< Previous | Contents | Next >

Chapter title: None

6 October 1980 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive code: 8010065 ShortTitle: THUNK06 Audio:

No Video:

No

[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up. It is for reference purposes only.]

(We have been appointed by god, but it's only through meditation that we realise that -- this is the meaning of Dhyan Jockel, Osho tells a new sannyasin.)

Man without meditation has no idea from where he comes, why he comes, or what is the purpose of his being here at all. And when one does not know the purpose of it, life cannot have any meaning; then life remains just like driftwood, at the mercy of the winds and the waves. Life without meditation is accidental; it has no sense of direction. There are events but they are not inter-connected. Life is just a pile of flowers but it is not a garland. There is no thread of meaning running through all the flowers to make it a unity. But once you enter into the world of meditation, your vision, your perspective, immediately changes. You start feeling that you are not here by accident -- that you are fulfilling a certain need of existence. That's the meaning of Jockel: appointed by God.

God himself is behind you, but this can be discovered only in deep silence when your thoughts, your mind, your ego, completely cease. In that clarity, when all the clouds have disappeared, the sun shines forth and in that light life is immediately transformed. It starts having meaning, significance, and with meaning and significance comes joy, bliss.

The greatest need of man is to be needed and the moment you feel existence needs you, you start having roots, you start having a kind of centering; an integrated being arises out of it. That's the whole purpose of sannyas: to help you to go beyond the mind and enter into meditation. Meditation is the door to God, mind is the door to the world. If you want to explore the world then mind is the right method. Hence science needs no meditation -- it is exploration of the world, of the objective world, of that which is outside you, the external. But mind is absolutely invalid as far as the inner journey is concerned. For the inner journey meditation is needed -- a state of no-mind, a state of absolute silence, quietness, calmness, tranquillity. But it is not that you have fallen asleep; awareness is there. In fact you are more aware then you have ever been because the whole energy involved in the processes of the mind is released. The whole energy becomes your awareness.

Mind is a parasite, it goes on sucking your energy, it goes on destroying your awareness. Once you start having the feel of silence your energy is saved, you become a reservoir of energy. And that energy itself is 1/08/07

Copyright Osho International Foundation 1994

Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished

Query:- delight.

William Blake has said many beautiful things: one of those beautiful statements is that energy is delight.

But the mind leaves no energy for you. In thinking, in memory, in desiring, in ambitions, in jealousies, it destroys all the energy. Everything leaks out; you remain empty.

Make every effort to get out of the mind -- go beyond it.

(Amitgyan means infinite knowing, Osho tells an Australian. Then he indicates the difference between knowing and knowledge.)

Knowledge is always limited, always finite, always measurable. Knowing is infinite, unbounded, immeasurable. Knowledge is of the mind, knowing is of the

heart. Knowledge is logical, knowing is not logical at all; it is something transcendental to logic. It is closer to love than to logic.

That's the meaning of wisdom; wisdom is knowing. But knowledge and knowing look so alike that many people are misguided. And because it is cheap they start accumulating knowledge thinking that this is the way to become wise. Knowledgeable they will certainly become, but not wise. Wisdom has nothing to do with knowledgeability. It is not that you are well-informed. Wisdom means insight; not information but clarity, awareness, spontaneity, responsibility, the capacity to respond immediately. The knowledgeable person always looks into his accumulation before he acts. If some problem arises the knowledgeable person goes into his memory reservoir, he starts searching in his basement for the answer -- something ready-made that he has accumulated. And whenever you respond to a real situation according to a ready-made answer it is not response, it is reaction.

And it is never adequate because life goes on changing every moment, it is always new and your ready-made answer is always old, always out of date, so knowledge always falls short. Knowing does not go into memory, it simply opens its awareness towards the situation. It simply allows the situation to enter, and out of consciousness, not out of memory, arises the response. You act here and now, not according to a ready-made answer.

Even you are surprised by it because you don't know what is going to happen. When you are constantly surprised by your own actions then it is knowing and then it has tremendous beauty and life remains an adventure. Ready-made answers are always full of dust, ordinary, boring and always fall short of the situation.

The knowledgeable person is very stupid. He may have a Ph.D. or a D.Litt., but no Ph.D., no D.Litt. can cover up your stupidity. And whenever a new situation arises you can immediately find the fool hidden behind all the certificates.

