The heart cannot feel duality — duality is a mental creation. The mind divides, analyzes; it cannot work without division. That is why science goes on analyzing molecules, atoms, electrons: dividing existence into smaller and smaller parts. The more divisions there are, the more the mind is at ease, because then existence becomes more defined; it can be manipulated, it can be easily known. But the vaster it is, the greater and more infinite existence becomes, the more the mind feels awe. It cannot define it — existence becomes mysterious.

The scientific method of tackling a mystery is analysis — analyze a thing and solve the mystery. If the whole world could be analyzed there would be no mystery. But the mystery remains unsolved, because to solve it requires synthesis.

Drop all definitions, drop all boundaries, and everything becomes mysterious. Then you are one with the mystery; then everything is divine. That is the only solution and the only way to know existence. Let scientific definitions drop, and a world without definitions, without boundaries, comes into existence: a synthesized whole, an organic unity, a crystallized oneness. This oneness — the feeling of it, the knowing of it, and the living of it — is what I mean by God.

Meditation is the way to know God. Mind is the way to know matter. Mind and meditation are exact opposites — different dimensions. You cannot have it both ways. You can reach the mind, but in that moment the heart will not work. You can reach the heart, but in that moment the mind will not work. You can use both, but not simultaneously; they are polar opposites.

Without meditation, everything is rational and yet absurd because it is meaningless. With meditation, everything is irrational but meaningful. And the moment life is meaningful, life is. When it is not meaningful, when it is rationally understood but meaningless, then it is not. It is as dead as can be. This is the paradox: with the mind, you can understand but the meaning is lost; with the heart, you cannot understand but the meaning is known, felt, realized.

With the mind, everything can be categorized and manipulated, but you are nullified through it and in the end there is no mystery. Once the mind has understood everything, nothing remains but suicide, because no one can live without mystery. The more life is a mystery, the more it is worth living.

Religion is knowing the mystery and still not destroying it. The religious way of knowing is very different — it is neither logical nor rational; it is absolutely fresh. But our minds become uneasy with it because we are so obsessed with reason. This very minute part of the mind, reason, has become our sum total, our all.

Life is not rational; it is basically irrational — and this irrationality of life and existence is the mystery. If everything becomes mysterious to you, then you are here and now in the divine. With meditation, the mystery is revived: you again come in contact with the mysterious.

Meditation is of the heart, and the heart has its own methods of understanding which are absolutely different from reason, absolutely different from the mind. I would like all of you to know more of the heart.

The guru/disciple relationship is an understanding of the heart. The East has so many secret keys, but even a single key is enough because a single key can open thousands and thousands of locks. The relationship between guru and disciple is one such key.

Source: OSHO

For awareness you have to take an about-turn. You have to concentrate not on the cause outside, but on the source inside. Forget the cause. Close your eyes, and go deep and dig into the source. Then you can use the same energy which was to be wasted on someone outside — the energy moves inwards. Anger has much energy. Anger is energy — the purest of fires inside. Don’t waste it outside.

Take another example. You are feeling sexual: sex is again energy, fire. But whenever you feel sexual, again you are focused on someone outside, not on the source. you begin to think of someone — of the lover, of the beloved, A-B-C-D — but when you are filled with sex your focus is always on the other. You are dissipating energy.

Not only in the sexual act do you dissipate energy, but in sexual thinking you dissipate it even more because a sexual act is a momentary thing. It comes to a peak, the energy is released, and you are thrown back. But sexual thinking can continuously be there. You can continue it in sexual thinking, you can dissipate energy. And everyone is dissipating energy. Ninety percent of our thinking is sexual. Whatsoever you are doing outside, inside sex is a constant concern — you may not even be aware of it.

You are sitting in a room and a woman enters: your posture changes suddenly. Your spine is moire erect, your breathing changes, your blood pressure is different. You may not be aware at all of what has happened, but your whole body has reacted sexually. you were a different person when the woman was not there; now again you are a different person.

An all-male group is a different group, and all-female group is a different group. Let one male come in or one female, and the whole group, the whole energy pattern, changes suddenly. You may not be conscious of it, but when your mind is focused on someone, your energy begins to flow. when you feel sexual, look at the source, not at the cause — remember this.

Science is more concerned with the cause and religion is more concerned with the source. The source is always inside; the cause is always outside. With cause you are in a chain reaction. With cause you are connected with your environment. With source you are connected with yourself. So remember this. This is the purest method to change unconscious energy into conscious energy. Take an about-turn — look inside! It is going to be difficult because our look has become fixed. We are like a person whose neck is paralyzed, and who cannot move and look back. Our eyes have become fixed. We have been looking outside for lives together — for millennia — so we don’t know how to look inside.

Do this: whenever something happens in your mind, follow it to the source. Anger is there — a sudden flash has come to you — close your eyes, meditate on it. From where is this anger arising? Never ask the question: who has made it possible? who has made you angry? That is a wrong question. Ask which energy in you is transforming into anger — from where is this anger coming up, bubbling up, what is the source inside from where this energy is coming?

Are you aware that in anger you can do something which you cannot do when you are not in anger? A person in anger can throw a big stone easily. When he is not angry he cannot even lift it. He has much energy when he is angry. A hidden source is now with him. So if a man is mad, he becomes very strong. Why? From where is this energy coming? It is not coming from anything outside. Now all his sources are burning simultaneously — anger, sex, everything, is burning simultaneously. Every source is available.

Be concerned with from where anger is bubbling up, from where the sex desire has come in. Follow it, take steps backwards. Meditate silently and go with anger to the roots. It is difficult but it is not impossible. It is not easy. It is not going to be easy because it is a fight against a long, rooted habit. The whole past has to be broken, and you have to do something new which you have never done before. It is just the weight of sheer habit which will create the difficulty. But try it, and then you are creating a new direction for energy to move. You are beginning to be a circle, and in a circle energy is never dissipated.

My energy comes up and moves outside — it can never become a circle now; it is simply dissipated. If my movement inwards is there, then the same energy which was going out turns upon itself. My meditation leads this energy back to the same source from where the anger was coming. It becomes a circle. This inner circle is the strength of a Mahavir. The sex energy, not moving to someone else, moves back to its own source. This circle of sex energy is the strength of a Buddha.

We are weaklings, not because we have less energy than a Buddha: we have the same quanta of energy, everyone is born with the same energy quanta, but we are accustomed to dissipating it. It simply moves away from us and never comes back. It cannot come back! Once it is out of you, it can never come back — it is beyond you.

A word arises in me: I speak it out; it has flown away. It is not going to come back to me, and the energy that was used in producing it, that was used in throwing it away, is dissipated. A word arises in me: I don’t throw it out; I remain silent. Then the word moves and moves and moves, and falls into the original source again. The energy has been reconsumed.

Silence is energy. Brahmacharya is energy. Not to be angry is energy. But this is not suppression. If you suppress anger, you have used energy again. Don’t suppress — observe and follow. don’t fight — just move backwards with the anger. This is the purest method of awareness.

But certain other things can be used. For beginners certain devices are possible. So I will talk about three devices. One type of device is based on body awareness. Forget anger, forget sex — they are difficult problems. And when you are in them, you become so mad that you cannot meditate. When you are angry you cannot meditate; you cannot even think about meditation. You are just mad. So forget it; it is difficult. Then use your own body as a device for awareness.

Buddha has said that when you walk, walk consciously. When you breathe, breathe consciously. The Buddhist method is known as ANAPANASATI YOGA — the yoga of the incoming and outgoing breath, incoming and outgoing breath awareness. The breath comes in: move with the breath; know, be aware, that the breath is moving in. When the breath has gone out again, move with it. Be in, be out, with the breath.

Anger is difficult, sex is difficult — breath is not so difficult. Move with the breath. Don’t allow any breath to be in or out without consciousness. This is a meditation. Now you will be focused on breathing, and when you are focused on breathing thoughts stop automatically. you cannot think, because the moment you think your consciousness moves from breath to thought. you have missed breathing.

Try this and you will know. When you are aware of breathing, thoughts cease. The same energy which is used for thoughts is being used in being aware of breath. If you start thinking, you will lose track of the breath, you will forget, and you will think. You cannot do both simultaneously.

If you are following breathing, it is a long process. One has to go into it deeply. It takes a minimum of three months and a maximum of three years. If it is done continuously twenty-four hours a day… it is a method for monks, those who have given up everything; only they can watch their breathing twenty-four hours a day. That’s why Buddhist monks and other traditions of monks, they reduce their living to the minimum so that no disturbance is there. They will beg for their food and they will sleep under a tree — that’s all. Their whole time is devoted to some inner practice of being aware — mm? — for example, of breath.

A Buddhist monk moves. He has to be continuously aware of his breath. The silence that you see on a Buddhist monk’s face is the silence of the awareness of breathing and nothing else. If you become aware your face will become silent, because if thoughts are not there your face cannot show anxiety, thinking. Your face becomes relaxed. Continuous awareness of breathing will stop the mind. The continuously troubled mind will stop. And if the mind stops and you are simply aware of breathing, if the mind is not functioning, you cannot be angry, you cannot be sexual.

Sex or anger or greed or jealousy or envy — anything needs the mechanism of mind. And if the mechanism stops, you cannot do anything. This again leads to the same thing. Now the energy that is used in sex, in anger, in greed, in ambition, has no outlet. And you go on continuously being concerned with breathing, day and night. Buddha has said, “Even in sleep try to be aware of breathing.” It will be difficult in the beginning, but if you can be aware in the day, then by and by this will penetrate into your sleep.

Anything penetrates into sleep if it has gone deep in the mind in the day. If you have been worried about a certain thing in the day, it gets into the sleep. If you were thinking continuously about sex, it gets into the sleep. If you were angry the whole day, anger gets into the sleep. So Buddha says there is no difficulty. If a person is continuously concerned with breathing and awareness of the breathing, ultimately it penetrates into the sleep. You cannot dream then. If your awareness is there of incoming breath and outgoing breath, then in sleep you cannot dream.

The moment you dream, this awareness will not be there. If awareness is there, dreams are impossible. So a Buddhist monk asleep is not just like you. His sleep has a different quality. It has a different depth and a certain awareness in it is there.

Ananda said to Buddha, “I have observed you for years and years together. It seems like a miracle: you sleep as if you are awake. You are in the same posture the whole night.” The hand would not move from the place where it had been put; the leg would remain in the same posture. Buddha would sleep in the same posture the whole night. Not a single movement! For nights tog3ether ananda would sit and watch and wonder, “What type of sleep is this!” Buddha would not move. He would be as if a dead body, and he would wake up in the same posture in which he went to sleep. Ananda asked, “What are you doing? Were you asleep or not? You never move!”

