wave is turning into the other. This is what is meant by a spiritual attitude.

So matter is energy, waves. Inside also there is no knower as fixed, as “I,” because the ego is a thing – dead. So it is better to call it not the witnesser, but witnessing – with no center really, just a process.

Buddha says, “There is rebirth, but you are not.” So how can rebirth be? Ordinary logic will say, “How can rebirth be? If you are not, if there is no ego to be reborn, then how is rebirth possible?” Buddha says, it is just a process – a process just like a flamelike process. In the evening you see the flame: the lamp is burning and there is a flame. In the morning you blow it out. You say, “I am blowing out the same flame.” Buddha says not, because the flame is constantly changing. It is a process, it is not a thing, so it cannot be the same. In the evening you saw one thing; this is something else – flame has been constantly changing and going into nothingness, and new flames are being  replaced continuously.

It is continuity. The flame is not a thing, it is a continuity. Every moment the flame is changing, so whatsoever you are blowing out is not the same flame you saw in the night. It is the same continuity – a continuum.

Witnessing is there just like a flame.

It is a continuum.

This is the first situational definition. The rishi talks about it first, because it can be made a means; it can be used as a device; it can become a vehicle towards your being, your center.

The second is kutastha; it means: the eternal, the immortal, that which cannot be destroyed, indestructible. What can be destroyed really? What is destructible? – only the form and the name, namrup. Within these two words is the whole Eastern standpoint: namrup – name and form – can be destroyed, are destructible. Your name can be changed and your form – nothing else.

The ice is transforming itself into water, and the water is evaporating. What changes? – not the essence, but only the form and the name. Now it is ice; now it is water; now it is vapor. What is changing? The essence remains the same, but the name and form change.

This whole world is just name and form. Everything is changing: the child becoming the adult; the adult becoming the old man; life turning into death; birth turning into death; health turning into disease; disease turning into health – everything is changing. Even opposites are not really opposites, because they can change into one another. The north becomes the south, the south becomes the north. The east is also the west, and the west is also the east. It depends. It depends on where you are looking.

Someone asked Mulla Nasruddin, “Where is your house on the road? On the left or on the right?” He said, “It depends: sometimes it is on the left, and sometimes it is on the right. It depends from where you are coming.”

Life is a movement, but name and form change; the essence remains the same. But when I say the essence remains the same, I don’t mean it is a static thing. I mean it is a dynamic force, but still the same. Dynamic and the same must be remembered; otherwise, God becomes just a static phenomenon – dead, with no opening.

Kutastha doesn’t mean a dead thing, it means a dynamic force, essentially remaining the same, but changing its name and form all the time. Beyond name and form, the essential one is known as the kutastha. If you destroy everything – every form and every name – the remaining is the kutastha. If all my five bodies are destroyed, if all my five diseases are destroyed, then the remaining will be the kutastha – that is the essential being which cannot be destroyed. This always is.

This is the end definition; the first one was a means definition. If you proceed by being a witness, you will reach the kutastha, the eternal, but both are far away. Neither we are using witnessing, nor are we standing in the eternal. Then it is, therefore, the third definition: it is called antaryami, the innermost.

This definition belongs to us here and now, as we are. A link must exist between the kutastha, the eternal, and us; otherwise, there can be no traveling towards it, no journey towards it. Somehow, we must be linked in all these bodies, in all these diseases, in all these ignorances. Still the innermost being is here; it is just hidden. it is hidden just like the thread of the beads: the beads are apparent, but the thread is hidden. You cannot see directly, immediately; you have to make a gap between two beads, and then suddenly in the gap is the thread – the innermost running force, the innermost running energy.

So whenever one has to go deep into oneself, one has to make a gap between two diseases or between two bodies or between two thoughts. Wherever you can create a gap between two things inside you, suddenly you become aware of the thread.

For example, there are thoughts in the mind – continuously one thought is followed by another. Bring a gap between two thoughts. There IS a gap, because two thoughts cannot exist without a gap: an interval is a basic necessity. One thought is followed by another, but there is a subtle gap. Be aware of the gap.

We are aware only of the thoughts. From one thought we jump to another, and the gap is lost. Remain in the gap, stand in the interval, slow down your thought process and you will feel a gap. One thought has gone, another has yet to come – there is a gap, a sudden silence. In this silence you will become aware of the thread; that thread is known as antaryami. It is here and now, and we cannot proceed otherwise; we have to proceed from here and now.

