Osho – The last statement of Gautama the Buddha to his disciples was: Be a light unto yourself. They were crying and weeping, naturally — the master was leaving and they had lived with the master for almost forty years; a few older disciples had lived with him the whole time. These forty years were of tremendous joy, of great experiences. These forty years had been the most beautiful time possible, humanly possible. These forty years had been days of paradise on earth. And now the master is leaving! It was natural, they started crying and weeping.

Buddha opened his eyes and said, “Stop crying and weeping! Have you not listened to me yet? Why are you crying?”
His chief disciple, Ananda, said, “Because you are leaving, because our light is leaving. We see, we feel darkness descending upon us. I have not yet become enlightened and you are leaving. If I could not become enlightened while you were alive, what is the hope for me now when you will be gone? I am in great despair, my anguish is incalculable, I have wasted these forty years. I have been following you like a shadow, it was tremendously beautiful to be with you, but now you are leaving. What is going to happen to us?”

Buddha said, “You are crying because you have not heard me yet. I have been telling you again and again: Don’t believe in me — but you have not listened. Because you have believed in me, and now I am dying, your whole structure is falling apart. Had you listened to me, had you created a light into your being rather than becoming knowledgeable through me, if you had experienced your own self there would have been no need to cry.

“Look at Manjushree!” he said — Manjushree was another disciple of Buddha, one of the greatest. He was sitting under a tree just close by, with closed eyes, so serene, so quiet, so utterly blissful, that Buddha said, “Look at Manjushree! Go and ask him why he is not crying.”

They asked Manjushree. He laughed and said, “What reason is there to cry? Buddha has helped me to know my own light. I am thankful, I am grateful, but there is no darkness descending. And how can Buddha die? I know I cannot die — how can Buddha die? He will be here. Just as a river disappears in the ocean he will disappear into the cosmos. But he will be here! He will be spread all over the cosmos. It is going to be something tremendously beautiful. Buddha was confined to a small body; now his fragrance will be released, he will permeate the whole of existence. I am tremendously happy that now Buddha will be spread all over space. I will be able to see him rising in the sun and I will be able to see him flying in a bird and I will be able to see him in the waves of the ocean… and I will be able to see him everywhere.

“He is simply leaving his body. It was a confinement. And how do I know it? I know it because I have known my own soul. I listened to him and you have not listened to him — that’s why you are crying.”

Buddha said, “Let me repeat again: APPA DIPO BHAVA — be a light unto yourself.” Then he closed his eyes and disappeared into the cosmos. But his last statement was also his first statement. In fact that was his whole message — the whole of his life he was repeating the same message again and again and again.

Source – Osho Book “The Dhammapada, Vol3″

Atisha Sutra – Train with Phrases in Every Mode of Behavior.
Osho – Atisha is not an escapist. He does not teach escapism, he does not tell you to move from situations which are not to your liking. He says: You have to learn to function in bodhichitta, in buddha-consciousness, in all kinds of situations — in the marketplace, in the monastery; with people in the crowd or alone in a cave; with friends or with enemies; with family, familiar people, and with strangers; with men and with animals. In all kinds of situations, in all kinds of challenges, you have to learn to function in compassion, in meditation — because all these experiences of different situations will make your bodhichitta more and more ripe.

Don’t escape from any situation — if you escape, then something will remain missing in you. Then your bodhichitta will not be that ripe, will not be that rich. Live life in its multidimensionality.

And that’s what I teach you too: Live life in its totality. And living in the world, don’t be of it. Live in the world like a lotus flower in water: it lives in water, but the water touches it not. Only then will bodhichitta flower in you, bloom in you. Only then will you come to know the ultimate consciousness which is freedom, which is joy, eternal joy, which is benediction. Not to know it is to miss the whole point of life; to know it is the only goal. The only goal — remember it.

And remember, Atisha’s sutras are not philosophical, not speculative, not abstract. They are experimental, they are scientific.

Let me repeat again: religion is a science in the sense that it is the purest knowing. Yet it is not a science in the sense of chemistry and physics. It is not the science of the outward, it is the science of the inward. It is not the science of the exterior, it is the science of the interior.

It is the science that takes you beyond, it is the science that takes you into the unknown and the unknowable. It is the greatest adventure there is. It is a call and a challenge to all those who have any courage, any guts, any intelligence. Religion is not for cowards, it is for people who want to live dangerously.