Buddha said, “A day will come, Ananda, when you will know. This shows that you are not practising anapanasati yoga rightly; it shows only this. Otherwise this question would not have arisen. You are not practising anapanasati yoga — if you are continuously aware of your breath in the day, it is impossible not to be conscious of it in the night. And if the mind is concerned with awareness, dreams cannot penetrate. And if there are no dreams, mind is clear, transparent. Your body is asleep, but you are not. Your body is relaxing, you are aware — the flame is there inside. So, Ananda,” Buddha is reported to have said, “I am not asleep — only the body is sleep. I am aware! and not only in sleep. Ananda — when I die, you will see: I will be aware, only the body will die.”

Practise awareness with breathing; then you will be capable of penetrating. Or practise awareness with body movements. Buddha has a word for it: he calls it “mindfulness”. He says, “Walk mindfully.” We walk without any mind in it.

A certain man was sitting before Buddha when he was talking one day. He was moving his leg and a toe unnecessarily. There was no reason for it. Buddha stopped talking and asked that man, “Why are you moving your leg? Why are you moving your toe?” Suddenly, as the Buddha asked, the man stopped. Then Buddha asked, “Why have you stopped so suddenly?”

The man said, “Why, I was not even aware that I was moving my toe or my leg! I was not aware! The moment you asked, I became aware.”

Buddha said, “What nonsense! Your leg is moving and you are not aware? So what are you doing with your body? Are you an alive man or dead? This is your leg, this is your toe, and it goes on moving and you are not even aware? Then of what are you aware? You can kill a man and you can say, “I was not aware.’” And, really, those who kill are not aware. It is difficult to kill someone when you are aware.

Buddha would say, “Move, walk, but be filled with consciousness. Know inwardly you are walking.” You are not to use any words; you are not to use any thoughts. You are not to say inside, “I am walking,” because if you say it then you are not aware of walking — you have become aware of your thought, and you have missed walking. Just be somatically aware — not mentally. Just feel that you are walking. Create a somatic awareness, a sensitivity, so that you can feel directly without mind coming in.

The wind is blowing — you are feeling it. Don’t use words. Just feel, and be mindful of the feeling. You are lying down on the beach, and the sand is cool, deeply cool. Feel it! — don’t use words. Just feel it — the coolness of it, the penetrating coolness of it. Just feel! Be conscious of it; don’t use words. Don’t say, “The sand is very cool.” The moment you say it you have missed an existential moment. You have become intellectual about it.

You are with your lover or with your beloved: feel the presence; don’t use words. Just feel the warmth, the love flowing. Just feel the oneness that has happened. don’t use words. don’t say, “I love you,” you will have destroyed it. The mind has come in. And the moment you say, “I love you,” it has become a past memory. Just feel without words. Anything felt without words, felt totally without the mind coming in, will give you a mindfulness.

You are eating: eat mindfully; taste everything mindfully. Don’t use words. The taste is itself such a great and penetrating thing. Don’t use words and don’t destroy it. Feel it to the core. You are drinking water: feel it passing through the throat; don’t use words. Just feel it; be mindful about it. The movement of the water, the coolness, the disappearing thirst, the satisfaction that follows — feel it!

You are sitting in the sun: feel the warmth; don’t use words. The sun is touching you. There is a deep communion. Feel it! In this way, somatic awareness, bodily awareness, is developed. If you develop a bodily awareness, again mind comes to a stop. Mind is not needed. And if mind stops, you are again thrown into the deep unconscious. With a very, very deep alertness you can penetrate, Now you have a light with you, and the darkness disappears.

Source: OSHO

If you want to know who you are, you will have even to close your eyes; you will have to go withinwards. You will have to forget the whole world, you will have to forget what they say about you. You will have to go deep inside you and encounter your own reality.

That’s what I am teaching here — not to depend on others, not to look in their eyes. There are no clues in their eyes. They are as unaware as you are — how can they define you?

You are looking into each other’s eyes to find who you are. Yes, some reflections are there, your face is reflected. But your face is not you; you are far behind the face. Your face has been changing so much that you can’t be your face.

…You are not the face. Somewhere deep down hidden is your consciousness; it is never reflected into anybody’s eyes. Yes, a few things are reflected: your actions. You do something; it is reflected into others’ eyes. But your doing is not you. You are far greater than your actions….

Your being is never reflected in the eyes of others. Your being you have to come to know only in one way…and that is by closing your eyes to all the mirrors. You have to enter into your own inward existence, to face it directly. Nobody can give you any idea of it, what it is. You can know it, but not from others. It can never be a borrowed knowledge, it can only be a direct experience, a direct experiencing, immediate.

Osho, The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol. 1,Talk #2

YOU HAVE TOLD US THAT THE MIND BECOMES MORE AND MORE QUIET IF WE MEDITATE REGULARLY. LAST YEAR, WHEN I WAS LIVING IN EUROPE OUTSIDE OF A COMMUNE, THOUGHTS BECAME STRONGER AND STRONGER DURING MY MEDITATIONS UNTIL I BEGAN TO DREAD SITTING.

NOW THAT I AM WITH YOU AGAIN, THIS PROBLEM HAS GONE AWAY. BUT I WONDERED: HOW CAN ONE BE A SANNYASIN FOR TEN YEARS, MEDITATING EVERY DAY, AND HAVE A MIND WHICH BECOMES MORE AND MORE NOISY?

Sagarpriya, the question you have asked has many implications. First, one has to understand that your mind is very ancient — twelve years are nothing compared to the mind’s history; it is the history of the whole universe from the very beginning.

It has been working so long, so efficiently that scientists say they have not yet been able to create a computer which can compete with human mind. And human mind is placed in a small space, in your skull; their computers are placed in big rooms. One scientist has calculated that it would need almost a one square mile space for a computer comparable to the human mind. Human mind is a miracle.

Sitting with me, you are sitting with a greater miracle. You are sitting with no-mind. Naturally, silence becomes easier; meditation comes on its own, just like a cool breeze. When you are left alone, your mind is all that you have. Unless your meditation goes to such depths that you have something more valuable than the mind, this problem will continue to happen.

With me you can have a glimpse, just for a moment. And that glimpse creates the longing to have that moment stretched to eternity. It is so peaceful, so cool, so calm, who would not like it?

But as you go back into the world, there are just computers walking all around; you have to communicate with computers. One physiologist has defined man’s body as nothing but a mechanism to facilitate the mind’s functioning. You think you are carrying the mind. The physiologist is saying just the opposite: it is the mind that is carrying you; your whole body is functioning just for the mind’s sake.

So the moment you go into the world — this is not part of the world; we have been trying to create small islands where mind as a computer is no longer required. But in the world you will need the mind. And the problem will continue, Sagarpriya, until you have something more than mind. Just having a glimpse of silence is not enough.

You need a centering, you need a realization, you need exactly enlightenment — only then can you remain in the world, without your mind functioning unless you want to use it.

Mind is a tremendously valuable mechanism, one of the greatest miracles in biology, in the evolution of man. Mind is simply unbelievable, the way it works… because you don’t know anything about it, although it is your mind. You don’t know how it accumulates millions of memories.

The scientists have calculated that a single man’s mind can contain all the libraries of the world. He can memorize everything that has been ever written, down the ages. That is the capacity; you may use it, you may not use it.

And you don’t know about the libraries. Just the British Museum Library has enough books that if you go on putting one book by the side of the other, just as you put them on the book shelf in the library, it will take three rounds of the whole world. And that is only one library! Moscow has perhaps a bigger library, and all the big universities of the world have similar libraries. Just India has one hundred universities with tremendously big libraries.

And the very idea that a single human mind has the capacity to memorize all that is written in all the books that are in existence in the whole world… it simply baffles, it looks unbelievable.

You don’t know what your mind is doing for you. Your mind is regulating everything in your body. Otherwise, how do you think that for seventy or eighty years, or even a hundred years — and there are people who have even passed that; they have reached their one hundred and fiftieth birthday, and there are a few hundred people in the Soviet Union who have passed the age of one hundred and eighty.

Scientists say there is no reason for the body to die for at least three hundred years. It is just an old hypnosis, autohypnosis, which has made the idea prevalent that you have only seventy years to live. It goes so deep in your consciousness that by the seventieth year you start thinking you are sinking, you are gone.

And anyway by the time you are retired at the age of sixty there is nothing to do. Death seems to be a relief, not a danger. We have not been capable enough and human enough to provide a situation where our old people can have some dignity, some self-respect, some pride. We have not been able to find dimensions where they can contribute to the world. And they are experienced and certainly capable of contributing enough — enough for their self-respect, enough for them to live and not to feel like a burden.

When George Bernard Shaw became seventy years old, he started taking trips to small villages around London. His friends were surprised, “What are you doing? For days you disappear. In this old age you should rest.”

He said, “I am searching for the place to rest in this old age.”

They said, “What do you mean? You have a beautiful house, you have everything that you need.”

He said, “You don’t understand. I am going around all these villages looking in their cemeteries, at the gravestones, in search of a place where many people have lived at least a hundred years.”

And finally he found a village where on a gravestone was the inscription, “This man died at the untimely age of one hundred and twenty.” He said, “This is the village worth living in, where people think that at the age of one hundred and twenty it is an untimely death.” He lived in that village, and he lived beyond a hundred years.

Perhaps it has some significance… not just accidental. He was a man of tremendous wisdom; and if the villagers believe it then the atmosphere is bound to change his own conditioning.

In Pakistan there is a part of Kashmir which belonged to to India; Pakistan has occupied it for forty years. Perhaps that part, because of its secludedness, hidden behind the mountains, has not come in contact with people who die at the age of seventy. They are uneducated people; in fact they cannot count when they are seventy, so how to die at seventy? They don’t have a calendar. They don’t know when they were born; they don’t know how old they are.

They are the most primitive people who have been found living behind the Himalayan peaks, in a valley — in a beautiful valley, self-sufficient, and they have never gone out. And there have been people found, according to the doctors, who are two hundred years old. And they are young; they are working in the fields, in the gardens, in the orchards, and when you ask them about their age they say, “We don’t know. Nobody here knows; there is no school here.”

And now Pakistan is opening schools and hospitals and you can be certain that soon people will start dying exactly at the age of seventy. Those people have just forgotten to die, because they don’t remember when they were born, and they cannot count.

Scientists say that man’s body has the capacity at least — that is the minimum — to live three hundred years. But why does man not live so long? Perhaps man does not know how to live; perhaps man does not know how to use his body, how to use his mind.

Sagarpriya, you have to understand two things very clearly: first, mind is a great miracle.

Existence has not been able to create anything higher than your mind. Its function is so complex that it baffles the greatest scientists. It manages your whole body, and it is such a complex system. Who manages that a certain part of your blood should go to the brain? Who manages that only a certain amount of oxygen should reach to the brain? Who manages what part of your food should become bones, should become blood, should become skin? Who manages that part of your skin should become nails and part of your skin should become eyes and part of your skin should become ears?

Certainly you are not managing it, and I don’t see any other manager around. So first you have to be grateful to the mind. That is a first step to go beyond mind, not as an enemy but as a friend. Listening to me continually saying that you have to go beyond mind, you can fall into a misunderstanding. I have tremendous respect for mind. We are obliged so much by the mind, there is no way to return our gratitude.

