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Chapter 4 - Beyond life-and-death
With deep authority sit down as a buddha.
Slowly slowly it becomes your normal, natural heartbeat.
The rains have come to rejoice with you, and to celebrate with you.
Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Beloved Master.
Can we celebrate the ten thousand buddhas? Yes, Beloved Master.
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The gateway of the buddhas
3 September 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium OUR BELOVED MASTER,
TOREI SAID:
IF YOU WANT TO BE FREE FROM THIS WORLD OF SUFFERING, FIRST YOU
MUST CONTEMPLATE IMPERMANENCE.
THOSE WHO ARE BORN MUST INEVITABLY DIE. EVEN THE YOUNG ARE NOT
EXEMPT; EVEN THE STRONG ARE IN DANGER. EVEN A LONG LIFE DOES NOT
LAST MORE THAN EIGHTY YEARS OR SO. IF YOU DON'T ANNIHILATE THE
NATURE OF AFFLICTIONS SOMEHOW, AND ARRIVE ON THE PATH OF
LIBERATION, EVEN IF YOU ASCEND TO THE RANK OF SOVEREIGN OF A NATION, GREAT MINISTER, DEITY, SPIRIT, OR WIZARD, IT IS STILL
EVANESCENT AS LIGHTNING AND MORNING DEW, LASTING ONLY FOR A WHILE.
WHEN CONDITIONS MEET, EVERYTHING SURELY SEEMS TO EXIST; BUT
WHEN THE CONDITIONS DISINTEGRATE -- EMPTINESS. THIS BODY IS GAINED
THROUGH THE RELATIONSHIP OF FATHER AND MOTHER, AND COMES FROM
THEIR CONDITIONS. SOLIDITY BECOMES SKIN, FLESH, LIGAMENT, AND BONE; FLUIDITY BECOMES SPITTLE, TEARS, PUS, AND BLOOD; HEAT BECOMES
WARMTH AND FLEXIBILITY; AIR BECOMES BREATH AND MOVEMENT.
WHEN THESE FOUR CONDITIONS SUDDENLY ARE EXHAUSTED, THE BODY
GETS COLD AND THE BREATH STOPS -- THERE IS NOTHING CALLED "ME." AT
THAT TIME THIS BODY IS REALLY NOT OUR OWN; IT IS ONLY A TEMPORARY
INN. HOW CAN WE BE SO GREEDILY ATTACHED TO THIS TEMPORARY INN
THAT WE IGNORE ETERNITY?
| CONTEMPLATING | THESE | FOUR TRANSCENDENCES | -- |
| IMPERMANENCE, | SUFFERING, | EMPTINESS, SELFLESSNESS | -- |
SEEKING THE WAY OF
ENLIGHTENMENT IS CALLED, "THE TEACHING OF FOUR REALITIES FOR
DISCIPLES." THIS IS THE ESSENTIAL GATEWAY TO BEGINNING ENTRY INTO
THE WAY FOR ALL ENLIGHTENED ONES.
Maneesha, before I discuss Torei's serious things, I have to introduce a few new animal gods into Avirbhava's Museum of Gods. Before I call her, I will have to tell you something about these gods.
"Sheep: The male sheep is known as a ram and has been a symbol of numerous gods.
Osiris and Ammon-Ra of Egypt were both worshipped as rams. The ram was sacrificed each year in Egypt. It was skinned and the skin placed over an image of the god, recalling the time when Ammon-Ra was incarnated in the form of a ram.
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Apes: In ancient Egypt, apes were considered sacred and were preserved by embalming them at death.
Mouse: One of the greatest of the Greek gods, Apollo, was known to take the form of a mouse in his role as sender of the plague. Apollo, the sun god, would incarnate as mice and rats to dispel the forces of night.
Horse: In Hinduism, the tenth incarnation of Vishnu is a white horse, Kalki. It has not yet happened. Nine incarnations have happened; the tenth is awaited. The tenth will be called Kalki. It will be a white horse, who is to come to judge the world at the end of this yuga, the fourth and the last cycle of one million, eight hundred thousand years in the Hindu concept of the world. He will destroy the wicked, reward the good, and enable Vishnu to create a new world."
It seems the time for Kalki is coming near. Beware of the white horse!
"Bull: In ancient Persia, the bull was worshipped as the god who caused the grass to grow.
In Greece, the great god Zeus used the guise of a bull to seduce Europa, hoping thereby that his animal transformation would elude his ever-watchful wife, Hera, from detecting his adultery. The followers of Dionysius would kill a bull during midsummer festivals in honor of the great god Zeus."
This Museum of Gods is not just a museum, it shows how human mind has remained retarded. Rather than bringing consciousness to its heights, man has been worshipping all kinds of animals. Even the future, the final incarnation of God in Hinduism, Kalki, is going to be a white horse -- not a man, not a buddha. It shows the retardedness, the primitiveness of our intelligence. This museum will be a symbol to the whole world to remind them: "This is what your forefathers have been doing, what you are doing. And you call it religion!"
Before I ask Avirbhava to bring her new acquisitions, two little jokes about these gods.
Late one night, Satan the devil and his partner, Lucifer the monkey, knock on the door of Pope the Polack's Vatican apartment. The Polack pope comes to the door with an arm around his best friend, Simon the sheep.
"Good evening, your phoniness," says the devil, grinning cheekily and fondling his forked tail. "My friend and I were wondering, do you have any midget nuns in your apartment?"
"Certainly not!" snaps back the pope, trying to slam the door.
"Well then, Holy Father," chuckles the devil, licking the flames of his lips and jamming his pitchfork in the doorway, "do you have any midget nuns living in the Vatican?"
"I don't know of any," cries the frightened Pope the Polack.
"Perhaps," giggles Lucifer, the monkey, swinging from Satan's pitchfork, "you know of any midget nuns living anywhere?"
"I cannot say," shouts Pope the Polack, infuriated, "that I know of any midget nuns anywhere at all!" And he grabs Simon the sheep's crucifix, and waves it wildly under the devil's nose.
The devil picks up the monkey by the shoulders, lifts him in the air, and shakes him hard.
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"You see, you idiot!" shouts Satan. "I told you you fucked a penguin!"
Pope the Polack goes for a summer retreat into the mountains of Italy. He lives in a little stone cottage, and the only companions he has are a flock of sheep.
After a few days without any company, the Polack pope becomes crazy for sex, and he chooses one of the horned sheep as a partner.
He takes off his gown and puts his machinery into the sheep. But while he is in action with the poor animal, it suddenly starts to run. Pope the Polack, with his underwear down around his ankles, is unable to do anything but hold on to the sheep's horns.
They race down the mountainside together, past a field where Grandma Pickle is picking daisies. Grandma is a little short-sighted, but looks up in amazement as the sheep and the Polack pope go racing past.
"My god!" she mutters to herself. "No money to buy pants, but he is driving a white motorbike!"
Now, Avirbhava, bring your gods.
(THE MASTER LAUGHINGLY BECKONS AVIRBHAVA FORWARD. AVIRBHAVA COMES FORWARD WITH A BULL DRESSED AS THE POPE, WHILE
SIMULTANEOUSLY SHEEP AND MICE START DANCING IN FRONT OF THE
MASTER ON A STRING, AND AN APE IS BOUNCING UP AND DOWN WILDLY ON A PIECE OF ELASTIC.)
Great!
(AVIRBHAVA ASSISTS THE LITTLE POPE IN KISSING THE MASTER'S FEET, WHILE A LIVE RECORDING OF THE POPE'S SERMON BOOMS OVER THE
LOUDSPEAKERS.)
Great, Avirbhava!
(THERE IS GENERAL HILARITY WITH THE MICE SQUEAKING, THE APE
GROWLING, ETC. BY THIS TIME THE MASTER IS REALLY ENJOYING
IT!) That's good!
Now the serious matter ...
Torei is not a master but he is certainly a great teacher. And I have chosen him so that you can make a clear-cut distinction between the greatest teacher and the smallest master.
Even the smallest master, the humblest master, has a beauty, a truth, a realization. He may not say a single word, but his silence is a scripture. The greatest teacher may know all the Osho - The Language of Existence
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scriptures, may have great interpretations, but he remains a parrot. What he says he does not know; his saying is dependent on his learning, studying, but not on his experience, not on his existential approach to his own being.
Torei is a good example of a great teacher. But such teachers can deceive humanity -- they have been deceiving, because they talk beautifully. Their words are the same as the words of the masters -- sometimes more refined, more cultivated, more cultured -- but still they are empty. Once in a while they may quote a sentence which has significance; not because of them, but because that sentence has come from some great living master. They have been great collectors, but as far as their own reality is concerned they are as ignorant as one can be.
TOREI SAID:
IF YOU WANT TO BE FREE FROM THIS WORLD OF SUFFERING, FIRST YOU
MUST CONTEMPLATE IMPERMANENCE.
I have told you these words: concentration, contemplation, meditation. The fourth, which is missing in the English language, is dhyana, or Zen in Japanese.
