Question – What constitutes the behaviour of an enlightened man?

Osho – An enlightened man is all emptiness. What constitutes an emptiness? It has no ‘constitutes’ in it; hence it is empty. A man who is enlightened has no character. Let me repeat it: an enlightened man has no character at all. He lives from moment to moment. He has no character to follow; he has no structure around him. A character is a structure, a character is an armour. An enlightened man has no character. Let me say he is characterless.

But try to understand me — because he has no structured consciousness. He HAS consciousness but the structure has been dropped. He’s neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian. He is neither good nor bad, neither moral nor immoral, neither this nor that. He simply is. All duality has disappeared. You cannot evaluate him; you cannot categorize him; you cannot put him into any pigeon-holes of your logic. He exists like an emptiness — nothingness he is. And out of that nothing, every moment the miracle — that he goes on functioning without any armour around him, without any structure. He goes on flowing.

It is difficult for you to understand, because you cannot think how you would function without a structure. If you don’t have any morality conditioned on you, how will you behave morally? — it seems difficult for you. It is just like saying to a blind man that we walk without groping. The blind man says, “I cannot believe you. How can one walk without groping? Groping is a must.” The blind man has his stick; he goes on groping with his stick — “Where is the door?” — and if you say that we don’t carry any sticks, he will laugh: “You must have gone mad, or you must be joking.” And he will say to you, “Don’t be funny. Don’t try to be funny. Because if you don’t grope with a stick, how can you walk?”

Our character is like the blind man’s staff. We grope in darkness; we somehow manage to be good; we somehow manage to be moral. And inside, the immorality goes on and on, ready to explode any moment — a great turmoil within. And we go on managing somehow on the surface. That’s what we call character.

A man who is enlightened — who has come to know who he is, who has faced himself — has no masks, has no character, has no rules to follow. There is no need, because each moment his consciousness is there, and out of his consciousness arises his act.

You act out of your conscience; he acts out of his consciousness. Conscience is given by the society; consciousness is your nature. You act ‘good’, because you have been told to act ‘good’. Not that you are good. You ACT’good’ because you know it pays to be good; you know honesty is the best policy. Just see: it is policy, it is politics. It is cunningness, because it pays. And if dishonesty pays — if dishonesty is the best policy — then you move to dishonesty.

That’s how the hypocrite is born. He goes on pretending to be honest, and he goes on doing whatsoever pays. Sometimes honesty pays — then he is honest; sometimes dishonesty pays — more often dishonesty pays — then he goes on being dishonest. Whatsoever pays, whatsoever fulfils your greed….

A man who is enlightened lives out of his consciousness. He has no conscience. He has thrown out all that structure, that conditioned mind. Now he lives out of his purity, innocence. His act is here and now; your act is mind-manipulated. You do something, but either it comes from the past, because you have been conditioned to do it that way, or it comes from the future, because you have been told about awards in heaven and somewhere in the future. Either it comes out of fear, or it comes out of greed — it never comes out of your consciousness. The enlightened man lives out of his consciousness.

Let me say it in a different way: you react, he acts. Somebody insults you: immediately you react. There is no time gap. You become angry, you retaliate. If you insult a Buddha, there is a time gap. He does not react. He looks at you; he watches you; he observes you: “Why are you behaving in this way?” And out of that observation he responds. It is not a reaction; it is not a push-button thing. Somebody insults you; he has pushed a button. You react; you go mad. You cannot push any button in a Buddha; he has no buttons. That’s what I mean: he has no character around him. You cannot push any button. He has dropped the whole mechanism. You can be angry; you can insult him; but you cannot decide his reaction, because he has none.

Once it happened: A few people insulted him very badly… abused him. He listened, listened very silently — you cannot find a greater listener than Buddha. Those people started feeling a little awkward, because they were waiting for him to react; and he was listening so silently, so meditatively, as if they were reciting the Vedas; and they were just abusing him. They started feeling awkward, because the expected reaction was not coming.

One of them asked, “Are you listening or not to what we are saying? Your face has not changed even a little bit. You don’t seem to be angry.”

Buddha said, “Because I am listening to you, I feel much compassion. Poor fellows — why are you in such a rage, and why are you in such an anger? Why are you poisoning your systems?” Buddha is thinking about them.
They said, “Forget about us. We have not come to ask for any advice. What about you?”

Buddha said, “If you had come ten years before, then I would have reacted. You came a little late. Now you can insult me, but it never reaches me, because I never accept it. And unless I accept it — unless at my end I receive it — you cannot give me anything. You can give; but I don’t take it.”

Buddha told them a parable. He said, “Just in The other village people had come with many sweets, but I told them that I didn’t need sweets — ‘Please take them back.’ I ask you, what should they have done about those sweets?” Those people gathered there said, “They must have distributed them in the town.”

Buddha laughed and said, “Now what will you do? You have brought abuses, insults, anger, hatred, and I say to you,’I don’t take them.’ Now you will have to take them back and distribute them in the village. I feel sorry for you.”

This is action. And remember, reaction binds; action is freedom, action has no bondage. If you act, you are free; if you react, you are in The bondage to it. Act means total — out of your total consciousness a response comes — not out of conscience, not out of concepts, not out of The mind, but out of your being, the innermost being, which is beyond you. Your nature is beyond you — it comes from there.

An enlightened man is a miracle every moment. He remains in absolute silence, and acts out of that silence, responds out of that silence. He has no ideas about good and bad, but whatsoever happens through him is good. Whatsoever happens through him is love, whatsoever happens through him is compassion, because it is not possible otherwise. Not that he decides, “I should love you.” He has no ‘shoulds’, no ideals. Not that he decides, “I should not be bad; I should not sin” — he has no ideas about ‘bad’ or’ sin’.

Out of awareness is virtue born. Whatsoever comes out of awareness is virtue, and whatsoever comes out of your sleep is sin. If you ask my definition of sin, I will say, “An unconscious act, which is a reaction, is sin. A conscious act which is not a reaction — which is a response — is virtue.”

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

Question – Beloved Osho, i can’t conceive of you ever being unenlightened. Did you really become enlightened only thirty-two years ago?

Osho – Neither can I conceive it. This is one of the very fundamental things in the nature of enlightenment. Once you are enlightened, you are in a very strange situation – trying to conceive how you could manage to remain unenlightened for so many lives. It is a tremendous work, it needs great effort.

Misery, jealousy, competitiveness – all that is ugly is needed to remain unenlightened. Enlightenment itself is simple, it is natural. Unenlightenment is your creation. Enlightenment is a gift from existence. So it is up to you how long you want to remain unenlightened. Any moment you can drop unenlightenment. Never ask how to become enlightened, because nobody can become enlightened. Everybody is born enlightened. Just ask, ”How can we drop all those props that are keeping us unenlightened?”

There is a beautiful story in Gautam Buddha’s life. Again and again he has told it…. In one of his past lives he met an enlightened being. Out of respect he touched his feet. But he was surprised – in return the enlightened man touched his feet. Buddha could not believe his eyes. He said, ”What are you doing? I am an unenlightened man, ignorant. I have not experienced truth. I have not yet been able to love, to be compassionate. My laughter is still phony, my heart is full of discontent. Why have you touched my feet?”
And the enlightened being laughed. He said, ”Don’t be worried. As far as I am concerned, you are as enlightened as I am.”

From your side, that is your problem – I don’t see any of you here as unenlightened, it is impossible. Enlightenment is your very center, your very being. But you have been conditioned, programmed to remain unenlightened. All your religions are responsible for it. They don’t want you to become enlightened, because an enlightened man cannot be a Christian, a Hindu, a Mohammedan. From his state of consciousness, all these theologies, religions, are sheer nonsense – fictions created by ignorant people for other ignorant people.

Never ask how to be enlightened. You can ask how to remain unenlightened, that is relevant. If you want to be enlightened, you are this very moment. Nobody is preventing you except yourself. And you are making so much hard, arduous effort to become enlightened. That is one of the ways to remain unenlightened. The very effort keeps you troubled; and each effort is going to fail, because what you are already you cannot become.

Just see the difference between these two simple words: being and becoming. Enlightenment is being – you cannot become it. Becoming is a process somewhere in the future after long journeys, doing all kinds of stupid things – yoga postures, Christian prayers, fasts, remaining celibate, entering into a monastery forever, you will not come out of it….

There are monasteries where you enter but unless you are thrown out you cannot get out; only your dead body comes out some day. I have heard about such a monastery. It was famous for two things: one, for one thousand years no woman had entered into the monastery – it was prohibited. Even a six-month-old baby girl was not allowed.

When I heard about it I thought, were monks living in the monastery, or monsters? A six-month-old baby is not allowed in! You can conceive the mind of those people who are living inside. And second, it was famous in that silence was the rule. Only after seven years – once, after seven years – if you wanted to say something to the abbot, you could say it, and then for seven years again silence.

One man became a monk. For seven years he suffered, because the mattress was missing, he was sleeping on a bare floor. It was hard, it was cold, but he had to wait for seven years to say, ”I need a mattress.”
Seven years, by and by, passed – they must have looked to that man almost like seven centuries. And he was so happy when he went to the abbot and said, ”Master, I have a complaint to make. In the room you have allotted me, there is no mattress. And for seven years I have been prohibited from speaking.”
The abbot said, ”Okay, a mattress will be provided immediately. You go back.”

A mattress was provided. But the cell in which the monk was living was very small, and the door was very small, and the mattress was big. So while they were bringing the mattress in, the door fell out and the window’s glass was broken. Somehow they forced that big mattress into the small room. For seven years the poor man again suffered – from rain, wind, snow, because there was no door and the window was broken. In fact, he started thinking that the first seven years were far more beautiful: ”I was an idiot to make that complaint!”

Again after seven years he went to the abbot. And the abbot said, ”Again?”
The man said, ”I have to say something, I am compelled to say it: the mattress that was provided was bigger than my cell, and the people, the other monks who brought it, somehow forced it in. I could not say no – I could not speak. They broke the door, they broke the window, and you can conceive – for seven years I have been living in wind, in rain, in snow. I was not thinking that I would be able to survive, but somehow by God’s grace I am here again. Please put the door back and mend the window.”