So the first thing is: meditation is not against mind, it is beyond mind. And beyond is not equivalent to against.

That misunderstanding spreads the more people talk about meditation, particularly people who don’t understand meditation — those who have read about it, those who have heard about it, those who know the techniques… And techniques are simple; they are available in many scriptures, you can read them. And now there are books on how to do anything — car mechanics, electric engineering, anything — you ask, and the bookseller is ready to give you a book about how to do it.

My people in Europe have been thinking to make a book with a cassette. The book will give all the background of the meditation and the cassette will give all the instructions, so you need not go anywhere. Just sitting in your room with your tape recorder and you have a master! Gautam Buddha is no longer needed….

A master will never become irrelevant for a simple reason: who will teach you to love the mind and yet go beyond it? to love your body, to respect your body? to have gratitude towards your mind, its tremendous, miraculous functioning? That will make a great friendship, a bridge between you and the mind.

With this friendship deepening, whenever you are meditating, the mind will not disturb because your meditation is not against it. It is in fact its own fulfillment, it is its own ultimate flowering. Going beyond it is not an antagonistic attitude, but a friendly evolution.

So this should be the background of all meditators: not to be a fighter. If you fight you may be able to make the mind quiet for some time, but it is not your victory. The mind will come back, you will need it. You cannot live without it; you cannot exist in the world without it.

And if you can create a friendly relationship with the mind, a loving bridge, rather than being a hindrance to meditation it starts becoming a help. It protects your silence because that silence is also its own treasure, it is not just yours. It becomes a soil in which the roses of meditation will blossom, and the soil will be as happy as the roses. When the roses will be dancing in the sun, in the rain, in the wind, the soil will also rejoice.

My approach is totally different from the approach that has been taken up to now. For thousands of years, all the religions have been teaching something against body, against mind.

And just today I came to know that there are even idiots who are teaching against meditation. The parliament of Israel has passed a law that meditation in private or in public is a criminal act. You cannot believe it!

And these politicians don’t know even the ABC of the mind, what to say about meditation. But why are they so much worried? One of their worries is me, because out of my sannyasins fifty percent are Jews. Sooner or later I am going to take over Israel, there is no problem about it — before the Palestinians take it over, I am going to take over.

Why should the politicians be concerned? And if they are concerned they should consult people who know what meditation is. To make it a criminal act is an unbelievable thing; nowhere ever…

Religions have taught against the body. That was so ridiculous — you have to live in the body, you have to nourish the body; you have to keep it healthy, it is your home. They have been talking against mind. Now this is the latest thing — Israel has done a pioneer work! The parliament of Israel seems to be consisting of really first-class idiots.

I don’t think they know even anything about meditation, but the fear…. Jews are afraid, Mohammedans are afraid, Hindus are afraid, Jainas are afraid — they are all afraid of meditation. Even though they talk about meditation they are afraid of it. They talk because without talking about meditation their religion seems to be incomplete, but they are basically against it because a man who becomes a meditator simply slips out of any organized religion. He is no more a Hindu and he is no more a Jew and he is no more a Mohammedan. He cannot go on believing in all kinds of superstitions and stupidities that every religion is full of.

Jews think that they are the chosen people of God. Now, no meditator can do that. To think that “Only we, the Jews, are the chosen people of God, and the whole humanity is in some way inferior to us”… But it was not only the Jews who have committed that sin. They have suffered much for it; they are still suffering. They will continue to suffer, because the very idea is so stupid that it creates antagonism, particularly in a world where Nordic Germans think that they are the chosen people, where Hindus think that they are the chosen people, because their holy book is the most ancient and first God-written holy scripture. They cannot tolerate any ideas like Moses telling his people that “You are the chosen people of God; you have a basic right to be superior to everybody else.” Who can tolerate it? Hindus think they are superior to everybody.

Jews and Hindus are the only two religions in the world which don’t believe in conversion, because how to convert inferior people into a higher religion? And because they cannot convert, they are absolutely against Christianity, Mohammedanism, who are after converts continuously.

Now, because of the fear that the number of Mohammedans and Christians goes on growing and Jews and Hindus go on shrinking, there are small trends among Jews… and there is a small group of Hindus called the Arya Samaj, who have introduced conversion. But it remains a very half-hearted thing. Deep down they know what they are doing: they are bringing inferior people into their fold. It is just out of sheer necessity; otherwise those inferior people will outnumber — they have already — the superior people.

Now Christians have the greatest numbers in the world; second are the Mohammedans — and these two are the converting religions.

The fear of meditation has roots. In the law passed by the Israeli parliament it has become exposed, but it is there in every religious mind: if people start meditating, if people start loving their bodies, loving their minds, and out of love peacefully transcending towards a state of no-mind, they will not belong to any stupid ideology.

And all ideologies are so full of stupid things that it is almost impossible to count how many superstitions, and what a variety of superstitions. Some day when humanity has become one, we will need great museums to collect all the superstitions to remember our forefathers by. Just the way Darwin thought of monkeys as his forefathers, the coming generations of man will remember you and your forefathers in the same category.

I would like you to be reminded of a few superstitions… just samples, because the whole lot is too much.

Jainas think that unless your earlobes touch your shoulders you cannot become enlightened. Now I cannot see what the relationship can be between the earlobes, which are almost dead parts of your body… have you ever noticed? Can you do anything with your earlobes? Can you wave them? They are just hanging there, not doing anything. You cannot do anything with them because there is no nervous system; they are just pieces of flesh without nerves, pure flesh. And without nerves you cannot turn them up or down, here and there.

I have come across only one person — and I have been around the world — and strangely enough he was my classmate in first grade when I entered school. Now he is a doctor in the same town. He is the only man… some freak! He can make his earlobes move this way, that way, back, forward. He was a miracle; for some accidental reason his earlobes have grown nerves inside. Just as a few people are born with six fingers, a few people are born with three eyes, a few people are born with two heads — just freaks — he has really big earlobes.

I have been watching to see when he becomes enlightened. He is just a poor doctor — he knows nothing about meditation, nothing about enlightenment. And because he is an ayurvedic doctor, patients don’t come to him. Only his children go on growing, and he goes on growing poorer and poorer. Each time I have seen him I have seen him reduced, thinner, more worried. I said, “What is the matter? You are supposed to be enlightened!”

But stupid ideas… and it is not one religion but every religion. And they cannot tolerate each other.

Mohammed went to heaven sitting on his horse; the horse also went — without wings. Neither Mohammed had wings nor the horse, but they flew to heaven. This was happening for the first time. Jesus left his donkey here, Francis left his donkey here; only Mohammed was able to take his horse. Mohammedans think it was because he was the real prophet….

Now everybody is claiming — Mohammedans claim that the KORAN, their holy book, is the only authentic, God-written book; all other books are man-written. And the KORAN is not even worth being considered as literature; it is just third-class. Because Mohammed was uneducated, he did not write it; whatever he was saying has been collected by people, but every sentence shows his uneducatedness, his unculturedness.

But Mohammed claims to be the last prophet of God: after him there will be no prophet because God has sent his final message through him, and that is the KORAN. All old messages are canceled — THE BIBLE, the VEDAS, are all canceled, because when the new message has arrived it cancels all the old. It is the most developed, the most evolved message; it is so perfect that there is no need of anybody else to bring a message to the world.

Now, all these religions are claiming such things. Mohammedans say that when Mohammed used to move in Arabia — which is a desert and really becomes burning hot when the sun comes to the middle of the sky — God used to send a beautiful white cloud which used to move just over Mohammed’s head, keeping him under shadow… a divine umbrella!

If meditation becomes more prevalent, then you will get free from all these prejudices; hence no religion wants meditation, although they may talk about it.

To me, neither God is important nor heaven nor hell nor angels — all those are just hypothetical. To me, meditation is the very soul of religion. But it can be attained only if you move rightly. Just a single step in a wrong direction… And you are always moving on a razor’s edge!

Begin with love of the body, which is your outermost part. Start loving your mind — and if you love your mind you will decorate it, just the way you decorate your body. You keep it clean, you keep it fresh; you don’t want your body to smell horrible to people, you want your body to be loved and respected by others. Your presence should not be simply tolerated but welcomed.

You have to decorate your mind with poetry, with music, with art, with great literature. Your trouble is, your mind is filled only with trivia. Such third-rate things go on through your mind that you cannot love it. You think of nothing which is great. Make it more in tune with the greatest poets; make it in tune with people like Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Turgenev, Rabindranath, Kahlil Gibran, Mikhail Naimy; make it filled with the greatest heights that mind has reached.

Then you will not be unfriendly to the mind. Then you will rejoice in the mind; even if mind is there in your silence, it will have a poetry and a music of its own, and to transcend such a refined mind is very easy. It is a friendly step towards higher peaks: poetry turning into mysticism, great literature turning into great insights into existence, music turning into silence.

And as these things start turning into higher peaks, beyond mind, you will be discovering new worlds, new universes which we don’t even have a name for. We can say blissfulness, ecstasy, enlightenment, but no word really describes it. It is simply outside the power of language to reduce it into explanations, into theories, into philosophies. It is simply beyond… but mind rejoices in its transcendence.

That’s what my unique contribution is to you. With absolute humbleness I want to tell you that I am far ahead of even Gautam Buddha, for the simple reason that he is still fighting with the mind. I have loved my mind, and through love I have transcended it.

It is a totally new beginning. Naturally I have to be condemned; my people will be condemned. Many will come to me but will not be able to walk along with me even for a few steps, because soon they will find that their prejudices are preventing them from going with me.

Their prejudices are ancient, and naturally — I can understand — they cannot think that anybody can go beyond Gautam Buddha, just as the contemporaries of Gautam Buddha could not believe that he has gone beyond the VEDAS and beyond the seers of the UPANISHADS, just as contemporaries of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu could not believe that they have gone far beyond Confucius.

And if just out of humbleness I don’t say the truth, I will be committing a crime against truth. I don’t care about such humbleness; I want exactly what is the case to be explained to you.

My approach towards meditation is absolutely new, absolutely fresh, because it depends on love — not on fight, not on war. Mahavira I have left twenty-five centuries behind. His name was not Mahavira — mahavira means `the great warrior’. His name was Vardhamana, but people changed his name because he was a great warrior. A warrior against whom? — against his body, against his mind. And I don’t think that anybody who is against his body and against his mind is capable of reaching the beyond.

Only love is the path.

Sagarpriya, make your mind as beautiful as possible. Decorate it with flowers. I am really very sad when I see that people don’t know THE BOOK OF MIRDAD, that they have never looked into the absurd stories of Chuang Tzu, that they have never bothered to understand the absolutely irrational stories of Zen.