Contemplation is the way of the philosopher. He thinks it over. It is not beyond mind, it is within mind. He may be very sophisticated, his words may be arranged beautifully, but he cannot understand what meditation is; he can only understand contemplation. The very word
'contemplation' means thinking about higher things. But if you don't know those things, what can you think about?
Contemplation is one of the most empty words. If you know, you know; there is no need to contemplate. If you don't know, how can you contemplate? What are you going to contemplate? What is going to be your subject matter? You are simply groping in darkness and calling it contemplation.
He certainly is acquainted with the scriptures, very well acquainted, but he is committing the same mistake millions of teachers around the world have committed. First: IF YOU WANT TO BE FREE FROM THIS WORLD OF SUFFERING ...
Can you find a person who does not want to be free from suffering? There is no question about it. Everybody wants to get rid of suffering, misery.
The way that Torei
suggests is, FIRST YOU MUST CONTEMPLATE
IMPERMANENCE. It won't help. You can think everything is impermanent: birth is impermanent, youth is impermanent, wealth is impermanent; life itself is running out.
Everything is impermanent. That does not mean it will take you out of suffering. It simply makes you more aware that while there is time, enjoy as much as you can, because time is passing and death is not far away.
Strangely enough, the same argument is given by Charvakas, the Indian atheists. They say,
"Everything is fleeting, so don't waste time in temples, in rituals, just eat, drink and be merry.
And if you don't have money, borrow money, because after death everyone is finished, nobody is going to ask for his money back. After death, in the graveyard everybody sleeps soundly.
The man who borrowed the money and the man who gave the money both are dead. So don't miss a single moment. Enjoy it, even if it is to be enjoyed on borrowed money."
The statement in Sanskrit is very beautiful. The statement says, no one who has gone beyond death has ever come back. This is enough proof, more than enough, that death is the Osho - The Language of Existence
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end. And if death is the end, then why be worried about small things? It may be your own pocket or somebody else's pocket, it does not matter. Death will not differentiate between the sinner and the saint. There is no one to make the judgment.
RINAM KRITVA GHRITAM PIBET. Even if you have to borrow money, borrow it, but drink refined butter. Don't be worried about tomorrow.
It was a great school, not only in India but in Greece also. These were the two countries at that time which were touching the peaks of civilization. In Greece there was a great man, Epicurus, and he still has a small following. But generally, the whole Western world is Epicurian; they may know, they may not know.
Epicurus' whole teaching was that all is matter, and when all matter disintegrates nothing is left behind. So don't bother about any spirituality, and don't bother about any other world --
there is none. There has not been a single witness. It is certainly a tremendous argument, that there is not a single witness of the other world, the paradise. It seems to be all fancy, imagination, wish-fulfillment. What you cannot get here, you project that you will get it after life. It gives a certain consolation.
But what can you contemplate? Even if you contemplate that everything is impermanent, that simply means do it quick, be speedy, things are fast running out of hand; squeeze the juice of every moment without delay. Contemplation can take you into an atheistic worldview.
THOSE WHO ARE BORN MUST INEVITABLY DIE. EVEN THE YOUNG ARE NOT
EXEMPT.
Just because everyone is going to die ... Torei and similar teachers think that it is enough for people to become detached because everything is going to die. The result is just the contrary -- because everything is going to die, be quick before it dies.
A man was brought into a court in France for making love to a woman on the sea beach.
The charge was that he had been making love to a dead woman. The magistrate asked him, "What do you have to say?"
He said, "I thought she was an English lady." Man has been told by these teachers:
EVEN THE STRONG ARE IN DANGER. EVEN A LONG LIFE DOES NOT LAST
MORE THAN EIGHTY YEARS OR SO.
The desire is that you will think, "Everything is so changing, what is the point in going after it?" That's what Torei is thinking. But he is absolutely blind to the fact that the more people think things are going to change, the more they increase their speed. Why has humanity been increasing its speed?
I have heard ... A newly-wed couple is rushing in a fresh, new Ferrari. The girl feels afraid because the car is going at one hundred and fifty miles per hour. She is trembling, and she asks the man, "Please at least look at the map."
The man says, "Who bothers about the map! Is it not enough to enjoy the speed itself? We must reach somewhere, it cannot be nowhere. You can consult the map -- I am enjoying the Osho - The Language of Existence
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speed. I don't have any time to waste consulting the map. What is the point? Wherever we reach, we will find a hotel; whether its name is Honeymoon Hotel or not does not matter."
Increasingly, humanity has been interested in speed, more speed. Perhaps you have not taken into consideration the implication. The implication is, do everything as fast and quickly as you can because life is short. But these people
like Torei thought that if people contemplate that everything is going to die ... why love this woman if she is going to die? -- if not today then tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. Even if she does not die, she will be in a worse position -- she will become old. What is the point in loving a woman who will become old?
A man was telling a woman, "I love you. I love you more than my life." The woman said, "Really? Will you love me always as you love me now?"
The man contemplated and he said, "There is only one problem. When you become old, will you look like your mother? Then I withdraw my statement. I cannot love your mother --
that much is certain. Will you remain the same?" Nothing remains the same.
From the point of change there are two roads. One leads to atheism, materialism
-- enjoy, there is nothing much to discover. The other road is that because everything is impermanent, try to find something permanent. That is what the masters do -- help the person to find something in himself that is absolutely eternal.
That is the goal of meditation, not of contemplation. But a thinker cannot understand meditation. He cannot understand that you can go out of your mind. How can you jump out of your mind? You are mind. To him you are nothing more than mind. And you can see his statement:
IF YOU DON'T ANNIHILATE THE NATURE OF AFFLICTIONS SOMEHOW, AND
ARRIVE ON THE PATH OF LIBERATION, EVEN IF YOU ASCEND TO THE RANK OF
SOVEREIGN OF A NATION, GREAT MINISTER, DEITY, SPIRIT, OR WIZARD, IT IS
STILL EVANESCENT AS LIGHTNING AND MORNING DEW, LASTING ONLY FOR A WHILE.
WHEN CONDITIONS MEET, EVERYTHING SURELY SEEMS TO EXIST; BUT
WHEN THE CONDITIONS DISINTEGRATE -- EMPTINESS.
You are just a certain combination of conditions. When those conditions meet, you are.
When those conditions disintegrate -- nothingness. A buddha can also say the same thing, but he says it because he knows nothingness is not nothingness, because he knows you have entered into your inner sky -- which looks to the outsider like nothingness.
But when a teacher says this, not knowing anything about it, there is every danger that he will create people who will become materialists. If everything ends then what is the point of being virtuous, what is the point of prayer, what is the point of donations, what is the point of service to the poor? Why waste time? Just enjoy life -- drink, dance, do whatever you want to, because death will come. And it comes to everyone, the saint and the sinner, in a similar way; it does not make any categories.
THIS BODY IS GAINED THROUGH THE RELATIONSHIP OF FATHER AND
MOTHER.
This type of thing can be told only by a teacher. Everybody knows this body is gained through the relationship of father and mother. And then more stupid things he goes on saying: Osho - The Language of Existence
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... AND COMES FROM THEIR CONDITIONS. SOLIDITY BECOMES SKIN.
How can solidity become skin? If I had met this fellow ... I have every respect for his learning but I would put him to task, to turn solidity into skin -- or skin into solidity, that would do.
... FLESH, LIGAMENT, AND BONE; FLUIDITY BECOMES SPITTLE, TEARS, PUS
AND BLOOD; HEAT BECOMES WARMTH AND FLEXIBILITY; AIR BECOMES
BREATH AND MOVEMENT.
Great philosophy! And he is talking as if he is stating some scientific discoveries.
WHEN THESE FOUR CONDITIONS SUDDENLY ARE EXHAUSTED, THE BODY
GETS COLD AND THE BREATH STOPS.
Great contemplation!
THERE IS NOTHING CALLED "ME." AT THAT TIME THIS BODY IS REALLY NOT
OUR OWN; IT IS ONLY A TEMPORARY INN. HOW CAN WE BE SO GREEDILY
ATTACHED TO THIS TEMPORARY INN THAT WE IGNORE ETERNITY?
| CONTEMPLATING | THESE | FOUR TRANSCENDENCES | -- |
| IMPERMANENCE, | SUFFERING, | EMPTINESS, SELFLESSNESS | -- |
SEEKING THE WAY OF
ENLIGHTENMENT IS CALLED, "THE TEACHING OF FOUR REALITIES FOR
DISCIPLES." THIS IS THE ESSENTIAL GATEWAY TO BEGINNING ENTRY INTO
THE WAY FOR ALL ENLIGHTENED ONES.
This is the problem with the learned scholarship. They see that the enlightened one shows in his every action non-attachment, impermanence, because the
enlightened one never suffers; in his consciousness he is beyond suffering. The scholar watches all these qualities from the outside and then he creates his great ideology: if you contemplate impermanence, non-attachment, suffering, you will enter into the gateway of the buddhas.
He himself has not entered. These are not the words of a buddha, these are the words of a great teacher who has collected fragments of teachings from here and there. And he is not honest, either -- no scholar is. It is very difficult to find a scholar who will say that what he is saying is not his knowledge. He pretends that what he is saying, he knows, that he is saying it only because he knows.