This was too much. The abbot became angry, and he said, ”In all these fourteen years you have done nothing but complain, complain, complain! This is not a way to be religious. You simply get lost!”

Enlightenment is not something to be achieved. It is not an achievement, it is not a goal far away that you have to journey to. It is not a pilgrimage at all. The more you seek and search for enlightenment, the more you will miss it, and the more miserable you will be.

Enlightenment is a very simple understanding. So once you stop all efforts to be enlightened and just remain at ease with yourself, totally accepting yourself as you are…. That’s how existence meant you to be. Don’t try to improve upon existence, you cannot do that. Relax, be existential, not religious. And suddenly you are amazed, ”My God! I have always been enlightened.”

Your question is right. After enlightenment everybody is amazed – and knows that he has always been enlightened. Thirty-two years ago I awoke from the nightmare of making a continuous effort to attain enlightenment. I simply dropped all efforts to be enlightened. I simply accepted myself as I am – good or bad. I simply stopped judging myself. And a miracle happened: with judgment disappearing, with ambition to become enlightened disappearing, it was as if I came out of a nightmare fully awake.

And when I saw myself as enlightened, I saw the whole existence as enlightened. You are part of a tremendous blissfulness, but you are keeping yourself closed. You go on doing something against nature, against existence. You have been taught that to be natural is something wrong; you feel guilty when you are natural. You feel happy when you repress your nature, when you become phony, a hypocrite. All religions have been doing only one thing for thousands of years: making people hypocrites.

I want you to drop all that crap, and just be yourself – with no effort to go anywhere, because you are already there, this very moment. I know about a man who is present amongst you, his name begins with ”T”. Forgive me, I cannot tell you his full name. I know his tent number, but I cannot tell you the tent number. He has come here to assassinate me.

I cannot tell you his name and his tent number, because I don’t want to interfere in anybody’s life. If he wants to assassinate me, and can have a moment of joy – I have had enough, so let him have the joy.

But I would like him to wait at least for the 6th of July, because I have a date with death. Whenever I die, I will die on the 6th of July. The year does not matter, but the 6th of July matters. I want it permanently to be the Master’s day. So, Mr. T., only this much favor you have to do for me.

He is trying to find ways, proper situations, spaces, places, from where he can assassinate me, and he is in much trouble. I am perfectly willing – after enlightenment what is there? All is fulfilled. I will be of every help to him. He could have approached me and asked, ”How to assassinate you?” and I could have given him exactly the right information. I could have left my bedroom door open in the night… because I don’t want that man to suffer. After assassinating me, my sannyasins will not leave him to himself. He will be killed immediately, and I am against violence. But that is the trouble he is facing: everywhere there are thousands of sannyasins – he will be caught.

I cannot even do what Jesus did on the cross. He prayed to God. There is no God, so I cannot pray. And he said to God, ”Please forgive these people because they know not what they are doing.” That too, I cannot say, because Mr. T. knows exactly what he is doing or planning to do. He just does not know how to do it. He seems to be an amateur. I feel sorry for him; perhaps he will not be able to do what he has come here for. I cannot interfere with him, I cannot interfere with my sannyasins. And my sannyasins also have guns. I don’t interfere with anybody.

I have always been enlightened, but just thirty-two years ago I recognized it, just thirty-two years ago I became aware of it. And the same is going to happen to you too. Whenever you become awakened, you are in for a great surprise.

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

Question – Beloved Osho, watching the mind, it seems to me there is an infinite ocean of thoughts. Meditation gives me more peace and grounding, but hearing you speak about enlightenment — it seems to me far, far away. can you give me some advice?

Osho – Dhyan Jashan, enlightenment is as far away as you are from yourself; hence the distance differs from individual to individual. You are certainly in a difficult position: first, you are a German, and nobody has ever heard of any German becoming enlightened. Only one of my German sannyasins used to become once in a while enlightened, and again he understood, “What am I doing? It is not for me,” and he dropped the idea. That happened many times. Just now I have heard that he is washing dishes in a Zorba the Buddha restaurant. The person who told me about him had asked him, “What happened? You had become enlightened….”

He said, “Forget all about it. Five times I became enlightened, and then I dropped the whole idea. I am feeling far happier washing dishes in the restaurant.” What was happening was that whenever he would come here he would become unenlightened, and whenever he would go to Germany he would become enlightened. In Germany there was no question, no objection; nobody has even heard what it means, so in Germany it would be easier. Here it is a little difficult.

Secondly, you are really in a big dilemma: you are a liar! First a German, and then a liar makes things very complex — otherwise enlightenment is as easy as nothing else in the world. Everything needs some effort, except enlightenment. Everything needs you to go somewhere, everything needs you to do some climbing the ladder — except enlightenment.

Enlightenment is the easiest, because it is not an achievement. Don’t make a goal of it… that’s what is making it difficult for you. If you are feeling good and grounded in meditation, you are perfectly in the right direction. Just get all your ocean of thoughts settled. Let it become a lake without any ripples.

You drop the idea of enlightenment — it is none of your business. Meditation is going well; that means the tree is growing well, the flowers will be coming in their own time, in their own season. No tree is worried, no tree is concerned about why the flowers have not come yet; they always come in their own time.

All that you have to take care of is that the tree should not die, that it should be nourished, that it should have a good soil, that it should be watered, that it should have your love, your friendship. All you can do is nourish your meditation, become more and more grounded and centered. One day suddenly, from nowhere… the explosion.

You don’t have to go to enlightenment; it comes to you. In fact, even that is not right to say. It does not come either; it happens — and it happens from your innermost core. It is an explosion, just like the explosion of an atom. Atomic explosion comes from the innermost core of the atom. Enlightenment is the explosion of your innermost life center. Suddenly all darkness is gone! A light has descended upon you from every side, and a light that needs no fuel… a light that remains, that has come forever.

Nobody can become unenlightened; that is an impossibility, that’s a difficult task — even a German cannot do that. But enlightenment becomes a problem because you go on hearing me. I am the problem. I cannot stop talking about enlightenment, and that creates the desire in you and the longing in you. Just don’t listen to me! The moment I say “Enlightenment…” simply say, “It is not for us.” If you can avoid…

You cannot make me feel responsible for it, because I am helpless, I will continue to talk, I cannot talk about anything else. Whatever I say suddenly turns out to be something about enlightenment. Just watch…

A priest went to a ranch in order to buy a horse, and saw a beautiful one that he liked and asked if he could try it. “Sure,” said the rancher, “but I have to tell you something. That horse used to be owned by the bishop, and if you want the horse to move, you have to say, `Good Lord,’ and if you want him to stop, you have to say, `Amen.’”
“That’s okay,” said the priest and jumped up and said, “Good Lord.” The horse promptly moved off and then was seen galloping in the mountains. The priest was yelling, “Good Lord, good Lord.” and the horse was really moving.

But suddenly they were coming to the edge of the cliff and, in panic, stricken with fear, he yelled, “Stop, stop!” That did not work and then he remembered and shouted, “Amen.”
The horse stopped right on the edge of the cliff and, wiping his brow with his relief, the priest said, “Good Lord!”

Do you think Gautam Buddha could have made this story in any way connected with enlightenment? But I am just incurable. I see every element in it exactly leading to enlightenment. All that you need is the last “Good Lord”… finished!

There is no hurry. You are moving slowly, gradually, you are getting grounded, becoming centered, but listening to me your desire catches fire. It starts thinking, “If meditation is so beautiful, so silent, what will enlightenment be like?” And then it becomes a constant worry and a tension. It will not help you; it will even disturb your meditation.

But you should look at my trouble also. If I don’t talk about enlightenment, you are not going even to do meditation; if I talk about enlightenment, that disturbs meditation. Now you tell me the way…! So just be sane. Enlightenment comes — I can guarantee you it comes. It is not as though it is something that has not happened to many people. You have the potential for it, but you have to understand the whole process.

In the beginning the master goes on telling you all the beauties and all the blissfulness and all the ecstasies of enlightenment. He has to — otherwise who has time to meditate? Television is there, football matches are going on…. The world all around is so full of idiots doing all kinds of gymnastics: boxers are boxing, actors are acting — who has time for meditation, and for what?

If I don’t talk about enlightenment, then naturally you will ask me, “Why should I meditate?” And the moment I say “Enlightenment…” trouble arises. Then your mind is habitually making everything a goal, far away. Mind enjoys challenge, and enlightenment is not a challenge.

People even want to go to Everest. When Edmund Hillary, the first man who reached on top of Everest, was asked by the news media, “Why did you take such a risky step of going to the highest peak of the Himalayas?” His answer was really beautiful, an answer with great understanding.

He said, “It is not a question of my going. It is just because Everest is there, unclimbed, and I cannot tolerate it. It is not troubling me, it has nothing to do with me, but simply the idea that it remains unclimbed… hundreds of people have died trying to climb it, and it has become a challenge. I will risk my whole life.” You will not gain anything….

He reached to the top, looked all around, and felt embarrassed, because there was not even somebody to say “Hello, hi, Edmund Hillary, how are you?” — not even a single tree, not even a single bird, not even a single animal, nothing. Just miles and miles of eternal snow which has never melted… He did not remain there for more than two minutes; what is the point? Man may go to the moon, man may go to Mars, man may go some day to some star. They are challenging to the mind. Mind is very interested in any challenge: provoke it, and it will go.

But enlightenment is not a goal, it is not Everest, it is not the moon. It is you. You don’t have to go anywhere, not even out of your room. You don’t have to take a single step. You have just to be silent, unmoving, and it is there. It has always been there. So you should understand: the problem of the master is that he has first to talk about enlightenment to create a little interest, a little longing in you, and then he has immediately to make it clear to you that you should not make your longing attached to a goal. You have to find it just within yourself. No effort, no doing, no action… nothing is needed.

