Chapter title: None

‌Chapter title: None‌

3 December 1980 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive code: 8012035 ShortTitle: GREENR03 Audio:

No Video:

No 1/08/07

Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished

Query:-

[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up.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

Satyam literally means the truth, but the approach of the western mind and the eastern is so different, so diametrically opposite, that sometimes literal translations of words are not adequate at all.

In the West truth is a philosophical quest; in the East it is a mystical enquiry -- and there is tremendous difference. Philosophy means something of the head and mysticism is something of the heart. Philosophy is based on logical reasoning, and mysticism is rooted in something that transcends all logic, it is supralogic.

And when I use the word 'truth' I use it with the eastern emphasis -- and that makes a lot of difference.

In the East we have thought about truth as an experience, not as a logical conclusion; more like love and less like logic, more in the mode of feeling than in the mode of thinking. In fact in the West if you are an enquirer, a seeker of truth, you have to sharpen your reasoning you have to become very skilful in thinking.

That's what the whole western philosophy is, the art of thinking.

In the East just the opposite has to be done: logic, reasoning, mind itself has to be put aside; you have to come into direct contact with reality, into immediate contact with reality.

The mind is an interference because it interprets reality, and the moment you interpret, it is something else, it is no more the something.

The mind cannot experience, only the heart can experience, but the mind can interpret, the heart cannot interpret. The mind interprets without experiencing. It is like a blind man talking about light to a dumb man who cannot talk but who knows what light is.

The heart is dumb, silent; it cannot express itself, there is no way for it to express itself, but it can feel.

Tile mind is very talkative -- it can interpret, comment, argue, philosophise, prove, disprove, but it cannot experience. And the real thing is experience -- whether you can talk about it or not is immaterial.

Hence all the great eastern mystics have said nothing can be said about truth. All that we say is how to reach it but nothing can be said about the experience itself; one has to experience it to know it The Buddhas only show the way, they give you some hints about how to reach to the ultimate peak of experience, but that's all; you will know only when you have reached. The truth has to be an individual experience. It cannot be borrowed, it cannot be transferred; it cannot even be expressed. And that is its beauty; its profoundness is such that no word can be comprehensive enough, no language is so unlimited that it can contain it.

So remember, when I say the truth, I mean the truth of the mystics, not the truth of the philosophers.

Even in the West there have been mystics but they are not the main current of the

western mind. Jesus is a mystic, not a philosopher; Eckhart is a mystic, not a philosopher; Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Plotinus -- these are mystics, not philosophers. But they are far and few in between, very rare. And because the western philosophy knows no place to put them, to what category they belong, they are ordinarily but into the same category as Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Bradley, Russell, Wittgenstein, Sartre. They are put in the same category because that is the only category known in the West.

In the East we have an absolute distinction. The philosophers are not counted with the Buddhas; they are only thinkers, mere thinkers. The Buddhas are the knowers. And my sannyasins have to make a journey of knowing, not of thinking.

Anubodh means awareness -- and that is the secret key, the most essential part of religious experiment, of religious investigation, enquiry, exploration.

One has to become more aware than one ordinarily is. The ordinary life does not need more awareness than you have; just a superficial awareness is enough to go to the office, to do the routine work, to come home, to reproduce children, to get things done. And once you have learned them, you go on repeating the same pattern every day -- it is a mechanical phenomenon. The mechanical life is the mundane life.

To be a sannyasin means to enter into the phenomenon of the sacred. For that more awareness is needed, much more, because it is not something mechanical, something routine. It is now every day. It is moving; from the unknown towards the unknowable; it is dropping the known every day, dying to the known and entering into the unknown. It is an eternal pilgrimage, because every moment is so full of mystery that one has to be very alert, otherwise one will miss. One has to be constantly watchful.

Very few people know the beauty of the stars. Even if they do, they have read it in a poem; it is not their own experience. Very few people know the beauty of the mountains. Even if they do it is because they have looked at albums, pictures, films. Even if they go to the Himalayas, they are much more concerned with taking photographs rather than looking at the reality.