Every scholar, almost without exception, is a pretender. And because of these pretenders, it becomes very difficult for people to figure out who the authentic masters are. The scholars speak of the gateway of the buddha, they speak about eternity, they speak about emptiness.
Their words are perfectly right, but the men who are speaking them are not right, because these words are borrowed.
Once you borrow a truth it becomes untrue. Truth can arise only within you; it cannot be adopted -- you have to remember this. In life you will meet many people who appear to know so much that you are overwhelmed by their knowledge. But inside there is nothing, no experience.
A great psychologist, head of the department of psychology in Varanasi University ... I was only a student and one of my friends had gone from the college to study in Varanasi. He came into contact with this psychologist, Professor Laljiram Shukla, and the professor became so much interested in him that he married his daughter to the young man.
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The young man was continuously talking about me to him: "You should meet my friend."
Continuously mentioning me, he became obsessed.
He started writing to me saying, "I will pay all the fare and you will stay with me in the university. You come, just be a guest for one week, because I have heard so much about you from my son-in-law that now it is becoming a disturbance in me." So I went.
In the morning, nearabout twenty-five professors of the university had gathered to meet me. The professor of psychology, Laljiram Shukla, was perhaps the only great psychologist in India; people were very respectful about him. We all waited because he was worshipping the monkey god, Hanuman. When his worship was over he came and he greeted me, and he said,
"I have been waiting. How long are you going to stay?" I said, "That will be decided within ten minutes."
He said, "What do you mean?"
I said, "Just sit down. You think you are a psychologist and you worship a monkey! Do you believe in Darwin -- that man is born out of the monkeys? Perhaps you are worshipping your forefathers?"
He said, "This is very insulting."
I said, "That's why I said that just within ten minutes I will decide how long I have to stay here. I can stay here my whole life, but I don't think that even for one hour you will be able to tolerate me."
I questioned him directly. I said to him, "You are worshipping for what? There must be some desire. Some desire perhaps to be the vice-chancellor or to be the education minister or to be the prime minister of India? For what are you worshipping? Because a man who has no desire has no need to worship. Do you think a monkey can manage what you cannot manage?
Why are you putting yourself into such humiliation before a monkey?" He said, "Don't refer to my god again and again by the name 'monkey'."
I said, "What can I do? He is a monkey. And it is not a question of whether he is your forefather or not. The question is, a psychologist is still primitive. Have you seen God?"
Those professors who had gathered became very uneasy. They had come to see if some discussion will happen which will be profitable to them, but there seemed to be no way to discuss with me. I said, "Non-essentials aside, just remember the monkey god and tell the truth: have you ever seen God?"
He became so angry, he called his son-in-law and told him, "You idiot! You have been harassing me again and again, and now he is disturbing my belief system."
I said, "A man of your understanding should not remain with belief systems. He should have something which he knows, not only believes, and you don't have anything that you know. Or if you know just tell me, we can discuss it. What is the point of discussing something which you don't know?"
The ultimate result was that he told his son-in-law to pack my suitcases and take me immediately to the airport. "I don't want such a man; in seven days he will destroy my whole life's religiousness." And because all the professors came down to say goodbye to me, he was very angry. Later on his son-in-law wrote to me, saying that he was so angry with all the Osho - The Language of Existence
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professors: "You left me alone and you went with him to say goodbye to him. It seems you agree with him."
They said, "There is no question of agreement -- you misbehaved. If you don't know, you should have said, 'I don't know.' That would have been more dignified. You had been inviting him, he had not come on his own; now you have thrown him out of the house. Still, he was not angry, he was just laughing."
I said, "I knew it. That's why I did not give the time, how long I would be there. I know myself."
But later on he felt very guilty. And he also felt, how is he going to face all those twenty-five professors in the university? He wrote to me a letter of apology. I answered him that "There is no question of apology. You have not insulted me, you have only insulted yourself. You have been insulting yourself your whole life -- by your worshipping, by your so-called religiousness, by all kinds of belief systems. And not knowing a single thing. It is good that I accepted your
invitation and created a chaos in your mind. Perhaps, seeing the chaos, you will come out of the mind. And that is the world I had come to discuss with you --
the world beyond mind." But for the scholars mind is all.
When all the conditions collapse, Torei is saying, nothing remains. This word 'nothing' has very strange connotations. When a buddha says "nothing" he means no-thing, and when a scholar says "nothing" he simply means emptiness. When a buddha says "nothing" he says there is no-thing anymore: pure space, utter silence ...
We all speak the same language. The master has also to use the same language but he gives new meanings to words, new fragrances to words, new poetry to words. They go dancing into your heart, the same ordinary words, with such extraordinary radiance, penetration. But one has to be a knower himself.
This gathering is not for those who are interested in studying religion. This gathering is only for those who are interested in experiencing what religion is all about. It is an existential, experimental lab. It is as scientific as any science. No question of belief -- you are not asked what you believe. No question of your mind -- whatever kind of mind you have, just put it aside.
You may have a great learned mind; that is perfectly okay, put it aside. You may have a very ordinary mind, uneducated; no matter, just put it by the side of the great scholar's mind.
Mind has no value here. The value arises only when mind is no more there. Then you start growing into a different dimension which can only be called existential.
Before we do our meditation, a few words from some authentic masters. A haiku by Issa:
LISTEN,
ALL CREEPING THINGS -- THE BELL OF TRANSIENCE.
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Nothing to be done, just listen ... everything is changing. What is the point? The point is that the listener is never changing; the watcher is always there. That is the only permanent thing in existence.
LISTEN -- or watch --
ALL CREEPING THINGS -- THE BELL OF TRANSIENCE.
Now, any scholar can repeat that, there is no problem -- the words are very simple. But Issa KNOWS it.
Sengai says:
WHAT MIND DO YOU PUNCTUATE? THE PAST, PRESENT, OR FUTURE?
THE CANDLE IS BLOWN OUT,
AND THE DIAMOND TURNS TO ASHES.
He is saying the same thing: WHAT MIND DO YOU PUNCTUATE? The past is no more, the future is not yet, and if there is no past and no future, how can there be any present?
What time ... WHAT MIND DO YOU PUNCTUATE? Neither the mind is there, nor time is there. When mind and time both disappear, THE CANDLE IS BLOWN OUT.
That is exactly the meaning of the word 'nirvana': THE CANDLE IS BLOWN OUT. Now can you find the flame of the candle? Even if you look through the whole universe you will not find it. It has simply become one with the universe. The moment the candle of mind, which is equivalent to the candle of time, is blown out -- utter silence ... Nothing is found, but tremendous peace, a feeling of
coming home ... Question 1
Maneesha has a question:
OUR BELOVED MASTER,
CAN IT HELP TO CONTEMPLATE ON A CONCEPT? IF THE CONCEPT IS JUST
ONE'S INTELLECTUAL UNDERSTANDING, OR SOMEONE ELSE'S INSIGHT, WHAT
IS THE VALUE? AND EVEN IF IT IS OUT OF ONE'S OWN INSIGHT, WHAT IS THE
POINT? -- IF YOU HAVE KNOWN IT, YOU HAVE KNOWN IT.
Maneesha, this not a question -- this is the answer. There is nothing to contemplate and there is nobody to contemplate. When you disappear with all your mind and not even a trace remains behind, just a pure sky ... you have found. I will not say what, because the moment you say what you have found you defile it. It is inexpressible ecstasy.
Thousands of buddhas have tried to bring it down to words; nobody has succeeded. It is just not in the nature of things that the ultimate ecstasy can be brought into words.
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Before we enter into, not contemplation, but meditation, I don't want you to be serious. I am so against seriousness -- it is a spiritual sickness. Laughter is spiritual health. And laughter is very unburdening. While you laugh, you can put your mind aside very easily. For a man who cannot laugh the doors of the buddha are closed.
To me, laughter is one of the greatest values. No religion has ever thought about it. They have always been insisting on seriousness, and because of their insistence the whole world is psychologically sick.
"Hey, listen to this, man!" says Starlight Butterfly, the aging hippy, passing a reefer to his friend, Golden Buffalo-Grass.
"These guys at Ectoplasm Arcade are offering Astral Projection Tours." "Really?" says Golden Buffalo-Grass, puffing madly. "What does it say?"
"It says," replies Butterfly, "if you are an average occult freak off the street, you are probably pretty good at popping out of your body and staring at yourself. Like acid, man --
you only do it so many times, then you get bored.
"Wouldn't it be great if you could put your ability to some greater use than just hanging out in Nowhere's-Ville? How about a trip to the divine Deep-Space Disco, or the Big Dipper Dance Hall?"
Coughing on his reefer, Butterfly reads on, "Now we introduce Astral Projection Tours.
We get you to those far-out scenes where the physical body just can't make it. Pop out of your skinbag, and cruise to outta-sight places and meet strange beings.
"Astral Projection Tours offers individual or group tours to the seven hells of Horowitz.