Dhyan Jashan, if you can simply remain meditating and enjoying the silence and the peace of it, you have done whatever is needed on your part. Now leave enlightenment to existence. Existence is not miserly; it is not exhausted because a few people have become enlightened. There is no quota, that only so many people can become enlightened. The whole world can become enlightened, everybody has the intrinsic potential; you just have to disconnect your meditation from any goal-orientation, from any motivation. It is not difficult if you understand: just a little intelligence…

But we live in a world where intelligence is not valued, where the mediocres rule, where the mediocres are the leaders… where the intelligent people simply get out of the crowd, they don’t want to be unnecessarily hassled and hustled in the crowd; they stand by the road and let the crowd pass. Once you become aware of the strangeness of the people around you, you will be surprised: how have you been missing it up to now?

Just today Neelam has brought a news which has been published by all the newspapers of India. The statement is from a man called Devahar Baba, who is worshiped by thousands of Hindus, thought to be a great saint. All his qualities for being a great saint are very peculiar. One is that for twelve years he was standing in the water day in, day out. He will eat standing up to his chest in the water, he will do everything there: that made him known nationwide, a great man. Somehow people persuaded him that “it is enough, twelve years…” Just out of compassion he came out of the river, and since then he has been sitting in a small hut made for him on a tree. These are his two qualifications for being one of the representatives of Hinduism.

His statement was just according to his qualifications. The statement was that the world can be saved, all problems can be solved, if only cow slaughter is stopped. Now his statement is being published by every newspaper without a single criticism — but my statement will not be published by anyone. Now this is sheer stupidity, not intelligence.

How can the world’s problems be solved by stopping cow slaughter? But in India it is a very common way of thinking…. Mahatma Gandhi used to think that if everybody starts spinning his own clothes, all problems will be solved. India is great in finding simple solutions! Now Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is saying that if people start learning yogic hopping, which he calls yogic flying, all problems will be solved. There will be peace, serenity, no war, no hunger.

And I am amazed that nobody criticizes them, nobody holds them by the neck and tells them, “You idiot!…” The world is suffering with so many complex problems, and you are suggesting that somebody sitting in the lotus posture, hopping, will solve all the problems. Nuclear weapons will disappear, communism will not be against capitalism, the Soviet Union will become a democracy, America will distribute all its wealth to the poor, the West will distribute all its products to the poor countries — just because a few idiots are sitting in the lotus posture and hopping. I cannot even conceive in my dream…

Perhaps that’s why I have stopped dreaming for thirty years. I have not dreamt for thirty years — what to dream? And if you call these people idiots, immediately somebody’s religious feeling is hurt. Immediately an arrest warrant… I have been summoned thousands of times — I have even forgotten the number — and how many times have they issued arrest warrants for the single reason that I have made some reasonable statement?

It is a very unreasonable, almost insane world in which you are living. If you can manage just to meditate, you have done more than is expected of the contemporary man. And your meditation is going good. Just go on saying, “Good Lord!” In meditation there never comes any cliff. You don’t have to remember “Amen” — there is no need.

Meditation slowly, slowly turns into your enlightenment. You suddenly become aware one day, Where is that darkness? where is that continuous rush of thoughts? where has the mind gone? Suddenly you are absolutely as hollow as a bamboo; but your hollowness is not empty — it is full of joy and full of rejoicing. You will dance for no reason at all, you will sing for no reason at all, songs that you have not composed, dances that you have not learned. They are just bubbling spontaneously in your consciousness. That is enlightenment, but don’t make it a goal. Meditation is enough. Everything else follows on its own.

Source – Osho Book “The Great Pilgrimage From Here to Here”

Question – Beloved Osho, I’m in a hurry to become enlightened. What should i do?

Osho – Chitten, first just listen carefully to this small story.

The plane had just taken off and the captain was telling the passengers about the altitude of the plane, the cruising speed etcetera. But he forgot to switch off the microphone. He then turned to his co-pilot and said, “First I’m going to have a cup of coffee and then I’m going to screw that pretty stewardess, Denise.”

The shocked stewardess was down the end of the plane when she heard this come over the loudspeaker. So she began to rush down the aisle to tell the captain to switch off his mike. Halfway down the plane an old lady stopped her and said, “There’s no hurry, Denise, let him have his cup of tea first.”

Chitten, there is no hurry at all. First have your cup of tea! Enlightenment will be coming, just you have to learn waiting for it. Hurry will not help. Hurry is going to hinder. The only thing that is a hindrance is hurry. The moment you are in a hurry you are never here; you are looking far ahead. You are running. And for enlightenment you have to be still and silent and in this moment — utterly still, because this whole pilgrimage is from here to here.

For centuries people have been hurrying, and missing. I teach you a totally different approach: of being here, without any hurry — the whole eternity is there. And don’t be a beggar: the moment you are ready and ripe, enlightenment will happen. Trust existence.

This is the only thing worthwhile for those who are interested in becoming enlightened. Trust existence that whatever is needed, for whatever you are worthy, it will be given to you. You need not even ask for it. Only the unworthy ask; only the undeserving desire. The deserving remain silent; the worthy never demand, but when it happens they are full of gratitude. They wait, they allow the spring to come at its own pace, and when the flowers start blossoming they enjoy the fragrance with tremendous prayer in their hearts, of gratitude.

The very desire to be in a hurry can lead you in a wrong direction, because there are peddlers all around who are ready to give you enlightenment instantly. That’s why I told you: first have your cup of coffee — that means instant coffee… but let enlightenment come on its own.

One day a young woman was walking home when a man grabbed her, dragged her into a back alley, and started molesting her.
“Help! Help me someone,” she cried. “I’m being robbed!”
“You are not being robbed, lady,” interrupted the man, “you are being screwed.”
“Well,” she replied, “if this is being screwed, then I have always been robbed before.”

Don’t get mixed up. Everything in the world needs hurry, because so many people are running for it. You cannot wait; otherwise you won’t get it. You have to trample people, you have to go ahead without thinking what means you are adopting. Even if people are to be killed, kill, but remain ahead; otherwise you are going to miss. That is one dimension of life — of trivia, of meaningless things, money, power, prestige.

But there is another dimension where there is no need to be in a hurry, because there is no competitor. You are alone. In your inner world nobody can enter. In your stillness you suddenly find yourself, absolutely alone, surrounded by nothingness. Just rejoice in it, relish it. Your enjoyment of your aloneness and nothingness will make you ripe for the enlightenment to happen. It happens.

I can say it to you because it has happened to me. I am not depending on any Gautam Buddha or any Jesus Christ. Whatever I am saying I am saying with my own signature. Hence I can say with absolute authority without any hesitation: there is no need to worry. It comes, and it comes without giving you any advance notice. It comes so silently that you cannot even hear its footsteps.

You just have to be ready and ripe, and to be ready and ripe there is only one way: be still and wait. Don’t move, not even in your thoughts, not even in your emotions… just a pure pillar of stillness. And suddenly there is the explosion, and where there was darkness is light and where there was death is pure life and where there was sadness is just an explosion of song and dance and laughter. But never think in terms of hurry. That is a hindrance. Be patient.

Source – Osho Book “The Great Pilgrimage From Here to Here”

Question – During my dancing meditation i kept having flashes about What you said concerning the society, drugs, etc. And Wondering that now that i am intoxicated by the ultimate drug, you, Osho, can anyone take that away from me? Bring me down from that eternal high?

Osho – No one except you. You can destroy it, nobody else. It is totally your creation. You can destroy it or you can nourish it. Remember it, because it is very difficult to move on heights. We are not attuned for heights, we are attuned for crawling on the earth. That’s why whenever you attain to a high you cannot remain on that altitude for long. Sooner or later you descend back into the dark valley of your life. Then it becomes just a memory.

Not only that, it becomes a frustration because now you know that height is possible. And you have lost your path, you are back in the valley. In fact, you were better before, in a way — you had not known the height, you had not known the light, so you were thinking that the valley is the only life. Now that you have tasted something you will never be at rest in the valley.

So if you are feeling high, if you are touching some altitude within your consciousness, if some sky is opening, then be very careful because very fragile is the flower of consciousness — very, very fragile. It can be destroyed in a single moment of unawareness. It needs lives together to create it and a single moment of unalertness to destroy it. It is very fragile.

But nobody else can take it from you, that thing is certain, nobody can rob you of it. It is something within you. So you can be killed but it cannot be killed. It is absolutely yours. Even if I want to take it back from you, I cannot take it because, in fact, I have not given it to you. You have given it to yourself.

My presence may have helped as a catalytic agent but that’s all. Even I cannot take it back from you. But don’t be satisfied with this — that nobody can take it — you can destroy it. The danger will come from you, the trouble will come from you. So don’t look around for the enemy, look within. It is a great gift that you have given to yourself, now watch for the inner enemy: the anger, the hatred, the jealousy, the envy. They are watching. They are watching you flying so high, they are getting ready to pull you down, to pull you back to the valley where they think you belong. Watch there — the enemy is within just as the
friend is within.

Mahavir has said that you are your enemy if you are not alert, you are your friend if you are alert. A great treasure is happening to you. You cannot remain unconscious as you were before because before you had no treasure, there was nothing to be guarded. Now the more you grow inside, the more you will have to guard, to protect.

Source – Osho Book “Dang Dang Doko Dang”

Question – Beloved osho, when i look inside myself, i catch a glimpse of what seems like centuries of conditioning. i feel that i certainly will not become enlightened, although others might. Is this attitude a natural mistrust? Is this attitude a habit i have to break? Osho, will this attitude prevent me from becoming enlightened? please, shower some light on me.

Osho – Divyam Mayo, your question needs great consideration for the simple reason that it is going to arise for many sannyasins at different stages, but it has to be divided so that you can understand clearly what is happening.

First you say, ”When I look inside myself, I catch a glimpse of what seems like centuries of conditioning.” This will happen to everybody because everybody has been conditioned for centuries. You are forgetting just one thing – which is often forgotten by seekers of their inner world, and this is most important to remember, not to forget.