Source – Osho Book “The Book of Wisdom”

Question – Beloved Osho, Probably no enlightened master has spoken so many millions of words about the truth as you have. Lao tzu says, “the truth that can be spoken is not the truth.” Beloved Master, what do you say?

Osho – Lao Tzu is right. The truth that can be spoken is no longer true, because the mechanism of language distorts the experience — which happens beyond mind, beyond words. To pull it down to the darker valleys of language is certainly distorting it.

On the one hand it is true that the truth cannot be spoken; on the other hand, because the truth cannot be spoken it has to be spoken in thousands of ways. The problem is not that the truth will reach to you through thousands of ways, but you may become infected with the search.

If a man speaks about the truth he may not be able to say it… but you can get a glimpse from his eyes, you can get something from his gestures — something not from the words but the way the words are spoken, the emphasis, the gaps. The presence of such a man speaking may be just an excuse to allow you to be showered by his presence.

Lao Tzu cannot speak truth, but to be with Lao Tzu you may get the right direction. His presence may prove to you that there exists something that you know nothing about, and that it is so precious that all that you know and all that you have is worth sacrificing… that what you see in the presence of the master, of a realized man, is so precious that it has to be discovered; it has to become your experience too.

I have spoken millions of words just in order to give you a taste, a feel. Truth I cannot give to you — nobody can give it to you — but I can open my heart to you, which has known the truth, lived the truth. And that opening may help you in a very indirect way to go on your own pilgrimage. It may give you confidence that all this talk about truth is not just talk, that it changes people, that it changes their very presence, that it gives them a certain fragrance, a certain power, a certain authority. They don’t speak like anybody else. They are not orators, they are not speakers; they simply open their heart. Perhaps the rhythm of their heart will change the rhythm of your heart.

Listening to them you may not get the truth, but you may be transported into another world: a world of silence, a world of immense peace, a world of benediction. And all those are immensely helpful for the search.

So Lao Tzu is both right and wrong: right because what he is saying is exactly so — the spoken truth is no longer true. But that is not all. If the truth is spoken by someone, and if it is out of experience — and it can only be out of experience — then that very person, his every act radiates something. It is contagious. Hence, whether truth is conveyed to you or not is not important. What is important is that if you become convinced that there is something like truth, there is a certain transformation that brings the full flowering of the being, then the word, the language, has done more than can be expected!

So I say again, Lao Tzu is right and not right. And my emphasis on not right is more than on his being right; otherwise I would not have spoken millions of words, I would have remained silent. But I saw that it is not only a question of speaking; much more is involved. It shows why no mystic in the whole history of man has ever written anything.

The reason is that the written word will miss all that the spoken word has. It will be the same word — spoken or written makes no difference. It will be the same statement written or spoken, but why has no mystic agreed to write? The reason is that they were all aware that the spoken word has a living quality, because experience is behind it, a heart is beating behind it, a consciousness is making arduous effort to reach to you.

The written word is dead, just a corpse. You can worship it but it cannot give you anything. All scriptures are dead. Perhaps when they were spoken it was a different phenomenon. If the man who had spoken them was speaking out of his own realization, then something — the very vibe — is carried away by the word.

Truth may not be expressed, but truth becomes a reality. Seeing the master, seeing one who is a realized one, you become certain: if you are groping in the dark, don’t be worried, and don’t feel hopeless. Go on groping! Every night has a morning to it, and sooner or later you will find the door, you will reach to the point. If one man has reached, the whole humanity can reach. He is enough proof.

So the question is not whether truth can be spoken or not, the question is whether a presence can create a conviction that there is something that you are missing — and unless you find it your life will not be complete, will not be perfect.

Source – Osho Book “Beyond Psychology”

[A visitor says that he was at John Bennett’s school in England, where they did Gurdjieffian
exercises: Actually I left there quite confused – I suppose there’s no way out of that. I never had
much ability to do any of the exercises or things like that.]

Osho – It may not have suited you because Gurdjieff’s work is for a particular type, the will type – people who can work hard and very persistently, almost madly… because the whole thing depends on a very deep crystallisation of the ego. Once the ego is crystallised then further steps can be taken. But the whole Gurdjieffian system depends on you having a centre, a self.

Ordinarily you don’t have a centre. In fact Gurdjieff says you don’t have a soul – that is only a possibility; you may die without attaining it. What he calls the soul is nothing but a crystallised self, and crystallised so much so that it takes the position of being sovereign, enthroned, in the crowd of your many selves.

