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Osho – Enlightenment has no language

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:45:34 +0000

Osho – Once you start falling in love with somebody, although in the beginning it is only his language, his poetry, his graceful assertions, his mysterious words … slowly, slowly you come closer and closer. Words are forgotten and the person becomes more and more important, his presence becomes more and more tangible. You can almost touch it. His silence slowly starts reaching within you, creating a communion — not a communication.

There is a story about a Sufi mystic, Jalaluddin Rumi, who has been loved by Sufis the most. He is the only Sufi mystic who has been called mevlana: master of masters. And he was certainly a master of masters.

A caravan was passing through the desert, and in a castle in the desert Jalaluddin Rumi had his campus, where seekers from all over the Middle East used to come to see him. The people in the caravan thought, “It is a good place for the night’s rest. We and our camels are all tired. And moreover, it is a good chance, just out of curiosity, to see what is happening with this madman, Jalaluddin Rumi, who attracts strange people from faraway countries. And we don’t see any point in it. He looks to us a little mad, but they call him a master of masters.” So just out of curiosity they stopped under the trees and went into the castle to see what was happening.

Jalaluddin was teaching. His teaching consisted of pure poetry; he would sing a song. They heard his songs — they looked like utterances of a madman: irrelevant, unconnected. Beautiful words, but saying nothing … strange sentences. When you are hearing them you feel great; when later on you think about them you find nothing, your hands are empty. They left in the morning.

When they were returning they again stopped, just out of curiosity: “What is happening now?” Jalaluddin was sitting with closed eyes, and all the disciples were sitting with closed eyes with him. Nobody was saying anything and nobody was hearing anything.

They said, “Now things have gone from bad to worse. Last time at least that madman was saying something which at least looked beautiful — without meaning. But now he is sitting with closed eyes, and all these idiots are sitting with closed eyes. Now there is nothing for us.” So they went away.

On their second trip they again passed by the side of the castle, and they again stopped to see how much the madness had progressed. There was only Jalaluddin Rumi sitting, and nobody else.

They said, “So all those idiots are gone. This is strange — very strange progress of the disciples. Where have they disappeared to? They have all left.”

Seeing nobody there, they took courage, approached Jalaluddin, and asked him, “It is not good to disturb you, but we cannot resist our temptation to ask — what happened to your disciples?”

Jalaluddin looked at him — the man who was asking — and the crowd behind him, the whole caravan. He said, “I have been watching you. The first time you stopped I was speaking to my disciples, just preparing them so that they can sit in silence with me. The next time you passed, they had become mature enough, they were sitting in silence with me.

“This time you have come, they have all gone to spread the message. They have ripened, they have arrived at the space they had been searching for. Now they have gone to catch hold of other mad people. I will have to begin again when new people come. I will talk, and when they are ready just to enjoy my presence in silence, then I will sit in silence with them. And when they have come so close that their heart and my heart have become one, I will send them to fetch other mad people who are in need of me.”

Enlightenment has no language, Milarepa. But enlightenment finds ways, even without language, to convey the essential message. Even language can be used as a device, but it is not a communication of the experienced truth. That communication will happen only in communion.

Everything can be used, and different masters use different things. Jalaluddin Rumi used to dance, and his dance was so infectious that people would start dancing with him. And just by dancing with him, something would start transpiring.

Nanak traveled all over India and outside India — the only great Indian mystic who ever went outside India. And he had only one disciple with him in all these travels. He went to Sri Lanka, he went to Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, far and wide — and he was walking. All that he used to do was just to sit under a tree and his disciple, Mardana, used to play on a certain musical instrument. He would play music and Nanak would sing a song. And there was such beauty in his song, and in the music of Mardana, that even people who did not understand their language would come there and sit close to them.

After the music was finished, Nanak would sit silently. And the people who had become enchanted with the music, without understanding — because it was not their language … a few would leave, but a few would sit because now his silence had also become a tremendous magnetic force.

He was an uneducated man and he used only a villager’s language — Punjabi. But he managed to create an impact on almost half of Asia. Without any language, he managed to make disciples. I am reminded of a small but tremendously valuable incident.

Near Lahore there was a campus of Sufi mystics, very famous in those days — five hundred years ago. People used to come from far and wide to Lahore for that mystic gathering. Nanak also reached there, and he was just taking a bath outside the campus when the chief Sufi heard that he was there. Neither he understood Nanak’s language, nor Nanak understood his language; but some way had to be found. He sent one of his disciples with a beautiful cup full of milk, so full that even one more drop of milk could not be contained in it. And he sent that cup of milk to Nanak.