You are saying, ”When I look inside, I catch a glimpse of what seems like centuries of conditioning.”
One thing is certain: that you are not part of the conditioning, you are the watcher. When you go in, you see centuries of conditioning around your consciousness. But you are not part of the conditioning, and that is the only ray of hope.

Conditionings may be of centuries, it does not matter. The moment you disidentify yourself with them, they lose all power. You become immediately free. Who is seeing the centuries of conditioning? Certainly the seer, the observer is separate from that which he is seeing. You go into the garden and you see all these trees, but you don’t feel identified with those trees; you go inside and you find centuries of conditioning, but you are not the conditioning. Realizing this is the beginning of a revolution in your very idea about yourself. You are consciousness.

Conditionings are just like dust which has gathered on the mirror; it can be washed away, and the mirror will come to its purity immediately. No dust can destroy the mirror, it can only hide it. Conditionings can hide you, but they cannot destroy you. Just as dust can be removed from the mirror, conditionings can be removed as easily.

Secondly you say, ”I feel that I certainly will not become enlightened, although others might.” This certainty that you will not become enlightened is arising because of your misunderstanding about conditionings. Seeing so many conditionings, you have lost hope. You think you will never become enlightened – you are certain – ”although others might.”

Do you think others are new people in the world? They are as old as you are. They have passed through all that you have passed through. They have gathered as much dust as you have gathered. But your misunderstanding is giving you a certainty. Once your misunderstanding is dropped, you are enlightened in that very moment.

Only one thing is certain: Nobody can prevent anybody from becoming enlightened. There is no power in the world which can prevent anybody from becoming enlightened because enlightenment is your very nature. You are already enlightened – you just don’t know it. You have forgotten it – it is a forgotten language. It has only to be remembered, and the way to remember is to disidentify with all the conditionings; they may be there, let them be there. Remember: ”I am not one of them. I am the knower, I am the seer, I am the observer, I am the awareness.” And the awareness cannot be touched by any conditioning.

The third thing: ”Is this attitude a natural mistrust? Is this attitude a habit I have to break?” Yes, it is a natural phenomenon. Everybody gets mixed up with their conditionings, and it is only a habit and nothing else. You can drop it without any effort, just by becoming aware of what I am saying to you.

And lastly, you are asking, ”Will this attitude prevent me from becoming enlightened?” Certainly, if this attitude prevails … it will not prevent, but it will go on postponing; it can go on postponing for centuries, which is almost like preventing. But if you drop this attitude, this very moment you are free. This very moment you can open your wings and fly into the sky.

And the last thing, Divyam Mayo: your whole question is intellectual. You have not been meditating. You have been just thinking about things; hence, the question. If you had been meditating, then what I have said to you, you would have found yourself.

Mrs. Goldstein’s frustrated next door neighbor is trying to squeeze some affection out of little Hymie.
”Do you love me, darling?” the neighbor asked Hymie. Little Hymie nodded.
”Then put your arms around me, honey, and give me a great big kiss,” she said. Hymie went on kicking his football.
”How much do you love me, precious?” the neighbor kept on. ”Show me how you would cry if I died,” she urged.
”Die first!” said Hymie running off.

Do something. Don’t go on intellectualizing. Children are very clear about their perceptions. What is the point of thinking intellectually that ”If I die, would you cry?” Hymie is absolutely right – ”Die first! And then we will see.”

You have to stop thinking about these things. Thinking is not going to lead anywhere. Start meditating, becoming more aware, alert – and then you don’t need my answer. The answer is within you. I am simply saying that which you will find arising within yourself.

Source – Osho Book “The New Dawn”

Question – The west has given birth to aristotle, nietzsche, heidegger, camus, berdyaev, marcel and sartre. Is it going to give birth to buddhas by itself or is a communion with the eastern consciousness needed?

Osho – CHINMAYA, THE BUDDHA-CONSCIOUSNESS is neither Eastern nor Western. It has nothing to do with geography or history, it has nothing to do with mind as such. Mind is Eastern, Western, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, German, but the innermost pure consciousness is simply the pure sky – you cannot identify it with anything because it is unconditioned. What is East and what is West? – ways of conditioning, different ways of conditioning. What is a Hindu and what is a Jew? – different ways of conditioning. These are names of diseases. Health is neither Eastern nor Western.

A child is born, and immediately the conditioning starts – very subtle are the ways of conditioning. Directly, indirectly, we start pressing the child into a certain mold. He will speak a certain language, and each language has its ways of thinking, each language has its emphasis, its particular direction. That’s why sometimes it becomes impossible to translate from one language into another; the other language may not even have words which correspond, the other language may not have looked at reality and life in that way. Life is infinite; the way you look at it is finite – there can be infinite ways of looking at it.

And then the child starts getting coloured by the family, by the school, the church, the priest, the parents – and it goes on silently. Slowly slowly, the whole sky of consciousness is closed, only a small window, an aperture, is left open. That aperture is Indian, English, American. That aperture is Hindu, Jaina, Buddhist. That aperture is Eastern, Western.

Buddhahood is to regain again the consciousness that you had brought with your birth. That uncontaminated purity, that original face without any masks, that innocence is Buddhahood. So Buddhahood cannot be Eastern, Western; it is transcendental.

You may be surprised that when a child grows up in a family… and each child has to grow in a family – it is almost a must, there is no other way – some kind of family is needed. Even if it is a commune, it will have its own limitations, it may be a kibbutz but it will have its own limitations. And there is no way to bring up a child without a certain nourishing surrounding. That nourishing surrounding is a must, without it the child cannot survive; the child has to be looked after, but the child has to pay for it. It is not simple, it is very complex. The child has to continuously adjust himself to the family because the family is ’right’, the father is ’right’, the mother is ’right’. They are powerful people – the child is helpless. He has to depend on them, he has to look up to them, he has to follow them. Right or wrong is not the question; the child has to become a shadow, an imitator.

That’s what Hinduism is, Christianity is, that’s what Eastern and Western mind is. And it is very subtle; the child may never become aware of it because it is not done in one day, it goes on so slowly – just like the water falling from the mountain, falling and falling and falling, and it destroys the rocks, and the stones disappear.

The child has to adjust in many ways. That adjustment makes him false, inauthentic, makes him untrue – untrue to his own being. Now psychologists have discovered that if a certain child proves to be stupid, it may not be so, because no child is born stupid. It may be just the whole surrounding, the family, that he had to adjust to. If the father is too intellectual, the child will have to behave in a stupid way to keep a balance. If the child behaves in an intelligent way, the father is, in a subtle way, angry. He cannot tolerate an intelligent child, he never tolerates anybody who is trying to be more intelligent than him. He will force the child to remain inferior notwithstanding what he goes on saying, and the child will learn the trip of behaving like a fool, because when he behaves like a fool, everything goes okay, everything is perfectly okay. The father may show his displeasure on the surface, but deep down he is satisfied. He always likes fools around him; surrounded by fools, he is the most intelligent person.

Because of this, over hundreds of years women have learned a trick: they never try to be intellectual – the husband won’t like it. Not that they are not intelligent, they are as intelligent as men – but they have to learn. Have you not watched it? If the wife is more educated, the husband feels a little bad about it. No man wants to marry a woman who is more educated than him, more famous than him.

Not only that, but in small things too: if the woman is taller, no man wants to marry her. Maybe it is just because of this that women have decided biologically also not to become too tall – there may be some kind of psychological reason in it – otherwise you will not get a husband. If you are too intelligent, you will not get a husband. The woman has to pretend that she always remains a baby, childish, so that the husband can feel good that the woman leans on him.

In a family, the child comes into a ready-made situation. Everything is already there, he has to fit himself into it, he has to adjust to it. He cannot be himself; if he tries to be himself, he always gets into trouble and he starts feeling guilty. He has to adjust – whatsoever the cost – survival is the most important thing, the first thing, other things are secondary. So each child has to adjust with the family, with the parent, with geography, with history, with the idiosyncrasies of the people around him, with all kinds of prejudices, stupid beliefs, superstitions. By the time you become aware or you become a little bit independent, you are so conditioned, the conditioning has gone so deep in the blood and the bones and the marrow, that you cannot get out of it.

What is Buddhahood ? Buddhahood is getting out of this whole conditioning. This is cutting the root. You can go in the garden and watch – one thing you will be surprised about. When the new tree is planted, naturally the tree has to adjust with the other trees which are already in existence. It has to find ways. It can grow its branches only where there is a space. If other trees are already occupying that space, it cannot grow in those directions. It has to find a way in the existing situation; it has to adjust. Maybe it cannot grow branches on all sides, it cannot be balanced – it can grow branches only to the north because there is some space there, the other three sides are already occupied.

It becomes lopsided: it grows a branch too much towards the north, and all the other sides remain ungrown; it is lopsided. And this is on the surface. If you go deep, the same is happening with the roots. There are already roots of other trees; they have already taken possession of the earth. The new tree has to find ways; it has to avoid the places that have been already occupied, it has to find new sources of water if it can, it cannot grow its roots as they would have grown naturally if there had been no other trees around.

But that is not possible for a child – the same happens to humanity. The child grows branches in directions which are available. The child grows roots; those roots become entangled with the roots of the parents. And they remain entangled if you don’t cut them. It is very difficult to find a really grown-up person; people grow old, they never grow up. And growing old is not growing up – they are not synonymous. Growing old is moving towards death, growing up is moving towards more life, more abundant life. Great decisiveness is needed on your part. People remain entangled. A man may be fifty, but he is still behaving with his wife as if he were with his mother. He still expects the same from his wife as he used to expect from the mother; he is still a child. The woman may be fifty, but she still expects from the husband the same kind of behaviour as she expected from the father. This is not growing up. And because it cannot be met – the husband is not your father and the wife is not your mother – then there is frustration. This is entanglement with the roots.