Ordinarily you have many egos, not one, and a conflict continuously going on. Sometimes one is in power, sometimes another is in power; a sort of democracy. A political head is not permanent, so much politics goes on within. So much politics and so much chaos goes on within that you never know where you are, who you are, what you are. Sometimes you have the feeling that you are this, but by the time you realise it that self is gone, is no more m power.

When you have a permanent self then Gurdjieff’s system really starts functioning. To attain that permanent self, one has to do tremendous work, in fact absurd work. Just out of too much work crystallisation happens; the work functions out of a chemical opportunity.

For example in many sufi schools from where Gurdjieff got the point, you have to remain alert for the whole night – for months. The only process to be done is not to allow yourself to fall asleep; it is very difficult. After a few days it becomes almost impossible, but if you can go on and on and on suddenly you realise one day that you are tired no more, that you are no longer feeling sleepy. You are as fresh as if you have been sleeping all the time – a deeper layer of energy has been broken.

We have three layers of energy. One is day to day, routine; you need it for eating, digesting, working, moving. It is finished in twenty-four hours and the next day you create it again. And there is a second layer of energy which is deeper; it becomes available only in emergencies.

Suddenly the house is on fire. You were tired and were falling to sleep, but now you feel that much energy is available. You are running and doing things and for hours you are in hard work. Not for a single moment do you remember that you are tired or that you would like to fall asleep. This is an emergency level available only in dangerous times. Gurdjieff used to create many situations for this purpose – just to bring this emergency level into functioning.

And then there is a third layer that comes only when you are touching the point of death; not only emergency but a death situation. He himself did the last of his experiments, which was to go through a very dangerous car accident. It was managed, it was not an accident; he did it with everything planned. Even doctors could not believe how a man could survive after such a crash.

It was impossible – but he survived. The whole body was broken, all the bones were broken, but he survived. The whole effort was to come to a point where death touches you; you were almost going to die – and then the third layer becomes available to you. If in that moment you can remain alert, then you have touched the very rock bottom of your being – call it God.

So the first layer is only of the ego, the second layer is of the soul, and the third layer is that of God. But the whole work of Gurdjieff is hard, work of the will, and I don’t see that you are the type. To you something more like Zen will be helpful. It moves from the very opposite pole: no effort, nothing to be done but relaxing and surrendering. It is not a question of work on your part. The only thing that you are expected to do is to accept non-doing and relax into it. That is totally different; not only different, but just the opposite polarity of the same thing.

And these are the two types – call them male and female, yin and yang, or whatsoever you like. But you are the feminine type, and this is the problem and has to be understood: that all feminine types are attracted to a male type. So if you were attracted towards Bennet or Gurdjieff or that type of work, it’s natural. The male type is attracted to the feminine paths of surrender. That’s where confusion arises – the opposite is always attractive.

So try Zen – something in which you have just to sit, just to walk, just to be, as if nothing is to be done. Gurdjieff says you have not soul, it has to be created. Zen says you have everything – just relax and enjoy it; it is there. Man is standing just in the middle of these two polarities. Move to any extreme and realisation is possible, because the jump is possible only from the extreme ends. You cannot jump from the middle of the road; you have to move to an extreme, and jump from there. So either move to the extreme of work, will – or move to the other extreme of surrender, no effort, passivity.

The whole of the East, particularly the Far East, has developed no-effort methods; and the Middle East, the Sufis particularly, have developed the path of will. So if you have been doing things just following the path of will, I will suggest to you that you move to the other extreme. Suddenly the key may fit….

Mm mm, we are doing here some buddhist meditations – Vipassana. It will be very good if you can do one ten day course and see. It is just sitting…. Because if you can relax and be passive – and it will be very easy for you – all confusion will disappear. Confusion arises only when you are doing something which is not in tune with your type.

Once something is in tune with your type, all confusion disappears. Confusion is simply indicative, symptomatic, that you are doing something that doesn’t suit you. You may go on doing it and it does not suit you, you go on doing it and it does not suit you, and the mind will say that you are not doing hard enough and that is why there is confusion – and more and more confusion will come.

Once something fits… it is just as when the shoe fits – suddenly you forget the shoe. Whenever a method fits, you simply forget about it and everything falls in line. Only the right key and the lock opens. Try to remember what I am saying. Your type is the feminine type. You are not an aggressive being; you are very non-violent. Not very out-going, not intrusive in any way; you would like to be within yourself. But this work, whatsoever you have been doing, can be helpful; at least it can show you that this is not your type. You be here and try Vipassana.

