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CHAPTER 6
Everything is within the reach of an empty hand
6 January 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
Dharma is a very special sanskrit word. It means exactly what in chinese they mean by tao, or what in greek they mean by logos – the ultimate law. Not any law in particularThe law of gravitation
is a particular law. And then there are many laws – chemical, biological, physical, but they are all particular laws.
Dharma is the ultimate law, the law of all laws. So you cannot pinpoint where it is, although it is everywhere. All special laws are just particular manifestations of this universal law. Mm? gravitation is just a limited expression of it.
So one that holds all laws in itself is called dharma. Dharmadeva means god of the ultimate law. And you have to start being sensitive towards this tao, dharma, the ultimate law. It is a question of sensitivity.
Through intellect you can discover particular laws. Only through sensitivity can you discover the universal law. The universal is not available to the intellect. That’s the difference between science and religion.
In India, religion is also called dharma, mm? because it is a discovery of the ultimate law, the universal law. Science will go on discovering but it will never come across the ultimate law it cannot. Its very methodology prohibits it. The very approach is for the particular.
So science becomes more and more specialised, and each branch becomes more and more narrow. First there was only science; then there was physics and chemistry. Now chemistry has many
branches – the organic chemistry and the inorganic chemistry. And so on, so forth; it goes on becoming more and more specific, particular.
Of course any scientific approach knows more, but every day it knows about less and less. It knows more and more, but about less and less – so it can never come to the universal, because there is no way to come to the universal. It will come to the very particular – so it can never come to god, because god is the universal law.
So the very methodology of science prohibits it knowing about god, knowing god. And then of course science goes on saying that there is no god. Now this is very irrational. You don’t allow the universal – your very approach is for the particular – and then you say that there is no universal because it never comes in your net... and you have chosen a net. A certain net catches a certain type of fish. The net of science catches the fish of the particular.
The universal is such a big fish that no net will be capable of getting hold of it. One will have to go without any nets. That’s what meditation is. That’s what I call sensitivity, understanding.
So start feeling for the universal. Just sitting silently, listen to the universal. This silence of the night... these insects making a noise. Just listen.Listening to this particular noise, if you bring in
the intellect, science comes in. Then you start thinking about what type of insect this is and how it makes such a type of noisewhat type of throat it must have, and for what reasons – you have
moved into the particular.
Listening to this noise, not brooding about it, not thinking about it – just listening.just listening,
becoming more and more sensitive; not thinking, just listening – suddenly you will see that something of tremendous import is arising out of this simple noise. A universal music can be heard through this noise because all noises contain it.but it is a very still, small voice. When you become very very
silent it asserts itself in your consciousness.
So remember more and more to be non-intellectual and sensitive, and then you will know that there is a universal law. And to know the universal law is to know all – nothing else is needed.
Then by knowing it, one becomes it. By knowing it, one by and by dissolves into it. By knowing it, one is overpowered by it.
And when your life is run by the universal law and you are no more a doer, then you have a true life – the life of benediction, bliss. It is not something that you can practice. You can only listen to the universal law and allow yourself to fall into its trap. It is more a sort of let-go.
[The new sannyasin said he had done a vipassana group which he had felt helpful but difficult.
Osho talked about the need to release any repressions before moving into passive meditation like vipassana. He suggested two groups to him and then added that karate would be helpful for him too.]
... It will bring up all that is inside. The word ‘karate’ is beautiful – it means empty hand. If one goes deeply into the process of karate, one becomes empty. And when things are thrown out – the
inner violence, the conflict, the mind – and when one feels more and more empty... when the hand is empty, then one is capable; then nothing is beyond one’s reach. When the hand is empty, then everything is within your reach – even god! Everything is within reach of an empty hand.
So join karate and join sufi dancing, mm? and continue morning and evening meditations. You are here for five months so you can go slowly. And remember, you have to end with vipassana. Then it will bring tremendous insight.
It is a great method. Buddha himself developed it. That’s his contribution to the world – but it works only in a particular moment. Mm? so let us first bring that moment, and then things fit.…
[Osho gives a seeker sannyas.]
This will be your name... and don’t let it be just a change of name – let it really become a radical change. It can become one – it depends on how one takes it, because everything is a question of attitude.
A few people miss sannyas even if they become sannyasins. They take sannyas almost in sleep, not alert... doing something as if not meaning it... doing something because this is the thing to be done... doing something because everybody is doing it. They simply become imitative – then they miss.
Sannyas is a great adventure, and every step has to be taken in tremendous awareness. You have the possibility for great awareness, hence I say this.
Let this moment become of great decisive value. Let it be momentous – as if from this moment you are broken away from the past... a clean break, with no hesitation... in a single stroke of a sword. Remember, I say’in a single stroke’ – with no hesitation. Then suddenly the whole Fast disappears and the energy that is involved in the past becomes available. It is great energy – and for the first time you feel available to the present and to the future.
The past is a dead weight, and if we are too much involved in the past we cannot live in the present and we cannot move into the future. So one has to completely get out of the past.
Hence I give you a name: veet asmita.
Veet means beyond, asmita means ego; beyond the ego. And the ego is the past. Whatsoever you know about yourself, whatsoever you think yourself to be, whatsoever your identity is, is nothing but your past. Your family, your religions, your friends, your love-affairs, your studies, university degrees, this and that – that is all part of your ego.
In a single word,‘ego’, the whole past is present. Hence it is so difficult to drop the ego because it means your whole history, your whole biography. So people go on thinking and they go on asking about how to drop the ego – but they are not ready. When they understand that it means to drop the whole history, all that you have been up to now, all that you have been thinking yourself up to now, all that you have dreamed, done, imagined, fantasised, whatsoever – bodily, mentally, spiritually – your successes, failures, frustrationsThey are all bundled up into a single word,‘ego’.
Dropping the ego, one becomes free of the past. They mean the same – the past or the ego. And sannyas is an effort to get out of the past, to get out of the ego – just like a snake slips out of its own skin. It does not even look back – it simply slips out.
So slip out of your past – the past is dead. There is no meaning in it, because there can never be any meaning in the dead. Meaning is always in the alive, in the flowing. Get out of the past... and this needs only a certain courage.
It is not a question of making much effort – a certain courage, a certain understanding... and I can see it is there. It can flare up. Just a little support and it can flare up. And in that flare-up the whole past has disappeared. Suddenly you start from ABC – fresh, young, virgin, uncorrupted.
And then remember always that it is not that you have to do it once – you have to do it every day, every moment from now. Otherwise again the past will accumulate. It is natural that the past accumulates, because past is every moment accumulating. Every moment you are making the past, creating the past out of the present, out of the future. The present will turn into past... all present moments will turn into past. If you go on collecting them, again it will be piled up. Again a new ego will arise.
So this moment you have to take two things very decisively: one, slip out of the past; second, never accumulate it again. And that is the meaning of sannyas – not to live in the past, not to accumulate past... always to live herenow. My’now’ contains timelessness, and my’here’ has the hint of everywhere.’Here’ does not mean just here – ‘here’ means all that is present right now. The faraway stars – they are part of this here. The whole existence that is, is contained in the herenow.
A sannyasin is a person who has taken a decision not to live in the past, not to live through the past, not to live through the future, not to go roundabout, but to be immediate... in the present.
And from that immediacy, all bliss. From that immediacy, all delight. From that immediacy, all beauty and benediction.…
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