You are still entangled. The father may be dead, the mother may be dead, but your roots still go on moving in the same directions in which they learned to move in your childhood. Now the space is available, but you have forgotten how to grow in those spaces which have become newly available – space becomes available every day. But you have forgotten, completely forgotten. Or a few parts of you have died; they have simply disappeared. It is very difficult to find a man who is whole. Somebody’s hands are too big, and the brain too small. Somebody’s brain is too big, and the heart is almost non-existing, zero. People are living only in parts, and to live in parts is to live in misery. A Buddha is one who lives as a whole, as an organic whole. East and West are irrelevant to Buddha-consciousness.

Chinmaya, if Buddhas can happen in the East without the help of the West, why can’t they happen in the West without the help of the East2 And who has told you that they have not happened in the West already? Just the names are different there; they don’t call it Buddha-consciousness, they call it Christ-consciousness; it is the same. Meister Eckhart or Jacob Boehme or Gurdjieff – these are Buddhas. They have been happening in the West as much as they have been happening in the East; only the names differ.

No support of the East is needed, no communion. A Buddha is not a communion of East and West, a Buddha is a transcendence of all that is East and West – a transcendence of all divisions – not a communion, not a meeting but a transcendence, not a synthesis of the opposites but going beyond the opposites. A Buddha is a pure sky – he knows no boundaries. It can happen anywhere, in any time.

But the Eastern ego feels very good to think that Buddhas can only happen in the East. And when Indians use the word ’East’ they simply mean India; they don’t mean China, they don’t mean Japan – they can’t mean Pakistan – their ’East’ simply means India. And if you insist in India too – ’Where?’ – then it never means South India, it means North India. If you go on insisting, you will find finally that the Indian means that he himself is the person who can become the Buddha, nobody else. If you go on insisting, finally you will find that he is declaring himself, that’s all; only he can become the Buddha, nobody else. Deep down it is nothing but an ego game. Forget all these ego games. Get out of these egoistic assertions.

In time also, just as it happens in space, the same has happened again and again. India is a certain space. In time also the same happens. Now, there are people who say ’Buddhas only used to happen in the past, they cannot happen now. They are not going to happen in the future; this is a KALI YUGA, this is the worst time.’ Why is this the worst time? Time is always the same. The birds sing the same songs that they used to sing in Buddha’s time, the trees still bloom the same way, and the rivers flow the same way, the stars move in the same way. This is the same dance; time cannot make any difference. Why only in the past? Again the ego is involved. We are too attached with the past – ’our past’, ’our heritage’. We think of our past in glorious terms, that gives us great satisfaction, and it helps us and consoles us that ’We have been at the top; nobody has ever been at that height where we have been’. It helps us to feel good, because when we look around – and the real situation is so ugly – we need some kind of dream to help us.

And there are two kinds of dreams possible: either you dream of the past, that’s what religions have been doing, or you dream of the future, that’s what materialistic religions are doing. Communism, fascism, nazism – they dream of the future; they say in the future will be the utopia, the golden age. Old religions used to say in the past was the golden age. Nobody says that right now is the golden age.

And I would like to declare it to you right now: NOW IS THE ONLY GOLDEN TIME. Buddhas happen now, because there is no other time, and Buddhas happen here. And the ’here’ contains all, the whole space, and the ’now’ contains the whole time. But they happen only when somebody takes the decision to go beyond all boundaries, when somebody risks going out of the herd and the herd psychology, when one decides not be a part of the mob.

That’s what you are: when you are a Hindu you are part of a mob, when you are a Jaina you are part of a mob, you are a Christian you are part of a mob. When you drop out of the mob and you become free and you start to live life the way you want to live it, when you accept yourself totally – when there is no self-condemnation, when you don’t compare yourself with anybody or any ideal and you don’t put yourself down again and again – when you start living your life joyously the way God wants you to live…

God has not given you birth to live somebody else’s life; if he had wanted a Krishna, he would have created a Krishna, if he had wanted a Christ, he would have created a Christ. Why Chinmaya? Now he wants a Chinmaya.

The Hassid mystic, Zusia, was dying, and he started praying. Tears were flowing down from his eyes and he was trembling. And somebody asked ’What is the matter? Why are you trembling?’

He was saying ’I am trembling for a certain reason. This is my last moment, I am dying. Soon I will be facing my God, and I am certain he is not going to ask me ”Zusia, why were you not a Moses? If he asks I will say ”Lord, because you didn’t give me the qualities of a Moses!”; there will be no problem. He will not ask me ”Why were you not the Rabbi Akiba?” I will tell him ”Sir, you never gave me the qualities of being an Akiba, that’s why.” But I am trembling because if he asks ”Zusia, why were you not a Zusia2” then I will have nothing to answer, then I will have to look down in shame. That’s why I am trembling and these tears are flowing. My whole life I tried to become Moses or Akiba or somebody else, and I completely forgot that he wanted me to be just Zusia and nobody else. Now I am trembling, now I am afraid. If he asks this question, what am I going to ansWer? How will I be able to raise my eyes when he says ”Why were you not Zusia? You were given all the qualities of being a Zusia, how did you miss?” And I have missed in imitating others.’

Remember, always remember Zusia; it is one of the most significant incidents in any mystic’s life. If you remember it, it will help. You have to be your own self, utterly your own self. Don’t imitate. Don’t follow the past. Don’t follow any ideals because they are all herd psychology. Slip out of them. Be a lion, and move out of the mob. And start living your life as truly as possible, because if you cannot be true to your own life, how can you be true to others? And by being true to your own self, you will transcend all limitations of countries, religions, political dogmas, East, West; you will transcend all limitations.

By being yourself… Just think of it, will you be a German? or will you be a Japanese? or a Burmese? Just being yourself, who will you be? a Christian? a Hindu? a Mohammedan? You will not be; you will not find yourself in all these definitions, you will start growing beyond definitions. Buddha-consciousness is transcendental consciousness. It has nothing to do with East or West.

Source – Osho Book “The Sun Rises in the Evening”

Osho – Man ordinarily lives in these three states, sometimes waking, sometimes dreaming, sometimes fast asleep; this is the wheel man moves in. And because of these three states of mind many things have arisen into human consciousness and in human culture, civilization.

The first kind of consciousness, waking, creates its own culture, its own civilization; the West represents it. The second kind of culture is created by the second kind of consciousness, dreaming; the East represents it. That’s why you find it very difficult to communicate; the Western mind finds it almost impossible to communicate with the Eastern mind. It is not only a question of language – language you may understand – the question is of the orientation.

The waking consciousness is objective: it thinks of the object, of the reality there outside; it is a kind of concentration. TheWestern mind has evolved powers of concentration hence the birth of science; out of the powers of concentration, science is born. The East could not give birth to science, and the reason is that the East has not paid much attention to the first kind of consciousness.

The East thinks in terms of dreams. The East thinks in terms of the inner. The East thinks in terms of the subjective. The East thinks with closed eyes; the West thinks with open eyes. The West concentrates; the Eastern mind meditates, that’s why in the East you will find visionaries, poets – people who have experienced great revelations inside. But they cannot prove it; the experiences remain individual, private.

The Western emphasis is on the objective, the public: when you are wakeful, whatsoever you see others can also see. You are seeing me here, everybody can see me – one who has eyes can see – there is no need for any proof. The sun rises, and you know: the proof exists in the very experience. And everybody is experiencing it – there can be a collective consensus about it. But when I say I have seen the sun rise in the evening it is no more a collective experience; it is no more objective, it becomes subjective.

In the East you will find people who have experienced kundalini rising in them, great light exploding as if thousands and thousands of suns have suddenly risen on the horizon; you will find people who have seen lotuses blooming inside – and to the Western mind it looks all nonsense. The Western mind has developed technology, science – objectivity. It lives in the first, the waking, state; the visionary is rejected. In the West the visionary is a marginal phenomenon, he exists on the outskirts of civilization. He is at most tolerated; he is harmless, he can be tolerated. But he has no roots in the culture at large, he is not the main current. In the East the scientist lives in the same way – on the margin; he is not the main current. He can be tolerated, he can be used, but the respect goes to the visionary, to the dreamer, to the poet who dreams great dreams.

These are the two ordinary states; the third state happens to both, but you cannot catch hold of it, the mind dissolves. In SUSHUPTI, in dreamless sleep, you disappear as an ego, and you disappear so utterly that you cannot even remember in the morning what happened. You can remember your dreams, you cannot remember your dreamless sleep, at most it can be remembered as gaps. You can say ’I slept so deeply that there were not even dreams.’ But that is guess-work; there is no direct experience of SUSHUPTI.

No culture has evolved out of SUSHUPTI because there is no possibility to catch hold of it directly. But that is the deepest ordinary state of mind. It is out of SUSHUPTI, dreamless sleep, that you get rejuvenated every day. You go to the source, you move to the source, you are again in contact with the primal consciousness, you are again in contact with your ground. You are no more human, you are no more Hindu, no more Christian, you are no more a man or a woman, black or white, you are no more Eastern, Western; all disappears – all distinctions. You are, but there is no identity, that’s why out of dreamless sleep great peace is felt.

If you move into deeper meditation, you will come to the third state where one can become aware of dreamless sleep too. And many have stopped there; because it is so blissful, many religions have stopped there, they don’t go beyond it.

There is a fourth state also, and unless you reach to the fourth, go on remembering that the third is very alluring, the third is very beautiful, very blissful, but still you have not arrived home. The fourth is the home; the Eastern mystics have called it TURIYA, turiya means the fourth.

Waking is objective, outer; it is a kind of concentration. Dreaming is between the outer and the inner, a link between waking and deep sleep, and deep sleep is the inner. Then what is the fourth, the turiya? It is both and neither. It is both inner and outer, and because it is both, that’s why it is neither.

It transcends both, it is non-dual, it is total. Now nothing is outer, nothing is inner. Objects disappear and, simultaneously, the subject tOo; there is no experience and no experiencer. This fourth state is called SAMADHI, SATORI. And the beauty of the fourth is that you can live in the world and yet be not of it.