1/08/07

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

Query:-

The tourist is a very strange personality: carrying the camera everywhere. His idea is that back home, sitting before the fireplace at ease, he will look at the pictures, at how beautiful the Himalayas were; and when he was in the Himalayas he was concerned with the camera -- loading, unloading and clicking. The camera was not working (laughter)... and something got stuck and Who

bothers about the Himalayas!

That is later on when the album is ready and one sits in the easy chair and relaxes, with the coffee pot by the (much laughter) side and... (The rest of the sentence is drowned in a deluge of laughter.) That's how people are.

This is not the way to experience reality -- it is a way to avoid it. Your pictures cannot contain the beauty or maybe only a very far far-away echo. They cannot

contain the coolness of the breeze, the warmth of the sun. They are bound to be one-dimensional, flat.

Once a friend said to Picasso 'I don't like your paintings. They don't represent reality, they are not realistic.' He said 'Rather, I like photographs -- which are realistic, representative. For an example, he took out of his pocket, a photograph of his would-be wife and he showed it to Picasso saying 'Look at this picture, this is my would-be wife: see how beautiful she is and how clear the photograph is. This is a realistic thing.' Picasso touched the photograph, felt it and said 'But your would-be wife looks very flat -- no curves, absolutely flat. What are you going to do with this woman?'

Of course a picture is a flat thing, it cannot represent the multi-dimensional reality. It is only a reflection in the mirror and that too is dead -- because if you are in the Himalayas it is changing every moment. The clouds are dispersing, moving; sometimes the sun is there and the peaks with the virgin snow are all golden; and sometimes it is clouded and all that gold suddenly disappears and the shade and the shadows of the clouds move on the snow. You can see it reflected in the snow, the peaks functioning like mirrors. Your pictures, howsoever beautiful they are, cannot contain its reality.

You have to be more in contact with that which surrounds you; for that only one thing is needed, and that is more alertness. Very few people are alert. They go on

like sleepwalkers, somnambulists. Somehow they manage, but for that management just a small bit of consciousness needed, a very peripheral thing. And awareness, Anubodh, means a central awareness, not peripheral. Your very centre is full of consciousness, you are all consciousness. Only then does one become aware of the presence of the sacred, of the divine.

Then this very earth is paradise.

Getting initiation into sannyas really means getting initiation into awareness. That's the whole work a sannyasin has to do. All the methods of meditation are nothing but devices to help you to become more aware.

Naresha means an empress, a queen.

Man is not born as a beggar but ho lives like a beggar -- and the whole responsibility is his, he chooses to live like a beggar. Life gives so much but he is not ready to receive it, he is very reluctant; he is closed.

When love knocks on his door he shrinks, withdraws; he is even afraid of love. He is afraid of truth; he feels more comfortable with conventional beliefs, which are nothing but beautiful lies, comfortable lies. At the most they can give one consolation.

Truth needs enquiry, it needs work. A belief needs nothing; you can simply believe. Just by being born accidentally into a Christian home or a Hindu home or a Mohammedan home, one gets beliefs. People start conditioning you -- the parents, the teachers, the priests. They are all ready to jump upon every child and they start giving him a shape and a form. They call it education, culturisation, civilisation. And all they do is to give the child cheap beliefs, plastic flowers, which are of no help. In fact they are harmful, because then a person becomes afraid of truth; he has invested so much in beliefs that he is not ready to look at the truth; he avoids it. To look at the truth will mean all his beliefs will be shattered and with those beliefs all his dreams will be shattered and all his investment will be gone down the drain. So he shuts himself off.

People are taught in such a way that they become incapable of love, incapable of truth, incapable of authenticity and sincerity. And the strange thing is that everybody's taught to find god but all the qualities that help to find god are destroyed, systematically destroyed.

That's why there are so many churches and so many temples, synagogues and mosques and all people belong to some religion or other -- still, the world is absolutely irreligious. God is only a formality.