Yes, he is perfectly able if you are asking something which is not real; if it is bookish then he is perfectly able. He can give the right answer to every question which is not real. If it is real then he is at a loss.

Meditation gives you knowing, not knowledge. It gives you the capacity to respond spontaneously, immediately, herenow. And then your life is always

renewing itself, it is fresh, like dewdrops in the early morning. It is young. Even at the moment of death the man of knowing remains young fresh. He has the same quality as the just arrived child, the same purity of the eyes, the same innocence. And that's the definition of a sage: if one becomes again a child, if one is born again, if one becomes a twice-born, if one attains a second childhood in this life then he is a sage.

Knowing is infinite, immeasurable. It knows no limits, no boundaries, and because it has no limit, it makes you unlimited. And then life is a constant wonder to live, a constant awe, a continuum of discoveries.

You are always at the point of shouting 'Eureka!'

(Osho talks more about wisdom to Valerie, who he renames Gyaneswari -- Goddess of wisdom.) We are born wise and then we deteriorate. Every child is born a Buddha and the society, the whole education system, civilisation, culture, destroy his innocence. They throw so much dust into his eyes that he becomes almost blind. But society needs blind people, the politicians need blind people to follow them.

People who have eyes will not find any need to follow anybody.

The priests need blind people, then they can be Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, otherwise who would bother about these stupid priests? The leaders, the politicians, the priests, the pedagogues -- they are all in need of millions of blind people. So every child has to be forced to become blind through superstitions, through stupid ideologies. And the thing is done at such an early stage, when the child is so delicate that he can be moulded in any way. It is just like a young plant: you can bend it in any possible way 1/08/07

Copyright Osho International Foundation 1994

Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished

Query:-

that you want. Once it becomes a big tree it will not be possible to bend it according to you; then it will have its own individuality. So if the gardener wants to bend a tree in a certain way he has to do it as quickly as possible.

In Japan there are trees, three hundred, four hundred years old and just six inches high. The trees belong to a species that could have risen one hundred feet, two hundred feet high -- and they are just six inches high. It is thought to be an art; those trees are thought to be very valuable. The trick is that they go on cutting their roots. They are planted in pots without bottoms so whenever their roots start coming out of the bottom, they are continuously cut. When the roots cannot grow, the tree cannot grow. The tree remains small, it becomes a pygmy, retarded. But they think this is an art. And that's what has been done to humanity.

Every human being is a retarded person. His roots have been cut. But this is called education. This is what is being done from the kindergarten to the university: go on cutting the roots and bending the branches and pruning the leaves; give it a shape. Of course the shape is given according to the establishment, not according to the child. Nobody bothers about what the child would like to be, nobody takes any not of the child's individuality.

Up to now humanity has been very murderous. It is strange, very strange, that a few people somehow escaped -- a Buddha, a Jesus, a Lao Tzu. There are very few people, but it is almost a miracle that they escaped and society could not manage to cut their roots and they grew to their full height. But they are proofs enough that everybody can grow to the same height.

My sannyasins are not my followers; I am not a leader nor a priest -- just a friend. And because I know how one can get rid of all the nonsense that has been imposed upon you, I simply share my understanding. It is not in any way a conditioning, it is just a sharing. And then it is up to you to decide. I give you total freedom. I don't give you any outer discipline -- that you have to act this way, that you have to behave this way, that you have to follow a certain pattern, a certain style. All that I give to you is meditation, and meditation means becoming aware of all the conditionings that have been given by society to you.

The moment you are aware you can drop those conditionings. Once you have dropped all that the society has done to you, once you undo it, you are again as pure as a child, as fragrant as a child, as graceful as a child. And that releases your intrinsic wisdom, that releases your imprisoned splendour. It makes you wise.

And to live life according to your wisdom is the greatest gift of god. There is nothing higher than it.

(Gyan Anatto) Wisdom is only possible in the absence of the ego. Ego is the hiding place of all kinds of ignorance. It is a shelter for ignorance. It prevents you from bringing light into your being. It is afraid of the light because the moment light comes it will have to go, it will have to leave.