Zen believes in the fourth. Those who believe in the third have to leave the world, they have to go to the Himalayan caves. Only there is it possible that they can fall into continuous deep dreamless sleep. It is falling into a beautiful coma. Its spiritual worth is nothing, although there is no misery, no anxiety, because the mind is put aside. But it is a state of coma, it is escapist. And the man has not known yet what the truth is. He has chosen one thing: escaping. The Western mind moves deeper and deeper into the world, into activity, and the Eastern mind moves out of activity, more and more out of the world.

Now, here both kinds of people have gathered. When the Western mind comes to me he always asks how to relate with people – that is his basic question – how to be more loving, caring, how to grow deeper into relationship. No Indian, no Easterner, ever asks this – that is not his question at all, his question is how to get out of relationship, how to forget all this misery – birth and death, and reincarnation, and the whole wheel – how to stop it, how to jump out of it. You can watch it, it is very apparent. The Western mind is clear-cut, logical, rational, mathematical, alert. The Eastern mind is dreaming and, according to Western standards, lousy, sloppy, messy, because in a dream you cannot be very clearcut, otherwise the dream will disappear. To the Eastern mind the Western mind is worldly, calculating, cunning, clever.

The third kind has happened both in the East and the West very rarely. In the West monasteries have existed, and people have renounced the world and moved – in the East too. One who becomes interested in dreamless sleep… And it is greatly satisfying – no doubt about it, there is great pleasure in it, it is very tranquil, undisturbed, but it is a kind of death, not life. And there is fear that it can be disturbed – any small thing can disturb it – a small thought can move, and all is lost. A small dream is enough to destroy it.

Zen people have worked for the fourth. The fourth means: live in the world like a lotus leaf in water, be awake and yet remain centred. So all that is needed to be done, be in the cyclone and yet remain in the centre of it, unaffected by it. Naturally, the Zen man creates the most alive, living, streaming, pulsating life. The Zen man creates action in inaction, or inaction through action. Polarities meet and merge, and wherever polarities meet and merge there is God.

The fourth is the primal state, the very basic and fundamental state out of which these three have arisen. These three are branches, the fourth is the root. The sutras of today you will be able to understand only if you understand this approach, the approach through the fourth, through totality. One has not to escape, one has to go into the deepest world but is not to be lost there. One has to remain conscious, one has to remain alert, and one has to go deep into the world. The meeting of the extremes will bring you the richest crop of life.

It happened… Vivekananda once told his Master, Ramakrishna, that his highest spiritual aspiration was to remain immersed for days on end in NIRVIKALPA SAMADHI, the disappearance of all forms into absolute Godhead. He sincerely longed for what he then considered to be the ultimate spiritual experience.

But Ramakrishna, who had once spent six months in unbroken NIRVIKALPA, his body kept alive only by force feeding, relied ’You are a fool. There is a realization higher than NIRVIKALPA SAMADHI.’ Vivekananda was at that time dedicated to the third dimension of contemplation, and Ramakrishna was attempting to turn him toward the fourth dimension, or TURIYA.

NIRVIKALPA SAMADHI IS a state of deep sleep. All has disappeared; it is absent, it is negative. The cup is empty, utterly empty; ready to be filled, but not yet filled. The empty cup is not the goal – cannot be the goal; emptying is only the method so that one day the cup can be filled with the presence of God. But God exists as the world – there is no other God. God has appeared as the world; God is not somewhere else. The world is God manifest. One has to empty oneself to prepare, but one has to remain in close contact with the world otherwise one becomes disconnected.

This is my approach to sannyas too. That’s why I don’t say leave the world, I say live in the world, accept the challenge of it because behind it, behind the screen of it, is God himself. If you accept the challenge and if you live the challenge totally, you will find that all that is needed is here. It has to be discovered. Become more and more alert and conscious.

So don’t get too much into the objects – don’t become a Westerner, and don’t get too much into the dreams – don’t become an Easterner. Don’t get too obsessed with kundalini and experiences like that because those are all mind things. Remain alert while moving with people, while moving in the world, remain alert while moving in dreams. And there are beautiful dreams too, spiritual dreams too – remain alert, don’t get distracted by them. And when you are able to be alert in the objective world and then alert in the dreaming world, slowly slowly you will become alert in the dreamless deep sleep too. And then you are at the gate of the fourth. And when you enter the fourth, you are back into the world; the circle is complete. But now you are the centre of the cyclone.

Source – Osho Book “The Sun Rises in the Evening”

Question – I often take drugs. once when i was attending the discourse, i closed my eyes and suddenly felt the same as i feel on a drug trip. osho, is there any relation or similarity between samadhi and drugs?

Osho – There is and there is not. There is because drugs create a false SAMADHI, a pseudo SAMADHI almost like the SAMADHI. SO there is a relationship because even if drugs create false SAMADHI, they create something similar to SAMADHI; and there is no relationship also because the false is not the real, and the false can never be the real.

It is like this: if you are hungry in the night you dream that you are eating — yes, in the dream — everything looks like eating; you feel satisfied, you turn over and go to sleep. In the morning you feel it was just a dream. It has not nourished you, it simply deceived you. Drugs deceive you and create a false SAMADHI — they don’t nourish you.

Some day, when you will awaken, then you will see that you were simply dreaming that you were eating. It helped, because if you are hungry the dream that you are eating helps you to continue sleep, otherwise your sleep will be broken. If the hunger is too much, how can you sleep? So the mind creates a dream: the mind says ‘Okay, you are hungry — eat!’ In the dream you go to the fridge, you open the fridge, you are eating many things that you have always been denying yourself. You eat well, you feel perfectly good, you turn over and you go to sleep. In the morning you know that it was a false food. Dream food cannot help — but you will only know in the morning, not before it. And the morning I am talking about may not come if you don’t work for it.

So drugs can deceive you, they can deceive you for your whole life. They create a similarity through chemical change: through chemical coercion of the body and the mind cells a certain state is created which feels as if one has arrived. In the morning, when the drug influence is over, you are in exactly the same place as you were before — maybe even lower, because every high experience through drugs is bound to be followed by a very low and depressed experience. Then again more drugs are needed, and the quantity has to be increased — you become an addict. This is not a way towards truth because it is not nourishing.

SAMADHI is a nourishment. You are not drugged by SAMADHI, you are awakened. But there is a similarity, so sometimes it can happen if you have been taking drugs. There can come a moment listening to me when you become silent, you are EN RAPPORT with me. And suddenly there is a moment, a moment of tremendous joy and beauty, and because you have been taking the drug, you will start thinking in terms of the drug. But if it is happening just by listening to me….

Think of it. If you meditate, if you go into the same world where I exist, into the same dimension where I exist — and if it can happen just by listening to me — then what to say about when you yourself will move into that world? Then you will know that all those experiences through drugs were just foolish, silly; you were wasting your energy and wasting your time.

But they keep you asleep. If you are interested in sleep, drugs are good, alcohol is good, any type of chemical that helps you feel that you are happy is good. Happiness never comes through it, it just gives you the illusion of being happy; it keeps you asleep. But if you are interested in becoming alert, awakened, then it is dangerous. Then you are undoing your very longing to become awakened, enlightened. You are undoing it by your drugs.

I have heard…. A travelling salesman in the deep South hit one hotel where the rooms were infested with giant, economy-size mosquitoes. Furthermore, he was told that no mosquito netting was available. ‘All you got to do is follow the example of the man who owns this hotel, Colonel Rip Clatterborn’ the desk clerk told him.

‘And how’ enquired the salesman sarcastically ‘does your blasted Colonel Clatterborn manage to go to sleep without a net?’

‘He doesn’t’ admitted the clerk. ‘But the Colonel is what you might call a dedicated drinker. He goes to bed so well oiled he doesn’t notice the mosquitoes for the first half of the night. And for the second half, the mosquitoes are so drunk they don’t notice the Colonel.’

You can go on playing this way, but you are wasting a tremendous opportunity. Avoid drugs. If you are really interested, then why not take the real drug? SAMADHI IS the real drug, but you cannot purchase it at the druggist’s. you cannot purchase it through a dope pusher. SAMADHI you have to attain through great intensity. thirst, passion, enquiry. SAMADHI you have to attain. Drugs are available from the outside, SAMADHI happens in your innermost core; it is the ultimate drug — SOMA.

Source – Osho Book “Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1″

Question – Do positive thoughts bring happenings too? — like wishing for enlightenment.

Osho – THAT IS TOO MUCH ASKING from positive thoughts because enlightenment is beyond duality: it is neither negative nor positive. When both the polarities are dropped, it happens. With positive thoughts many things are possible — not enlightenment.

You can be happy, but not blissful. Happiness comes and goes; the opposite always exists with it. When you are happy, just by the side of happiness unhappiness is waiting for its own time. It is standing in the queue. When you are loving, it is positive; hate is waiting for its own time.

Positive cannot go beyond duality. It is good as far as it goes, but to ask enlightenment from it is too much. Never expect that. Negative has to be dropped to attain to the positive. Positive has also to be dropped to attain to the beyond. First drop the negative, then drop the positive; then nothing is left. That nothingness is enlightenment; then there is no more mind.

Mind is either negative or positive, happy, unhappy, loving, hateful; anger, compassion, day and night, birth and death — all belong to mind. But you don’t belong to mind. You are beyond it — encased in the mind, but beyond it.
Enlightenment is not of the mind. It is of you. The realization that “I am not the mind” is enlightenment. If you remain negative you remain in the valley part of the mind. If you are positive, you attain to the peak part of the mind. But neither transcends the mental plane of your being: drop both.

It is difficult to drop the positive. It is easy to drop the negative because the negative gives you misery. It is a hell; you can drop it. But look at the misfortune: you have not even dropped that. You cling to the negative also. You cling to misery as if it is a treasure. You cling to your unhappiness just because it has become an old habit, and you need something to cling. Not finding anything, you cling to your hell. But, remember, to drop the negative is easy, howsoever difficult it seems. Compared to the positive it is very easy because it is misery.

