Question – Are you still learning too?

Osho – Yes, because if learning stops, you are dead. Learning is life. You can ask me, “Are you still alive? ” — that will be the same question. The ego is a perfectionist and the ego thinks that when you have attained, when you have become enlightened, then there is no learning; then you know all. But if you know all, that ‘all’ will be finite. Just by being known it has become finite.

You cannot know the infinite. The infinite simply means that you can go on learning and learning and learning and the end never comes, it is an eternal journey. It begins, but it never ends.

But then the ego thinks: then what is the difference when we are also learning? The difference is that you are learning while fast asleep, unconscious, and a man who is enlightened learns consciously. Your learning is not knowing; your learning is knowledge, dead information. A man who is awakened — his learning is not like knowledge; his learning is simply knowing.

He is like a mirror. The mirror goes on mirroring. A bird flies before a mirror and the mirror mirrors it. Is there a point where you can say, “Now the mirror is perfect. It mirrors nothing”? When the mirror is perfect it will mirror perfectly, that’s all.

When you are awakened, you learn perfectly. Not that you stop learning, not that you have become perfect and now there is nothing more to know — just the contrary. The more you know, the more there is to know; the more you open your eyes, the more the infinite surrounds you. It is an infinite journey.

I am still learning. And I am happy, I would not like it to be otherwise. I would not like to come to a point where I could say, “I have known all,” because that would be death. Then what? — then the river is frozen, then it no longer flows. No, a perfect river goes on flowing; it is never frozen. I will go on learning, Buddha and Jesus are still learning. It has to be so.

Mahavir is still learning, notwithstanding what Jains say. They say that he has known all, he has become all-knowing, because their ego is involved. Their Master: how can he still be learning? That means he is still not perfect. So Jains say Mahavir has known all, he has become a SARVAGYA — all-knowing, omniscient. This is their ego, not Mahavir.

If you say to Christians that Jesus is still learning, they will be very angry. The son of God, the only begotten son of God — how can he be still learning? He knows all! But I tell you, he is still learning because he is still alive, alive with the infinity — learning infinitely, but of course learning perfectly.

This is very difficult to understand because your ego always seeks goals and if learning continues forever and ever, then there is no goal. But I tell you, that’s how life is. Life has no goal, it is an ever-flowing river: always reaching, but never reaching; always arriving — but every arrival becomes a new departure.

Go to the Himalayas. You trek, you move, you go high to the peak. All the time you were trekking up, there was no peak beyond it. Then you reach the peak and many more peaks are revealed. You go on and on and on; it is an ongoing Process.

God is the process. Even God is learning. It has to be so, otherwise He will be stupid. He is not stupid, He is learning. He is evolving — and that’s beautiful. Nothing is static, everything is dynamic. That’s what I mean when I say: don’t say ‘God is’, always say ‘God is happening’. Don’t use a static term; don’t use a noun for Him — use a verb. Say, “He is happening”; say, “He is learning”; say, “He is evolving”; say, “He is a process, He is a river,” and you will have struck truth.

Yes, I am continuously learning. Every moment life is so tremendously beautiful and so tremendously vast, so tremendously infinite and so tremendously mysterious. To say that one has known all will be sacrilegious.

Source – Osho Book “Come Follow To You, Vol 1″

Question – If you are not there, and there is no thought any more, How can you give such coherent and beautiful discourses? It seems like you are aware and understand what you are saying.

Osho – Such beautiful and coherent discourses are possible because I am not there. Once I am there, they will no more be beautiful. Not only that: they are beautiful because you are listening when you are not there. Once you are there they will no more be beautiful. The beauty exists only in an egoless space. You come, and ugliness follows.

IF YOU ARE NOT THERE, AND THERE IS NO THOUGHT ANY MORE… yes, I am not there, and there is no thought any more. That’s why this river goes on flowing, because there is nobody to hinder it, nobody to obstruct it.

IT SEEMS LIKE YOU ARE AWARE AND UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. It only seems. Don’t be deceived by the appearance. I am not aware. I am drunk — drunk with awareness maybe, but I am drunk. But this drunkenness is called awareness. If your awareness is not also drunkenness, it is not awareness yet. If you are not drunk with awareness, you are not drunk yet. When awareness and drunkenness become almost synonymous, only then there is buddhahood, then there is enlightenment.

IT SEEMS LIKE YOU ARE AWARE AND UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. It only seems: it is not so. I am drunk. And it seems that I understand what I am saying — I don’t understand what I am saying; I am simply allowing it to be said. I am not trying to understand what I am saying, because that would be a duality; then I would be two — someone who is trying to understand what is being said. Then I would be in a dichotomy. And that’s what happens when you say you are watching what you are saying all the time, whether you are saying it right or wrong. You are always trying to be consistent, logical, this and that. I am absolutely inconsistent. I am not trying in any way to understand what I am saying: I allow it. Because that is my understanding: that unless you allow, nothing of worth flows. If you try to say something which is meaningful, the meaning will be superficial. If you simply say it without any effort on your part, if you simply allow the divine, the whole, to flow through you, it is tremendously meaningful: the meaning is ultimate then.
And I would also like you not to try to understand what I am saying — because that is the only way to miss it, a perfect way to miss. If you want to miss what I am saying, try to understand. Just listen — there is no other need. It is a song to be heard, it is a dance to be watched.

I am a certain emptiness, and I would like you to participate in it. Be in rapport with me, don’t try to understand; because then the intellect enters in, and then you are no more total. If you are total, whatsoever comes out is beautiful. If you are not total, at the most you can create an appearance of beauty, but it will not be beauty. Beauty is always of the total.

Please don’t try to understand me — otherwise you will become a great knower, but you will miss knowing. Then you will become a rabbi, a pundit, a maulwi. But you will miss the real understanding that I am showering on you. Remember this: understanding is not needed — only a deep drunkenness, which is also awareness, is needed.

Be with me. When you are trying to understand, you are with yourself; you are trying to interpret me according to your mind, knowledge, information. According to your past you are trying to look at me; your eyes are clouded with dust, you will not be able to see me. Just be a mirror: reflect me; don’t try to understand me. Echo me; don’t try to understand me. And there will be understanding.

Source – Osho Book “Come Follow To You, Vol 3″

Question – Beloved Osho, In the last few days, as i listen to you, it seems you are trying to be a martyr. are you?

Osho – I am not even a Christian – why should I like to be a martyr? The word looks beautiful, but the reality is that those who would like to be martyrs are suicidal.

Jesus was suicidal; he was trying in every way to be crucified. He was not even courageous enough just to shoot himself. Why unnecessarily make other people responsible for your crucifixion? If Jesus had shot himself, the Jews would have lived in peace without any trouble. But he forced the Jews to do it.

It is to Sigmund Freud’s credit that he discovered a suicidal instinct in man. It was always accepted that man has a deep lust for life; he wants to live and live, and live forever. But in existence nothing exists without its opposite. That was the discovery of Sigmund Freud, and it is absolutely right – with the life instinct there is a death instinct. There is not a single man on the earth who has not at least once thought of committing suicide. From where does that idea come?