I cannot conceive of how you can live beautifully if you don’t know Dostoevsky’s books… BROTHERS KARAMAZOV to me is more important than any BIBLE. It has such great insights, that THE BIBLE should not be counted at all, even for comparison. But THE BIBLE will be read — and who is going to bother about BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, in which Dostoevsky has poured his whole soul? or ANNA KARENINA by Leo Tolstoy, or FATHERS AND SONS by Turgenev, or OFFERING OF SONGS by Rabindranath?And these are only a few names; there are thousands who have reached the finest flowering of mind.

First let your mind be decorated. Only beyond this perfumed garden of the mind will you be able to go silently, without any fight; mind will be a help, not a hindrance. I have not found it to be a hindrance; hence I can say with absolute authority: it is not a hindrance. You just don’t know how to use it.

It is beautiful, Sagarpriya, that when you come here you feel meditative. At least these few gaps, these few days, will slowly start becoming stronger, deeper. One day you will be gone and these moments will be with you even in the marketplace, and that will be a day of great rejoicing.

But it takes time. I have to say to people that it can happen instantly. Not that it is untrue — it can happen instantly, but where to find the genius who can understand it instantly?

When I say it can happen instantly, people simply think, “This is impossible for us.” If I say to them it can happen in a few lives’ time, they feel, “That seems to be perfect,” because that gives them the time to do all their stupid things meanwhile. It is a question of a few lives, so what is the hurry? First take care of your boyfriend, your girlfriend; first go to see all kinds of ruins in Rome, in Greece, in India; first do every foolish thing that is expected of you by the whole crowd. And as far as enlightenment is concerned it is not going to happen now, it will take many lives, so what is the hurry? You can go on postponing.

That’s why people love all these religions which talk about many lives — not because they understand the significance of it, but because they want to use that as an excuse.

It can happen this very moment, but it will not happen. The reason is not in its nature; the reason is you. It will not happen because you don’t want it to happen right now.

Just think for a moment: if I were going to make you enlightened this very moment, you would start thinking, “But I have not asked my husband. What about my children? I have to get my daughter married. And I have just met my girlfriend, my god! and this is going to happen just now? he cannot wait? — just let me finish my honeymoon.” Thousands of thoughts will arise in your mind: “My god, I have started a new business, invested everything in it. If he had told me before, I would not have got involved in all this mess.” Everybody, without exception….

I have told you the story of a great Ceylonese master who had millions of disciples, and who had been telling them for nearabout fifty years only one thing: Meditate. The day of his death came and he announced, “After seven days I am going to leave my body, so let all my disciples gather so that I can see them one time more, because I will not be coming back again.”

So all the disciples gathered; it was a great gathering. And before dying, the old man said, “I have always told you to meditate, but you have not listened. I give you another chance. This time you have not to do anything. I am going to die, I can take you with me. Is anybody ready to come with me?”

Everybody looked at each other: “You have been long enough with him, you can go.” People looked at each other, whispered, “What are you doing? All your children are married, everything is finished, nobody needs you….” But nobody was standing up.

He said, “Just stand up, and I will take you with me.”

There was great silence and people were looking downwards — how to face this old man? It is so embarrassing. But they were all unmoving, because he may misunderstand even the movement — he may see that somebody is moving and say, “Get up!”

Finally one man raised his hand. He said, “First please understand this: I am not standing, I am just raising my hand to ask you a question.”

The old man said, “Fifty years I have been answering your questions and still you are asking questions? And this time I am giving you the opportunity to come with me.”

He said, “I’m sorry. Some day I will come. Just tell me the secret of how to come and find you.”

He said, “What have I been telling you for fifty years?”

The man said, “Just one time more…”

It is possible in this very moment to drop all your prejudices, cleanse your mind. It simply needs absolute decisiveness, ultimate trust, and a love that knows no bounds.

But if it cannot happen this moment, I don’t want anybody to become sad and fall into a state of despair. It can happen tomorrow. You can relax, there is no hurry. But please understand the process clearly: Love your body — against all the religions. Love your mind, refine your mind — against all the religions.

And I say to you that fight is not the way; love is the way. Love your body, love your mind, and that very love will create the energy, the atmosphere to transcend the mind, to create what I call meditation or the state of no-mind. It will come. It has to come. Nobody has to go from this temple empty-handed.

But you will have to understand one thing: that I don’t represent any old tradition, I don’t represent any old religion; I don’t represent any Gautam Buddha or Mahavira or Mohammed or Jesus or Moses — I simply represent myself.

And if you can love and trust a stranger who does not belong to any orthodox organization, then with me, meditation will be happening… and soon, without me also it will be happening. It will take a little time. It will take a little time because it needs to grow roots.

So, Sagarpriya, whenever you can find time, come. And don’t be concerned with what happens outside; that is just rubbish. What happens here, count only that as your real life. The moments that you are with me will be with you even after your death, and the moments you are wasting in the world are simply gone down the drain.

But there is no need to be worried. If even a few moments of meditation start becoming seeds in you, start growing roots in you, the day is not very far away when you will have the first flowers of your consciousness growing within you.

And I understand you, Sagarpriya; I understand you and your trust and your love. Very few people have that much love and that much trust.

But drop all antagonism towards the mind. There is some streak of fighting with the mind, maybe unconscious — mind is just a poor and beautiful thing….

Modern police departments are beginning to use computers to help fight crime. One night a man telephoned the police and said, “Police, come quick! There is a burglar downstairs and he is putting all our valuables in a sack.”

The voice on the other end said, “Keep calm. Keep calm, sir, hang up the phone, stay where you are and a police car will be right over… right over… right over….”

A computer can go wrong any moment. And mind is nothing but a computer, but created with such perfection by nature. But you have not valued it at all.

The enormous computer took up all of the huge room, completely dwarfing the two tiny mathematicians standing before it. A sliver of paper had emerged from the computer and one mathematician, after studying it gravely, turned to the other and said, “Do you realize that it would take four hundred ordinary mathematicians two hundred and fifty years to make a mistake this big?”

There are many people in the world who are becoming interested in meditation, but ninety-nine percent are in the wrong hands, and if you say this it hurts them.

Just today I have received a letter. The letter says, “The other night you spoke of Goenka’s Vipassana. You blamed Goenka for being a businessman and professionalist of Vipassana. Osho, I have experienced Vipassana here at the Poona ashram, and also Goenka’s Dhammpeeth at Igatpuri. I think your comment is wrong.”

And this is from a man, Anand Piyoosh, who has just become a sannyasin two days ago. In another letter before this, he says, “Due to uncertainty and indecisiveness of mind I have taken sannyas after twelve years. Due to this inability of mine I have suffered much. How can I get freed from it permanently? — Anand Piyoosh.”

It took him twelve years to decide to take sannyas, and it took him only twelve hours to find that I am wrong in what I have said about Goenka — no indecisiveness about this. And if Goenka was right, then what is the need of coming here? If Goenka can teach you meditation, then why are you wasting your time here, and my time and my people’s time? And if you have such an understanding that you can simply call me wrong, then this is not the place for you.

What do you understand about meditation?

The difference between Goenka’s meditation and the meditation that is happening here is immense, and for you it will take at least twelve lives to understand the difference!

Goenka is only a technician. I am not a technician. I have never followed anybody, I have simply searched on my own. It was difficult, it was dangerous, but I went on searching my path alone, finding my own ways to reach to my being.

Goenka is just a poor follower of a twenty-five hundred year old tradition of Gautam Buddha. In twenty-five hundred years — carbon copies of carbon copies of carbon copies of carbon copies of carbon copies! Do you want to compare me with these carbon copies?

And if Goenka had understood meditation, he would have come here. His meditation would have shown him that something far higher than Gautam Buddha is in existence. Igatpuri is not far away from here… but the coward has no guts.

And if you are so clear about my statement being wrong, then you don’t understand anything of what is happening here.

Here, all the meditations are just preparing the ground, just taking out the weeds, the grass roots, the wild growth, the stones — just cleaning the garden for me to sow the seeds. The people who are teaching meditation here, different kinds of meditation, are just preparing the ground. I am the gardener.

Goenka can prepare the ground, but from where is he going to find the rosebushes? He does not have the experience: he is not enlightened or awakened even in the ancient sense of Gautam Buddha. Just go to him and ask — has he the courage to say that he has the same consciousness as Gautam Buddha? And I say to you that I have left Gautam Buddha twenty-five centuries back.

My therapists, my people who are preparing meditations for you, are just doing the primary groundwork. They are just preparing the ground. The ultimate and final touch I have to give.

I have my own ways to sow the seeds in you: through my words, through my silences, through my eyes, through my gestures — just through my silence, just through my presence; it has a living field of energy.

And unless you have a living awakened being amongst you, all your therapies and all your meditations are just futile exercises; they won’t help much.

For Piyoosh I would like to say, Go back to Goenka. This is not the place for you. And you have to leave right now. I am tired of idiots of all kinds. For thirty years I have suffered from idiots and I have tolerated them, but now I have decided no idiot will be allowed here.

You took twelve years to decide to take sannyas; I don’t need even twelve seconds to take it away. You are no more a sannyasin. Return your sannyas papers, and you perfectly know the door. Just get out this very night, and never come here again. Go to hell — with anybody, Goenka, or find some other idiot. There are many in India.

I exist only for those who can understand me and who can be totally with me. A man who knows nothing about me, who just within twelve hours of his sannyas starts finding that what I am saying is wrong, certainly cannot be allowed to be here. A single rotten fish can destroy the whole lake. So you will be very compassionate to all these people by leaving this place forever.

And I am always surprised… if you have found Goenka to be right, then why are you here? When somebody finds something that is helping his growth, he remains there. And if you have found Goenka to be right and still you have not remained with him, how are you going to remain with me, whom you find wrong just within twelve hours?

No, don’t waste time. I am not interested in collecting crowds and retarded people. Just go to Goenka and tell him everything that I have said. And if he has guts, bring him here, so I can show you that he knows nothing about meditation as far as experience is concerned, that he knows nothing at all of what enlightenment is. All that he knows is a poor technique. But a technician is a totally different thing.

A technician can work with electricity, but that does not mean that he is Edison, that he has discovered electricity. Don’t ask the poor technician about electricity — don’t ask any question about its intrinsic character; don’t ask of what it consists — he is not an Edison. But he can do perfectly well: you don’t need Edison when one of your bulbs goes out; just any idiot can do that.

The same is the situation about meditation. There are technicians and there are realized people. Unless you find a realized being, all your efforts are in vain.

Three French youngsters, respectively six, seven and eight years old, were skipping along the street.

The six year old who was in front, looked in through an open window he was passing, stopped, and waved excitedly to the others: “Come, come quickly,” he said. “A man and a woman are fighting in there.”

The seven year old, coming up, looked in and said, “No, you fool, they are making love.”

The eight year old came up, looked in and said, “Yes, and what a terrible technique.”

… Feel this peace, absorb that silence. And as you absorb it, it becomes deeper… it starts touching your heart.

There is no movement, but you will feel a dance.

There is no word, but you will feel a song.

It is as if there is nobody, but a tremendous oneness… all personalities gone and only one consciousness, throbbing in synchronicity with each other.