To drop the positive means to drop the happiness; to drop the positive means to drop all that looks like flowers, all that is beautiful. The negative is the ugly, positive is the beautiful. The negative is death, positive is life. But if you can drop the negative… so take the first step. First feel the misery, how much misery is given by the negative to you. Just watch how misery arises out of it: just watch and feel. The very feeling that the negative is creating misery will become the dropping.

But mind has a very deep trick. Whenever you are miserable, it always says somebody else is responsible. Be alert, because if you are a victim of this trick then the negative can never be dropped. This is how the negative is hiding itself. You are angry. The mind says somebody has insulted and that’s why you are angry — that is not right. Somebody may have insulted, but that is just an excuse. You were already waiting to be angry. Anger was accumulating within you, otherwise somebody would have insulted — there would have been no anger.

The insult may become the visible cause of it, but it is not really the cause. You are boiling within. In fact, the person who insults you helps you. He helps you to bring your inner turmoil out and be finished with it. You are in such a bad shape that even insult helps you. The enemy helps you because he helps you to bring all negativity out. At least you are unburdened for a time being.

Mind has this trick always to divert your consciousness towards the other. Immediately something goes wrong and you start looking who has done this. In that looking you miss, and the real culprit is hiding behind. Make it an absolute law that whenever something is wrong, immediately close the eyes and look for the real culprit. And you will be able to see because it is a truth. It is a reality. It is true that you accumulate anger; that’s why you become angry. It is true that you accumulate hate; that’s why you feel hatred. The other is not a real cause.

In Sanskrit, they have two terms. One term is karan — the real cause, and another term is nimitta — the unreal cause. And the nimitta, the unreal cause which appears as cause but is not the cause, befools you. It has been befooling you for many, many lives. Immediately close the eyes and go in whenever you feel something miserable happening, because that is the right moment to catch the culprit redhanded. Otherwise you will not be able to catch it. When the anger has disappeared, you will close the eyes. You will not find anything there. In a red-hot situation, don’t miss the point. Make it a meditation.

And if you start feeling no need is there for any method to drop the negative… Negative is so ugly, it is such a disease — how you are carrying it is amazing. Dropping is nothing; carrying is amazing. It has riddled all the Buddhas — how you carry and why you carry all of your diseases so lovingly? You are so careful about them; you protect all that is wrong. Protected, it gets deeper and deeper roots in you.

Once realized that this is my own negativity which creates the problem, it falls by itself. And then there is a beauty, when the negative mind falls by itself. If you try to drop it, it will cling — because the very effort to drop it shows that your understanding is not mature. All renunciation is immaturity; you are not ripe for it. That’s why effort is needed to drop it. I am carrying rubbish; do I need any effort to drop it, except the understanding that this is rubbish? If I need any effort to drop it, that means I am supplementing my understanding with effort. Understanding itself is not enough — that’s why effort is needed.

All those who have known, they say effort is needed because your understanding is not there. It may be an intellectual thing, but really you have not felt the situation, otherwise you simply drop it. A snake passes the path; you simply jump. There is no effort in the jump. You don’t decide to jump; you don’t make a logical syllogism within you that “There is a snake, and wherever there is a snake there is danger; hence, I must jump.” You don’t make a logical step-by-step syllogism. Even Aristotle will jump. Later on he can make the syllogism, but right now, when the snake is there, the snake doesn’t bother about your logic, and the whole situation is so dangerous… the very understanding that the situation is dangerous is enough.

For the negative to drop, no effort is needed — only understanding. Then arises the real problem: how to drop the positive — because it is so beautiful. And for you who have not known the beyond, it is the ultimate in happiness — so happy. Look at a couple in love; look at their eyes, the way they walk hand in each other’s hand: they are happy. Tell them to drop this positive mind and they will think, “are you crazy?” For this they have been waiting and now it has happened. And here comes a Buddha and says, “Drop it.”

When somebody is succeeding, reaching higher and higher on the ladder, tell him to drop it. That is his very purpose, in his eyes. And if he even thinks to drop it, he knows he will drop in misery. Because from the positive where you will move? — you know only two possibilities: positive or negative. If you drop the positive, you move to the negative. That’s why negative has to be dropped first so there is nothing to move to the negative. Otherwise, if you drop the positive, immediately the negative enters. If you are not happy, then what you will be? — unhappy! If you are not silent, what you will be? — a chatterbox! Hence, drop the negative first so one alternative is closed — you cannot move that way. Otherwise energy has a routine movement from positive to negative, from negative to positive.

If the negative exists, there is every possibility the moment you drop the positive you will become the negative. When you are not happy, you will be unhappy. You don’t know that there is a third possibility also. That third possibility opens only when negative has been dropped and then you drop the positive. For a moment there will be a halt. Energy cannot move anywhere, not knowing where to move. The negative door is closed, the positive has been closed. You will be for a moment… and that moment will look like eternity. It will look very, very long — non-ending.

For a moment you will be just in the middle, not knowing what to do, where to go. This moment will look like madness. You are neither positive nor negative, then who you are? What is your identity? Your identity, name and form drop with the positive and negative. Suddenly you are nobody that you can recognize — just an energy phenomenon. And you cannot say how you are feeling. There is no feeling. If you can tolerate it, bear this moment, this is the greatest sacrifice, the greatest tapascharya, and the whole yoga prepares you for this moment. Otherwise the tendency will be to go somewhere, but don’t remain in this vacuum. Be positive, be negative, but don’t remain in this vacuum. You are nothing, as if you are disappearing. An abyss has opened, and you are falling into it.

At this moment a Master is needed who can say “Wait! Don’t be afraid; I am here.” This is just a lie, but you need it. Nobody is there. Not even a Master can be there because the Master also ends when your mind ends. Now you are absolutely alone, but to be alone is so fearsome, so scary, so deathlike, that somebody is needed to give you courage. Because it is only a one moment’s question and the lie helps.

And I tell you, all the Buddhas have been liars just because of compassion towards you. The Master says, “I am here. You don’t worry; you go ahead.” You gain confidence, you take the jump. Just a moment’s question, and everything hangs there. The whole existence hangs there; the crossing point, the boiling point. If you take the step, you are lost to the mind forever. There will be no positive, no negative again.

You can be scared. You can again go back and enter into the negative or in the positive which is cozy, comfortable, familiar. You were entering into the unknown: this is the problem. First, the problem is how to drop the negative — a ripe understanding is needed — and which is the easiest, and you have not done even that.

Then the problem is how to drop the positive which is so beautiful and gives you such happiness. But if you drop the negative, if you become that much ripe, you will have a second understanding, a second transformation, in which you will be able to see that if you don’t drop the positive, the negative will come back.

Then the positive loses its all positivity. It was positive only in comparison to the negative. Once the negative is thrown, even the positive becomes negative because now you can see all this happiness is momentary. And when this moment is lost, where you will be? The negative will enter again.

Before the negative enters, drop it. Hell always comes through heaven. Heaven is just the gate; hell is the real place. Through heaven and the promise of heaven you enter hell. Hell is the real place; heaven is just the gate. Sooner or later — how can you remain at the gate forever? — you have to enter. Where you will go from the positive?
Once negative is dropped, you can see that positive is just the other aspect of it — not really contrary, not opposite, but a conspiracy. They are both in conspiracy; they are together. When this understanding arises, the positive has become the negative, you can drop it.

In fact, to say you can drop it is not good. It also drops. It has also become negative. Then you know that in this life there is nothing like happiness. Happiness is a trick of unhappiness to come in too. It is just like the egg and the hen relationship. What is a hen? It is the way of the egg to come back. And what is an egg? It is a way of the hen to come back.

Positive and negative are not real opposites. They are like hen and egg, mother and child. They help each other and come from each other. But this understanding is possible only when negative has been dropped. Then you can drop the positive also. And then you can stay in that transitory moment, which is the greatest moment in existence. You will never feel another moment so long — as if years are passing, because the vacuum… You lose all bearing; the whole past is lost, suddenly empty, not knowing where you are, who you are, what is happening.

This is the moment of madness. If you try to return from this moment, you will remain always mad. Many people go mad through meditation. From this moment they fall back, and now there is nothing to fall back to because the positive/negative has been dropped. They no more exist; the house is no more there. Once you leave the house it disappears. It depended on you; it is not a separate entity.

Mind is not a separate entity. It depends on you. Once you leave it, it is no more there. You cannot come back, fall back to it. That is the state of madness. You have not attained to the transcendence, and you come back and you look for the mind — it is no more there; the house has disappeared.

To be in this state is very, very painful. The real anguish for the first time happens. Hence, the Master — the need of the Master, who will not allow you to come back, who will force you to go ahead, because once you turn back it will take much effort to bring you again to that point. Maybe for many lives you may miss it because now there is no mind to understand even

In Sufism this state is called the state of a mast — the state of a madman. This state is really difficult to understand because the man is and is not — both. He laughs and weeps together; he has lost all orientations. He does not know what is weeping and what is laughing. Is there any contradiction? He beats himself and enjoys, celebrates, beating himself. He does not know what he is doing, whether it is harmful or not harmful. He becomes completely dependent. He becomes like a small child; he has to be taken care of.

Without a Master, if somebody goes into meditation this can be the outcome. With a Master, the Master will be the barrier. He will be just standing behind you and he will not allow you to go back. He will become a rock. And finding no way to go back, you will have to take the jump. Nobody can take it for you. Nobody can be with you at that moment. But once you take this jump you have transcended all dualities. Negative, positive, both gone — and this is enlightenment.

I talk about the positive so that you can drop the negative. Once you drop the negative you are trapped. Then the positive has to be dropped. Each step leads to another in such a way that if you take the first step the second is bound to come. It is a chain. In fact, only the first has to be taken. Then all else follows. The first is the last, if you understand. The beginning is the end; the alpha is the omega.

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

Question – Is there an Intellectual path to Enlightenment?