People don't bother really about god or anything significant. In fact it is impolite to talk about such things; people don't want to get involved in such things -- it is better to talk about the weather.

English people are very much interested in the weather. And it is a very strange thing because what is there to talk about? And both know what the weather is.

1/08/07

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

Query:-

(Osho's thumb arches back over itself to indicate Vivek sitting by his side.) Yes, she is also English!

(laughter) When you meet her you can talk about the weather. (There is a roar of laughter.) Yes, she is...

There are many English people hiding here!

It is good manners to talk about the weather because you don't get into any controversial thing: that it is very cloudy -- of course you can...(He doesn't even bother to finish the sentence this time. Naresha smiles; and the group behind her doubles up.) But to talk about god or to talk about truth or to talk about anything really significant is dangerous; the other person may not agree. There may be argument, there may be a conflict; there is every possibility that that may create a disagreement -- and it is not good. When people meet they have to create a certain kind of lubricant between themselves so things go smoothly.

Man is born with infinite potential. He can be as great as a Buddha, as a Jesus, as a Zarathustra; but he lives at the minimum, he never reaches the maximum. And the only reason is that he remains confined to his conditionings given by others.

My sannyasins have to drop those conditionings. They have to come out of the cave that others have created for them to live in. It is a dark cave, very small, but cosy and comfortable. They have to come out into the open, under the sky, under the stars, and they have to be adventurers, adventurers about life, about consciousness, about love, about truth. Nothing has to be accepted as belief, everything has to be explored.

Unless you experience it as true there is no need to believe in anything.

I don't give any belief, any dogma, any creed. I only provide you methods to enquire with. And once a person becomes an explorer he is on the way to becoming an emperor. He may not possess anything of the world but he will possess his inner being -- and that is the most precious thing. Jesus calls it the kingdom of god. It certainly is!

Parishuddha means perfectly pure.

Thoughts, desires, memories -- these are the impurities of consciousness. Consciousness is pure when there are no thoughts, no desires, no memories. It is just as when there are no clouds the sky is pure. Purity means to be just your essential consciousness with no content, no clouds, just and openness, a vastness

unhindered, unbounded. And that's the whole purpose of meditation, to give you a perfect purity, a clarity, an open sky.

So all that a sannyasin has to do is to get out of the rut of thoughts. It is not as difficult as it appears in the beginning. One only has to learn to be a witness. Just watch your thoughts whenever you have time.

Relax and watch -- don't do anything. There is no need to fight with them, there is no need to throw them out, because if you fight with them they will defeat you. They will defeat you because you will be unnecessarily fighting with yourself.

Thoughts are non-existential, like darkness: you cannot fight with darkness because it does not exist at all. If you start wrestling with darkness you will be defeated -- not because darkness is powerful but because you will simply get tired and exhausted. There is nothing to fight -- darkness does not exist at all. All that is needed is to bring light in and there is no darkness. That light comes in by

witnessing, not by fighting.

Just watch, go on looking, unattached, unconcerned, without any judgement that this thought is good or this thought is bad. Don't bring your moral notions in. Otherwise you will get involved in thinking, because you will cling to the good and you will want to throw out the bad -- and they are inseparable. They have a certain intrinsic unity, a certain organic unity. If you throw out the bad you will have to throw out the good too. If you want to keep the good you will have to keep the bad too. They are two sides of the same coin.

That's why every saint is unconsciously a sinner: That is the other side. He is just a repressed sinner.