Source: from Osho Book “Above All Don’t Wobble”

Osho – The Teachings of the Awakened Ones are not teachings at all because they cannot be taught — so how to call them teachings? A teaching is that which can be taught. But nobody can teach you the truth. It is impossible. You can learn it, but it cannot be taught. It has to be learned. You can absorb it, you can imbibe it, you can live with a master and allow it to happen but it cannot be taught. It is a very indirect process.

Teaching is direct: something is said. Learning is indirect: something is indicated, not said — rather, something is shown. A finger is raised towards the sun, but the finger is not the point; you have to leave the finger and look at the sun, or at the moon. A master teaches but the teaching is just like the finger: you have to leave it and look where it indicates — the dimension, the direction, the beyond.A teacher teaches, a master LIVES — you can learn from his life, the way he moves, the way he looks at you, the way he touches you, the way he is.

You can imbibe it, you can allow it to happen, you can remain available, you can remain open and vulnerable. There is no way to say it directly, that’s why those who are very intellectual miss it — because they know only one way of learning and that is direct. They ask, What is truth? — and they expect an answer.

This is what happened when Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, ‘What is truth?’ and Jesus remained silent — not even a flicker, as if the question had not been asked, as if there was no Pontius Pilate standing before him and asking. Jesus remained the same as he was before the question was raised, nothing changed. Pontius Pilate must have thought this man a little mad, because he had asked a direct question: ‘What is truth?’ and this man remained silent as if he had not heard.Pontius Pilate was a viceroy, a well-educated, cultured, cultivated man; Jesus was a son of a carpenter, uneducated, uncultivated.

It was as if two poles were meeting, two opposite poles. Pontius Pilate knew all philosophy — he had learned it, he knew all the scriptures. This man Jesus was absolutely uneducated, in fact he knew nothing — or, he knew ONLY nothing. Standing before Pontius Pilate, totally silent, he replied — but the reply was indirect: he raised a finger. That total silence was the finger raised towards truth. But Pontius Pilate missed. He thought, This man is crazy. Either he is deaf, cannot hear, or he does not know, is ignorant — that’s why he is silent.

But silence can be a finger raised towards truth — that is incomprehensible to the intellectual Pontius Pilate.He missed. The greatest opportunity! He may be still wandering somewhere in search of ‘What is truth?’ On that day truth was standing before him. Could he be silent for a moment? Could he be in the presence of Jesus, not asking? just looking, watching, waiting? Could he imbibe Jesus a little? Could he allow Jesus to work upon him?

The opportunity was there — and Jesus indicated it. But Pontius Pilate missed.Intellect will always miss the teaching of the awakened ones, because intellect believes in the direct way, and you cannot hit truth in such a direct way. It is a very subtle phenomenon, delicate, the most delicate possible; you have to move very cautiously, you have to move very indirectly. You have to feel it — it comes through the heart, it never comes through the head.

Teaching comes through the head, learning happens through the heart.Remember my emphasis. It is not the master who teaches, it is the disciple who learns. It is up to you — to learn or not to learn; it is not up to me to teach or not to teach. A master cannot help himself: because of the way he is, he goes on teaching. His every moment, his every breath is a teaching, his whole being is a teaching, a message.

The message is not different from the master. If it is different then the master is simply a teacher, not a master; then he is repeating words of others. Then he is not awakened himself, then he has a borrowed knowledge; inside he remains as ignorant as the student. There is no difference in their being, they differ in their knowledge.A teacher and a student are on the same level as far as their being is concerned; as far as their knowledge is concerned they are different: the teacher knows more, the student knows less.

Some day the student will know more, he himself will become a teacher, he can even come to know more than the teacher — because it is the horizontal line of accumulation. If you accumulate more knowledge, information, you can become a teacher, but not a master.A master is truth. He does not know ABOUT truth, he has become it, so he cannot help himself. It is not a question of to teach or not to teach, it is not a choice.

Even if he is fast asleep, he goes on teaching. Buddha fast asleep — you simply sit near him, you can learn much; you can even become enlightened, because the way he sleeps is totally different. The quality differs because the being differs. Buddha eating — you just watch, and he is giving a message. The message is not separate, that’s why I say he cannot help himself. He IS the message.You cannot ask the question, ‘What is truth?’

Anyway, he will not answer you directly. He may laugh or he may offer you a cup of tea, or he may hold your hand and sit silently, or he may take you for a morning walk into the woods, or he may say, ‘Look! This mountain is beautiful!’ But whatsoever he is doing is an indirect way of indicating, indicating towards his being.All that is beautiful, true, good, is like happiness — I say ‘like happiness’ because you may be able to understand that.