Just to end up this beautiful moment…. I always like to leave you laughing, singing, dancing. This is just an indication that the day when I ultimately leave you, I would like you to sing, dance and celebrate.

In fact, no man in the whole of history would have received such a celebration when he dies as I am going to receive. A few have received celebration only from enemies, because when one dies, enemies celebrate. The friends mourn.

I am the only person… in my death my friends will celebrate, my enemies will celebrate. In my death they will come together in celebration. There has never been such a man before.

A black lady in New York received a phone call from the school that her little boy Leroy attended. The head teacher wanted to see her as soon as possible about her son’s behavior.

“Your boy, Leroy,” began the teacher, “is a disruptive influence.”

“Just like his father,” said the black lady.

“He steals from other children,” continued the teacher.

“Just like his father,” said the mother.

“He is always getting into fights,” continued the teacher.

“Just like his father,” replied the mother.

“He chases the little girls and makes them cry,” said the teacher.

“Just like his father,” said the black lady, “and, Lordy, am I glad I never married the man!”

Source: The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here
Chapter 13 – Human mind is a miracle (12 September 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium)

You should find a place which enhances meditation. For example, sitting under a tree will help, rather than going and sitting in front of a movie house or going to the railway station and sitting on the platform; going to nature, to the mountains, to the trees, to the rivers where Tao is still flowing, vibrating, pulsating, streaming all around. Trees are in constant meditation. Silent, unconscious, is that meditation. I’m not saying to become a tree; you have to become a buddha! But Buddha has one thing in common with the tree: he’s as green as a tree, as full of juice as a tree, as celebrating as a tree, of course with a difference — he is conscious, and the tree is unconscious. The tree is unconsciously in Tao, a Buddha is consciously in Tao. And that is a great difference, the difference between the earth and the sky.

But if you sit by the side of a tree surrounded by beautiful birds singing, or a peacock dancing, or just a river flowing, and the sound of the running water, or by the side of a waterfall, and the great music of it…

Find a place where nature has not yet been disturbed, polluted. If you cannot find such a place then just close your doors and sit in your own room. If it is possible have a special room for meditation in your house. Just a small corner will do, but especially for meditation. Why especially? — because every kind of act creates its own vibration. If you simply meditate in that place, that place becomes meditative. Every day you meditate it absorbs your vibrations when you are in meditation. Next day when you come, those vibrations start falling back on you. They help, they reciprocate, they respond.

That’s the idea behind temples and churches and mosques; the idea is beautiful. The idea is that it may not be possible for everybody to have a special room for prayer or meditation, but we can have a special place for the whole village — a temple surrounded by trees on the bank of a river where crowds don’t gather, where mundane affairs are not done. When one wants to meditate one can go to the temple. And everybody knows that he is in the temple, he is not to be disturbed.

A sacred place is nothing but a right space for meditation and right conditions. If you are feeling very angry, that is not the time to meditate: it will be going against the flow. If you are feeling very greedy this is not the time to meditate, you will not find it easy. But there are moments when you are easily available to meditation: the sun is rising and you have seen the sun rising, and suddenly all is silent within you, you are not yet part of the marketplace — this is the moment to meditate. You have been feeling good, healthy, you have not been fighting with anybody today — this is the time to meditate. A friend has come and you are full of love — this is the time to meditate. You are with your woman and you both are feeling tremendously happy — sit together and meditate, and you will find the greatest joy of your life happening if you can meditate with your beloved, with your friend.

Find the right conditions, and they are always available. There is not a single man who cannot find right conditions. In twenty-four hours’ time many moments come which can be transformed into meditation very easily, because in those moments you are naturally going inwards. The night is full of stars: lie down on the ground, look at the stars, feel in tune, and then meditate. Sometimes it is good to go for a holiday into the mountains — but don’t take your radio with you, otherwise you are taking the whole nonsense with you. And when you go to the mountains don’t give your address and your phone number to anybody, otherwise there is no need to go anywhere. When you go to the mountains forget all about the world for a few days. That is the meaning of a holiday: it has to be holy, only then is it a holiday. If it is not holy, if it is not in tune with the sacred, it is not a holiday. People carry their world with them.

Once I went to the Himalayas with a few friends, and then I had to ask them to leave me because they had brought their transistor sets and their newspapers and magazines, and the novels that they were reading. And they were constantly talking, talking about things that they had always been talking about. So I told them, “Why have you come to the Himalayas? You were saying these things at your home perfectly well, and again you are talking the same things, the same gossipping, the same rumors.”

And whenever they would go with me to some beautiful spot they would take their cameras, they would take pictures. I told them, “You have come here to see. You have not brought your camera to see the Himalayas!”

But they said, “We shall make beautiful albums, and later on we will see what beautiful places we had visited.” And right there they were not there, they were just clicking their cameras. This stupidity has to be left behind.

And it is good once in a while to go to the mountains. And

I am not saying to start living there; that is not good, because then you become addicted to the mountains and you become afraid of coming back to the world. The holiday has to be just a holiday: then come back into the world and bring all the peace and the silence and the experience of the sacred with you. Bring it with you, make an effort so that it remains with you in the marketplace.

These suggestions are for the beginners. When a person has really become a meditator, he can meditate sitting before a picture house, he can meditate on the railway platform.

For fifteen years I was continuously travelling around the country, continuously travelling — day in, day out, day in, day out, year in, year out — always on the train, on the plane, in the car. That makes no difference. Once you have become really ROOTED in your being, nothing makes a difference. But this is not for the beginner.

When the tree has become rooted, let winds come and let rains come and let clouds thunder; it is all good. It gives integrity to the tree. But when the tree is small, tender, then even a small child is dangerous enough or just a cow passing by — such a holy animal — but that is enough to destroy it.

When you are beginning, remember, Lu-tsu’s suggestions are of immense importance.

THAT IS TO SAY, THE MIND MUST BE FREE OF VAIN PREOCCUPATIONS. ALL ENTANGLEMENTS MUST BE PUT ASIDE. ONE MUST BE DETACHED AND INDEPENDENT.

When you are trying to meditate, put the phone off the hook, disengage yourself. Put a notice on the door that for one hour nobody should knock, that you are meditating. And when you move into the meditation room take your shoes off, because you are walking on sacred ground. And not only take your shoes off, but everything that you are preoccupied with. Consciously leave everything with the shoes. Go inside unoccupied. One can take one hour out of twenty-four hours. Give twenty-three hours for your occupations, desires, thoughts, ambitions, projections. Take one hour out of all this, and in the end you will find that only that one hour has been the real hour of your life; those twenty-three hours have been a sheer wastage. Only that one hour has been saved and all else has gone down the drain.

NOR MUST THE THOUGHT BE CONCENTRATED UPON THE RIGHT PROCEDURE.

And the second thing to be remembered: don’t become too preoccupied with the right procedure, otherwise that becomes a preoccupation — that one should sit in a certain posture. If you can sit, good, but if it becomes an unnecessary preoccupation, drop it. For example, if you cannot sit in a full lotus posture — which is difficult for people who have been sitting for their whole lives on chairs; it is difficult because their musculature has developed in a certain way — then your Legs will not feel good. They will go to sleep or they will start creating trouble for you. They will constantly hanker for attention, so there is no need to force a lotus posture. A lotus posture, if easy, is good. Otherwise any posture is a lotus posture.

If you cannot sit on the ground, if it is difficult, sit on the chair. Meditation is not afraid of chairs; it can happen anywhere.

Just the other day Renu had asked one question: “Can enlightenment happen on a rocking horse?” It can happen. It can even happen to the rocking horse! You need not be worried about it.

So, Lu-tsu says: NOR MUST THE THOUGHT BE CONCENTRATED UPON THE RIGHT PROCEDURE.

Just take a little care, that’s all, but don’t become too worried about it — whether the spine is absolutely erect or not, whether your head is in line with the spine or not, whether your eyes are exactly as Lu-tsu wants them. Now you have a different kind of eyes than Lu-tsu; you know the Chinese and their eyes. In fact they always seem to look at the tip of the nose. Their eyes are only half-open. When I give sannyas to a Chinese, then I have much difficulty looking into their eyes.

You have different kinds of eyes. Everybody has different kinds of eyes and different kinds of noses, so don’t become too occupied with these minor things. They are just indications. Understand them, absorb them, and go on your way. Find out your own way. The basic note to be remembered is: you have to be comfortable and relaxed.

THIS DANGER ARISES IF TOO MUCH TROUBLE IS TAKEN. I DO NOT MEAN THAT NO TROUBLE IS TO BE TAKEN, BUT THE CORRECT WAY LIES IN KEEPING EQUAL DISTANCE BETWEEN BEING AND NOT BEING.

One has to be exactly in the middle. People either become too active or become too inactive. If they become too active, anxiety is created, a kind of rush, hurry, speed, restlessness; if they become too inactive, sleep, a kind of lethargy, indolence. Be in the middle. This being in the middle is a criterion to be used always. Don’t eat too much, don’t starve too much. Don’t sleep too much, don’t sleep less than needed. Remember always to be in the middle. Excess is prohibited. All kinds of extremes have to be dropped, because only in the middle is there a relaxed state of mind.

IF ONE CAN ATTAIN PURPOSELESSNESS THROUGH PURPOSE, THEN THE THING HAS BEEN GRASPED.

If one can attain this kind of balance, between effort and effortlessness, between purpose and purposelessness, between being and no-being, between mind and no-mind, between action and no-action…

… IF ONE CAN ATTAIN PURPOSELESSNESS THROUGH PURPOSE effortlessness through effort, inactivity through action — THEN THE THING HAS BEEN GRASPED. NOW ONE CAN LET ONESELF GO, DETACHED AND WITHOUT CONFUSION, IN AN INDEPENDENT WAY.

This is the basic: then one can allow oneself to flow with the flow of things. One can let oneself go.

FURTHERMORE, ONE MUST NOT FALL VICTIM TO THE ENSNARING WORLD. THE ENSNARING WORLD IS WHERE THE FIVE KINDS OF DARK DEMONS DISPORT THEMSELVES. THIS IS THE CASE, FOR EXAMPLE, WHEN AFTER FIXATION ONE HAS CHIEFLY THOUGHTS OF DRY WOOD AND DEAD ASHES AND FEW THOUGHTS OF THE BRIGHT SPRING ON THE GREAT EARTH.

Remember, the greatest problem for a religious person is not to be too serious; the greatest problem for the religious person is not to be sad; the greatest problem for the religious person is not to be negative, because ordinarily that happens — religious persons become very sad, very serious, very life-negative. They forget all about spring, they only think of dry wood and dead ashes. They have lost balance. A few thoughts of the bright spring on the great earth have to be remembered.

The really religious person is one who knows the sense of humor. The really religious person is sincere but never serious, utterly devoted to his work but never with that attitude of ‘holier-than-thou’, NEVER; never feeling any superiority because of it, but humble. The really religious person is one who can dance with the wind and the rains, who can smile and giggle with children, who can feel at ease with all kinds of situations in life. That is freedom, that is freedom from the ego. Ego makes one serious.

