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CHAPTER 24
The beginning is half the journey
26 June 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
[A visitor says: For a long time I’ve been trying to understand ‘tat twam asi’. I’ve been meditating on it and intellectually I can’t get any understanding about this phrase.]
Intellectually there is no way to understand it; it has nothing to do with intellect and it is not a philosophical statement. It is just an exclamation, a realisation. It is not a theory – it has no logic behind it; it is very illogical but it is an experience, an existential moment when you see it as: ‘that art thou’. It is a realisation that you are not separate from existence. ‘That’ means the existence; you and the existence that surrounds you are not separate.
But this is an experience; there is no way to understand it intellectually. Intellectually you are separate... in fact it is intellect that makes you separate, so how can you understand it intellectually? It is asking the very disease to prescribe the medicine. It is intellect that makes us separate. When you are deep in your sleep, you are ‘tat twam asi’. You don’t know you are separate; you are that, that is you.
When you are awake and intellectually functioning it is very difficult to think that you are that. How can you be this rock and how can you be this tree and how can you be me? And the walls – how can you be them? You are certainly separate. If I am killed you will not be killed; if I die the whole existence is not going to die, so how can you be one with it? You are certainly separate.
Intellect creates separation, so intellect is the instrument to separate thou from that. Now you are trying the absurd: you are trying to understand intellectually; then it becomes just a philosophy. Even if you understand intellectually it is of no use. Intellectual understanding is not an understanding at all. The only understanding that can be called understanding is non-intellectual, intuitive.
So the first thing that I will suggest to you is to drop that idea. That idea is not of any use; simply forget about it. If you go on remembering it and repeating it and trying to understand it, you will miss it forever. Simply forget about it!
Get absorbed in things. Sometimes dancing, become the dance and you will know. Not that somebody will shout at you ‘tat twam asi’... not that it will come like that statement written somewhere inside your mind. No god is going to give it to you as a commandment, nothing will happen, but you will simply know.
So start getting absorbed; that is my suggestion. Forget this thing. You are making an unnecessary problem for yourself, you are creating a confusion and a mess.
The Upanishads are not books to be read... they are not ordinary books at all – they are fire! One should not read them. They can only be lived and known.
My own approach is that people who become great readers and students of the upanishads miss the whole point. First you should allow that experience to happen and then you should go to the Upanishads; then you will find affirmations there.
Get lost in dance, sing a song and get lost in it, go swimming and get lost in the river, running on the beach forget everything: just become the running. Then from many doors you will have that feel, and it will not become a syllogism ‘tat twam asi’ – no. You will have that feel in many ways1 through many doors – just a glimpse, a lightning. And then one day, reading the upanishads, you come across this sentence, ‘tat twam asi’: suddenly you know that this is so. Now the upanishads have confirmed you.
Maybe you were not able to form this mahavakya – this great sentence – ‘tat twam asi’; that art thou. Suddenly it clicks, but the experience is needed first – and people are doing just the opposite. First they read the Upanishads and then they try to find the experience. This is standing on your head; this is putting the bullocks behind the cart.
Forget it. You are getting into trouble... you can get into far more trouble.
Simply forget all these Upanishads. That’s why zen people say ‘Burn all the scriptures’. They know, they know exactly what is to be done with the scriptures. Scriptures are dangerous. Burn them and move into existence!
From there god will make the first approaches towards you; god will become available from there. ‘That’ means god, and once you have tasted it.…
Everybody is not so articulate as the seers of the upanishads so maybe you have tasted it but you cannot make a poetry out of it. But reading poetry suddenly you recognise ‘Yes, this is what I wanted to say myself’, but this is secondary – this is not primary; the scripture is secondary.
Nobody comes to truth by reading the scriptures. But you can come to truth directly and then you can read the scriptures... and all scriptures say the same thing. Start meditating!
... Gather courage and become a sannyasin, mm? Just to become a scholar needs no courage. It is a very cowardly business, this scholarship. Gather courage and become a sannyasin. I am here, ready to take you to ‘that’, mm? Good!
[A sannyasin says: I find it very difficult to communicate with women. I’m constantly with them, but... as soon as I get close to a lady I just clam up, and then there’s nothing there.]
And would you like to communicate and to become friendly? [He answers: Yes, sure.]
Just come closer. Raise your hands and close your eyes, and if something starts happening in the body, you allow it.…
One is: it is just a question of habit, it is not a very deep-rooted problem. You can become a great lady-killer, mm?... just a question of habit; you have formed a wrong habit. Maybe it is because of circumstances – your mother, your parents, your society – so you have carried that up to now. It just needs a deliberate effort to drop it... even if you have to force it to drop.