You have known something of happiness. Maybe you have lived very miserably, as people live. But sometimes, even in spite of yourself, moments happen when happiness enters you — you are filled with an unknown silence, an unknown bliss; suddenly those moments come. You cannot find a man who has not had a few moments of happiness in his life.But have you observed one thing? — whenever they come they come indirectly.

Suddenly they happen, unexpectedly they happen. You were not waiting for them, you were doing something else, and suddenly you become aware. If you are waiting for them, expecting them, they never come; if you are directly in search, you will miss.Somebody says, ‘When I go swimming in the river I feel much happiness.’ You are also in search of it; you say, ‘Then I will come also,’ and you follow. You are seeking happiness — you are not concerned with swimming directly, you are concerned directly with happiness.

Swimming is just a means. You swim for hours; you are tired, you wait, you expect — and you are frustrated. Nothing is happening, the bliss is not there, and you tell your friend: ‘You deceived me. I have been swimming for hours, feel completely tired, and not a single moment of happiness has happened.’No, it cannot happen.

When you are lost in swimming so completely that there is nobody, the boat is empty, there is nobody in the house, the host is silent, swimming is so deep that the swimmer is lost in it and you simply swim, you play with the river, and the rays of the sun and the morning breeze, and you are simply lost in it… and there is happiness!

Swimming by the bank, swimming all over the river, spreading all over existence, jumping from one ray to another ray of light — every breeze brings it. But if you expect you miss, because expectation leads you into the future and happiness is in the present. It is not a result of any activity; it is a consequence, it is a byproduct. You are so deeply involved, it happens.It is a consequence, remember, it is not a result; a result can be expected.

If you put two plus two, the four, the result, can be expected; it is already there in the two plus two, it will come out. The result can be expected if things are mechanical, mathematical. But a consequence is not a mechanical thing, it is an organic phenomenon. It happens only when you are not expecting. The guest comes to your
door and knocks when you were not thinking about the guest at all. It always comes like a stranger, it always surprises you.

You suddenly feel something has happened — and if you start thinking about what is happening, you will immediately miss. If you say, ‘How wonderful! How beautiful!’ it is already gone; the mind is back. Again you are in the same misery, thrown back.One has to learn deeply that all that is beautiful is indirect. You cannot make an attack upon it, you cannot be aggressive with it; you cannot snatch from existence.

If you are violent and aggressive, you will not find it.Move towards it like a drunkard, not knowing where, not knowing why, like a drunkard — lost completely, you move towards it.All meditations are subtle ways to make you drunk, subtle ways to make you drunkards of the unknown, drunkards of the divine. Then you are no longer there with your conscious mind functioning, then you are not there expecting, then you are not there planning for the future. You are NOT. And when you are not, suddenly flowers start showering on you, flowers of bliss.

Just like Subhuti, empty… you are surprised! You were never expecting, you never knew! You never felt that you ever deserved it; that’s how it is felt — like a grace, because it is not something YOU have brought on, it is something which has happened.So one thing: truth cannot be taught, bliss cannot be given to you, ecstasy cannot be purchased in the market.

But your mind continuously thinks in terms of getting, purchasing, collecting, finding; your mind never thinks in terms of happening because you cannot control happening — everything else you can control.I have heard: Once a man became suddenly rich. Of course, when it happened he collected all those things he had always been desiring — a very big house, a big car, swimming pool, this and that. And then he sent his daughter to college.

He had always wanted to be educated but he could not be; now he wanted to fulfill all his desires, and whatsoever HE couldn’t do he wanted his children to do. But after a few days the dean of the college wrote a letter to him, and in the letter wrote: ‘To be frank, we cannot admit your girl to the college because she has no capacity to learn.’The father said, ‘Just capacity? Don’t bother! I will purchase the best capacity available in the market for her.’How can you purchase capacity?

But a man who has become suddenly rich thinks only in terms of purchasing. You think in terms of power — power to purchase, power to get something. Remember, truth cannot be got through power; it comes when you are humble. You have nothing to purchase it with, it cannot be purchased. And it is good that it cannot be purchased; otherwise no one would be able to give the cost. It is good that it HAPPENS; otherwise how would you purchase it? All that you have is rubbish. Because it cannot be purchased, that’s why sometimes it can happen. It is a gift.