Experience the mindless wanderings of Baba Rum-Raisin and space out for fun on Allah-Hoo Bandstand! -- all for only twenty dollars."
"Wow, man! This is cool," shouts Buffalo-Grass, lighting another reefer. "This sounds far-out. I'm packing right now. I'm gonna drop my body and tune into the Cosmos!"
"Hey, man!" shouts Butterfly, in a cloud of smoke, "where are you going?"
"Going? I'm halfway there!" shouts Buffalo-Grass, swallowing his reefer and standing on his head. "I'm gonna take my astral ass and jog with Jesus, mule ride with Mohammed, and go bowling with Buddha!"
Big black Leroy is trying to get religion, so he goes to a Holy Rollers meeting in a small southern Mississippi town.
Sister Sara, a beautiful and shapely black girl, suddenly leaps to her feet and shouts,
"Praise be to the Lord! Last night I was in the arms of Satan, and tonight I will be in the arms of Saint Peter!"
"Sister," says Leroy quietly as the girl sits down, "so what are you doing tomorrow night?"
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Chapter 5 - The gateway of the buddhas
When Madam Fifi's whorehouse is raided by the police, the whole place is in confusion.
Somehow Pinky, the talking parrot, escapes and flies away. She lands in the graveyard and is immediately captured by the preacher's wife and put in a cage.
"Polly wanna a cracker?" asks the preacher's wife, as Pinky sits in the cage above the piano. But Pinky says nothing.
The days go by and Pinky sits silently in the cage wondering what has happened. One day there is a gathering of the church women's club, and amongst all the girls present, the discussion turns to silk underwear.
"Look at this wonderful slip!" says Mrs. Jones, turning up the corner of her dress.
"Ah! And look at these wonderful panties!" says Mrs. Foster, pulling her skirt all the way up.
"Thank God!" sighs Pinky, eyeing Mrs. Foster. "Welcome home, girls! Anybody got a cigarette?"
Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano ... (Drumbeat)
Be silent. Mind you have thrown out. Close your eyes.
Feel the body to be completely frozen. Look inwards.
At the very center of your being, is the door of the buddhas.
Deeper ... and deeper.
Without any fear, go in as far as you can.
You will not meet anybody on the way except yourself. And meeting with oneself is the meaning of being a buddha.
One who has encountered himself, realized himself, has become centered into himself, is a buddha. This is the potential of everyone.
Just a little going in.
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Chapter 5 - The gateway of the buddhas The way is very short:
from mind to no-mind.
To make it clear, Nivedano ... (Drumbeat)
Relax. Feel the body to be completely dead.
The head has fallen somewhere else and you are simply a watcher, not a doer; not a thinker, but just a witness. And the evening becomes beautiful. And you will come out completely drunk with the divine.
You have to carry this silence, this suchness in every action, around the clock. There is no greater ecstasy, no greater blessing, than to have found your inner being -- the buddha.
This moment you are all buddhas.
This moment you are not separate from each other.
It is an ocean of consciousness in which you are all dissolved.
Let it sink deep in you
that you are not separate from existence. Nivedano ...
(Drumbeat)
Come back. But come back as buddhas, without any hesitation,
in silence, in grace, in beauty.
Just sit like buddhas for a few moments -- remembering, collecting the experience you have passed through. Slowly slowly it is going to become your very heartbeat. That day will be the most fortunate day in your life.
Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Beloved Master.
Can we celebrate the gathering of the buddhas? Yes, Beloved Master.
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Be a rare person
4 September 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium OUR BELOVED MASTER,
A MONK ASKED BANKEI, "THE ANCESTRAL TEACHERS SINCE ANCIENT
TIMES WERE GREATLY ENLIGHTENED THROUGH DIFFICULT AND PAINFUL
PRACTICES. I HAVE HEARD THAT YOU, TOO, ACCOMPLISHED THE GREAT
TEACHING THROUGH VARIOUS DIFFICULT PRACTICES. BUT FOR PEOPLE LIKE
ME, WHO DON'T CULTIVATE PRACTICE, AND ARE NOT ENLIGHTENED, JUST
REALIZING THAT MY VERY STATE IS THE UNBORN, ENLIGHTENED
NO-MIND
DOES NOT REALLY SETTLE ANYTHING." BANKEI REPLIED:
"IT IS LIKE THE CASE OF TRAVELERS WHO CROSS THE PEAKS OF HIGH
MOUNTAINS WHERE THERE IS NO WATER, AND BECOME THIRSTY. SOMEONE
SEEKS OUT WATER IN A DISTANT VALLEY, BREAKING HIS BACK SEARCHING
HERE AND THERE. FINALLY, HE FINDS WATER AND BRINGS IT BACK TO GIVE
TO THE OTHERS TO DRINK.
"EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE NOT STRUGGLED SO, THOSE WHO DRINK ARE
REFRESHED, JUST THE SAME AS THE ONE WHO WENT THROUGH THE TROUBLE
BEFORE. AS FOR THOSE WHO ARE DOUBTFUL AND WILL NOT DRINK, THERE IS
NO WAY FOR THEIR THIRST TO BE QUENCHED.
"BECAUSE I DIDN'T MEET SOMEONE WITH ENLIGHTENED EYES, I MISTAKENLY WORE MYSELF OUT. I FINALLY DISCOVERED THE BUDDHA IN MY
OWN NO-MIND, AND AM TELLING EVERYONE ABOUT THE BUDDHA OF THEIR
OWN NO-MIND, WITHOUT THEM HAVING TO DO ANYTHING DIFFICULT -- JUST
LIKE DRINKING WATER AND HAVING THEIR THIRST QUENCHED.
"USING THE ENLIGHTENED NO-MIND INHERENT IN EVERYONE, JUST AS IT
IS, HAVING FOUND PEACE AND BLISS, WITHOUT THE DIFFICULTIES OF
CONFUSION -- IS THIS NOT A SACRED TRUE TEACHING?"
AT ANOTHER TIME SOMEONE ASKED BANKEI, "IS THE COMPLETE
ILLUMINATION OF THE EYE OF REALITY ACCOMPLISHED WITH TIME AND
SEASON, OR IS IT REALIZED EVEN IN ONE DAY?"
BANKEI REPLIED, "IT IS NOT A MATTER OF TIME AND SEASON; IT IS
ACCOMPLISHED ONLY WHEN THE EYE OF THE WAY IS CLEAR, WITHOUT ANY
GAP. IT IS ACCOMPLISHED BY THE PRACTICE OF SINGLE-MINDED DEVOTION
TO NURTURING IT."
Maneesha, Bankei is one of my most favorite Zen masters, but that does not mean that I agree with him on every point. With the essentials I am in absolute agreement, but with the Osho - The Language of Existence
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non-essentials I disagree. And it has to be remembered by you that to love a man does not mean to agree with him or to disagree with him. Agreement and disagreement are far below the world of love. I love Bankei just for his own sake. He is a unique enlightened man with a tremendous vision of reality, but on the non-essentials I don't agree with him.
Perhaps the times have changed. Perhaps I am a different kind of person, and perhaps the people who are hearing me are a totally different world. I respond to Bankei according to you, I see Bankei in the context of you; otherwise Bankei has no meaning. We are discussing him for the simple reason that he may give some light to you on the path. Even if a slight glimpse of the ultimate is attained through him, it is more than enough.
I will tell you where I agree and where I don't agree, but as far as my love is concerned it is absolute. I love the man and respect him. But it is natural that as time changes, language changes. Symbols change, metaphors change, and everything that was said a thousand years ago cannot be repeated exactly, except by parrots.
Bankei had a great school of his own. He is still followed by thousands of people. I have met a few of Bankei's disciples, and when I told them that I agree on the fundamentals but I don't agree on the non-essentials, they could not believe me. They said, "If you love the master, if you have some feeling for him, then how can you disagree?"
My position is totally different. If you love a person only then do you have the right to disagree. If you don't love a person, what right have you got to disagree? Only love gives you the freedom of agreeing or not agreeing. Without love there is no freedom. You are forced to agree as all the religions of the world are doing
-- forcing people in psychological ways to believe in certain things and not to believe in certain other things.
Their ways of forcing are very subtle, they are using your whole unenlightened unconscious mind. Your greed is expanded up to heaven. What is heaven or paradise except your greed multiplied by thousands? And what is hell except your fear? And what are all the priests of all the religions of the world doing? They are doing the same thing whether they are Mohammedans or Hindus or Christians or Jews. They are giving you a consolation in your misery, in your suffering; they are consoling you that it is not going to last forever -- this world is miserable but beyond this world open the doors of paradise and eternal pleasure, so just have a little patience. Karl Marx was not wrong when he said that religions have functioned as the opium of the people. I am not a Marxist but this statement I cannot deny, he is absolutely right. Religions have proved to be opium.
In Indian villages where women go to work in the fields, or somewhere where a road is being made, or a bridge is being made, and the women working have small children ... One day I was just walking by the side of the river, a bridge was being built and there was a small child under a tree, so happy, so joyous, so ecstatic. I could not believe ... what could be the cause of it? So I waited by the side of the tree. His mother was working on the bridge, and she came back to give some milk to the child. I said to her, "You have a really great child. I have never come across such a psychedelic child in my whole life."