So for three weeks, do one thing: force it to drop. Go, push yourself into communication. Don’t wait for it to happen – no, don’t wait for that; it won’t happen. All these years you have made a habit; that habit has to be destroyed. It is just like a conditioning around you – you have to make a conscious effort to break it. And within three weeks it will go; it is nothing much. Your energy is there, perfectly good; just a crust is around you. If you cannot break it here, you cannot break it anywhere else in the world, so don’t miss this opportunity.
And it is not only a question of being able to communicate with women.If you cannot communicate
with women outside, you will be incapable of communicating with your inner woman – and that is the real problem. I am not much interested in the outer woman – if you communicate or not communicate, that does not matter much – but if you cannot communicate with the outer woman you will remain cut in two inside. Your man part will not be able to meet and mingle with the woman part within you. Hence my emphasis so much that people should fall in love, move in love, communicate. Meeting with the outer woman you come closer to your inner woman, and when you can love a woman outside, your inner distance becomes very very much less.
Sometimes, making love to an outer woman, suddenly you are not only dissolving into the outer woman, inside also you start dissolving... and that is of ultimate value. The outer woman will disappear, the outer man will disappear, but once that inner integrity has arisen, then there is no need for the outer; you can forget about communicating outsideBecause communication brings
many problems too; complications are there.
A woman is not just beautiful, neither is a man just beautiful; they bring a thousand and one problems with them. But once the inner integration has started happening you can afford not to relate outside. Right now you cannot afford that. Right now your energy is flowing, but there is a split: your woman is standing aloof, your man is standing aloof; they are not talking to each other.
This ice has to be broken, and the only and the easiest way is to break it with an outside woman. So you start looking.And now these people (indicating the group) have heard so they will spread
the news – that somebody is looking for a woman... because women here are looking for men! Men are proving real cowards!
So just let this rumour be spread, then many women will start attacking you! And I don’t have ordinary women here: they are very dangerous ones!
Just get out of it... try to get out of it. Whenever you have an opportunity, force yourself to get out of it, that’s all! If you are walking with a woman, why not hold her hand? If you can hold her hand, hold it; if you can hug the woman, hug – don’t miss that contact. Be more physical in relating – that will break the habit, because the habit has entered into the body; it is no more just mind. You will have to do something. It has become muscular; it is almost physical now. So hold her hand, hug the woman, go swimming with a woman, invite a woman to dance.
Do whatsoever you can for three weeks... and don’t bother very much that you have to wait for a perfect woman to appear. Any woman will do; you are just to break the habit so any woman will be helpful. So don’t be too much concerned about aesthetics and morality and this and that. Just be simply communicative with a human being.
Say something to people. If you cannot say something, at least listen to them! Listen attentively – and that is communication... sometimes more effective than talking to them. If you can listen attentively people really feel very very loving towards you... because nobody is listening to anybody: everybody is ready to say something but nobody is ready to listen. Become a good listener if you don’t find something to sayAnd women are great talkers; they will enjoy you very much, mm?
Just listen, just provoke them to talk. Start from this very moment, mm?.just look around and start!
And there is no problem, not at all. And after three weeks, tell me.
I will manage to have many women follow you. Just after three weeks you will come and say ‘Enough, Osho!’
It is going to go! Just sit here and have a look. If you feel attracted to somebody, start communicating; don’t be worried! This is the most auspicious moment to start. Good!
[A sannyasin who has Hodgkin’s disease and TB says: I’m really scared about the idea that I might die... I tried witnessing it and it just stays there]
No, no, witnessing won’t help because you will be using witnessing just as a trick to avoid it. Just accept it and then it will disappear. So what? One is going to die, so one is going to die. What can you do about it? Accept it, and simply by accepting it there is no problem in it. And then it will become a great experience.
You are not going to die, mm? you will live – but this experience will become of great value. Very few people are so fortunate to go through this; don’t miss it! Everybody dies but death comes to very few people this way. Death takes you very unawares: one day you are caught in it, it doesn’t give you any chance to think about it. Then there is no opportunity to grow into it. You are fortunate; death is coming making much noise.
And it is a bogus death; it is not coming either. It is just your fear... but the fear has to be accepted: yes, it is okay. If you are going to die, you are going to die. What difference does it make whether it is today or tomorrow or the day after tomorrow? It does not make much difference. Some day one has to die... any day is a good day. Just by postponing it for a few years, what difference will it make?