Mardana could not understand: “What is the matter? What are we supposed to do? Is it a gift, is it a welcome?” Nanak laughed and he looked around, found a wildflower, and floated it in the milk. The wildflower was so light that it did not disturb the milk, and nothing came out of the cup. And he gave the signal to the man to take it back.

The man said, “This is strange. I could not understand why this milk has been sent, and now it has become even more mysterious: that strange fellow has put a wildflower in it.” He asked the chief Sufi, his master, “Don’t keep me in ignorance. Please tell me what the secret of all this is. What is going on?”

The chief mystic said, “I had sent that cup full of milk to tell Nanak, `Go on to somewhere else; this place is so full of mystics, there is no need of any more mysticism. It is too full, just like this cup. We cannot welcome you; it will be unnecessarily crowding the place. You go somewhere else.’ But that man has managed to float a flower in it. He is saying, `I will be just like this flower in your gathering. I will not occupy any space, I will not be a disturbance in your gathering. I will be just a beautiful flower, floating over your gathering.’”

The Sufi mystic came, touched the feet of Nanak and welcomed him — without language; nothing was said. Nanak remained their guest, every day singing his songs, and the Sufis were dancing, enjoying. And the day he left they were crying. Even the chief mystic was crying. They all came to give him a send-off. Not a single word of language was exchanged — they had no possibility of any communication. But a great communion happened.

Enlightenment has no language, Milarepa, but enlightenment is capable of finding ways of conveying its rejoicings, its blissfulness, its truth, its love, its compassion … all that is great in human experience — the highest peaks of consciousness.

Source – Osho Book “The New Dawn”

Osho – Truth is God. There is no other God except the truth

admin — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 16:13:56 +0000

Osho – I was in a big city. Some young men came there to meet me. They started asking: “Do you believe in God?” I said: “No. What relation is there between belief and God? I know God.”

Then I told them a story: There was a revolution in some country. The revolutionaries of that place were busy in changing everything. They were determined to destroy religion also. In the same context an old beggar was arrested and brought to the Court.

They asked that beggar: “Why do you believe in God?” That beggar said: “No gentlemen, I do not believe. But God is there. What should I do now?”

They asked: “How do you know that He exists?” That old man said: “After opening my eyes ever since I began seeing I have seen none except Him”.

That beggar’s replies served as ghee to the fire. Those revolutionaries became very angry and said: “Very soon we will kill all your monks and nuns. What then?”
That old man laughed and said: “As God may wish! ”

‘But we have decided to destroy all signs of religion. We will not leave any sign of God in the world.”
That old man said: “My son, this is a very difficult job that you have selected. But as the God may will! How will you destroy all signs? Whatever remains will announce His existence. At least you will be there, and you will announce His existence. It is impossible to eliminate God, because God is all-pervading.”

All these misunderstandings cropped up because God was compared to a man. God is not a person. He is what He is. And the thought of believing in God has also created a lot of misunderstanding.

What is the meaning of believing in light? That can be seen only when the eyes open. Belief is a supporter of ignorance and ignorance is a sin. Not the blind faith, with eyes tied under cloth, but the discrimination with eyes fully open can take a man upto the truth. Truth is God. There is no other God except the truth.

Source – Osho Book “The Earthen Lamps”

Osho – A scripture is a scripture only if it gives you freedom

Swami Amitabh — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:44:00 +0000

Osho – I have heard a story. A wasp made its abode near a window outside a big building. In winter this wasp would sleep and rest, in summer it would fly, dance and collect the pollen of the flowers. It was very happy. But this wasp was a special one – it was a thinker. It used to think a lot and used to look down upon other wasps because there was no thinking in their lives. Their lives were full of desire.

They never did any thinking, they never contemplated, they never knew the scriptures. Sometimes it used to fly into that building also. It loved that building. The people visiting the building seemed to it of its own type because they were thinkers. Actually, this building was a big library. Professors, teachers, writers, philosophers, poets used to come there. Usually people used to drive out the wasp but it always would come back.

Gradually it started reading and writing. It started in the children’s department and soon it was studying big books of philosophy. It began to read big volumes of science and poetry. It became very proud and just could not tolerate the other wasps – they seemed very insignificant. It became very egoistic. It was thinking day and night. It forgot all about dancing in the sun, flying in the air and visiting the trees. Now mostly it used to sit down engrossed in deep thoughts like, ”Who made this world? Why was it made? From where has this existence come and where is it going?” It used to think about these serious questions all the time.