It is a sharing of the divine with you — but the divine can share only when you allow. Hence I say you can learn it but it cannot be taught.In fact in the spiritual world there are only disciples, not masters. Masters ARE there but they are inactive, passive forces. They cannot DO anything, they are just there — like a flower: if nobody comes, the flower will go on spreading its fragrance into emptiness. It cannot help itself.

The whole thing is decided by the disciple: how to learn? how to learn from a flower? And a flower shows something but doesn’t say it. It cannot be said. How can the flower say what beauty is? — the flower IS beauty. You have to gain, attain, eyes to see, a nose to smell, ears to hear the subtle sound that comes to the flower when the breeze passes by.

And you need a heart to feel the throbbing of the flower, because it throbs also — everything alive throbs, the whole existence throbs.You may not have observed this because it is impossible before you go into deep meditation; you cannot observe the fact that the whole universe breathes. And just as you expand and shrink the whole existence shrinks and expands. Just as you inhale and the chest fills, and then you exhale and the air goes out and the chest shrinks, the same rhythm exists in existence.

The whole existence breathes, expands, inhales, exhales — and if you can find the rhythm of existence and become one with the rhythm, you have attained.The whole art of ecstasy, meditation, samadhi, is: How to become one with the rhythm of the universe. When it exhales, you exhale. When it inhales, you inhale. You live in it, are not separate, are one with it. Difficult, because the universe is vast.

A master is the whole universe in miniature. If you can learn how to inhale with the master and how to exhale with the master, if you can learn simply that, you will learn all.At the moment when Pontius Pilate asked, ‘What is truth?’ if he had known anything, even the ABC of disciplehood, the next thing would have been to just close his eyes and inhale and exhale with Jesus… just inhale and exhale with Jesus.

The way he inhales, you inhale, and in the same rhythm; the way he exhales, you exhale, and in the same rhythm — and suddenly there is oneness: the disciple has disappeared, the master has disappeared. In that oneness you know what truth is because in that oneness you taste the master.And now you have the key — and this has not been given either, remember, it has been learned by you. It has not been given to you; it cannot be given, it is so subtle.

And with this key now every lock can be opened. It is a master key, no ordinary key — it doesn’t open one lock, it opens all locks. Now you have the key, and once you have the key you use it with the universe.Kabir has said, ‘Now I am in much difficulty. God and my guru, the whole existence and my master, are standing before me; now to whom do I bow first? To whose feet now do I go first? I am in deep trouble!’

And then he says, ‘Forgive me, God. I will have to go to my master’s feet first, because he has shown you to me. I come to you through him. So even if you are standing before me, excuse me, I have to touch my master’s feet first.’Beautiful… this has to be so, because the master becomes the door to the unknown, he becomes the key to the whole existence. He is the truth.Learn how to be in the presence of the master, how to breathe with him, how to silently allow him to move in you, how to silently merge into him, because the master is nothing but God who has knocked at your door. He is the whole universe concentrated. Don’t ask questions, LIVE with him.

Source: from Osho book “And the flower Showered”

Osho – Gautama the Buddha has given to the world the most psychological religion. It is incomparable; no other religion even comes close to it. Its heights, its depths, are tremendous. And the reason why Buddha succeeded in giving such a beautiful vision of life is very simple: he did not believe; he inquired, he explored. He did not believe in the tradition, he did not believe in the scriptures, he did not believe in the priests.

This was one of his fundamentals: that unless you know, you don’t know. You can borrow knowledge, you can become knowledgeable, well informed, a scholar, a pundit, a professor, but you will not be a seer. Deep down the ignorance will persist and will affect your life. Deep down you will remain the same childish self, immature, ungrounded, uncentered, unintegrated. You will not be an individual, you won’t have any authenticity.

You will be pseudo, false, phony. It is a quantum leap into the unknown. When you don’t believe in the tradition, when you don’t believe in the scriptures, when you don’t believe in anything except your own experience, you are going into the unknown all alone. It needs guts, it needs courage. And only a courageous person can be truly religious.

Cowards are there in the churches, in the temples, in the mosques in millions, but they don’t create any religious beauty, any religious fragrance in the world. They don’t make the world more beautiful, more alive, more sensitive. They don’t create anything. They only go on doing formalities, rituals. They themselves are dead and they go on deceiving others; they themselves are deceived.

Borrowed knowledge creates great deception because you start feeling as if you know — and that “as if” is a big “as if.” Truth liberates, belief binds. Truth liberates because it has to be yours; it has to be an inner experience, an encounter with that which is. Buddha is a nonbeliever. He is not an atheist like Karl Marx or Friedrich Nietzsche; neither is he a theist like all the priests of all the religions. He is an agnostic. He neither believes nor disbelieves; he is open. That is his great gift to the world: to be open to truth.