IN THIS WAY ONE SINKS INTO THE WORLD OF THE DARK.

If you become too serious you will sink into the world of the dark, into the negative world.

THE ENERGY IS COLD THERE, BREATHING IS ROUGH, AND MANY IMAGES OF COLDNESS AND DECAY PRESENT THEMSELVES.

Remember, you are not to become cold. You will find your so-called saints very cold: they have misunderstood the whole point. Become cool, but never become cold — and there is a lot of difference between the two, and a very deep paradox is there. I call it ‘cool’: compared to the heated state of passion, it is cool; it is warm compared to the coldness of death. It is warm compared to the coldness of death and it is cool compared to the passionate lust for life. It is warm and cool both. A really religious person is cool because he has no lust, and he is warm because he is not sad, he is not serious.

IF ONE TARRIES THERE LONG, ONE ENTERS THE WORLD OF PLANTS AND STONES.

And if you become too cold, sooner or later you will become a rock, you will become unconscious. You will fall from humanity. Many of your saints, in my observation, are people who have fallen from humanity. They have not become superhuman, they have become sub-human. They belong to the worlds of rocks and stones.

NOR MUST A MAN BE LED ASTRAY BY THE TEN THOUSAND ENSNAREMENTS. THIS HAPPENS IF AFTER THE QUIET STATE HAS BEGUN, ONE AFTER ANOTHER ALL SORTS OF TIES SUDDENLY APPEAR. ONE WANTS TO BREAK THROUGH AND CANNOT. ONE FOLLOWS THEM AND FEELS AS IF RELIEVED BY THIS.

This is where psychoanalysis has gone wrong. Psychoanalysis has become the method of free association of thoughts. You can go on and on. One thought leads to another, ad infinitum. One should remain detached from the procession of thoughts. They will come, they will surround you from everywhere. They will be like clouds; even the little bit of sky will be lost. And when there are too many thoughts, the natural instinct is to fight with them, because you have read that meditation means thoughtlessness. But by fighting one never become. thoughtless. If you fight, you will be defeated. The very fight becomes the cause for your defeat. You cannot fight with shadows, otherwise you will be defeated. Try fighting with your own shadow and you will be defeated — not that the shadow is very powerful, but because the shadow is NOT. And fighting with something which is not, how can you win? Thoughts are shadows, don’t fight with them.

And if you don’t fight then the other alternative opals up — that’s what psychoanalysis has chosen: then move with them, then let them move wherever they move — free association of thoughts. Then one thought is tied with another and with another and with another, and it goes on and on ad infinitum, ad nauseam. This will feel like a kind of relaxation. That’s why out of psychoanalysis PEOPLE feel helped, saved. They are not saved, they are not helped; just the fight disappears. Because you fight you become tense. When you don’t fight the tension disappears — and that disappearance of the tension gives you the feeling as if you are saved.

Mulla Nasruddin uses very tight shoes, two sizes less than he needs. The whole day he complains, and the whole day he is angry with the shoes.

I asked him one day, “Why don’t you change these shoes? Why do you go on complaining? Who is forcing you to wear these shoes? You can purchase another pair.”

He said, “That I cannot do! Never!”

I said, “Why?”

“Because,” he said, “this is my only solace. When after the whole day’s struggle with the shoes I come home and throw these shoes away and lie down on my bed, it feels so good!”

It will feel good. When you fight with your thoughts and you cannot win, then you drop fighting and you allow the thoughts to move and you start moving with them, it feels good. That’s what the whole secret of psychoanalysis is. Psychoanalysis does not help at all: it simply makes you feel good because it helps you to drop fighting.

Lu-tsu says, “Both are not right. There is no need to fight, there is no need to allow the thoughts and become a follower of them. You remain a watcher, a witness.”

THIS MEANS THE MASTER HAS BECOME THE SERVANT.

If you follow the thoughts, the master has become the servant.

IF A MAN TARRIES IN THIS STAGE LONG, HE ENTERS THE WORLD OF ILLUSORY DESIRES._

The master has to be claimed back. You have to be the master, not the servant. And what is mastery? — to be a witness is to be a master. Just watch those thoughts; utterly calm and quiet, watch. Let them come, let them go, let them arise, let them disappear. You simply take note — the thought is arising, the thought is there, the thought is gone — and soon you will come to a point where they arise less and less and less; and then one day, the gap… all thoughts have disappeared. In that gap, the first experience of God.

AT BEST ONE FINDS ONESELF IN HEAVEN, AT THE WORST, AMONG THE FOX-SPIRITS. SUCH A FOX-SPIRIT, IT IS TRUE, MAY BE ABLE TO ROAM IN THE FAMOUS MOUNTAINS, ENJOYING THE WIND AND THE MOON, THE FLOWERS AND FRUITS, AND TAKING HIS PLEASURE IN CORAL TREES AND JEWELLED GRASS. BUT AFTER HAVING DONE THIS, HIS REWARD IS OVER AND HE IS BORN AGAIN INTO THE WORLD OF TURMOIL.

If you succeed in meditation you are born in heaven, in eternal bliss. If you don’t succeed, if you go astray… That going astray in Taoism is called: “At worst, one is born among the fox-spirits.”

A fox-spirit is the spirit of a poet. The fox-spirit is the spirit of imagination. Even if you fail in your meditations something will be gained. This will be your gain: you will enjoy the trees more and the flowers more, and the world and the beauty more. But sooner or later the energy that had been created by meditation will disappear and you will have to fall back again to the old turmoil.

Remember, if you succeed in meditation the joy is eternally yours. But even if you fail you will find a few moments of beautiful joy and poetry. Those who fail in meditation become poets, those who succeed become seers. Seers are poets of the eternal, poets are the poets of the momentary.

That’s why sometimes it happens: a little bit of meditation and you feel so good that you stop meditating. You think all is attained. Trees are greener, roses are rosier, love is going beautifully, things have started happening — why bother? But soon the energy that had been created will disappear: you have become a fox-spirit. That’s what is happening through drugs all over the world: drugs only create fox-spirits. But meditation, if not completed, can also do the same.

Once the decision has been taken, then it is a commitment: YOU HAVE to go to the very end of it. It is a challenge. Accept this challenge and go for this most beautiful journey of your inner search. And never stop in the middle anywhere unless you have arrived, unless you have arrived to the center of the cyclone.

Source: OSHO

When Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” Jesus remained silent. Not only that, the story says that when Pontius Pilate asked the question, “What is truth?” he did not wait to listen for the answer. He left the room and went away. This is very strange. Pontius Pilate also thinks that there cannot be an answer for it, so he didn’t wait for the answer. Jesus remained silent because he also knows it cannot be answered.

But these two understandings are not the same, because these two persons are diametrically opposite. Pontius Pilate thinks that it cannot be answered because there is no truth; how can you answer it? That is the logical mind, the Roman mind. Jesus remains silent not because there is no truth, but because the truth is so vast, it is not definable. The truth is so huge, enormous, it cannot be confined in a word, it cannot be reduced to language. It is there. One can be it, but one cannot say it.

For two different reasons they behaved almost in the same way: Pontius didn’t wait to hear the answer, he knew already that there is no truth. Jesus remains silent because he knows truth, and knows that it could not be said.

Chidvilas has asked this question. The question is absolutely significant. There is no question higher than that, because there is no religion higher than truth. It has to be understood; the question has to be analyzed. Analyzing the question, trying to understand the question itself, you may have an insight into what truth is. I will not answer it, I cannot answer it; nobody can answer it. But we can go deep into the question. Going deep into the question, the question will start disappearing. When the question has disappeared you will find the answer there at the very core of your heart — you are truth, so how can you miss it? Maybe you have forgotten about it, maybe you have lost track of it, maybe you have forgotten how to enter into your own being, into your own truth.

Truth is not an hypothesis, truth is not a dogma. Truth is neither Hindu nor Christian nor Mohammedan. Truth is neither mine nor yours. Truth belongs to nobody, but everybody belongs to truth. Truth means that which is: that is exactly the meaning of the word. It comes from a Latin root, verus. Verus means: that which is. In English there are a few words which are derivations of the Latin root verus: was, were — they come from verus. In German, war — that comes from verus. Verus means that which is, uninterpreted. Once the interpretation comes in, then what you know is reality, not truth. That is the difference between truth and reality. Reality is truth interpreted.

So the moment you answer the question, “What is truth?” it becomes reality; it is no longer truth. Interpretation has entered into it, the mind has colored it. And realities are as many as there are minds; there are multi-realities. Truth is one because truth is known only when the mind is not there. It is mind that keeps you separate from me, separate from others, separate from existence. If you look through the mind, then the mind will give you a picture of truth. That will be only a picture, a photograph of that which is. And of course, the photograph depends on the camera, on the film used, on the chemicals, on how it has been developed, how it has been printed, who has done it. A thousand and one other things enter in; it becomes reality.

The word reality is also beautiful to be understood. It comes from the root, res; it means thing or things. Truth is not a thing. Once interpreted, once the mind has grabbed it, defined it, demarked it, it becomes a thing.

When you fall in love with a woman there is some truth — if you have fallen absolutely unaware, if you have not ‘done’ it in any way, if you have not acted, managed, if you have not even thought about it. Suddenly you see a woman, you look into her eyes, she looks into your eyes, and something clicks. You are not the doer of it, you are simply possessed by it, you simply fall into it. It has nothing to do with you. Your ego is not involved, at least not in the very, very beginning, when love is virgin. In that moment there is truth, but there is no interpretation. That’s why love remains indefinable.

Soon the mind comes in, starts managing things, takes possession of you. You start thinking about the girl as your girlfriend, you start thinking of how to get married, you start thinking about the woman as your wife. Now these are things; the girlfriend, the wife — these are things. The truth is no longer there, it has receded back. Now things are becoming more important. The definable is more secure, the indefinable is insecure. You have started killing, poisoning the truth. Sooner or later there will be a wife and a husband, two things. But the beauty is gone, the joy has disappeared, the honeymoon is over.

The honeymoon is over at that exact moment when truth becomes reality, when love becomes a relationship. The honeymoon is very short, unfortunately — I’m not talking about the honeymoon that you go for. The honeymoon is very short. Maybe for a single moment it was there, but the purity of it, the crystal purity of it, the divinity of it, the beyondness of it — it is from eternity, it is not of time. It is not part of this mundane world, it is like a ray coming into a dark hole. It comes from the transcendental. It is absolutely appropriate to call love God, because love is truth. The closest that you come to truth in ordinary life is love.

Chidvilas asks: “What is truth?”

Asking has to disappear; only then do you know.

If you ask, “What is truth?” what are you asking? If I say A is truth, B is truth, C is truth, will that be the answer? If I say A is truth, then certainly A cannot be the truth: it is something else that I am using as synonymous with truth. If it is absolutely synonymous, then it will be a tautology. Then I can say, “Truth is truth,” but that is silly, meaningless. Nothing is solved by it. If it is exactly the same, if A is truth, then it will mean truth is truth. If A is different, is not exactly truth, then I am falsifying. Then to say A is truth will be only approximate. And remember, there cannot be anything approximate. Either truth is or it is not. So I cannot say A is truth.