But a man who is contented has all the bliss that is possible. Both the instincts simply disappear. He has no desire to go on living; he has no desire to destroy himself by his own hands or by other people’s. For him this moment is all. Whatever happens in the next moment is welcome.

I have no desire to be a martyr, but if somebody kills me, what can I do? It will be absolutely their responsibility. As far as Jesus is concerned, Jews are not absolutely responsible. Ninety percent of the responsibility is Jesus’ himself. If Mansoor is killed by the Mohammedans, even more – ninety-nine percent of the responsibility is al-Hillaj Mansoor’s.

If Gandhi is shot, one hundred percent of the responsibility is his, because before his death he is reported to have said many times, ”Now I don’t want to live. It will be a mercy if God takes me away from this body, because I have become absolutely useless.”

Strange…. To think in terms of use is ugly. Neither do you have to use anybody – because to use somebody is to exploit them – nor do you have to allow anybody to use you. That is your birthright. Gandhi wanted to die, and he was praying for death. That makes one thing very clear. When Nathuram Godse shot him…. It is good that Nathuram has ”Ram” in his name: Ram was Gandhi’s God.

Nathu is meaningless. In India, if a couple finds that their children die and don’t survive, then something has to be done. So when a new child is born, either his nose is pierced – a hole is made so a ring of gold can be put through – or his ears are pierced and rings of gold are put in. Nathu means nose, so if the nose is pierced, Ram becomes nathuram. If the ears are pierced, Ram becomes kunchiberam – kun means ears.

In fact he was just a ”Ram” with a pierced nose – Gandhi’s God. And when Gandhi was shot, he put his hands together, looking at Nathuram Godse, and the words he uttered were, ”Hey, Ram.” He was waiting for it; that’s why I say one hundred percent. And he was rejoiced – he wanted to die, because his ideology was no longer listened to. Nobody was ready to follow his suggestions.

The country had become free. Gandhi was needed when the country was under slavery, under British rule, because he controlled the masses. The superstitious Indians cannot be controlled by logic, by reason. They can only be controlled by their emotions, sentimentality, superstitions, religiousness, and all kinds of rubbish. Gandhi was an expert in rubbish.

I have no desire to live the next moment, or to die the next moment. I have known and experienced everything that is possible. If existence allows me one moment more, I will create a little more disturbance in people. If existence feels that I am no more needed, it is perfectly good to go into eternal sleep. To me, death is not going to be a death, because I am not going to be reborn. You are reborn if you have committed mistakes, and if you feel guilty. Albert Einstein must have been reborn, and of course, as a plumber, because the last desire becomes the seed for your future life. I have no desire. My death will not be a death.

In India we make a difference. When an ordinary man dies, it is death. When someone who has attained enlightenment dies, it is samadhi, it is not death. And the word ”samadhi” is immensely significant. Samadhi means: one who has attained the ultimate harmony with existence.

Source – Osho Book “From the False to the Truth”

Question – Our beloved master, what is our investment in repressing our memory of previous deaths? Is it not true to say that if we could recall our deaths we might lose our fear of death and thus be able to live a fearless life?

Osho – Maneesha, this is certainly one of our great investments in forgetting the past, the previous life. Because if you remember it, you will not be able to be so foolish as to repeat the same game again. You have done it so many times; you have fallen in love, you have fallen out of love, so many times… so many romances! Our great investment is that each time we go to see the same film we forget that we have seen it before. Otherwise you will not go to see the movie, only once is enough.

But in life you don’t complete the work in one time, in one lifetime. Your real work remains postponed and you go on playing games which are simply childish. The great investment is that you should not remember your whole past, otherwise you will feel yourself to be so much an idiot that enjoying life will become impossible. Only suicide will seem to be the right thing to do. But suicide leads nowhere, it simply enters your consciousness into another womb of a lower kind, because you could not manage to live on a higher level.

The investment also includes forgetting that you have ever died. It is always somebody else who dies, you never die. Obviously – you see every day, you hear every day that somebody has died; but you never hear that you have died. Except in this Buddha Hall where you hear every day, ”Now die and don’t hold anything back, die completely.”

People from the outside will think, ”This is a madhouse. People who are fully alive suddenly die and then don’t wait much … as they are called back, immediately they are back, sitting like buddhas!” We are making it clear through our meditations that this is how it has been happening, you have been dying many times and again coming back. Whether you come after nine months … an unnecessary wastage of time, of a woman’s life … then growing up and again playing the same role which you have played before ….

In the East the world is called sansara. Sansara means the great wheel of life and death. It goes on moving, the same wheel, and you are clinging to the wheel and you go on moving with the wheel from one death to another, from one life to another. The investment is that unless you learn the lesson, you cannot come out of this vicious circle of life and death. But you can come out. Every night we try; you jump a little … it is old habit; when you come back you just try to find out where the wheel is. Soon you have forgotten about the center which was beyond life and death – suddenly you remember, ”Where is the canteen?”

One naturally feels hungry after such a strenuous experience of dying and coming back, becoming a buddha … knowing perfectly well that anybody may be a buddha, ”But I am not; I have my wife, I have my children to look after. Just for a moment is okay, but twenty-four hours a buddha will not only be boring, it will be also a torture to others.”

From my very childhood I was interested just to sit and not to do anything. I have never done any homework; my teachers were angry, ”What do you go on doing at home?”
I said, ”I simply sit and enjoy.”

My family, and whoever would be passing by used to say, ”What are you doing?”
I said, ”There is no need to do anything – to be is enough!”
And they would look at me and say, ”You are crazy! Do something, otherwise you will end up in being nothing.”

And they were right, I have ended in being nothing. But I am immensely happy that I started very early to see that the greatest joy is inside, nobody can give it to me. I have never participated in any game, I have never bothered about any work the family needed. Slowly, slowly my family started taking for granted that I was no more – my being or not being made no difference.

I have enjoyed the faces of my family when they looked at me as if they were looking at an insane person; I still enjoy to remember it. Naturally if you are not doing something people think you are wasting your life. The reality is that when you are not doing anything, when you are just being, you are finding the path towards your ultimate destiny.

Source – Osho Book “Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment”

Question – Do you receive instructions from any Master of Masters?

Osho – I AM NOT ON ANY ANCIENT path, so few things have to be understood. I am not like Mahavira who was the end of a long series of teerthankaras, twenty-four — he was the twenty-fourth. In the past twenty-three had become Master of Masters, gods, on the same path, the same method, the same way of life, the same technique.

The first was Rishabh and the last was Mahavira. Rishabh had nobody in the past to look to. I am not like Mahavira, but like Rishabh. I am a beginning of a tradition, not the end. Many more will be coming on the same path. So I cannot look for instructions to anybody; that’s not possible. A tradition is born and then a tradition dies, just as persons are born and persons die. I am the beginning, not the end. When somebody is in the middle of the series or at the end, he gets instructions from the Master of Masters.