She said, "It is nothing. We poor people, what can we do? We cannot afford somebody to take care of the child, so we give the child some opium. Whether he is hungry or thirsty, whether it is hot or cold, it does not matter. In his opium, he is enjoying paradise."
All the religions have been giving opium to their followers and hell to those who don't follow them. But it is not the way of authentic religion to use people's psychology -- their fears, their greed, their ambitions. It is not the way of love. It is very cruel because if you use Osho - The Language of Existence
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people's greed you are not going to transform them. And you will be afraid if somebody else tries to transform them, because you cannot afford that they should drop their greed and their fear.
Very few people in the whole of history have been able to drop their fears and look directly into reality. There is no hell and there is no heaven, but there is a beautiful existence, so beautiful that your dreams cannot dream it. You have to realize it.
The authentic experienced master will not ask for your belief or disbelief, he will ask only for your inquiry. He will tell you that the well is not far away, so don't remain thirsty. If you are clinging to your suffering, nobody except you is responsible. You can drop all your suffering, all your misery, if you can just drop your mind. It is all mind phenomena.
I love Bankei. He was asked:
THE ANCESTRAL TEACHERS SINCE ANCIENT TIMES WERE GREATLY
ENLIGHTENED THROUGH DIFFICULT AND PAINFUL PRACTICES. I HAVE HEARD
THAT YOU, TOO, ACCOMPLISHED THE GREAT TEACHING THROUGH VARIOUS
DIFFICULT PRACTICES. BUT FOR PEOPLE LIKE ME, WHO DON'T CULTIVATE
PRACTICE, AND ARE NOT ENLIGHTENED, JUST REALIZING THAT MY VERY
STATE IS THE UNBORN, ENLIGHTENED NO-MIND DOES NOT REALLY SETTLE
ANYTHING.
For centuries there have been seekers divided on this point. There are seekers who say that enlightenment comes gradually. You have to work for it, you have to do many kinds of practices for it. It is a faraway star and the journey is tedious, and you almost have to pass through self-torture in the name of disciplining yourself. The other school says that enlightenment is always sudden. It is not a question of traveling anywhere or going anywhere, it is simply a question of awakening to your own self.
Perhaps in the night, in your dream you may have been visiting a faraway star. But as you wake up, you know you have not gone anywhere, you have always been here. Your mind feels misery, suffering; it feels all kinds of emotions, attachments, desires and longings, but it is all the projection of the mind. Behind the mind is your real self which has never gone anywhere.
It is always here and here.
So the question of enlightenment, whether it is gradual or sudden, is a very complicated one. Those who say it is gradual, they make steps, procedures, disciplines to be followed. And in this way, perhaps, after many lives you may become a buddha. The people who believe in sudden enlightenment have no discipline, no rules, except for a simple thing -- wake up, don't remain a
somnambulist. Don't act out of sleep, act out of awakening!
So on the path of sudden enlightenment all that is needed is to go withinwards, to look inside and to find the point which can be aware twenty-four hours. And the point is there, you are just keeping your back towards it. Wherever you go, it is always with you. It is the very center of your existence; without it you cannot exist for a single moment.
The question is not of some gradual attainment or achievement. The question is of a great turning in. Our eyes look outside, our desires reach for the stars. Turning in means no desires, no greed, no paradise, no God -- just looking into your own space, what is hidden in you.
From where comes this life? From where comes this consciousness?
As you go deeper within yourself, you will find the center, and not only of yourself. It will be the center of the whole existence. At the center we meet, on the periphery we are separate.
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We are separate only in our bodies, in our minds, but beyond body and mind we are just an ocean of consciousness. There is no 'I am', there is simply pure awareness with no distinctions, no divisions.
In the moment of enlightenment even the trees and the birds and the mountains -
-
everything becomes enlightened. There is a saying of Gautam Buddha, "The moment I became enlightened, the whole universe became enlightened." It could be disputed, because we can see that we are not enlightened, but his meaning is totally different. He is speaking for himself. From that moment everything becomes enlightened because he has seen the very root from where life arises and goes on eternally arising, with no beginning, no end.
Bankei was asked, "In the ancient times sages used to practice difficult and
arduous disciplines and then finally after many years, after many lives, they became enlightened. But in your case it seems to be different. You have not practiced any discipline, you have not tortured yourself by fasting. You have not distorted your body by yoga. How did you become enlightened?"
BANKEI REPLIED: IT IS LIKE THE CASE OF TRAVELERS WHO CROSS THE
PEAKS OF HIGH MOUNTAINS WHERE THERE IS NO WATER, AND BECOME
THIRSTY. SOMEONE SEEKS OUT WATER IN A DISTANT VALLEY, BREAKING HIS
BACK SEARCHING HERE AND THERE. FINALLY, HE FINDS WATER AND BRINGS
IT BACK TO GIVE TO THE OTHERS TO DRINK.
EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE NOT STRUGGLED SO, THOSE WHO DRINK ARE
REFRESHED, JUST THE SAME AS THE ONE WHO WENT THROUGH THE TROUBLE
BEFORE.
I don't agree on this point. Everybody has to find his own enlightenment. Nobody can give it to you.
Bankei is saying that somebody else can bring the water. About water it is okay, it is something objective and outside. Water can be brought, but nobody can bring enlightenment to you.
It has to be very deeply understood that enlightenment is an individual revolution.
Somebody can give you a challenge, somebody can provoke you to the search, somebody's presence may infect you, but nobody can give you enlightenment.
If it was something that could be given, it would have been very easy to make the whole world enlightened. It could be patented, marketed -- then you just go to the M.G.Road and have a little drink of enlightenment; then the rich will gather great amounts of enlightenment and the poor will suffer.
At least as far as enlightenment is concerned, don't make it a material, quantitative phenomenon. It is a subjective, qualitative experience just like love. Can you give love to somebody? There is no way. You can love somebody, but you cannot give love to somebody.
Love is your inner experience, so deep that you cannot even define what it is. All the poets, all the philosophers have been trying to define what love is. And thousands of years of search and enquiry have resulted only in the simple statement that love is indefinable. You can sing it, you can dance it, but you cannot define it. Exactly the same, on a higher level, is enlightenment.
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According to me love is the lowest rung of the ladder and enlightenment is the highest.
They have a similarity on many points. They both happen suddenly -- you fall in love and if somebody asks you why, you simply shrug your shoulders. You cannot answer why. Love is not something to be questioned. You don't know yourself, it just happens.
Enlightenment is the same kind of phenomenon on a higher peak. It just happens. It happens when you are silent, looking inwards. Just like lightning, you suddenly become aware, full of light, luminous. It is not an answer to any question. All questions and all answers dissolve into the luminous splendor of your own inner being.
I differ from Bankei in saying that nobody else can give it to you. If somebody has found it, perhaps he can inspire you -- not by his words, but by his very being, by his every gesture, by his every look. You can see that a different kind of presence surrounds the man, a different kind of silence radiates from him. You
can have a taste from somebody else, but nobody can give it to you.
It used to happen that seekers would come to Gautam Buddha. A great philosopher of those times, Maulingaputta, came with his five hundred disciples. He himself was a well-known teacher, and he had come to challenge Gautam Buddha to a debate; that's why he had brought all his disciples.
In India it was a common phenomenon that has now disappeared ... it was so beautiful --
but now to challenge somebody seems to be a way to create enemies. For centuries it was not considered that way in India; challenging was simply a matter of coming face to face, with inquiring, penetrating questions, and finding out who has gone deeper. The one who went deeper was victorious. It was a very loving phenomenon, very friendly.
Maulingaputta said to Gautam Buddha, "I have come here to pay my respects to you and also to challenge you."
Buddha said, "I love your challenge. But you will have to fulfill a condition which I have been keeping my whole life. I cannot make any exception."
At that time there were ten thousand monks, disciples of Buddha. Maulingaputta said,
"Any condition, and I am ready to accept it."
So Buddha said, "The condition is that you have to sit by my side for two years, silently --
no question, no answer. After two years I will tell you, now you can question."
Bankei's lineage comes from Mahakashyap. Mahakashyap was a rare being, nobody had ever heard him speak. He never asked any question, he never answered anybody, even a hello was too much. People simply passed by his side as if he was not. He had a special tree where he used to sit whenever Buddha was speaking. When Buddha said to Maulingaputta, "You have to sit for two years silently by my side and then you can have any inquiry, any debate, any discussion, any question," there was suddenly a great outburst -- Mahakashyap laughed loudly.
The whole assembly felt very strange because this man had never talked to anybody, and there was no special reason that he should laugh. But he must have been a reincarnation of Sardar Gurudayal Singh, or vice versa. Sardar is the only man in the whole world who can laugh before a joke is told. It does not matter, what matters is the laughter. Why not enjoy it, why wait? It is a deep trust that something good will be coming.
Maulingaputta said, "Why is this fellow laughing?" Osho - The Language of Existence
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Buddha said, "You can ask him yourself. He is a rare person, he never speaks. In the twenty years he has been with me he has never asked any question. It is for the first time that suddenly he has exploded in laughter."