Osho – First, there is no path. The very idea of a path is fallacious. The path necessarily leads you away — the path necessarily takes you from this to that, from here to there, from now to then. There is no need for any path for enlightenment, because enlightenment is being here. The path will be a distraction; all paths are distractions. Follow any path and you will be following a wrong path — and there are no paths which are RIGHT paths.

Let it sink deep in your heart: There are no right paths, paths as such are wrong. To be on a path is to be going into a wrong direction, because you will be going away and away from yourself. Not really, but in desire, in dream. That’s why all the religions have become other-worldly — they are all paths. To be a path, it is needed that the God should be far away. The farther the better, because then the path can be created. Christianity, Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Buddhism — paths can be created. God has to be really far away — so far away that the path is non-ending and the priest can go on exploiting.

In Dostoevsky there is a parable: Jesus comes back after eighteen hundred years, just to see how things are going now. And he thinks things must be going beautifully now, because almost half the world is Christian. He appears in the marketplace of Bethlehem, people surround him and they laugh and they joke. And he feels a little embarrassed: What is the matter? Why are they laughing?

And he asks, and they say ‘You look like Jesus — you have almost succeeded in looking like Jesus.’ And he says ‘But I am Jesus.’ And they laugh even more. And they say ‘Whosoever you are, either you are a pretender or you are a madman. But escape from here. If the priest comes to know, you will be in difficulty.’

And it is Sunday, Jesus must have chosen Sunday, and the people are coming out of the church. But he remains there under the tree waiting for the priest. Because he thinks ‘If ordinary people cannot recognize me, at least my priest will recognize me.’ And comes the priest. And he is so angry — angry the same way as Jewish rabbis had been eighteen hundred years before. And he pulls Jesus down and tells the people to take him into the church — this man seems to be either mad or dangerous, a pretender.

Jesus cannot believe his own eyes. ‘My own priest…has just a few minutes before been preaching about my words.’ And it is happening, the same drama is happening again. And he starts feeling as if he is going to be crucified again. And the priest takes him inside, locks him into a.small cell. And he wonders, sitting there, ‘Now what is going to happen? But what type of Christians are these people? If they cannot recognize me then whom are they going to recognize? And they have been waiting for me, and continuously praying to me “Come back!” and “We need you!” And now I am here!’ This seems to be unbelievable.

And the whole day he remains in the cell. In the middle of the night comes the priest with a lamp. And the priest touches the feet of Christ and he says ‘I recognized you. But I cannot recognize you in the marketplace. You are not needed any more, we are doing your job so perfectly well. And you are a great disturbance — you have always been. You need not come, we are taking care of your business here. And everything has settled, and you will unsettle it and you will destroy everything that we have done down these eighteen centuries. It has been an arduous journey but now we are established. The whole earth belongs to us, almost. Every town has the church, and millions of missionaries and priests are roaming around the world converting everybody to Christianity. Sooner or rater, by the end of this century, we will have converted the whole earth. You need not come — because you are a disturber, an ancient disturber. You will start saying dangerous things again and all our effort will be undone.

‘I recognize you in this darkness of the night. But in the morning, before people, I cannot recognize you. You had better escape, otherwise I will have to crucify you.’

Jesus Christ so close is dangerous to the priest. Because then the priest is not needed at all. The mediator is not needed, the agent is not needed, the medium is not needed. When Christ is standing by your side, there is no need tor anybody to become a link. God has to be far away, very very far away, so the priest can play the role of becoming a messenger. So he can become the bridge between you and God.

All paths are created by the priest. Buddhas have not given any path. They have given an understanding to you that there is no need to go anywhere. You just be silent, you just be in, and all is available to you. God is not outside, He is your inside. God is not an object, He is your subjectivity. God is YOU! So where are you going? What path is needed? No path is needed. No path is the right path.

You ask, IS THERE AN INTELLECTUAL PATH TO ENLIGHTENMENT?

First, there is no path. And second, God cannot be recognized and realized by any of your parts. God can only be realized through your totality. Neither is there an intellectual path nor is there an emotional path, neither head nor heart. You come to God as a total being, all is included in it. Your intellect, your emotions, your logic, your love, your blood, your bones, your guts. Everything is included in it, you as a totality. But paths are bound to be fragmentary, no path can be total. So there are intellectual paths — in India they call them GHYANA yoga, the path of knowledge. Then there are emotional paths — BHAKTI yoga, the path of devotion. And then there are paths of action — KARMA yoga.

Man has three layers in his being: knowing, feeling, doing. Now, these three paths are evolved because of these three layers in man’s being. Intellect can know but cannot feel. Emotion can feel but cannot know. Action can do but cannot know, cannot feel. Knowledge cannot do, feeling cannot do. Man is this trinity, this triangle: action, knowledge, feeling. And they all have to be integrated together in one unity. Only then, you know God.

Not only has man divided man, man has divided God too — God the father, God the son, God the holy ghost. Or, in Indian mythology, TRIMURTI — the three faces of God. God has no face, God is facelessness. God has no form, how can He have a face? God is not three, God is one. Even to say ‘one’ is not right, because the one creates the idea of two and the two creates the idea of three, and on and on you go.

God simply is. Neither one nor three, neither one nor many. God is a simple is-ness. And when you are in your is-ness you are God. Remember, you don’t come to see God, you don’t encounter God, you don’t come to realize that ‘This is God.’ When you come to God you are God. God is not something outside you but is your innermost core, is the center of the cyclone.

So there is no path, first. And there are no intellectual or emotional or other kinds. There are no paths, you have to become a totality. In that very totality you become divine. Intellect can go on and on analyzing. It is dry, it is analysis, it is logic, it cannot feel.Through intellect, science is born. That’s why science cannot say God is. Science has to deny God. That denial comes because of its presuppositions. Because science believes only in reason, and it believes in a very detached reason. Your feelings should not come into it. You should remain aloof, detached, indifferent to whatsoever you are looking at. You should be just an observer, with no feeling, with no heart. Your heart should not beat, your knowledge should be devoid of feeling.

Naturally, science stumbles upon matter. Not that only matter is; science stumbles upon matter because of its methodology. The methodology is such that consciousness cannot be caught hold of. Consciousness is excluded from the very beginning, the method excludes it.

For example, if you start seeing through the ears then you will stumble upon only sounds. You will not come to see flowers and colors and rainbows and the sun and the moon and the stars. And sooner or later you will conclude that only sounds exist, there are no flowers and there are no colors.

Logic has given science. Love has given the so-called religions — the religions of yesterday, the religions which are no more relevant. They were as partial as science. That’s why there was so much conflict between science and religion — that conflict was not accidental. The conflict was of methodology. Religion was basically emotional, of feeling. Logic was denied, reason was prohibited. Tears were okay, prayers were okay, but no intellect. The intellect was the enemy. So when science started growing, it was natural that the church and the religious people would be in conflict with it. The religion of yesterday was as partial as today’s science.

Nobody has ever been able to see the human being in its totality. But that moment has come. Now man is no more childish. That moment has come — the moment for that idea, the idea of totality, to be accepted, has come. And when the moment for some idea comes then nothing can prevent it. All partial efforts have failed. Science has failed, religion has failed, politics has failed — politics means action. They all have failed. In fact, partiality has failed.

The East has suffered because it leaned too much towards the feeling part. Hence the poverty, hence the misery, because science could not grow. And without science there is going to be poverty, without science there are going to be a thousand and one problems on the material plane. The West has developed technology. The poverty has disappeared, many illnesses have disappeared, it has been a blessing. But on the other hand, man has also disappeared. And man has turned into a machine. The heart is no more functioning, love flows no more, the juice of feelings has dried up and man is becoming a desert. Man is feeling meaninglessness and is very close to committing suicide. Individuals have been committing suicide, their number grows every day. And sooner or later, if balance is not brought, if partiality is not dropped and totality is not brought, there is every possibility man may commit a global suicide. There are great preparations for it.

Love has disappeared from the West, as logic has disappeared from the East. This is a lopsided situation. My approach is that of totality, of wholeness. And whatsoever is whole I call holy. With me, you have to learn this thing. You are not to choose one, you have to choose totality. You have to be a whole man. Nothing should be rejected. You should be whatsoever you are, with great acceptance. It is difficult to accept all, because if you accept logic then it becomes contradictory to accept love. If you accept love then it feels difficult to accept logic. But what can you do? This is how things are. It is not a question of choice; it is how you are made, it is how existence functions.

Existence is paradoxical. And man has been carrying a very foolish, stupid idea that he has to be non-paradoxical. So when he chooses intellect he destroys feeling, because feelings don’t fit with intellect. But what is the need to fit? Or when he chooses feeling he becomes antagonistic to logic and reason. He becomes superstitious. Because then he feels afraid that if logic comes in then where will be faith? Then faith will be destroyed.

But I tell you there is no need to be afraid. You can accept all. Just one thing has to be understood, that life is paradoxical. And life is richer, the more paradoxical you are. If you can contain contradictions you will be vast. If you can contain contradictions you will have variety, you will have multiplicity in you, you will have all dimensions in you. And that will be the real birth of man.

Man has yet to come, man is still a promise. We are just stumbling and groping for the man to come. Man is not yet born, we are in the womb. Hence so much anxiety. And it seems the day of birth is very close. Hence so much crisis. For the first time man is going to be born — man in the sense of totality, in the sense of paradoxicalness. In the sense of vastness that contains contradictions. A man should be a poet and a man should be a lover and a man should be rational and a man should be active. A man should be all. And there is no problem in it. In fact if there is logic and love both, logic will support love and love will support logic. Your logic will never go dry, the juice of love will keep it green. It will have its green and red and gold. And if reason is there your love will never become a kind of insanity, it will retain a certain quality of reasonableness. It will not take you to extremes. You will remain in the middle, you will remain balanced and symmetrical.

So there is no intellectual path, there is no emotional path. Wholeness, totality, is required. Nothing less than that will do. You have to take the risk of being total.

Source – Osho Book “This Very Body the Buddha”