The reason why I am not any path? I have worked with many Masters, but I have never been a disciple. I was a wanderer, wandering through many lives, criss-crossing many traditions, being with many groups, schools, methods, but never belonging to anybody. I was received with love, but I was never a part — a guest at the most, an overnight stay. That’s why I learned so much. You cannot learn on one path so much; that’s impossible.

If you move on one path, you know everything about it but nothing about anything else. Your whole being is absorbed in it. That has not been my way. I have been like a bee from one flower to another, gathering many fragrances. That’s why I can be at ease with Zen, can be at ease with Jesus, can be at ease with Jews, can be at ease with Mohammedans, can be at ease with Patanjali — diverse ways, sometimes diametrically opposite.

But, to me, a hidden harmony exists. That’s why people who follow one path are unable to understand me. They are simply baffled, bewildered. They know a particular logic, a particular pattern. If the thing fits into their pattern, it is right. If it doesn’t fit, it is wrong. They have a very limited criterion. To me, no criterions exist. Because I have been with so many patterns, I can be at ease anywhere. Nobody is alien to me and I am not a stranger to anybody. But this creates a problem. I am not a stranger to anybody, but everybody becomes a stranger to me — has to be so.

If you belong not to a particular sect, then everybody thinks you as if you are the enemy. Hindus will be against me, Christians will be against me, Jews will be against me, Jains will be against me, and I am against nobody. Because they cannot find their pattern in me, they will be against me.

And I am talking about not pattern, but a deeper pattern which holds all the patterns. There is a pattern, another pattern, another pattern, millions of patterns. Then all the patterns are held by something underground which is the pattern of patterns — the hidden harmony. They cannot look at it, but they are not at fault also. When you live with a certain tradition, a certain philosophy, a certain way of looking at things, you become attuned to it.

In a way, I was never attuned to anybody — not that much so that I could have become a part of them. In a sense it is a misfortune, but in another sense it proved a blessing. Many who worked with me achieved liberation before me. It was a misfortune to me. I lagged and lagged behind because never working totally with anything, moving from one to another.

Many achieved who started with me. Even few who started after me achieved before me. This was a misfortune, but in another sense this has been a blessing because I know every home. I may not belong to any home, but I am at home everywhere. That is why I have got no Master of Masters — I was never a disciple. To be directed by a Master of Masters, you have to be a disciple to a certain Master. Then you car; be directed. Then you know the language. So I am not directed by anybody but helped by many. The difference has to be understood: not directed, I don’t receive any orders, “Do this or don’t do that”, but helped by many.

Jains may not feel that I belong to them, but Mahavira feels, because at least he can see the pattern of patterns. Followers of Jesus may not be able to understand me, but Jesus can. So I am helped by many. That’s why many people are coming to me from different sources. You cannot find such a gathering anywhere on the earth at this time. Jews are there, Christians are there, Mohammedans are there, Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, from all over the world. And more, many more, will be coming soon.

That’s a help from many Masters. They know I can be helpful to their disciples; they will be sending many more — but no instructions, because I never received instructions from any Master as a disciple. Now there is no need also. Just a help, and that is better — I feel more at freedom. Nobody can be so free as I am.

Because if you receive directions from Mahavira, you cannot be as free as I am. A Jain has to remain Jain. He has to go on talking against Buddhism, against Hinduism. He has to because it is a fight of many patterns and traditions. And traditions have to fight if they want to survive. And for the sake of disciples they have to be argumentative; they have to say, “That is wrong,” because only then the disciple can feel that “This is right.” Against wrong, the disciple feels what is right.

With me you will be at a loss. If you are just here with your intellect, you will be confused. You will go crazy because this moment I say something and next moment I contradict it: because this moment I was talking about one tradition, another moment I am talking about another. And sometimes I am not talking about any tradition; I am talking about me. Then you cannot find it anywhere in any scripture.

But I am helped, and the help is beautiful because I am not supposed to follow it. I am not forced to follow it. It is up to me. Help is given unconditionally. If I feel like doing it, I will do; if I don’t feel, I will not do it. I have no obligation to anybody.

But if you become some day enlightened, then you can receive. If I am not in the body, then you can receive instructions from me. This always happens to the first person, when a tradition starts. It is a beginning, a birth, and you are near a birth process. And it is most beautiful when something is born, because it is most alive. By and by, as a child grows, the child is coming nearer and nearer to death. A tradition is freshest when it is born. It has a beauty of its own — incomparable, unique.

The people who listened to Rishabh, the first Jain teerthankara, had a different quality. When they listened to Mahavira, it was thousands of years old. It was just on the verge of dying. With Mahavira, it died. When in a tradition no more Masters are born, it is dead. It means the tradition is no more growing. Jains closed it. With the twenty-fourth they said, “Now, no more Masters, no more teerthankaras.” To be with Nanak was beautiful because something new was coming out of the womb — the womb of the universe. Just as you watch a child being born — a mystery — an unknown penetrating the known, the bodiless becoming the embodied. It is fresh like dewdrops. Soon everything will be covered with dust. Soon, as time passes, things will become old.

But by the time of the tenth guru of the Sikhs, the tenth Master, things became dead. Then they closed the line and they said, “Now no more Masters. Now the scripture itself will be the Master.” That’s why they called their scripture “Guru-granth” — the Master scripture. Now no more persons will be there; just a dead scripture will be the Master now. And when a scripture is dead it is futile — not only futile; it is poisonous. Don’t allow anything dead in your body. It will create poison; it will destroy your whole system.

Here, something new is born, a beginning. It is fresh, but that’s why it is very difficult also to see it. Because if I you go to the Ganges, the source of the Ganges, it is so tiny there — fresh, of course: never again it will be so fresh, because when it moves it gathers many things, accumulates, becomes more and more dirty. At Kashi it is the dirtiest, but then you call it “Holy Ganges” because now it is so vast. It has accumulated so much, now even a blind man can see it. At the Gangotri — at the beginning, at the source — you need to be very perceptive. Only then you can see; otherwise it is just a trickling of the drops. You cannot even believe that this trickling of the drops is going to become Ganges — unbelievable.

It is difficult right now to see what is happening because it is a very, very tiny stream, just like a child. People missed with Rishabh, the first Jain Teerthankara, but they could recognize Mahavira — see? Jains don’t think much of the first — Rishabh. In fact, they pay their whole homage to Mahavira. In fact, in the western mind, Mahavira is the originator of Jainism. Because they pay so much respect to Mahavira in India, that how others can feel that somebody else was the originator? Rishabh has become legendary, forgotten; may have been, may not have been, he doesn’t seem to be historical — hoary past — and you don’t know much about him. Mahavira is historical, and he is the Ganges, near Benares, Kashi — so vast.

Remember that the beginning is small, but never again the mystery will be so deep as in the beginning. The beginning is life and the end is death. With Mahavira, death enters into Jain tradition. With Rishabh, life entered, came down from the above Himalayas, to the earth.

I have got nobody to be responsible to, nobody to get instructions from, but much help is available. And if you take it in its totality, then it is more than any single Master can instruct. When I am talking about Patanjali, Patanjali is helpful. I can talk exactly as if he was talking here. I am not talking, in fact; these are not commentaries. It is he himself using me as a vehicle. When I am talking about Heraclitus, he is there — but as a help. This you have to understand, and become more perceptive so that you can see the beginning.