Go utterly naked, without any conclusions, without any ideology, any prejudice. Otherwise
there is every possibility that you will project your own idea. You will not see that which is, you will see only that which you want to see. You will be creating your own reality which is bound to be false. Reality has not to be invented, it has to be discovered. It is already there.

And remember, it is not the reality which is hidden, it is your eyes which are covered with layers of dust. Buddha gave to the world a nonmetaphysical religion, a psychological religion. He simply helps you to go beyond mind. He helps you to understand the mind because it is only through understanding that transcendence happens.

But when I say that Buddha has given the most psychological religion to the world, don’t misunderstand me. He has not given a psychology; he has given a psychological religion which is a totally different phenomenon. He has not given a psychology like Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, Adler, Pavlov, Skinner, etcetera. These people are confined to the mind; they think mind is all. There is nothing beyond the mind, so analyze the mind.

If you have found the truth of the mind you have found the truth, according to them. That is beginning with a wrong attitude. Man is neither the body nor the mind. Man is the awareness within which can look at the body, which can look at the mind, which is capable of witnessing all. You are the witness.

Hence I say, Buddha has not given a psychology. A psychology is a very ordinary phenomenon. It does not bring transformation to your life because it cannot bring any transcendence. At the most it helps you to be a little more adjusted to yourself and to the world that surrounds you, to the society, to the people with whom you have to live. It helps you to become a little more adjusted.

Psychology is basically orthodox; it is not revolutionary, it cannot be. It serves the status quo, it serves the establishment. It keeps you within the boundaries; it does not help you to go beyond the boundaries. It is not in your service. It is controlled by those who are in power — by the state, by the church, by the society. In a very disguised way it keeps you tethered to the collective mind. It does not help you to become an individual, because to be an individual is to be rebellious, to be an individual is to go on your own, to be an individual is to be a danger to the society.

Capitalist, communist, whatsoever the society is — Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan — it doesn’t matter; the individual is a danger because the individual tries to live out of his own light. He does not follow anybody. He is not a follower, he is not an imitator. Buddha gives a psychological religion. Religion means he helps you to understand the mind so that you can go beyond it — not so that you can become adjusted to the collective but so that you can rise to the heights of your individuality, to the peaks of your destiny.

Psychology believes that man lacks meaning in his life and meaning can come only through therapy. Psychology in essence means meaning through therapy. And religion is just the opposite; religion means therapy through meaning. Religion gives you meaning first and then automatically the meaning becomes a healing force, it becomes therapeutic.

Buddha says again and again that, “I am a healer,” that “I am a physician,” that “My function is not that of a philosopher but that of a physician. I help people to become healthier, to become whole.” And what is his process? His process is to impart meaning to your life. That too he does in a profoundly new way; it has never been done before like that.

He does not give you an arbitrary meaning because the arbitrary meaning will be seen sooner or later to be arbitrary, and the moment it collapses you will fall into deep darkness. The darkness will be far darker than it was before. Now you have lost meaning. You will feel suicidal; you will not feel life is worth living at all. Even breathing will become hard, difficult. The question will arise: Why? Why should I go on living if there is no meaning?

Buddha does not give you any arbitrary meaning. Hence I say he has no metaphysics. He helps you to discover the intrinsic meaning of your life. He does not give you meaning, but he gives you methods and means to discover the meaning that you are already carrying within yourself like a seed.

Osho on Buddhas work, don’t miss Buddhahood

Osho : I have been working with many, many people, and sometimes they turn when the right moment was going to be; exactly before that moment they turn away. And the mind is cunning enough; it can philosophize, it can say why you have turned away. Exactly at the moment when something was going to happen, you can turn away.

There is more possibility for you to turn away from that moment than from any other moment; it is unfortunate but it happens. You wait and wait and wait, and then the moment is nearing where the evaporating point can be reached, and suddenly you turn away. To resist that turning is very difficult. It is just like death reaching nearer, nearer, nearer, and seeing the abyss you turn away and run as fast as you can.

Remain alert. This misfortune happens to seekers; it can happen to you. Buddha passed through a village many times in his forty years of traveling. One man used to come; he would listen for a few minutes then get up and go away. And this had become a habit; he never listened to Buddha for the whole time Buddha was speaking. He would come, that was certain, and whenever Buddha would come to the town he would wait for that man. He would come, that was certain.