So antaryami is the definition for us. Then sakshi, witnessing is the method; then kutastha, the eternal one is the end.

-Osho

From That Art Thou, Discourse #10

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So Be It – Osho

Ikkyu wrote:

Whether I elevate this message
Or put it down,
Everything under the heavens
Is the imperial domain.
I salute and say,
“So be it . . . so be it.”

That is another version of total relaxation with existence, another version of let-go, another version of suchness, thisness, isness.

He is saying, “Whether I elevate this message or put it down, everything under the heavens is the imperial domain. I salute and say, ‘So be it . . . so be it.’ Whatever happens, my absolute determination, my absolute commitment is that whatever happens is good. So be it.”

It may seem sometimes that something is a misfortune – but still Ikkyu is right. Many times blessings come in disguise, and those who are ready to accept even misfortunes joyfully, they transform the misfortune into a joy. Just by accepting them, without any resistance, is the way of transforming them into a beautiful space.

So be it.

Whatever happens, don’t have any grudge, don’t have any complaint against existence. That is the purest message of Zen.

-Osho

From Rinzai: Master of the Irrational, Discourse #8

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

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

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There is no Final Destination – Osho

Ikkyu wrote:

Myself of long ago,
In nature
Non-existent:
No final destination,
Nothing of any value.

He is giving you the very manifesto of Zen. Myself of long ago, in nature . . . I have disappeared in nature, I don’t know when, I have not kept a diary and I don’t remember that I was anything else at any time.

Myself of long ago, in nature non-existent: I don’t find myself, I find only nature. No final destination . . . I am going nowhere. There is no final destination, because final destination will mean death.

Life is a continuity always and always. There is no final destination it is going towards. Just the pilgrimage, just the journey in itself is life, not reaching to some point, no goal – just dancing and being in pilgrimage, moving joyously, without bothering about any destination. What will you do by getting to a destination? Nobody has asked this, because everybody is trying to have some destination in life. But the implications…

If you really reach the destination of life, then what? Then you will look very embarrassed. Nowhere to go . . . you have reached to the final destination – and in the journey you have lost everything. You had to lose everything. So standing naked at the final destination, you will look all around like an idiot: what was the point? You were hurrying so hard, and you were worrying so hard, and this is the outcome.

I have told you about one of Rabindranath’s stories. It is a song. The story says in song, “I have been searching for God for centuries. Sometimes he was around the moon, but by the time I reached there he had moved to some other star. I saw him at another star, but by the time I reached there he had moved again. This went on and on, but there was great joy in that he is there, and one day I am going to find him. How long can he hide? How long can he escape?

“And it happened that one day I reached a house where there was a board saying that this was the house of God. I had a great sense of relief that my destiny was fulfilled. I went up the steps and I was just going to knock on the door when I became aware that, ‘Just wait, have a second thought! What are you going to do if God comes and opens the door? What will you do next?’”

Your whole life has been a journey, a pilgrimage, finding, searching. You are trained as a runner since millions of years, and suddenly you meet God and you don’t have anything to say. What will you say?

Have you ever thought that if you meet God by chance, neither will you have anything to say, nor will he have anything to say? You unnecessarily burned yourself out, finished. Final destination means ultimate death.

Ikkyu is right when he says, “No final destination, nothing of value” – everything is just to enjoy and dance and sing. But don’t ask about value; don’t ask what is virtue and what is good. Rejoice in everything, and go on in different pilgrimages knowing perfectly well that life is not going to end anywhere, the journey will continue, the caravan will continue. There is no place where the road ends.

Maneesha has asked:

Our beloved master,

When there is nothing to perceive – no input from the body or the mind and so one has nothing by which to define oneself – is what is left witnessing? There does not even seem to be a witness, but just the awareness that there is no one there.

That’s exactly right. There is no witness, there is only witnessing. There is only consciousness, but no personality to it, no form. There is only awareness, like a flame arising from nowhere and disappearing into nowhere, and just in the middle you see the flame.

Have you watched a candle, where the flame goes? Gautam Buddha himself used as the word for the ultimate experience, blowing out the candle. Nirvana means blowing out the candle. Nothing is, just a pure awareness, not even confined into your individuality, but just a floating cloud, no firm shape – a tremendous isness, a great joy.

But it is not your joy; you are absent. Then arises in your absence the joy, the blissfulness. The moment you are not, then the witnessing is pure. And this witnessing brings the greatest benediction possible. This witnessing is the buddha.

-Osho

From Rinzai: Master of the Irrational, Discourse #7

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

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

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

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