To move into a tradition when it has become a great force does not take much perceptivity, much sensitivity. To come when things are beginning, just in the morning, is difficult. By the evening many come, but then they come because the thing has become so vast and powerful. In the morning only those few chosen come who have the sensitivity to feel that something great is being born. You cannot prove it right now. Time will prove it. It will take thousands of years to prove what was being born, but you are fortunate to be here. And don’t miss the opportunity, because this is the freshest point and the most mysterious.

If you can feel it, if you can allow it to go deep into || you, many things will become possible in a very short period of time. It is yet not respectable to be with me — it is not a prestige. In fact, only gamblers can be with me who do not bother and worry about what others say. People who are respectable cannot come. After a few years, when the tradition becomes by and by dead, it becomes respectable. Then people will come, but those will be dead people. They will come only when something becomes respectable. They will come because of the ego.

You are here not because of the ego, because with me there is nothing to gain for the ego at least. You will lose. With Rishabh, only people who were alive and courageous and daring, adventurous, they moved; with Mahavira, dead businessmen — not gamblers. That is why Jains have become a business community. The whole community is business community; they don’t do anything except business. Business is the least courageous thing in the world. That’s why businessmen become cowards. In the first place they were cowards; that’s why they became businessmen.

A farmer is more courageous because he lives with the unknown, does not know what is going to happen, whether rains will be there or not — nobody knows. And how can you believe in the clouds? You can believe in the banks, but you cannot believe in the clouds. No — nobody knows what is going to happen; he hangs with the unknown. But he lives a more courageous life — a warrior.

Mahavira himself was a warrior; all the twenty-four teerthankaras of the Jains were warriors. Then what misfortune happened? What happened that the whole followers became businessmen? They became businessmen with Mahavira because they came only with Mahavira — when the tradition was glorious, had a legendary past, become already a myth and was respectable to be with.

Dead people come only when something becomes dead; alive people come only when something is alive. Younger people will be coming to me more. Even if somebody old comes to me, he is bound to be younger in the heart. Old people look for prestige, respect. They will go to dead churches and temples where nothing is except emptiness and a past. What is past? — an emptiness. Anything alive is herenow, and anything alive has a future, because future grows out of it. The moment you start looking at the past, there can be no growth.

DO YOU RECEIVE INSTRUCTIONS FROM ANY MASTER OF MASTERS? No. But I receive help which is more beautiful. And I have been a loner, a vagabond with no home, passing, learning, moving, never staying anywhere. So I have nobody to look up to. If I had to find something, I had to find it myself. Much help available, but I had to work it out. And in a way that is going to be a great help because then I don’t depend on any code. I watch the disciple. There is nobody as a Master to me to look to. I have to look at the disciple more deeply to find the clue. What will help you, I have to look into you. That’s why my teaching, my methods, differ with each disciple. I have no universal formula, cannot have; no fixed rules, I have to respond. I have not a discipline already — ready-made. Rather, a growing phenomenon. Every disciple adds to it. When I start working with a new disciple, I have to look into him, seek, find what will help him, how he can grow. And each time, with each disciple, a new code is born.

You are going really in a mess when I am gone — because there will be so many stories from each disciple, and you will not be able to make any end, head or tail of it — because I am talking to each individual as individual. The system is growing through him, and it is growing in many, many directions. It is a vast tree, many branches, many sub-branches, going in all directions.

I don’t receive any instructions from the Masters. I receive instructions from you. When I look into you, in your unconscious, in your depth, I receive instructions from there and I work it out for you. It is always a new response.

Source – Osho Book “Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 2″

Question – Osho, do you ever get bored? Why not drop the ashram and live in the forest?

Osho – VEETGYAN, WHAT ARE YOU talking about? What ashram? I am living in the forest! These people are my trees — orange trees, aflame with flowers. Can you find a more wild jungle than this?

And how can I be bored with so many beautiful people around me? with such a celebrating existence? If you feel bored, that simply shows you must be insensitive, you must be thick. Your skull has to be broken. Otherwise, where can you find a better existence than this? This is the only existence there is, AND the perfect one. All is as it should be. Trees are green, and roses are red. All is as it should be! How can you get bored?

Boredom comes out of insensitivity. Because you are insensitive you cannot see the subtle changes that go on happening around you. Hence it looks repetitive: “The sun rises every morning, the same sun — how can one remain without being bored?” But it is NOT the same sun! It is constantly changing. It is FIRE — how can the fire remain the same? Watch fire… it is constantly changing. Flames are changing. It is constant flux. Sun is a liquid fire. It is never the same.

But, thinking that it is the same, you don’t look at the morning, and the clouds are new every day. Their forms are new. They take new colors. Every day they celebrate the coming of the sun. And the birds and the trees and the whole existence every moment is new, AND fresh — as fresh as a dewdrop in the morning. And so are people!

But you are dull, you are insensitive. You think it is the same woman you have lived with for twenty years. You have stopped looking at her. You have not looked at her for MANY years, not into her eyes. You have not touched her. You have forgotten her body smell. Then it is boring; then it is the same woman again and again.

It is NOT really boring — it is just that your eyes have collected much dust. Life becomes boring the more dust you collect in your eyes. The life becomes just formal, a ritual, empty. You go on doing things. Slowly slowly, all your acts become mechanical, robot like. Then life is boredom.

But I have never seen two moments alike. Each moment has its own beauty. Each moment is Only for once. If you miss it, you miss it forever; it will not be repeated again. God is not repetitive. God is very original — he never sings the same song again. If you hear the same song again, then something must be wrong with you.

It happened: A woman was singing, it was her birthday. She sang late in the night. Her voice was just horrible, but the neighbors were somehow tolerating it because it was only once in a year that her birthday used to come. So they had become tolerant about it. But that night she continued and continued… it was getting really late, two o’clock in the night. And a man just in front of her house could not sleep; tried in every way — tried all the tricks. Tossed and turned and did TM… etc., but nothing helped. She was driving him crazy, so he opened his window and shouted at her, “Lady, now it is time. You stop! otherwise I will go mad.”
The woman opened her door and said, “What are you talking about? It is almost one hour since I stopped!”

But what happened to this man? He was already mad. One hour before she had stopped, but he was listening, listening, listening… it was something in HIS mind. It was his inner gramophone.

Just watch: when you see a rose flower, your inner gramophone says, “You have seen it before. It is the same rose flower, nothing special about it. I have seen better.” You look at the moon and the inner gramophone says, “So what?! This is the same moon, and we have seen it many times.”

There are millions of people who never look at the sky. If suddenly one night all the stars disappear, they will not become aware of it. It may take a few days for them; when the news comes in the newspapers that “All the stars have simply disappeared from the world,” then they will look at the sky. And then they will miss them, and they will make much fuss and they will say, “How unfortunate! And we had not seen the stars for many years and they were here.”
You are bored because of your inner gramophone. I have none in site me. Each person is fresh, each moment is fresh. They a,Rex not repetitions — they are all unique. And I remain thrilled, I remain ecstatic.