A sannyasin has to be very clear about it: either the ego can exist or wisdom. Ordinarily we all choose the ego and we sacrifice everything for the ego. And the ego never gives you anything. It promises but it never delivers the goods. It is a great politician, always promising, and whatsoever you ask it immediately promises that it will give it to you. If you look back, it has never fulfilled any promise -- it cannot, it is impotent. But it is a braggart, it goes on bragging. And it always finds excuses for why you failed last time; this time you are not going to fail, just take a few more precautions. And each time you fail it will find some rationalization, some excuse, and again will convince you to go on along the same route.

People waste their whole life hoping against all hope that something will materialize. Nothing ever materializes out of the ego. It is like a desert, nothing grows in it.

A sannyasin has to decide to drop the ego with all its ambitions, dreams, projections. Once you drop the ego you will be surprised, amazed at what was being prevented by the ego: the whole kingdom of god. It is like a rock preventing all the flow of your life energies. Once the rock is removed you become a beautiful stream and you start moving towards the ocean. And then the meeting with the ocean is not far away. Once the movement has started you will reach the ocean. Every small stream manages to reach it.

This is what is happening here. All these sannyasins are small streams; now they are becoming a big river, joining together. That's why communes have existed -- for the simple reason that a single individual is such a small stream that he may be lost somewhere, he may not be able to reach the ocean. But if even a small dewdrop becomes part of the river and then the river becomes part of a bigger river, then there is no fear: it is absolutely guaranteed that the dewdrop will reach the ocean.

So small streams of sannyasins are gathering together -- it is becoming a big, wide river. And then god is not far away and everybody is going to find him. But the first and the most important thing is to drop the 1/08/07

Copyright Osho International Foundation 1994

Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished

Query:- ego.

Here, be as egoless as possible. Taste egolessness and you have already taken the greatest step towards god and towards wisdom, realization, nirvana, liberation. These are all different names for the same reality, the same truth.

(To Marc, a craftsman from Holland, Osho gives the name Shivanand, which means god is bliss.) God is not a person but an experience: the experience of bliss, of joy, of benediction. The idea of god as a person has been a calamity, a curse. The very idea has created the temples, the mosques, the churches and it has led man astray from true religion.

True religion can only be one -- and there are three hundred religions on the earth. True religion cannot have any adjective to it -- Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan. Science is neither Christian nor Hindu nor Mohammedan, how can religion be Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan? Science investigates the objective reality, religion investigates the subjective reality. Both are searching for the real, one in the external world, the other in the internal. If science cannot be Hindu or Mohammedan or Christian, then how can religion be? Religion is nothing but a quality -- religiousness.

I teach a religionless religiousness. And the whole thing depends on your dropping the idea of god as a person. Otherwise if god is a person then you start worshipping, praying; then you start persuading him to do some favours for you and you go in an absolutely wrong direction. No worship is meaningful, no prayer is meaningful because there is nobody as a person to answer you.

God is an inner experience. When you have reached your innermost core, to the very roots of your being, a great explosion of bliss happens. It is like an atomic explosion. Your consciousness explodes and you are showered, bathed in a totally new kind of splendour of which you have never dreamt before. That experience is god. It is not that you encounter somebody who is a god, you experience something inside you which is divine, godly.

Remember this, then the whole approach changes. Then instead of worship, prayer, meditation becomes important -- because prayer means god is somewhere outside you. You have to talk to him and of course you have to be very nice, otherwise he may get angry, he may throw you into hell; you can't be nasty to him.

You have to be nice and nagging -- both things have to be done. That's what prayer is, nice and nagging. Be nice so he cannot punish you and continue to nag: 'Do this, do this, do this,' so he gets tired, and one day thinking that enough is enough, he says 'Let me do it and be finished with this man.'

But there is nobody -- whether you are nice or nasty does not matter. What you are doing is a monologue, it is not a dialogue because there is nobody at all. It is a kind of insanity.

True religion begins with meditation, not with prayer. Of course it ends in prayer but never begins in prayer. And when it ends in prayer the prayer has a totally different meaning. When the light has exploded in you, when bliss has exploded in you, when you have arrived home -- then of course a deep gratitude to existence arises in you. That is prayer: just gratitude. Nothing has to be said, you just feel gratitude -- that is prayer. You feel prayerful, you feel a kind of tremendous thankfulness to the whole universe for all that it has done to you because suddenly you can see that what has happened is so infinite, so profound, that you don't deserve it at all.