I cannot even say, “God is truth,” because if God is truth then it is a tautology — “Truth is truth.” Then I’m not saying anything. If God is different from truth, then I am saying something, but then I am saying something wrong. Then God is different, then how can he be truth? If I say it is approximate, linguistically it looks alright, but it is not right. ‘Approximately’ means some lie is there, something false is there. Otherwise, why is it not a hundred percent truth? If it is ninety-nine percent truth then something is there which is not true. And truth and untruth cannot exist together, just as darkness and light cannot exist together — because darkness is nothing but absence. Absence and presence cannot exist together, truth and untruth cannot exist together. Untruth is nothing but the absence of truth.

So no answer is possible, hence Jesus remained silent. But if you look at it with deep sympathy, if you look into the silence of Jesus, you will have an answer. Silence is the answer. Jesus is saying, “Be silent, as I am silent, and you will know” — not saying it in words. It is a gesture, it is very, very Zen-like. In that moment when Jesus remained silent, he comes very close to the Zen approach, to the Buddhist approach. He is a Buddha in that moment. Buddha never answered these questions. He had eleven questions listed: wherever he would move his disciples would go around and declare to people, “Never ask these eleven questions of Buddha” — questions which are fundamental, questions which are really significant. You could ask anything else, and Buddha was always ready to answer. But don’t ask the fundamental, because the fundamental can only be experienced. And truth is the most fundamental; the very substance of existence is what truth is.

Go into the question. The question is significant, it is arising in your heart: “What is truth?” — a desire to know that which is, is arising. Don’t push it aside, go into it. Chidvilas, whenever it happens again, close your eyes, go into the question. Let the question become very, very focussed — “What… is… truth?” Let there arise a great concentration. Forget everything, as if your whole life depends on this simple question, “What is truth?” Let it become a matter of life and death. And don’t try to answer it, because you don’t know the answer.

Answers may be coming — the mind always tries to supply answers — but see the fact that you don’t know, that’s why you are asking. So how can your mind supply you an answer? The mind knows not, so tell the mind, “Keep quiet.” If you know, then there is no need for the question. You don’t know, hence the question.

So don’t be befooled by the mind’s toys. It supplies toys: it says, “Look, it is written in the Bible. Look, it is written in the Upanishads. This is the answer. Look, this is written by Lao Tzu, this is the answer.” The mind can throw all kinds of scriptures at you: the mind can quote, the mind can supply from the memory. You have heard many things, you have read many things; the mind carries all those memories. It can repeat in a mechanical way. But look into this phenomenon: that the mind knows not, and all that mind is repeating is borrowed. And the borrowed cannot help.

It happened at a railway crossing. The gates were closed, some train was to pass, and a man was sitting in his car, waiting for the train to pass, reading a book. A drunkard who was just sitting by the side of the gate came close, knocked on the air-conditioned car’s window. The man opened the window and said, “What can I do for you? Do you need any help?”

And the bum said, “Yes, for two days I have not eaten anything at all. Can you give me two rupees? That will be enough for me, just two rupees.”

The man laughed and said, “Never borrow and never lend money,” and showed the book to the bum and said, “Shakespeare — Shakespeare says so. Look.”

The bum pulled out of his pocket a very dirty paperback and said to the man, “You sonofabitch — D. H. Lawrence.”

Beware of the mind. The mind goes on quoting, the mind knows all without knowing at all. The mind is a pretender. See into this phenomenon: this I call insight. It is not a question of thinking. If you think about it, it is again the mind. You have to see through and through. You have to look deeply into the very phenomenon, the functioning of the mind, how the mind functions. It borrows from here and there, it goes on borrowing and accumulating. It is a hoarder, a hoarder of knowledge. Mind becomes very knowledgeable, and then whenever you ask a question which is really important the mind gives a very unimportant answer to it — futile, superficial, rubbish.

A man bought a parrot from a pet shop. The shop-owner assured him the bird would learn to say hello within half an hour. Back home he spent an hour ‘helloing’ to the parrot, but not a word from the bird. As he was turning away in sheer despair, the bird said, “Number engaged.”

A parrot is a parrot. He must have heard it in the pet shop. And this man was going on and on, “Hello, hello, hello,” and the bird was listening, and waiting for him to stop. Then he could say, “Number engaged!”

You can go on asking the mind, “What is truth, what is truth, what is truth?” And the moment you stop, the mind will immediately say, “Number engaged” or something. The mind will give you an answer. Beware of the mind.

The mind is the devil, there is no other devil. And it is your mind. This insight has to be developed — of looking through and through. Cut the mind in two with a sharp blow of the sword. That sword is awareness. Cut the mind in two and go through it, go beyond it! And if you can go beyond the mind, through the mind, and a moment of no-mind arises in you, there is the answer — not a verbal answer, not a scripture quoted, not in quotation marks, but authentically yours, an experience. Truth is an existential experience.

The question is immensely significant, but you will have to be very respectful towards the question. Don’t be in a hurry to find any answer, otherwise some rubbish will kill the answer. Don’t allow your mind to kill the question. And the way of the mind to kill the question is to supply answers, unlived, unexperienced.

You are truth! But it can happen only in utter silence, when not a single thought moves, when the mind has nothing to say, when not a single ripple is in your consciousness. When there is no ripple in your consciousness, your consciousness remains undistorted. When there is a ripple, there is a distortion.

Just go to a lake. Standing on the bank, look down at your reflection. If there are waves, ripples on the lake, and wind is blowing, your reflection is shaky. You cannot figure out what is what — where is your nose and where are your eyes — you can only guess. But when the lake is silent and the wind is not blowing and there is not a single ripple on the surface, suddenly you are there. In absolute perfection, the reflection is there. The lake becomes a mirror.

Whenever there is a thought moving in your consciousness it distorts. And there are many thoughts, millions of thoughts, continuously rushing, and it is always rush-hour. Twenty-four hours a day it is rush-hour, and the traffic goes on and on and on, and each thought is associated with thousands of other thoughts. They are all holding hands and linked together and interlinked, and the whole crowd is rushing around you. How can you know what truth is? Get out of this crowd.

That’s what meditation is, that’s what meditation is all about: a consciousness without mind, a consciousness without thoughts, a consciousness without any wavering — an unwavering consciousness. Then it is there in all its beauty and benediction. Then truth is there — call it God, call it nirvana, or whatsoever you like to call it. It is there, and it is there as an experience. You are in it and it is in you.

Use this question. Make it more penetrating. Make it so penetrating; put everything at stake so that the mind cannot befool you by its superficial answers. Once the mind disappears, once the mind is no longer playing its old tricks, you will know what truth is. You will know it in silence. You will know it in thoughtless awareness.

Source: OSHO, The Heart Sutra

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About Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic

Ten years have passed since, in the words of his attending physician, Osho prepared for his departure from the body that had served him for 59 years “as calmly as though he were packing for a weekend in the country.” This volume is a recognition that the time has come to provide a historical and biographical context for understanding Osho and his work. Who was this man, known as the sex guru, the “self-appointed Bhagwan”, the Rolls Royce Guru, the Rich Man’s Guru and simply the Master?

Drawn from nearly 5000 hours of Osho’s recorded talks, we hear the story of his youth and education, his life as a professor of philosophy and years of travel teaching the importance of meditation, and the true legacy he sought to leave behind: a religionless religion centered on the act of meditation and the teaching of “Zorba the Buddha”, a celebration of the whole human being.

OSHO is one of the most provocative spiritual teachers of our time. In the 1970’s he captured the attention of young people from the West who wanted to experience meditation and transformation; A decade after his death, the influence of his teachings continues to expand, reaching seekers around the world.

Reviews

All reviews are of the hardcover edition

*Booklist
“Osho’s posthumous autobiography affords a delightful glimpse into the life of one of the most outrageous twentieth-century spiritual leaders. Consisting of anecdotes that Osho told during his many lectures and classes, the book has a conversational tone that well conveys the sometimes infamous guru’s dynamic personality as it offers a sampling of his thoughts on meditation, enlightenment, sex, money, education, and the evolution of consciousness.

“Osho was not afraid to tackle the world’s major religions, pointing out inconsistencies and hypocrisy where he found them and simultaneously drawing together their best aspects into a synthesis grounded in meditation. Osho also answers some of the criticisms leveled at him for his seemingly outrageous behavior and his iconoclastic tendencies. He proves a fascinating man: a prolific writer and lecturer, highly educated, and deeply passionate about his own search for truth. Whether or not one is interested in Osho’s teachings or in the controversies surrounding his movement, his autobiography is entertaining, insightful and for some, perhaps, even enlightening.”

*The New York Times calls Booklist “an acquisitions bible for public and school librarians nationwide.” It is the review journal of the American Library Association, and recommends works of fiction, nonfiction, children’s books, reference books, and media to 30,000 institutional and personal subscribers.

Amazon.com
Although he was criticized for being too enamored with the ways of the West, India’s spiritual leader Osho managed to garner global notoriety as the founder of “Dynamic Meditation.” During his controversial lifetime (which ended–at least on this planet–in 1990) Osho was asked numerous times if he would write an autobiography. “He would always dismiss the question with the wave of his hand,” writes Sarito Carol Neiman in her foreword. “[He] would say his biography is to be found in the sum of his work–in his hundreds of volumes of published talks, and in the transformed lives of the people he touched.” In fact this “autobiography” is just that–a collection of interviews (including excerpts from appearances on Good Morning America and 60 Minutes), personal essays, and quotes. Disjointed as this material may sound, the editors behind the project were able to piece together a smooth autobiography that does not shy from self-criticism or the fundamental question of whether Osho was a “Cult Leader,” “Joker,” “Master,” or “Zorba the Guru.” (The answer, of course, is all of the above.) Followers and seekers will find this a profound and playful collection of stories and teachings. -Gail Hudson

“I enjoyed reading this book… While it presented the history of Osho and of what he calls “his people”, it also presents a look at our society and at ourselves, and presents a new way of living and being that brings a more balanced perspective to our life. Osho suggests that we need to make the changes within and then live the change so that we become an example to follow, rather than someone who tries to change others and convert them to our point of view.” – from InnerSelf Magazine

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Awareness

Awareness (The Key to Living in Balance) One of the most important things to be understood about man is that man is asleep.