Your life, Veetgyan, must have become an empty ritual. You must be moving through things, dragging. Not even under-standing the meaning, why you are doing these things. You come home and you kiss your wife — you have to, but there is no kiss, there is no kissing, there is no ecstasy in it. Just a dull phenomenon. And if you feel tired and bored, I can understand.

Life, slowly slowly, becomes so mechanical that it loses ALL meaning. All meaning oozes out of it. Then it is just a dull ritual. To live this way is to live irreligiously. That’s my definition of religion: to live joyously, ecstatically, thrilled by each moment that knocks on your door, is to live religiously.

Religion is nothing but the Al chemical process in which all your insensitivity dissolves, and you become utterly sensitive, delicate, vulnerable. Then each moment is samadhi, is God. is enlightenment.

Source – Osho Book “The Perfect Master, Vol 1″

Question – Beloved Osho, Can you say who you are?

Osho – Maneesha, I am an invitation for all those who are seeking, searching, and have a deep longing in their hearts to find their home. I am an answer to the question that everybody is, but cannot formulate — a question that is more a quest than a question, more a thirst than a verbal, mental inquiry; a thirst that one feels in every cell and fiber of his being, but has no way to bring to words and ask. I am an answer for that question which you cannot ask and you cannot expect that it could be answered.

When I say I am the answer, I don’t mean that I can give you the answer… yes, if you are ready, you can take it. I am just like a well, ready for you to throw your bucket and draw the water for yourself. I have it but I cannot reach to you without your efforts. Only you can reach to me.

It is a strange invitation. It will take you on a long pilgrimage and it will end only where you already are. You will have to move many steps and on many paths just to come to yourself, because you have gone far away from yourself. You have completely forgotten the way back.

I am a reminder, a remembrance, of the lost home.
As a person I do not exist.
As a person I only appear.
I exist as a presence.

Since the day I came to know myself, the person disappeared. There is only a presence, a very living presence that can quench your thirst, that can fulfill your longing. Hence, in one word I can say I am an invitation, of course just for those who have a deep longing in their hearts that they are missing themselves — a deep urge, that unless they find
themselves, everything else is meaningless. Unless it is your a priori concern, your ultimate concern, such that if it is needed you are even ready to lose everything for it, but you cannot drop it….

There are thousands of desires, but as far as longing is concerned there is only one: to come back home, to find your reality. And in that very finding, you have found all that is of any value — blissfulness, truth, ecstasy.

Jesus used to say, “If you have eyes to see, see. If you have ears to hear, hear.” Of course, he was not talking to the blind and to the deaf. He was talking to people just like you. Perhaps he was talking just to you, because you are not new. You are as ancient as the whole existence. You have always been here.

You may have come across many masters; you may have come close to many buddhas, but you were too much engaged in trivia. You were not aware of your longing. I am an effort to provoke the dormant in you, to wake up the asleep. The fire is there, but is burning very low because you have never taken any care of it.

My invitation is to make you aflame, and unless you know a life which is luminous and aflame all your knowledge is just a deception. You are gathering it to help you forget that the real knowledge is missing. But however great is your accumulation of the other, the objective, the world, it is not going to become a substitute for your self-knowing. With
self-knowing suddenly all darkness disappears, and all separation from existence. I am an invitation to take a courageous jump into the ocean of life. Lose yourself, because that is the only way to find yourself.

Source – Osho Book “The Invitation”

Question – Why do you not write your autobiography?

Osho – This can also be asked – why I do not write my autobiography. It may seem very interesting, but truly speaking after self-knowledge there is no autobiography. All autobiographies are ego-biographies. What we call an autobiography is not the story of the soul. As long as you do not know what soul is, whatever you write is ego-biography.

It is interesting to note that neither Jesus, nor Krishna, nor Buddha have written their autobiographies. They neither told them nor wrote them. Writing or speaking about oneself has not been possible for those who have known themselves, because after knowing the person changes into something so formless that what we call the facts of his life – facts like the date he was born, the date a particular event happened – dissolve. What happens is that all these facts cease to have any meaning. The awakening of a soul is so cataclysmic that after it occurs, when one opens his eyes he finds that everything is lost. Nothing is left; no one remains to talk about what has happened.

After one has known one’s soul, an autobiography seems to be a dreamlike version of oneself. It is as if one were writing an account of his dreams: One day he saw this dream, the next day that dream, and the day after that a third dream. Such an autobiography has no more value than a fantasy, a fairy tale.

That is why it is difficult for an awakened person to write. On becoming awakened and aware, he finds that there is nothing worth writing. It was all a dream. The matter of the experience of becoming aware remains, but what is known through the experience cannot be written down. This is so because reducing such an experience to words makes it seem insipid and absurd. Even so, there is always the attempt to tell about the experience in different ways through different methods.

My whole life I shall go on telling what has happened. There is nothing else to tell except this. But this also cannot be written down. As soon as it is written, it is felt that it was not worth talking about. What is there to write? One may write, ”I have had an experience of the soul. I am full of joy and peace.” It looks absurd – mere words.

Buddha, Mahavira and Christ went on telling their whole lives in many different ways what they had known. They never became tired. They always felt that there was still something left out, so they would speak again in a different way. It is never finished. Buddha and Mahavira may finish, but what they have to tell remains incomplete.

The problem is twofold: what can be told seems like a dream and only what cannot be told seems worth saying. There always remains lurking in the mind the feeling that if I tell you what has happened to me it is of no use. My purpose is to take you on that path that may lead you to the experience itself. Only then can you someday understand what has happened to me. Before that you cannot understand it, and my telling you what has happened to me directly serves no purpose.

I don’t think you will believe what I say. And what is the use of my making you suspicious? It will be harmful. The best way is to take you on that path, to that bank from which you can be pushed to where someday you yourself may have the experience. On that day you will be able to trust. You will know the way it happens. Otherwise there is no way to trust.

At the time of the death of Buddha people asked, ”Where will you go after death?” What does Buddha reply? He says, ”I have been nowhere, so where can I go after death? I have never gone anywhere and have never been anywhere.” Even after this people still asked him where he would go, but he had told the truth because the meaning of buddhahood is nowhereness. In that state one is nowhere, so the question of being somewhere does not arise.

If you can be quiet and silent, what remains except breathing? Only breathing remains; nothing else. Like the air inside a bubble, breathing remains. If you can be silent at least once for a few moments, then you will realize that when there are not thoughts there is nothing but breathing. The inhaling and exhaling of air is nothing more than the going out and coming in of air in a bubble or a balloon. So Buddha says, ”I was only a bubble. Where was I? A bubble has burst and you are asking where it has gone.” If someone like Buddha knows that he is like a bubble, how can he write his autobiography or tell about his experience? Whatever he might say will be misunderstood.

In Japan there was one saint called Lin Chi. One day Lin Chi ordered the removal of all the idols of Buddha. There had never been a man like him. Only just before he had been worshipping those very idols of Buddha, and now he was ordering them to be removed. Someone stood up and asked, ”Are you in your right mind? Do you know what you are saying?”
Lin Chi answered, ”As long as I was thinking that I am, I believed that Buddha was. But when I myself am not there, when I am only an air bubble, then I know that someone like Buddha also could not have been there.”