And every sinner is a repressed saint. So there is not much difference. The only difference is that one is standing on his feet and the other is standing on his head, upside-down, that's all. The saint is doing a headstand. Saints, particularly in India, love to stand on their heads very much. But that's what they are actually doing for their whole life; that headstand, the sirshasana, represents their whole life. But even if you are standing on your head you are the same person, nothing has changed; it is just that your legs are up and your head is down. Just a little digging in the saint and you will find the sinner. So every saint is a sinner in his dreams and every sinner is a saint in his dreams. That's why the psychoanalysis pays so much attention to dreams -- because they show what part you have repressed and the repressed part is very significant because it goes into your unconscious; and the unconscious is bigger. The conscious is only one-tenth and the unconscious is nine times bigger than the conscious. So the saint is only one- tenth and nine times more he is a sinner. In fact the sinner is in a far better situation psychologically: he is only one-tenth a sinner and nine times a saint.

1/08/07

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

Query:-

I have more love for the sinner than for the saints. For the saints I have only pity, I feel sorry for them.

Remember that to fight with anything is going to create a dichotomy in you, a division, a split personality. So don't choose, don't fight, don't judge. Remain choicelessly aware and slowly slowly you will find those clouds are disappearing. And the moment the sky is completely without clouds there is purity. It has nothing to do with morality -- it is innocence.

Your vision will be clear, unhindered. You can see, you can hear for the first time; you can feel, you can touch, you can smell for the first time; you can taste for the first time. Then all your senses are doors to the divine. Then each sense brings a new feel of the divine. Then you are surrounded by the divine -- you see the divine, you hear the divine, you taste the divine, you touch the divine, you smell the divine. All your five senses are continuously pouring the divine into you.

It was happening before also but you were not able to see it. There were so many thoughts, desires, memories, imagination, dreams, fantasies, between you and the reality -- a thick China wall. But it disappears very easily, one just has to be a witness. Witnessing is the whole art of meditation.

Gyanesha means goddess of wisdom; remember, not of knowledge but of wisdom. And the difference is as much as it can be. They are unbridgeable, in fact they are opposites, enemies.

The knowledgeable person cannot become wise. It is impossible, absolutely impossible for him to become wise, because his knowledgeability does not allow him innocence, does not allow him wonder. He cannot feel any surprise, he cannot taste anything mysterious, magical. His life is flat. And the reason is that he thinks he already knows, he has answers, ready-made answers for every question. He has never really asked the question, he has only learned the answer. And how can you learn an answer?

First he learns the answer and then he manages the question, but the question comes later on, it is not his own. The answer is somebody else's and just to make the answer fit with him he creates a question. The question is not part of his own growth. So he knows the question and he knows the answer, but he has never been in any quest, he has never risked anything for the question, he has never gone into it the whole way, he has never gambled. He has only learned the answer from the scriptures, from the scholars, from the philosophers. And so many answers are available. For each question thousands of answers are

available --

you can have your choice.

A knowledgeable person is a stupid person, very stupid, unintelligent. He may be intellectual but he is not intelligent at all.

Wisdom is intelligence and the first act required for wisdom to happen is one has to discard all knowledge in toto; one has to become a child again -- innocent, full of wonder, awe. Everything seems to be mysterious because there is no answer.

Gertrude Stein on her deathbed suddenly opened her eyes and said "What is the answer?" The friends who had gathered were a little bit puzzled; "What is the answer?" What kind of a question is this? -- because the question had not been asked.

One person gathered courage and said "But we don't know the question, so first tell us about the question, only then can something be done about the answer." She laughed and said "Okay. Then what is the question?"... and she died! Neither the question is known nor the answer is known -- and this was at her last moment. But this is the tragedy of humanity. At least at the last moment she had the guts to ask "What is the answer?" Of course there was no time left, that's why she was saying "What is the answer? Don't waste time with the question -- just give me the answer." And because they insisted, she said "Okay, then what is the question?"

This is really the situation: we don't know the question, we don't know the answer, but we are full of knowledge. The wise man is not at all full of knowledge. He knows the question and he knows the answer; and there is only one question and there is only one answer. The question is "Who am I?" and the answer cannot be given, one has to find it. If it is given, it becomes knowledge; if you find it, it becomes wisdom.

Is the Grass Really Greener...?

1/08/07

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

Query:- Chapter #4

< Previous | Contents | Next >