So Maulingaputta asked Mahakashyap, "Why did you laugh?"
Mahakashyap said, "I laughed because this fellow Gautam Buddha is a tricky guy. He tricked me with the same trick; he told me to sit for two years and I have been sitting for twenty years! Now the desire to question or to debate has been left miles back. So if you want to ask, ask now; otherwise you will be sitting just like me. And there are many other monks who will be witnesses to what I am saying."
Buddha had a lotus flower in his hand. At that moment he called Mahakashyap and gave the lotus flower to him with the words, "What I have been able to say, I have said to everybody. And what I have not been able to say, I transfer it to you."
This is called in Zen the transmission of the lamp. Nothing is said. But in twenty years of silence one becomes enlightened oneself. It is not something that Buddha has given. Buddha has simply created a situation.
Maulingaputta remained silent for two years and he even forgot the time, that two years had passed. It was Buddha who had to remind him, "Maulingaputta, now two years have passed. Come on and confront me."
He came and touched Gautam Buddha's feet and he said, "I am sorry, I was arrogant. I did not understand what enlightenment is. Now don't make me more ashamed. Just being in silence for two years all thoughts have disappeared. A deep silence reigns inside and I have found myself and the beauty and the truth and the good -- all together in my own being. Now there is no seeking, no search. Mahakashyap was right."
After touching the feet of Gautam Buddha, he touched the feet of Mahakashyap. It is on this account that Mahakashyap is thought to be the first Zen master. He was a disciple of Buddha, but he started a new tradition, of people who simply sit silently for years.
You remember Basho -- and today there are many poets here, they will understand Basho
-- perhaps one of the greatest poets the world has produced. SITTING SILENTLY
DOING NOTHING SPRING COMES
AND THE GRASS GROWS BY ITSELF.
The whole philosophy of Zen is contained in this simple statement, this small haiku.
SITTING SILENTLY DOING NOTHING SPRING COMES
AND THE GRASS GROWS BY ITSELF.
You don't have to do anything. Enlightenment is not your doing. And it is not a gift. You already are enlightened, just you have not looked in the right direction. The difference between the enlightened being and the unenlightened is not much; it is negligible. One has looked into himself, the other has not looked into
himself. This is not much of a difference. At Osho - The Language of Existence 68
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any moment the other can also look into himself. Perhaps when your eyes are tired of looking outside, you close them in utter boredom and tiredness and look inside.
You have searched much and found nothing outside. You look in and suddenly all that you were seeking is already there. You have come with it into the world, it is your intrinsic quality.
Bankei is saying that someone else can bring the water, but it is not a right way of explaining it.
He says:
AS FOR THOSE WHO ARE DOUBTFUL AND WILL NOT DRINK, THERE IS NO
WAY FOR THEIR THIRST TO BE QUENCHED. BECAUSE I DID NOT MEET
SOMEONE WITH ENLIGHTENED EYES, I MISTAKENLY WORE MYSELF OUT. I FINALLY DISCOVERED THE BUDDHA IN MY OWN NO-MIND, AND AM TELLING
EVERYONE ABOUT THE BUDDHA OF THEIR OWN NO-MIND, WITHOUT THEM
HAVING TO DO ANYTHING DIFFICULT -- JUST LIKE DRINKING WATER AND
HAVING THEIR THIRST QUENCHED.
On this point I am in absolute agreement. Bankei himself became suddenly enlightened although he had been trying. I have to remind you of Gautam Buddha himself. For six years continually he tried all the methods and all the
disciplines available in those days, but nothing happened. He became so tired, so utterly bored, that one full-moon night sitting under a tree, he dropped even the desire for enlightenment. He had dropped all other desires. The only desire that he had been carrying for six years -- on that full-moon night he dropped that too.
Utterly desireless he slept a tremendously deep sleep. And as he woke up in the morning, the last star was setting, and as the last star disappeared, he became enlightened.
It was not those six years of training that made him enlightened, it was that relaxed night, that utter let-go. There was no desire, no ambition, the mind had no function at all. When you don't have any desire, any ambition, any longing, mind disappears, because mind is nothing but a combination of all these things. It is not an entity in itself, it is only a combination, just like my fist. A fist is not an entity, it is just the five fingers closed. You open the fingers and the fist has disappeared.
Mind is not a reality. It is not a fact, it is simply a combination of all desires. Even a single desire is enough to keep it breathing. But when the last desire drops, and that can only be the desire of enlightenment ... in the morning he woke up without a mind. In the morning he was a no-mind, so silent, so peaceful. Watching the last star disappearing, he also watched himself disappearing. He remained just a watcher.
This state of watchfulness is your pure consciousness. And it is not yours, it is the universal consciousness. You can call it awakening, you can call it buddhahood, you can call it enlightenment, names don't matter.
USING THE ENLIGHTENED NO-MIND INHERENT IN EVERYONE, JUST AS IT IS, HAVING FOUND PEACE AND BLISS, WITHOUT THE DIFFICULTIES OF
CONFUSION -- IS THIS NOT A SACRED TRUE TEACHING?
AT ANOTHER TIME SOMEONE ASKED BANKEI, "IS THE COMPLETE
ILLUMINATION OF THE EYE OF REALITY ACCOMPLISHED WITH TIME AND
SEASON, OR IS IT REALIZED EVEN IN ONE DAY?"
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BANKEI REPLIED, "IT IS NOT A MATTER OF TIME AND SEASON; IT IS
ACCOMPLISHED ONLY WHEN THE EYE OF THE WAY IS CLEAR, WITHOUT ANY
GAP. IT IS ACCOMPLISHED BY THE PRACTICE OF SINGLE-MINDED DEVOTION
TO NURTURING IT."
He is making a great statement. He is saying that it is not a question of time, it is not a question of season.
In my village one old priest was very much respected as a wise man. I used to go to him.
And to any question that I ever asked him, he would say, "Wait. At the right time, in the right season, you will find the answer."
I came back from the university and I went to see the old man; he was dying. I said to him,
"You have been deceiving me. I have been waiting for the right moment and the right season.
It has not come. And I want to ask you, at least while you are dying, to be honest. Tell me, has your right time come?"
He had tears in his eyes. He said, "Forgive me, I used to say that to everyone, just to avoid their question -- because I don't know the answer. I am myself as ignorant as anybody but people think I am a wise man, and by and by they have convinced me that I am a wise man. I too have started believing in it."
I said, "At least now drop that belief. Die as ignorant as you are. Your whole life
you have been dishonest, but even a single moment before death, if you are honest, perhaps the right time and the right season may come suddenly." And actually it happened. He closed his eyes, and I was sitting by his side and I saw the change happening around his energy; there was a freshness, a different fragrance. His old face became so beautiful -- wrinkled with age, but now showing a maturity.
He opened his eyes and he took my hand in his hand and he said, "I cannot be more grateful to anybody in my life than to you, although you have not done anything. But seeing the fact that death is coming, I closed my eyes and for the first time I looked inwards. It was there, it has always been there." He died an enlightened man. He lived unenlightened, in misery, in suffering, but he died enlightened, in tremendous joy.
He told me, "Nobody should weep or cry; nobody should be sad or serious because my death is an illumination. What life has not been able to give me, my death has given to me.
Celebrate! Tell the people that my death has to be celebrated."
And when I told the people, they wouldn't believe me. I said, "Whether you believe me or not, that old man's last wish should be fulfilled. If you cannot celebrate I will have to bring my friends, and we will celebrate."
I had to gather people, and they were hesitant because death is not celebrated, death is a calamity. But the death of an enlightened being, and particularly a death which makes a man enlightened, has to be a festival. It is far more valuable than birth. Birth brings you life.
Enlightened death brings you eternal life, a timeless ecstasy, a blissfulness that never ends.
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THE SPHERE OF PERFECT COMMUNION IS CLEAR EVERYWHERE.
THE WATER IS ALIVE,
THE WILLOW EYES ARE GREEN. WHY ARE PEOPLE THESE DAYS IN SUCH A GREAT HURRY?
IN EACH LAND,
THE SPHERE OF PERFECT COMMUNION. THOSE WHO GO RIGHT IN
ARE RARE.
Daio is saying: everything is so beautiful, the stars and the trees and the birds, why can't you simply sing and dance and join into the cosmos? Where are you hurrying to? Wherever you go you will be frustrated, because the thing that you are trying to find is hidden within you.
This very moment can become your illumination. Not a single step has to be taken.
IN EACH LAND,
THE SPHERE OF PERFECT COMMUNION. THOSE WHO GO RIGHT IN
ARE RARE.
Just go right in, be a rare person! Don't search it outside. This is the whole teaching of all the buddhas.
Question 1
Maneesha has asked one question:
OUR BELOVED MASTER,
I HAVE MET SOMEONE WITH ENLIGHTENED EYES WHO DOES NOT JUST
BRING US WATER TO DRINK, BUT SHOWERS US WITH IT. AND YET, AND YET ...