In the evening Lin Chi was again worshipping Buddha. People again asked him what he was doing. He said, ”I was helped in my own non-being by Buddha’s non-being. That is why I have been giving thanks. It was a thanksgiving from one bubble to another, nothing more.” But these statements could not be properly understood. People thought that there was something wrong with this man and that he had gone against Buddha.

Autobiography does not survive. Deeply speaking, the soul itself does not survive. So far, we understand only that the ego does not survive. For thousands of years, we have been told that the ego does not survive when one attains self-knowledge. But to put it correctly, the soul itself does not survive. In understanding this one is filled with fear. That is why we could not understand Buddha. He said, ”The soul also does not survive; we become non-soul.” It becomes very difficult to understand Buddha in this world.

Mahavira talked only of the death of the ego; that much could be understood. It is not that Mahavira did not know that even the soul does not survive, but he had in mind our limited understanding. Therefore, he spoke only of giving up the ego, knowing that the soul would automatically dissolve. Buddha, for the first time, made a statement which had been a secret. The Upanishads also knew, Mahavira also knew, that the soul does not survive in the end, because the idea of the soul is a projection of the ego. But Buddha revealed the secret which had been closely guarded for so long.

That created difficulties. Those who themselves believed that the ego does not survive started the quarrel. If the soul does not survive either, they said, then everything is useless. Where are we? Buddha was right. How could there be an autobiography then? Everything is like a dream sequence, like the rainbow colors formed on a bubble. The colors die when the bubble bursts. That is a very obvious result.

Source – Osho Book “Dimensions Beyond the Known”

Question – Beloved Osho, You are at once such an incredible strength and sweetness seeping through me. Why do i feel there is a need to protect you?

Osho – It is one of the fundamental laws of life that everything that is higher is very vulnerable. The roots of a tree are very strong, but not the flowers. The flowers are very vulnerable – just a strong breeze and the flower may be destroyed.

The same is true about human consciousness. Hate is very strong, but love is not. Love is just like a flower – easily crushed by any stone, destroyed by any animal. And as you reach higher into consciousness, the ultimate blossoming which we call enlightenment is the most vulnerable thing in the whole of existence.

So you will feel love, you will feel my compassion, and you will feel behind each of my words and gestures, strength. That strength is coming because whatever I am saying and whatever I am, it is my own experience. I am my own authority; I am not within quotation marks. The strength that you feel is the strength of truth. The flower dancing in the wind does not look weak. In the sun, in the rain, it looks immensely strong.

So these two sides which seem contradictory to each other are not contradictory to each other. The strength comes to the flower because it has roots in the earth, its own roots. The strength comes to the flower because the juice that is flowing in it is its own juice. The flower has not borrowed it from anybody, it is authentically itself. And it can dance in the wind, in the rain, in the sun; but on the other hand, because the flower is the highest expression of the tree, it is vulnerable. Even with all its strength, you can destroy it very easily.

Just imagine Socrates speaking to the people of Athens. His strength behind each word is tremendous: a man alone against the whole world. But there is no weakness. He is not afraid. Even the judges are affected by the strength, because anybody who is speaking a borrowed truth cannot have such authority.

To the chief judge Socrates says, ”You can kill me, but remember one thing: your name will be remembered in history for just one thing – that you decided to kill Socrates; otherwise you have nothing to contribute. And all these judges and all these people who are going to decide about me will be forgotten as if they had never existed. You can kill me, but you cannot kill my spirit.”

They decided to kill him, but they were certainly impressed because they could not give any counterargument; and whatever he said was so clear, so truthful, there was no way to put him in the wrong – he remained always in the right in court. Still, it was a democracy – truth was being decided by a majority. And the idiots who made the majority may not have even understood what Socrates was saying; it may have gone above their heads.

Perhaps because of that reason itself, they decided that he should be killed by giving poison, as was the custom in Greece. They could not tolerate such a man, who was so far above them and so much higher than themselves. His beauty, his truth, his sincerity – all were making them feel inferior. He was stronger than the whole crowd that was going to decide his fate.

You can see the strength. The judges were affected by the strength. They had to concede to the majority but they made a few conditions, just to help Socrates. They said, ”If the majority decides to kill you by giving poison, we cannot do anything. But we can suggest a few alternatives – that is within our powers. One is that you can leave Athens and promise that you will not return.”

Socrates says, ”That is impossible, because wherever I am, I will be faced with the same situation.” And Athens in those days was at the peak of culture, education, civilization. Perhaps no city has ever been at such a peak. ”If Athens cannot tolerate me, I don’t think there is another city which is ready to tolerate me.

”If you are throwing me out, who is going to welcome me? And I don’t want to leave Athens – I love it, and I love its youth, and I love the few intelligent people in this city who have been able to understand me. I don’t care about the crowd, I care about those selected people with whom I have a certain heart-to-heart communion. No, I cannot leave Athens. That will be worse than death.” The judges said, ”The second alternative is that you can remain in Athens, but you stop speaking, you stop teaching.”

Socrates, for the first time in the whole trial, laughed. He said, ”You are asking more and more absurd things. What is Socrates without his teaching? What is Socrates without his truth? That’s my life and my being. Please don’t try to be kind to me – death is more respectful than to concede to, and compromise with, anything that goes against my heart.” He accepted death. The alternatives were available.

Certainly there is a strength, a tremendous strength in the man. But just a glass of poison kills the man, because the poison does not take any note of who you are – an idiot or a Socrates. Faced with poison he proves to be very vulnerable. So these two things are not contradictory. You feel my love, you feel my strength – it is there. I can stand against the whole world… in fact that’s what I have been doing my whole life. But those who have hearts will certainly feel my vulnerability. Just a bullet is enough. It won’t see whether it is killing an animal, an idiot, or a buddha.

So the idea to protect me arises in your heart from the second possibility. All my sannyasins feel exactly the same. They feel both – they feel my strength and they feel my vulnerability. And all my sannyasins around the earth are in the same dilemma you are: ”When there is so much strength in the man, what is the need for us to be worried about protecting him?”

The strength is coming from one source, and the danger of destroying such a man is coming from a different source. There is no contradiction in it. And it is natural for the sannyasins to feel immensely protective towards me, for the simple reason that they know the light of a candle is strong enough to fill the whole room with light, but it is so
vulnerable: just a small breeze from the window may put it out. There is no contradiction in it. Both are coming from different sources.

Source – Osho Book “Light on the Path”

Question – How can i see you, how can i recognize you, Osho?

Osho – An ancient saying:
When the sun rises
we know this,
not by staring at it,
but because we can see everything ELSE clearly.

HOW DO YOU RECOGNIZE THE SUN? You don’t stare at the sun – you look at the trees, you look at the people… you look all around: everything is so clear. Because everything is so clear, you know the sun has risen. The only way to see me is if I can help you to see clearly around yourself. That’s what I am doing here: making things clear, giving you a clarity, sorting things out, putting things in their right places, giving you vision and insight.