How many years more do you want to live? Just tell me exactly – and then don’t change it!...
It does not make any difference whether you live for fifty years or seventy years or one hundred years: one day one dies. So don’t miss this opportunity. Accept it! – it is perfectly okay. And the moment you accept you will suddenly feel that the fear has disappeared.
Fear is because of non-acceptance – fear is not of death, remember. Everybody here is going to die but nobody is afraid. Fear is of non-acceptance: these people here are not thinking of death so there is no question of rejecting or of accepting. For you the problem has arisen of what to do now? Death is there. Do you accept it or do you reject it? If you reject it you will not be able to sleep.
Last night I had to come to you because you wouldn’t sleep.
[The sannyasin later confirmed experiencing Osho’s presence in his room the night before.]
For two, three, nights you have not slept – but that is not going to help. That is bringing death closer unnecessarily... and death is not there! I don’t see it coming so soon. Mm? You have to do many many things for me, so it is not so easy.
But don’t miss this opportunity! Accept it, and in that acceptance you will find such freedom, such silence. Later on you will see that this opportunity was really an opportunity; you would have missed it! No, just accept it... and sheela, you too accept it. What to do? [You are] going; then one has to say good-bye!
What can be done? Man is helpless. So serve him and love him and do whatsoever you can do for him, but be happy and make him happy. I don’t see that there is any problem right now – but this problem will come one day or other, so why not tackle it right now? Be finished with it, so whenever it comes next time it will not be a problem. And next time I may not be here, so why not use me this time and be finished with this problem? Accept it, accept it in toto. When one totally accepts death, it becomes almost impossible for death to come.
And your disease is more or less concerned with your mind. You were perfectly healthy three, four, days before. You have never been as healthy as you have been for the past two, three, months, but within three, four, days you are down... and this is just a mind thing; this has nothing to do with your disease! It is just because the x-ray people have said that the shadow is bigger, mm?
If you had not gone for the examination you would have still been perfect. Your weight is going well, your allergy is less; I don’t see you looking as you were before. Mm? you are looking perfectly healthy – you have never been so healthy. Now there is no point in death coming when you are becoming so healthy; there is no point.
But whatsoever it is, accept it... and take it easy! If you are going to die, don’t be worried – I will take care: you will have a good death! If you are going to survive, you will have a good life. Either way I promise you, so just don’t be worried at all.
And you have created this problem unnecessarily. You should have asked me about stopping your medicines. I am here, and this is a vital thing. You should have asked me... you stopped your medicines. It happens almost always that whenever people are becoming better, they think, ‘What is the need of the medicine?’ But your problem is such that the need of medicine may remain for your whole life. But what is wrong in it? Just as you take a cup of tea every day, you can take a few medicines; there is not a problem in it! There is no need to stop it; you created this unnecessarily.
So now accept it, mm? and tonight, just relax. Entertain the idea of death. If it is coming, let it be beautiful – make it a joy; give it a good reception. At least get ready! I don’t think it is coming but why not get ready? Some day it will come, then you can use that reception again. I may not be here to tell you next time. It is better you prepare now.
And the doctor’s suggestion is right: on the second, doctor paymaster comes, so show him everything, and if he feels that some test is needed, go to the states; let it be tested. Nothing is a problem – I don’t think there is any – but you can create the problem!...
And I will tell everybody. They will help you; don’t be worried, mm? So tell everybody wherever you go, so that everybody asks, ‘When are you going to die?’
Nothing to be worried about, mm? – this thing will go. But if you get into fear too much, you may create some complication. From this moment drop creating more complications, and the best way is to accept death. Just try: tonight, just accept it. And that’s exactly what I mean when I say, ‘entertain the idea’ – the idea that you are going to die. How beautiful! Then all problems will disappear and you will be moving to great rest and silence.
What is there to fear in death? That’s something strange – that people go on being afraid. People should be afraid of life because life brings problems. Death brings no problems; it simply solves all problems.
Accept it, mm? Up to the second, completely accept it... and you will be surprised: that shadow may disappear if you accept it. If vou don’t accept it, then the tension, the strain, may create more shadow on the chest.
Start laughing and enjoying and dancing and meeting people, and talk about death and tell them, ‘I am going to die – have you any suggestions?’ you have to prepare for it, so ask people their suggestions and ideas about death, mm?
... Have you a box with you?... Whenever you start thinking against death, just put it on your heart and it will help you to die, mm? Accept the idea and tomorrow morning you will be flowing again. When I take care of you, you need not be worried. Good?
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