One day it was reading a book on the science of aviation. It was written in that book of aerodynamics that the body of a wasp is heavier than its wings, so theoretically a wasp cannot fly because its wings are small and weak and the body is big and heavy. On reading this it became confused and puzzled.

Up to now it did not know that its body was big and its wings were small. It was the first time it had learnt this and, of course, whatever is written in the scriptures cannot be denied. It is not possible to go against what is said by the scientists. It became very sad. That day it did not fly back to its hive, it arrived there by crawling. How was it possible for it to fly – to do something which was quite against science? It became very sad and stopped moving about altogether.

It still saw the other wasps flying around, going to the flowers, but it thought that they were doing so out of ignorance – how can a wasp fly? Its wings are small and its body is big. It was full of pity for those who were flying because they did not know the facts of science. If they knew they would have stopped flying.

But one day a bird attacked the wasp, intending to eat it for breakfast. In its nervousness and confusion the wasp forgot all about the scriptures and flew away. It sat on a bush, rested a little and became calm and realized that it had flown! ”I was thinking that a wasp cannot fly but I have flown, so there must have been a block in my mind stopping my natural capacity for flying which melted in the moment of danger.”

It had read about mental blocks in the mind in a book on psychology. So it started flying again from that day. It gave up the knowledge of scriptures from that day, and from that moment it again became the wasp – the natural wasp! From that day it became free of knowledge and stopped looking down on other wasps. That day it experienced its true nature.

Religion is freedom from knowledge, and in that freedom is the ultimate knowledge. The scriptures are not meant to make you lame but to give you the capacity to fly. If the scriptures have made you lame, then it is sure that you have misunderstood them or you have interpreted them wrongly. If the scriptures have made you sad, then you must have missed something in them or must not have understood them properly. The scriptures which have snatched away your natural capacity to fly or flow are not your friends – you have turned them into your enemies.

A scripture is a scripture only if it gives you freedom. A scripture is a scripture if it makes you natural. A scripture is a scripture if it does not fill you with condemnation for others and is able to make you realize that the divine is hidden also within them.

Source: from Osho Book “The Great Transcendence”

Osho – You can deny God, but God never denies you

Swami Amitabh — Fri, 15 May 2009 06:22:00 +0000

Osho – There is an ancient Sufi parable: A man gave to a Sufi mystic a present, a golden bowl with a beautiful fish in it. The Sufi looked at the bowl and the fish and felt very sorry for the fish, because the bowl is an imprisonment.

He went to the lake and he was tremendously happy in liberating the fish. He threw the fish into the lake. He was happy that at least now the fish can have the whole lake, the great freedom, the space that really belongs to her. A golden bowl — although it is golden it is a confinement.
Then he thought, what will he do with this bowl? So he threw the bowl also into the lake.

The next morning he went to see how the fish was. He was surprised: the fish was in the bowl and the bowl was in the lake. What had happened to the fish? She had again chosen the bowl. Now the bowl is in the lake, but the fish is not in the lake; the fish has entered into the bowl again. She has lived so long in it, it is her home. The mystic thinks it is a prison, but not the fish; she may have been afraid of the freedom.

People become very afraid of freedom, more afraid than of anything else. You will be surprised to know that people talk about freedom, but when freedom is really given to them they become afraid, frightened, scared, because freedom is vast, unmanageable, uncontrollable. You cannot dominate it. Slavery is small, it is smaller than you. You feel good with it — you seem to be big compared to your slavery.

But compared to your freedom you are nobody, a nonentity, a nothingness. And who wants to be a nothingness? Everybody wants to be somebody; even though one has to live in a prison, one is ready…. If you can be made the head of the prisoners — a president, a prime minister, or something like that — you would like, you would love to live in the prison rather than be free and nobody.

The first requirement for attaining to truth is the capacity to be free, the capacity to be nobody. The ego is the greatest barrier. The ego can exist only in a golden bowl; it can’t exist in a lake. It is bound to melt, merge and disappear.

Lies are good for the ego. In fact, the ego is the greatest lie; it feeds on other lies. Although truth has a way of coming up again and again… howsoever repressed, it surfaces, because it is truth; you can repress it only for the time being. And to repress truth you will have to be constantly on guard. Of course you will get tired, you will need a little rest, and whenever you are resting the truth surfaces. The truth comes in your life again and again; you can go on denying it, but it never denies you. You can deny God, but God never denies you.