The day you can see things clearly – your desires, your greed, your anger, your rages, your violence, your misery – the day you can see that it is you who are creating all this hell, the day you can see that you have NEVER been out of paradise, that you were just under a nightmare, the deeper you recognize it, the deeper you see it, the deeper your clarity, the more you will see me, the more you will recognize me. There is no other way!

I cannot give you any proof. What proof can the sun give to you that ”I have come”? Should it bring some certificates from some court? Should it quote scriptures: ”Look! In every scripture it is written that I will be coming”? No, that is not the point.

That’s what people were asking Jesus. ”How should we recognize you? How can we believe that you are the Messiah? Prove it!” And the Christians have been doing that for two thousand years, trying to prove from the Old Testament and other scriptures that ”Yes, the old Prophets declared, and this is the man about whom they declared that he would be coming.”

This is foolish. This is absurd. Jesus cannot be proved by any declaration by anybody else. Who are these prophets to declare? And who are these old scriptures? and why should they control’ Jesus stands in his own right – -and those who want to see him should see him by the clarity that he brings. There is no other way.

If I bring some clarity to you, then you have seen me and you have recognized me. Don’t look for any other proofs. There are none, and I am not interested in them at all. But that seems easier, to have a proof: so that you need not think, so that you need not bother, so that you can accept something because of the old, ancient authorities. No, I stand here on my own feet. I am not standing on anybody’s shoulders. I will not take the help of Buddha. Buddha has declared, ”I will be coming after twenty-five centuries,” and the time has come.

People write letters to me: ”Are you the Buddha?” No. I stand on my own feet. I would not like to burden Buddha and stand on his shoulders – mm? – that will be so unmannerly. I can stand on my own feet. Then the sun rises we know this not by staring at it but because we can see everything else clearly.

Another ancient saying says: There are none so blind as those who do not wish to see. Remember it: if you DON’T wish to see, then there is no way. If you wish to see, then you cannot avoid me. Just search for the wish, just search in your inner desire. If you have the passion to see me, the nothing can hinder you – you will be able to see me. But if you don’t want to see me, if you have some investment in NOT seeing me, not recognizing me, then there is a problem.

Somebody has written that ”I am a Christian and I cannot believe that you are the Messiah.” Now this is an investment. That’s what the investment was with the Jews: they could not recognize Jesus because they were Jews. Now, you are a Christian and you cannot recognize me…. Hindus could not recognize Buddha because he had gone out of the tradition. Buddhists cannot recognize Kabir because he is not a Buddhist.

Just a few days ago, a man came to me from far away. And he said, ”I have come to you to be-come a sannyasin because I am a follower of Kabir, and you have spoken such beautiful words about Kabir – that’s why I have come.”

He was not interested in me at all. I could see that he was not seeing me at all. Just to be respectful to him, I gave him sannyas. And I asked him, ”Will you be staying here?” He said, ”No, there is no need.” ”Would you like to do some meditations?” He said, ”I am doing – I am following Kabir.”

Now, this man, even though he thinks he has taken sannyas from me, has not even come to me. He is befooling himself. He has only come to me because I have spoken so beautifully on Kabir. There are many who have come to me because I have spoken so beautifully on Christ, or so beautifully on Gurdjieff, or so beautifully on somebody else – but they have not come to me. They are not my people. Even if they are here they will not be able to see me – they have their investments.

Source – Osho Book “Walk Without Feet, Fly Without Wings and Think Without Mind”

Osho – A parable… Once in the garden of a Master there lived a monkey. And, as monkeys are curious people, he became very curious about the Master. He saw the Master sitting silently, doing nothing, and by and by he started coming close to him – what is this man doing? It was a mystery. Certainly, to a monkey, the most mysterious thing is somebody sitting silently, doing nothing.

Restlessness is just natural to a monkey, so resting in silence…? Has this man gone mad? By and by he started coming closer to watch him. The closer he came, the more he was surprised. Not only was the man silent but the space around him was tremendously quiet. Even the monkey could feel the vibe as he came closer.

Then he started loving the man, and just to be close to him became one of his hobbies. Whenever he could find the time and whenever the Master was sitting in the garden, he would come close and sit by his side. One day he said to the master, ’What do you do? Please tell me also. I surrender to you. Accept me as a disciple.’

The Master looked at the monkey, felt great compassion for him, and said, ’I don’t do anything. You can also do it. It is non-doing. Sitting silently, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself. You simply sit silently. When the right moment comes, suddenly you are full of tremendous joy and peace and God. You are not supposed to do anything. Anything done on your part is a disturbance, creates ripples, creates waves. And when your mind is wavy God cannot enter. When the mind is a quiet surface, when everything is silent and calm, God enters. He enters through the door of silence – but that is possible only when you are not a doer. So you can do it, you can try it.’

The monkey shook his head. He said, ’It is impossible. I thought that if there was something I could do I would do it, but this is impossible. If you told me to fetch the moon I could bring it; if you told me to remove the Himalayas I could do it; if you told me to force the Ganges to run up-current I could do it – because in the old ancient days other monkeys like Hanuman have been known to do it. I am a monkey, I have the potentiality, I can also do it – but sitting silently, doing nothing? Sir, that is impossible. It is against my nature, it would drive me crazy. If God comes through silence then God is not for me and I am not for God.’

Human mind is nothing but a monkey. Man has not changed much. Charles Darwin says that man has evolved only on the surface – deep down man is as restless as other monkeys. Man has not evolved much. The real man is born only when your inner monkey completely disappears, utterly disappears.

To be a man means to be a no-mind. The constant chattering of the mind inside, the inner talk, the monologue, continues day and night, year in, year out, from birth to death. Whatsoever you are doing is irrelevant, it continues deep inside you. That chattering is the only thing that is irreligious, the only sin, the original sin. Once that chattering stops, miracles start happening to you. Such great mysteries become revealed that you cannot contain them. Such a vast sky starts pouring into you that you cannot believe it. It is incredible. You start expanding. Then the whole universe is something within you. Then you are not within the universe but the universe is within you. Then stars and moons and suns circle within your heart.

But if this happens without a Master you will go mad. It is mind that is holding you together. Whatsoever you are – even if you are a monkey – it is mind that is holding you together. The mind is your illness and also your normality. Because of the mind you are tethered to the earth. Without the mind you would not be tied anywhere. You would be so loose and so free you might disperse. Who would hold you? What would be your definition then? Mind gone, ego goes. The ego is the centre of the mind, the very heart of the monkey . Mind gone, greed is gone. Mind gone, ambition is gone. Mind gone, competition is gone. Mind gone, future and past are gone. Mind gone, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, are gone. Mind gone, Indian, German, Chinese – nationalities are gone. Mind gone, the body is no more you. Your own mother is not your mother, your own father is not your father, your own son is no longer your son. All relationship disappears because the relationship exists in the mind.