ARE WE SO NEUROTIC, SO COMPLEX, SO FAR REMOVED FROM INNOCENCE, THAT WE CAN ONLY RECEIVE THAT FOR WHICH WE HAVE SUFFERED?
It is the whole wrong training of the religions, of the societies, of the cultures, which says that unless you deserve a thing, unless you are worthy of it, you cannot get it. That is the reason, Maneesha, that if I tell you that you are enlightened, you look here and there. You cannot trust -- "My god, I am enlightened! And I have not done anything. I have not tortured myself, I have not prayed. I have not fasted, I don't know the scriptures."
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But I say to you that for everything except enlightenment you will have to work. If you want money, you cannot sit with closed eyes. If you sit with closed eyes, you may even lose money -- somebody may cut your pocket. For money you have to work hard. If you want political power, you have to work hard. You have to be cunning, you have to be dishonest, you have to be a hypocrite. You have to use all kinds of right or wrong means to achieve the end. Only enlightenment, in the whole phenomenon of existence, is without any need to deserve it.
It is already there. You can deny it as long as you want, you can find excuses as long as you want, but finally you will be tired of excuses and you will have to accept it -- "Yes, I am enlightened."
It is just a totally different phenomenon. It is neither money, nor power, nor
prestige, nor reputation. You don't have to learn it, you don't have to earn it. It is in your very heart, it is your heartbeat. You have just to look into your own being.
Now something really serious. You see, Sardar Gurudayal Singh already laughs. And it is a difficult one, Sardar!
Before I tell the joke, I have to tell you that if you tell a joke to an Englishman, he laughs twice. Once, not to look stupid; and again in the middle of the night when he gets it. If you tell the same joke to a German, he simply wonders why people are laughing. My oldest sannyasin, Haridas, is here. He is from Germany. He has been with me almost for fifteen years, but even today he asks people, "Why were you laughing?" The German mind has a speciality, it is a very serious mind. Laughing is a non-serious affair.
If you tell the same joke to a Jew, he will interrupt you in the middle. He will say, "Shut up. This is an old joke and moreover you are telling it all wrong." It is very difficult to make a Jew laugh at a joke because almost all the jokes are Jewish. That is their monopoly. And the reason is that they have suffered most in the world. Just to keep going, they have had to find something to laugh at; otherwise life was nothing but suffering.
Since Moses left Egypt with his followers to find the holy land in Israel, for four thousand years the Jews have been continuously in suffering. It has not stopped for a single moment.
Adolf Hitler alone killed six million Jews. But because of their continuous suffering they had to invent something to laugh at, something to enjoy. There was nothing in their life to laugh about.
I have always wondered that there is not a single joke which is Indian. I have been searching for a long time to find a single Indian joke, but it is because India has never suffered. Even in its poverty, even in its slavery, its religion was so much that it kept it patient, like opium. The rationalization is that you are suffering because of your past lives' evil acts.
The explanation is that if you suffer peacefully, your gain in the world beyond life is going to be great.
It is certainly a very poor phenomenon. India has been a serious land of seers, of
saints.
You don't expect a saint to tell a joke. Can you imagine Mahavira laughing? It will be as strange as meeting a buffalo laughing. You can believe in the buffalo, but you cannot believe that Mahavir will laugh.
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Mabel is putting her hair up in curlers in front of the mirror in her room at the Dark Shadows Hotel.
"Do you realize, George," she says, "that this room is supposed to be haunted by a blood-thirsty ghost that returns every year on this date at midnight to find a human sacrifice?
"George ...? George ...?"
Do you see that Sardar Gurudayal has not laughed? In the middle of the night he will get the idea.
Wu, the Chinaman, always eats at Plato Salado's Greek restaurant, because Plato makes such good fried rice.
Every night, Wu comes in, sits down, and orders "flied lice". And every night, Plato collapses laughing when he hears Wu making his order. Sometimes, Plato even tells all the other customers to be quiet and listen to Wu asking for his "flied lice".
Finally, Wu gets really pissed off and decides to practice saying "fried rice" correctly.
The next time Wu goes into Plato's restaurant, he announces very plainly, "Fried rice, please."
Plato looks up in shock.
"What did you say?" asks the Greek.
"You heard what I said," shouts back Wu, "you flucking Gleek plick!"
Rainbow Banana-Kiss, the aging hippy, is puffing away frantically on his reefer in complete distress over his failing marriage. Desperate, he picks up the phone, pulls out a phone number that he has been keeping in his pocket, and dials it.
"Hello," says the tape-recorded voice at the other end, "this is Julie Frostbelly of Soulmate Divorce Company.
"We know your troubles," the voice continues. "Your story probably goes something like this ... A few years ago, you met someone special. It was wonderful. The honeymoon was ecstatic. You instantly remembered your past lives together. Your sex was true tantric love.
Channels and psychics confirmed what you already knew intuitively, that you had found your soulmate.
"Now, it is years later," the taped voice goes on. "The glow is gone. The sex is ordinary, and your soulmate is a pain in the neck. Your partner takes the biggest piece of cake, wants more money, and falls in love with any shmuck that walks by and winks. Face it -- the relationship is dead.
"Soulmate Divorce is here to help you. Our attorneys , Boris Babblebrain and Henry Hypojerk, will get you a complete legal divorce in keeping with your cosmic lifestyle.
"Through creative therapy, you can make crucial decisions like who gets to keep the water bed, the Tarot cards, and the children.
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"Come and see us, and for your comfort, our staff psychics will help free you from any karmic stress. Each of you will be given your own personalized divorce mantra.
"After all, you'll probably wind up together again in the next life!"
Percy and Peggy Sue get married and go on honeymoon to the Bahamas. While they are there, Percy buys a beautiful parrot in a cage and takes it back to the hotel room.
But every time that Percy and Peggy Sue start making love, the parrot starts commenting on their movements.
The cheeky parrot says things like, "Thatta girl, Peggy Sue!" and "Come on Percy, you can do better than that!" and "Oh! Oh! Slow down! Speed up, turn left ...!"
Finally, the parrot's descriptions get so explicit that Percy jumps off the bed and flings a sheet over the cage. "If you don't shut up," he shouts, "I'm going to send you to the zoo!"
That evening the honeymooners are packing to leave their hotel. But Peggy Sue is having some trouble closing her suitcase; she cannot fasten the lock.
"Darling," says Percy, "why don't you get on top, and I'll try." But the suitcase will not close.
"Look, sweetheart," says Peggy Sue, "you get on top and I'll try." But that does not work, either.
"Listen," suggests Percy, "why don't we both get on top, and we can both try."
At this point, the parrot pulls the sheet off its cage and shrieks, "Zoo or no zoo, this I've gotta see!"
Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano ... (Drumbeat)
Be silent.
You have thrown away your mind. Close your eyes,
feel the body to be completely frozen. Look in. The deeper you can go,
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It is very simple because it is your own space, you are not trespassing in anybody else's space. You are entering into your own being.
Deeper and deeper. You will start feeling a deep silence, a peace that passeth understanding, and a new fresh life energy, a blissfulness that you have never dreamt of.
This is your eternity, this is your inner buddha. Those who go in search somewhere else are lost.
Those who go in are surprised to find that the whole splendor and treasure of existence is available to them.
Being at the center of your life source, you are also connected with the universe. Your heartbeat slowly starts becoming more harmonious with the heartbeat of the universe.
When they become one you have arrived home. To make it more clear, Nivedano ...
(Drumbeat)
Relax ... let go ... just watch.
The body is there, the mind is there, but you are not.
You are the watcher.
This watching witnessing self is the buddha. Rejoice in finding it.
Let it sink into every fiber of your being
so when you come out you are not the same person as you were going in, you bring something of the buddha with you.
Every day it goes on increasing. A moment comes that the buddha is there, whether you are in or out. That is the ultimate fulfillment.
The process is very simple. Whatever you are experiencing now, go on experiencing it in your twenty-four hour activities. Just like an undercurrent, just like breathing, just like a heartbeat.
You don't have to remember it, it is there.
You know it is there, and this knowing will transform your whole being, all your activities, your whole personality.
It will give you a new birth, a resurrection. Nivedano ...
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Chapter 6 - Be a rare person (Drumbeat)
Come back,
but don't come back as you have gone in,
bring something from the inner treasure with you.
Peacefully, silently, gracefully
sit down like a buddha for a few seconds, just remembering,
just reminding yourself
that this is the only experience in the world for which nothing special is required,
no effort, no discipline. It is already your nature. You are it.
Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Beloved Master.
Can we celebrate the resurrection of the buddhas? Yes, Beloved Master.
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Chapter 7 - Now you have it 7
Now you have it
5 September 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium OUR BELOVED MASTER,
TOZAN SAID:
THE TEACHING OF THUSNESS HAS BEEN INTIMATELY COMMUNICATED BY
BUDDHAS AND PATRIARCHS. NOW YOU HAVE IT, SO KEEP IT WELL.