List Price: USD 14.99
About Awareness

190 Pages
Most of us move through our lives like sleepwalkers. Never really present in what we are doing, never fully alert to our environment, and not even aware of what motivates us to do and say the things we do.
At work we are always “multi-tasking” – planning our tomorrows before we have even begun our todays, reading e-mail while talking on the phone, worrying about what is left undone on the to-do list as we take notes in a meeting that produces more to-do’s.
And in our personal relationships, we have all experienced moments when we have lashed out in anger, or found ourselves suddenly in a tangle of misunderstandings without quite knowing how we got there – “I did it in spite of myself,” or “I don’t know what came over me.” So unaware of our own inner processes that the path between inner feeling and outer expression is shrouded in darkness not only to others but also to ourselves.
At the same time, all of us have experienced moments of awareness – or awakening, to use another term – in extraordinary circumstances. On the road, in a sudden and unexpected accident, time seems to stop and one is suddenly aware of every movement, every sound, every thought. Or in moments that touch us deeply – welcoming a new baby into the world for the first time, or being with someone at the moment of death.
Awareness, says Osho, is the key to being self-directed, centered and free – at work or at play, alone or in relationship, in the marketplace or on the mountaintop, in every aspect of our lives.

Chapter Titles

Foreword
PART I: The Understanding
Chapter 1: Of Men and Rats
Chapter 2: The Roots of Suffering
Chapter 3: Private Worlds
Chapter 4: Awareness and Centering
PART 2: Many Illnesses, One Prescription
Chapter 5: The Analyst and the Witness
Chapter 6: Tension and Relaxation
Chapter 7: Mind and Meditation
Chapter 8: The Rut and the Wheel
PART 3: Awareness in Action
Chapter 9: Start From the Center
Chapter 10: Be Spontaneous
Chapter 11: Be Decisive
Chapter 12: Complete Each Moment
Chapter 13: Stop Trying to Be Good
PART 4: Experiments in Watching
Chapter 14: Time Yourself into Timelessness
Chapter 15: The Invisible Touch
Chapter 16: Vipassana
Chapter 17: The Night Shift
Afterword: Hanging by a Thread

Excerpt from Awareness

from the Foreword
One of the most important things to be understood about man is that man is asleep. Even while he thinks he is awake, he is not. His wakefulness is very fragile; his wakefulness is so tiny it doesn’t matter at all. His wakefulness is only a beautiful name but utterly empty.

You sleep in the night, you sleep in the day – from birth to death you go on changing your patterns of sleep, but you never really awaken. Just by opening the eyes don’t befool yourself that you are awake. Unless the inner eyes open – unless your inside becomes full of light, unless you can see yourself, who you are – don’t think that you are awake. That is the greatest illusion man lives in. And once you accept that you are already awake, then there is no question of making any effort to be awake.

The first thing to sink deep in your heart is that you are asleep, utterly asleep. You are dreaming, day in, day out. You are dreaming sometimes with open eyes and sometimes with closed eyes, but you are dreaming – you are a dream. You are not yet a reality.

Of course in a dream whatsoever you do is meaningless. Whatsoever you think is pointless, whatsoever you project remains part of your dreams and never allows you to see that which is. Hence all the buddhas have insisted on only one thing: Awaken! Continuously, for centuries, their whole teaching can be contained in a single phrase: Be awake. And they have been devising methods, strategies; they have been creating contexts and spaces and energy fields in which you can be shocked into awareness.

Yes, unless you are shocked, shaken to your very foundations, you will not awaken. The sleep has been so long that it has reached to the very core of your being; you are soaked in it. Each cell of your body and each fiber of your mind have become full of sleep. It is not a small phenomenon. Hence great effort is needed to be alert, to be attentive, to be watchful, to become a witness. If all the buddhas of the world agree on any one single theme, this is it – that man as he is, is asleep, and man as he should be, should be awake. Wakefulness is the goal and wakefulness is the taste of all their teachings. Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, Jesus, Buddha, Bahauddin, Kabir, Nanak – all the awakened ones have been teaching one single theme… in different languages, in different metaphors, but their song is the same. Just as the sea tastes of salt – whether the sea is tasted from the north or from the east or from the west, the sea always tastes of salt – the taste of buddhahood is wakefulness.

But you will not make any effort if you go on believing that you are already awake. Then there is no question of making any effort – why bother?

And you have created religions, gods, prayers, rituals, out of your dreams – your gods are as much part of your dreams as anything else. Your politics is part of your dreams, your religions are part of your dreams, your poetry, your painting, your art – whatsoever you do, because you are asleep, you do things according to your own state of mind.

Your gods cannot be different from you. Who will create them? Who will give them shape and color and form? You create them, you sculpt them; they have eyes like you, noses like you – and minds like you! The Old Testament God says, “I am a very jealous God!” Now who has created this God who is jealous? God cannot be jealous, and if God is jealous then what is wrong in being jealous? If even God is jealous, why should you be thought to be doing something wrong when you are jealous? Jealousy is divine!

The Old Testament God says, “I am a very angry God! If you don’t follow my commandments, I will destroy you. You will be thrown into hellfire for eternity. And because I am very jealous,” God says, “don’t worship anybody else. I cannot tolerate it.” Who created such a God? It must be out of our own jealousy, out of our own anger, that you have created this image. It is your projection, it is your shadow. It echoes you and nobody else. And the same is the case with all gods of all religions.

It is because of this that Buddha never talked about God. He said, “What is the point of talking about God to people who are asleep? They will listen in their sleep. They will dream about whatsoever is said to them, and they will create their own gods – which will be utterly false, utterly impotent, utterly meaningless. It is better not to have such gods.”

That’s why Buddha is not interested in talking about gods. His whole interest is in waking you up.

It is said about a Buddhist enlightened master who was sitting by the side of the river one evening, enjoying the sound of the water, the sound of the wind passing through the trees…. A man came and asked him, “Can you tell me in a single word the essence of your religion?”

The master remained silent, utterly silent, as if he had not heard the question. The questioner said, “Are you deaf or something?”

The master said, “I have heard your question, and I have answered it too! Silence is the answer. I remained silent – that pause, that interval, was my answer.”

The man said, “I cannot understand such a mysterious answer. Can’t you be a little more clear?”

So the master wrote on the sand “meditation,” in small letters with his finger. The man said, “I can read now. It is a little better than at first. At least I have got a word to ponder over. But can’t you make it a little more clear?” The master wrote again, “MEDITATION.” Of course this time he wrote in bigger letters. The man was feeling a little embarrassed, puzzled, offended, angry. He said, “Again you write meditation? Can’t you be a little clear for me?”

And the master wrote in very big letters, capital letters, “M E D I T A T I O N.”

The man said, “You seem to be mad!”

The master said, “I have already come down very much. The first answer was the right answer, the second was not so right, the third even more wrong, the fourth has gone very wrong” – because when you write “MEDITATION” with capital letters you have made a god out of it.

That’s why the word God is written with capital ’G’. Whenever you want to make something supreme, ultimate, you write it with a capital letter. The master said, “I have already committed a sin.” He erased all those words he had written and he said, “Please listen to my first answer – only then I am true.”

Silence is the space in which one awakens, and the noisy mind is the space in which one remains asleep. If your mind continues chattering, you are asleep. Sitting silently, if the mind disappears and you can hear the chattering birds and no mind inside, a silence…this whistle of the bird, the chirping, and no mind functioning in your head, utter silence…then awareness wells up in you. It does not come from the outside, it arises in you, it grows in you. Otherwise remember: you are asleep.

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And be playful. Remember this word ‘playful’ always—with me, it is very basic. In this country we call creation God’s leela—God’s play. God has not created the world; it is his play.

First stage: 40 minutes

With eyes closed dance as if possessed. Let your unconscious take over completely. Do not control your movements or be a witness to what is happening. Just be totally in the dance.

Second stage: 20 minutes

Keeping your eyes closed, lie down immediately. Be silent and still.

Third stage: 5 minutes

Dance in celebration and enjoy.

There is nothing better than dance for dropping the ego; hence I insist that all meditators should dance. Because if you go really in a whirlwind, if you are really a whirling pool of energy, if you really are in the dance, the dancer is lost. In the dance the dancer is always lost. If it is not lost then you are not dancing. Then you may be performing, then you may be manipulating, then you may be doing some bodily exercises, but you are not dancing.

Dancing means so lost, so drunk—and enjoying the energy that is created by dance. By and by you will see your body is no more so solid as it was before. By and by you will see that you are melting; the boundary is losing its sharpness, it is becoming a little vague. You cannot exactly feel where you end and where the world starts. A dancer is in such a whirlpool, he becomes such a vibration, that the whole life is felt as in one rhythm.
OSHO

The Madman’s Guide to Enlightenment

Do at least one meditation every day. Choose any meditation, but persist with one method; don’t go on changing. Whether results come or not, go on persisting in it. Results certainly come; all that is needed is patience. Methods don’t work. What really works is patience. Methods are devices to help you to remain patient and open.

If a person simply sits in his room for one hour every day doing nothing — no method, no technique, just sitting there — if he sits long enough it is going to happen. All meditations are just explanations for people who cannot just sit, rationalisations for people who cannot allow themselves to just sit. They need something, so when they think they are doing meditations they can allow themselves a one-hour gap, otherwise they won’t allow. In fact meditation is nothing. It is simply waiting, resting, a state of no action… and that is our natural state.

Think of the child in the mother’s womb, doing nothing. That is a nine-month meditation marathon. And the child is utterly happy. In fact, because of that blissfulness, one always feels a suffering in life. Compared to it whatsoever happens in life falls short. Although consciously you have forgotten about it, unconsciously it persists as a nostalgia. We know in some subtle way, our body knows, that there was a time when all was just bliss. But you were not doing anything in the womb; you were in a state of no action — ‘wu-wei’. You were just there. That’s what meditation is all about: again creating a womb situation.

So close your doors, sit silently; even that will do. But make it a point that one hour has to be given every day. And results won’t pop up immediately, because we have learned habits of action and they have become so deep-rooted that even when you are sitting, you find some ways to do something. At least you can go on changing your posture, you can think of a thousand and one things. You can have dreams. You can wonder ‘Who is this child crying? Why? Why is this dog barking?’ Or you can create subtle mechanisms in the body to distract you. Maybe an ant is creeping on your leg or there is pain and you have to change the posture. These are nothing but tricks, strategies of the mind to keep you occupied, because the mind dies utterly if there is no occupation. The mind is occupation. Meditation means a state of no occupation.

So if you like any method, you can do it; if you don’t, just sit. Twenty-three hours are yours; one hour give to me.

And finally you will see that only that one hour has been saved; all the other twenty-three hours have gone down the drain.

You have to put the energy into your earning because you have to come forever, so settle things. But one hour for meditation, mm? that will be a contact with me, a connection, and it will rejuvenate you every day. It will go on creating new spaces for you. But don’t hanker for them and don’t expect them. Don’t even think about them. When they happen say ‘thank you’ to the sky and forget all about it.

And don’t for a single moment have the idea in your mind ‘Now it has happened it has to happen every day.’ Once you desire a repetition you are getting into trouble; it will not happen again. It happens only in an innocent mind. It happens only when there was no expectation, no desire, no action, no occupation, just a simple passivity. One was, nothing else — a pure being, a naked, bare being. One was just breathing, one was aware.

So give one hour to meditation and put your energies into the work and come back as soon as you can.

Source: OSHO