Just think of a moment with the mind suddenly gone – where will you be? What will you be? You will lose all identity. You will simply melt and disappear, evaporate. It will be maddening… hence without the Master the path is very risky. And when the glimpse of the beyond comes to you for the first time it will shatter you and you will not be able to see the positivity of it – you will see just the negativity of it. You will see what it has taken away from YOU, YOU will not be able to see what it is giving you. Naturally you are acquainted with your past and the past is going away, fast You will simply see yourself as disappearing.

And for the new that is being born you don’t as yet have any language; for the new that is being born you don’t as yet have any concept. The new that is being born is invisible cannot be touched, cannot be heard, cannot be smelled cannot be tasted. It is beyond senses. You have never before known the new that is happening so how will you recognise it? The new will not be recognised and the old will be disappearing so you will feel yourself going mad, falling apart dying. Death will be your experience or madness will be your experience. You will think that this is a curse that has happened to you. The blessing will look like a curse because you cannot yet see it as a blessing, your eyes are not trained or it. You can only see the curse, you can only see the negative part of it. This is what Christian mystics call ’the dark night of the soul’ – the light is so blinding it almost looks like darkness.

Have you not looked directly into the sun sometimes? Within seconds you will go blind, you will not be able to see It will be so dazzling. It is not dark but the light is too much for you and your eyes are not able to take it in, they cannot absorb it. And, after looking at the sun for a few seconds if you look around everywhere, you will find a tremendous darkness. If you look long enough at the sun you will go blind.

Why is light blinding? Why? Because we have certain capacities. Only in tiny capacities can we allow the light to enter in – and we can recognise only that much. Beyond that we lose recognition. That’s how it happens that when you first enter into the world of no-mind it looks like madness – the dark night of the Soul, the mad night of the soul.

All the religions have noted the fact, hence all the religions insist on finding a Master before you start entering into the world of the no-mind – because he will be there to help you, to support you. You will be falling apart but he will be there to encourage you, to give you hope. He will be there to interpret the new to you. That is the meaning of a Master: to interpret that which cannot be interpreted, to indicate that which cannot be said, to show that which is inexpressible. He will be there, he will devise methods and ways for you to continue on the path – otherwise you might start escaping from it.

And remember, there is no escape. If you start escaping you will simply go berserk. Sufis call such people the MASTAS. In India they are known as mad PARAMAHANSAS. You cannot go back because it is no longer there, and you cannot go ahead because it is all dark. You are stuck. That’s why Buddha says, ’Fortunate is the man who has found a Master.’

I myself was not as fortunate as you are; I was working without a Master. I searched and I could not find one. It was not that I had not searched, I had searched long enough, but I could not find one. It is very rare to find a Master, rare to find a being who has become a non-being, rare to find a presence who is almost an absence, rare to find a man who Is simply a door to the divine, an open door to the divine which will not hinder you, through which you can pass. It is very difficult .

The Sikkhas call their temple the GURUDWARA, the door of the Master. That is exactly what the Master is – the door. Jesus says again and again, ’I am the gate, I am the way, I am the truth. Come follow me, pass through me. And unless you pass through me you will not be able to reach.’

Yes, sometimes it happens that a person has to work without a Master. If the Master is not available then one has to work without a Master, but then the journey is very hazardous. For one year I was also in the same state that this parable talks about. For one year it was almost impossible to know what was happening. For one year continuously it was even difficult to keep myself alive. Just to keep myself alive was a very difficult thing – because all appetite disappeared.

Days would pass and I would not feel any hunger, days would pass and I would not feel any thirst. I had to force myself to eat, force myself to drink. The body was so non-existential that I had to hurt myself to feel that I was still in the body. I had to knock my head against the wall to feel whether my head was still there or not. Only when it hurt would I be a little in the body.

Every morning and every evening I would run for five to eight miles. People used to think that I was mad. Why was I running so much? Sixteen miles a day! It was just to feel myself, to feel that I still was, not to lose contact with myself – just to wait until my eyes became attuned to the new that was happening.

And I had to keep myself close to myself. I would not talk to anybody because everything had become so inconsistent that even to formulate one sentence was difficult. In the middle of the sentence I would forget what I was saying in the middle of the way I would forget where I was going. Then I would have to come back. I would read a book – I would read fifty pages – and then suddenly I would remember, ’What am I reading? I don’t remember at all.’ My situation was such.

The door of the psychiatrist’s office burst open and a man rushed in.
’Doctor!’ he cried. ’You’ve got to help me. I’m sure I’m losing my mind. I can’t remember anything – what happened a year ago, or even what happened yesterday. I must be going crazy!’
’Hmmmmmmm,’ pondered the headshrinker. ’Just when did you first become aware of this problem?’
The man looked puzzled, ’What problem?’

This was my situation! Even to complete a full sentence was difficult. I had to keep myself shut in my room. I made it a point not to talk, not to say anything, because to say anything was to say that I was mad. For one year it persisted. I would simply lie on the floor and look at the ceiling and count from one to a hundred then back from a hundred to one. Just to remain capable of counting was at least something. Again and again I would forget. It took one year for me to gain a focus again, to have a perspective.

It happened. It was a miracle. But it was difficult. There was nobody to support me, there was nobody to say where I was going and what was happening. In fact, everybody was against it my teachers, my friends, my well-wishers. All were against it. But they could not do anything, they could only condemn, they could only ask what I was doing.

I was not doing anything! Now it was beyond me; it was happening. I had done something, unknowingly I had knocked at the door, now the door had opened. I had been meditating for many years, just sitting silently doing nothing, and by and by I started getting into that space, that heartspace, where you are and you are not doing anything, you are simply there, a presence, a watcher.

You are not even a watcher because you are not watching – you are just a presence. Words are not adequate because whatsoever word is used it seems as if it is being done. No, I was not doing it. I was simply Lying, sitting, walking – deep down there was no doer. I had lost all ambition; there was no desire to be anybody, no desire to reach anywhere – not even God, not even nirvana. The Buddha-disease had completely disappeared. I was simply thrown to myself.

It was an emptiness and emptiness drives one crazy. But emptiness is the only door to God. That means that only those who are ready to go mad ever attain, nobody else. But if you have a Master things are simple. He can hold your hand when you are losing all track of your being. He can become your support. If you love your Master that love Will be the last link. Every link disappears but that link remains. It disappears only when you have attained your own perspective, your own clarity. It is just like an umbilical cord. The child lives through the mother in the womb for nine months and if you cut the umbilical cord he will die He lives through it. That is the only link.

In exactly the same way, if you love the Master, a subtle silver cord arises between you and the Master – a very invisible phenomenon to others but very visible to the disciple. He can almost touch it. You become joined together with your Master from your navel. The Master is your mother, the Master is your womb. And this umbilical cord, this invisible silver cord, remains nursing you until you are ready and the pregnancy is ripe, until you are ready to be reborn and you can breathe on your own.

The Master is a must. If you can find one you are fortunate. Then he will interpret to you and the darkness will look like light, the illness will look like a new well-being; the curse he will transform into a blessing. In fact, it is a blessing but you interpret it as a curse. He is not doing anything, he is simply showing you what the case is.

Source – Osho Book “Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 2″