Out of that experience that you don't deserve it, you have not earned it and yet it has happened; what else can you do other then feel grateful? That gratitude is prayer. It is a silent bowing down to existence.

(In explaining the meaning of his new name to Dhyan Veeten, Osho explores a theme he has been touching on several times this week -- the different layers of himself with which man can identify and the way to go beyond them.)

Man can live as a body, then he lives only an animal existence. Then sex and food are his only interest.

And ninety-nine per cent of people live that way. They are not yet human, they are still part of the animal's kingdom. Of course they have the shape of a human being but the shape does not matter at all.

The second style of life is that of living through the mind or as the mind. It is higher than the first, deeper than the first. It makes you a human being. Then your interests become wider, not that you don't enjoy food, not that you become anti-sex, but even sex starts having a new dimension to it; it becomes more and more gesture.

As far as the animal is concerned sex is but a process of reproduction. At the most it releases certain physical tensions, it is a relief, because the body accumulates sexual energy and you don't know how to transform it so you have to throw it out, otherwise you fool burdened.

1/08/07

Copyright Osho International Foundation 1994

Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished

Query:-

With the second stage, the second plane, your sex starts becoming more and more free from reproduction. It becomes a loving gesture. Sex becomes secondary, love becomes primary. You love a person in many ways -- sex is one of those many ways. You still enjoy food but that too starts having new dimensions. You enjoy food more with your friends. You like to share, to invite others. It starts becoming a new kind of experience. It is not just stuffing yourself with food, sharing becomes more important. That too is part of love.

And new interests suddenly arise on the horizon. You become interested in poetry, in music, in dance, in many forms of aesthetics, in literature, in sculpture, in gardening. You have now a bigger world. But this is not the end.

Meditation brings to you a third plane which is transcendental to both body and mind. It makes you aware of god or better to say, of godliness. It is the deepest penetration into reality. You suddenly become aware of the centre of existence. First you become aware of the centre of your own being and that leads you to the awareness of the centre of the whole. Now you can see that body and mind are temporary abodes and that you have been in many bodies and many minds, that you don't begin with birth and you don't end with death, that you are eternal, timeless, deathless. This awareness makes you free from all fear, all tension, all misery, all anxiety, all anguish.

Suddenly the sun has risen and all darkness disappears and flowers start opening up and birds start singing. That's the meaning of transcendence. And meditation is nothing but a process of transcendence. It simply takes you to a higher plane than the mind. And that is the highest plane.

Man is a three-storied building; ninety-nine per cent of people live only on the ground floor, a few live on the second, the higher floor than the first, and only very rarely a Buddha, a Jesus, a Lin Chi, a Bodhidharma, reach to the highest, the third. But it is everybody's birthright.

And my sannyasins have to use every possible way to reach to the third. And I am making all kinds of ladders available here. These are all ladders. And I am not much worried about you sticking to a particular ladder. You can even climb up the waterpipes (laughter)... but enter the third! How you enter does not matter. If you have to bribe the guard, bribe him! (laughter) By any means enter the third. I am not much interested or obsessed with any particular method.

All the religions in the past have become obsessed with one method. So whosoever comes to this commune feels a little bewildered because people are doing Vipassana and people are doing Sufi dancing too -- and nobody has ever conceived that there could be any meeting between Sufism and Buddhism.

People are using Yoga methods and Tantra methods -- and they have been enemies for centuries -- because my emphasis is to enter the third. Use a ladder, use a rope, climb up on somebody's shoulders.… The whole point is to reach the third plane.

Gurdjieff used to say that if right means don't help use wrong means -- don't be worried. He emphatically said, and I completely agree with him, be a sly man. Even if you have to be a thief be one, because sometimes thieves have entered the third floor before the saints because they know how to climb walls and how to enter through windows and how to break down walls -- they know everything. If they don't have the right key they don't bother; they will break the lock.

So if you need to be, be a master thief but enter the third floor. Make it a point that in this life you have to reach the third floor. once this commitment is there and one remains constantly aware of it, it is not difficult.

And my experience is that once you have reached the third then all the means that you have used are valid.

I Am Not As Thunk As You Drink I Am

Chapter #7

  

 

< Previous | Contents | Next >