He would sit and for a few minutes he would listen, then, respectfully bowing down to Buddha, he would go away.
Ananda once asked that man, “Why do you do this?”

The man said, “Sometimes this is the peak hour for my business, but I must come just to pay my respects; that’s why I come. But my shop is open and customers are there, and they will not wait. Enlightenment can wait; next time I will hear.” It happened again and again.

The day Buddha died he was near the village, and before his death he said to Ananda, “That man has not come. This is exceptional — he never missed. He always missed in a sense but he never missed. He has always come, now he has not come.”

Then Buddha asked his disciples, “Do you have anything to ask — because soon I will enter into the final samadhi, the final ecstasy, and then I will not be able to come back and answer you.”
They started weeping and crying but there was no question. And Ananda said, “We have asked everything, you have answered everything, and there is nothing. Our minds are blank just thinking that you are going to disappear.”

Buddha asked thrice, again and again. There was no question so he went behind the tree and closed his eyes, just to dissolve into the infinite, to leave the body, and then suddenly the man came. He started fighting with the monks and said, “I must see him. This is the last time; I will not be able to see him again. For forty years I have been missing and I have a question to ask. I have never been able to ask it before because sometimes there was a marriage in my family, sometimes business was at a peak, sometimes I was ill or my wife was ill, and sometimes there were relatives staying. I always missed but now don’t prevent me.”

The disciples said, “It is not possible; now he is dissolving.”
Buddha came out from his ecstasy, from his final samadhi. He came in front of the tree and he said, “Don’t prevent that man. He may have been foolish, he may have missed because of his ignorance, but I cannot be hard on him. I am still alive so let him come. No one should say that Buddha was alive and a man who had come begging was sent back.” Buddha said, “What have you come to ask?”

The man had forgotten the question. He said, “When I came, I knew, but now I can’t remember. Next time I see you I will bring the question.” … And there was going to be no next time.
Buddha died that day, and that man must be wandering somewhere on this or some other earth, seeking a man who can answer his question. That man missed Buddha continuously for forty years.

You can miss me — always remember that possibility. But it will be because of you, not because of me; I am always ready. Whenever you are ready I will hit you, but a deep surrender is needed; before that nothing can be done. You have to die, die as you are, so that which you really are can be born out of you. You have to die as an appearance so that the real can be born. You have to die on the periphery, so that the center evolves and comes out in its luminousness, in its full perfection. All hits are to destroy the seed so that the tree is born. Anything more?

Osho on Gautam Buddha Suchness, Tathata, Choicelessness

Osho : Deva means divine, Madhyama means the middle – the divine middle. The extreme is the disease, and the mind lives through the extremes. The mind always thinks in terms of either/or, and reality is just exactly in the middle. It is never either/or; it is both/and. It is neither day nor night, neither life nor death, neither body nor soul. It is somewhere between the two, exactly between the two.

And exactly in the middle is also the point from where transcendence happens, from where you go beyond both. To be in the middle is to go beyond both. Health and great balance, silence, come through this understanding. Because extremes create tensions and excitements, they create heaven and hell.

And the mind is always a chooser, it lives through choosing. The moment you stop choosing and allow life to be as it is, you immediately fall into the middle. Let-go is the way of the middle. Choicelessness is the meaning of let-go; Then you allow life, whatsoever it brings.

Buddha calls it the philosophy of suchness, ’tathata’, the philosophy of as-it-is-ness. Let it be as it is: when it is night, it is night; don’t hanker for the day. When it is day, it is day; don’t ask for the night. When it is pain it is pain; when it is pleasure it is pleasure. Don’t choose, allow it to happen. Slowly, slowly a great understanding arises out of this allowing, out of this let-go. And that understanding makes you alert, aware that you are separate from both.

You are neither life nor death: you are just a witness. That witnessing is Buddhahood, that witnessing is enlightenment. And to be in the middle is the way to it. So let this be your key: never go to the extreme, always keep in the middle, like a tightrope walker.

Slowly, slowly, the knack arises. Once you have understood how to be in the middle the mind disappears on its own accord, because it cannot exist in the middle; that is the secret of the work. It can exist only in the extreme, opposite to something, diametrically opposed to something. It is a chooser: it can either love or hate.

It cannot rest in the middle without choosing, without prejudice. It cannot allow things to have their own way. It interferes, it tries to impose itself upon reality. Reality is, God is, and all is already as it should be. We have just to relax and allow it to be.