FILLING A SILVER BOWL WITH SNOW, HIDING A HERON IN THE MOONLIGHT
-- WHEN YOU ARRAY THEM, THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. WHEN YOU MIX THEM, YOU KNOW WHERE THEY ARE. THE MEANING IS NOT IN THE WORDS, YET IT
RESPONDS TO THE INQUIRING IMPULSE. IF YOU ARE EXCITED, IT BECOMES A PITFALL; IF YOU MISS IT, YOU FALL INTO RETROSPECTIVE HESITATION.
TURNING AWAY AND TOUCHING ARE BOTH WRONG, FOR IT IS LIKE A MASS
OF FIRE. JUST TO DEPICT IT IN LITERARY FORM IS TO RELEGATE IT TO
DEFILEMENT.
IT IS BRIGHT JUST AS MIDNIGHT. IT DOESN'T APPEAR AT DAWN. IT ACTS AS
A GUIDE FOR BEINGS -- ITS USE REMOVES ALL PAIN.
ALTHOUGH IT IS NOT FABRICATED, IT IS NOT WITHOUT SPEECH. IT IS LIKE
FACING A JEWEL MIRROR: FORM AND IMAGE BEHOLD EACH OTHER. YOU ARE
NOT IT, IT ACTUALLY IS YOU.
IT IS LIKE A BABE IN THE WORLD, IN FIVE ASPECTS COMPLETE. IT DOES NOT
GO OR COME, NOR RISE NOR STAND.
ULTIMATELY IT DOES NOT APPREHEND ANYTHING, BECAUSE ITS SPEECH IS
NOT YET CORRECT. IT IS LIKE THE SIX LINES OF THE DOUBLE SPLIT
HEXAGRAM: THE RELATIVE AND ABSOLUTE INTEGRATE. PILED UP, THEY
MAKE THREE; THE COMPLETE TRANSFORMATION MAKES FIVE. IT IS LIKE THE
TASTE OF THE FIVE-FLAVORED HERB, LIKE THE DIAMOND THUNDERBOLT.
Maneesha, Zen is more like poetry, like music, like dance. It is not a philosophy; hence, no conceptual thinking can comprehend it. Mind is absolutely impotent as far as Zen is concerned. You have to go beyond mind to have some taste of Zen. Going beyond the mind simply means dropping all thoughts, creating a vacuum -
- a nothingness. But that nothingness is not empty; it is just like the sky. It is full of nothingness.
And when your eyes are without any dust and your mind is without any thoughts, you see clearly, straight into reality. It is not a question of belief. You don't have to believe what you will be seeing, you have simply to clean your inner eye, your vision, and the reality will appear on its own accord, not according to anybody's belief. Hence, those who have beliefs never attain to reality.
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I am making a statement against all religions. They are all based on belief -- believe first, then you will know. But once you believe you have closed the doors of inquiry, once you believe you have accepted your ignorance, your blindness. You have accepted that somebody else has known -- "What is the need for me to know? I have just to believe in Jesus Christ or Krishna or Buddha." But when Buddha drinks the water, your thirst is not quenched; and when Jesus eats, your hunger does not disappear. Even these ordinary things, mundane, you have to experience individually -- what to say about the ultimate experience? And Zen is the name of the ultimate experience.
You cannot depend on anybody. You cannot believe anybody's experience. You have to drop all beliefs, all thoughts, all philosophies, all religions, and you have to go, utterly innocent, inside your own being.
From there the door opens and life takes a new color, a new radiance, a new joy. Your words are no more empty, they contain overflowing significance. Your gestures become meaningful for the first time. Your actions have a poetry of their own. Your very movement is a dance because you have known the innermost blissfulness. It starts overflowing you in your actions, in your words, in your silences. It starts overflowing and reaching to others. You become almost a fountain, showering all around.
Or you can say you become a beautiful lotus spreading, radiating its perfume all over the space; whether anybody is there or not is not the point. Even in the faraway forest the rose will spread its joy, its fragrance. Perhaps a passer-by may be enriched by it, but it is not the point, whether anybody gets it or not.
When truth is realized, the overflowing of it is intrinsic. This you have to understand before I take up Tozan, because Tozan is one of the great masters. All his statements are just an overflowing of his experience; he is not quoting scriptures, he is simply sharing his experience.
And whenever somebody is sharing his own experience it is not a question of belief or not
-- just enjoy it. Perhaps in your enjoyment you may get some glimpse, very invisible ... some click, not available to the outside world. Perhaps for a moment the heartbeat stops, or takes a totally different rhythm.
If Zen was a philosophy it would be very easy to convey it. If it was a religion it
would not be difficult -- there are thousands of scriptures depicting religion. But it is something more miraculous than anything else in the world. You can taste it, you can drink it, you can relish it, you can dance out of sheer joy, but you cannot say it.
That is the only difficulty with Zen -- you cannot say it. And unfortunately man has become too much language-oriented; he has forgotten other ways of communication. There are many other ways of communication. The idea that language is the only way of communication has made humanity very poor, very prosaic. It has lost the mystery of poetry, it has lost the meaningless, but utterly significant, music of existence. Now dance has become a discipline, outwardly practiced, rehearsed, but not something growing from within you and spreading out.
Discussing Tozan, you will have to remember that he is trying his best to say that which cannot be said. Every master has tried to say it; nobody has ever succeeded. One wonders why, if it cannot be said, why people should try to say it. One of the most prominent philosophers of the modern world, Wittgenstein, has written perhaps the most profound book Osho - The Language of Existence
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of this century. In one of his books, TRACTATUS, he comes to the point where he is almost turning into a mystic. He says, "That which cannot be said should not be said."
I was a student -- he was alive -- and I wrote him a letter saying, "You have contradicted yourself: 'That which cannot be said should not be said.' You are also saying something about it."
He must have been a man of tremendous honesty; immediately a letter came with an apology. He said, "It is true. I never thought about it, that even to say that nothing should be said, you have already said something."
One has to understand that all the mystics of the world have been in a tremendous difficulty. They know it cannot be said, but still they say -- they try at least their best. My own understanding is, it cannot be said but it can be heard. That is the reason why the mystics go on speaking, knowing perfectly well it is
not possible to put it into language, but hoping that somebody may hear it between the words, between the lines, in the gestures, in the eyes of the master, in his presence, in his intimacy.
Perhaps just as a flame can jump to another unlit candle if you bring them close enough, intimate enough ... The master's work is to bring the disciple close enough to his inner flame, which is a fire. Because it is a fire, only the daring ones come very close to the master, because it is going to burn you completely and utterly. It is going to be your death -- and a resurrection.
The old, ancient Sanskrit scriptures say that the master is a death, but that is incomplete.
The master is also the eternal life, beyond death. But of course, first comes the death. The disciple comes close to the master and dies into his fire, into his love, and is resurrected in a totally new being: fresh, innocent, and a child of eternity. That's what Tozan's first statement is.
TOZAN SAID:
THE TEACHING OF THUSNESS HAS BEEN INTIMATELY COMMUNICATED BY
BUDDHAS AND PATRIARCHS. NOW YOU HAVE IT, SO KEEP IT WELL.
Every word is so full of significance. THE TEACHING OF THUSNESS ...
It is a very strange way, particularly for people who are not acquainted with the world of Zen. Thusness is as important, or perhaps more important, than the so- called gods of all your religions. 'Thusness' means this moment your silent existence is all there is to discover.
Its splendor is great, but you will have to pay for it. You will have to pay for it with your mind, with your personality. You will have to go beyond your facade, your so-called cultured personality, your knowledge cultivated by others and from others. You will have to lose all this garbage ... you will have to be utterly empty. In that emptiness you will feel for the first time the experience of thusness.
Thusness can also be translated as 'thisness'. It can also be translated as 'suchness'. The original word used by Gautam Buddha is tathata. Just being in the moment -- no past, no future -- just being here, one-pointed, and the door of all the mysteries of existence opens.
The teaching of thusness is the teaching of all the great masters, and it has been intimately communicated because there is no other way. I am communicating it this very moment, but Osho - The Language of Existence
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not through my words, in the silences, in the gaps. When you feel simply this moment in its utter purity, you have become intimate with all the buddhas -- past, present, future.
The word 'buddha' is very significant; it means one who has attained to thusness. Just because of thusness, Buddha's other name is Tathagat. 'Tathagat' means one who lives moment to moment, who knows nothing of the past and who knows nothing of the future, who is utterly settled and centered here and now.
The moment you are centered here and now you are an intimate of all the buddhas. The moment you are intimate with reality, obviously you are intimate with all the masters and all the mystics.
This very moment you are connected with existence, but you go on roaming in the mind and you completely forget that behind the mind and beyond the mind there is a witness which is watching silently. You come across these experiences every day but you don't take much note of it.
For example, I was a student of a Mohammedan teacher and he was very strict; he was known in the school as the most strict person. The first day of his class he entered and said to us, "I want you to remember always, don't ask me for leave because you are having a headache or stomachache. Anything that I cannot see, I don't believe." Students do that continuously: "I have a headache so I want to go home."
That very evening ... He used to go for an evening walk, and just in front of his house there were two kadamb trees, very beautiful trees, so I waited in one tree
with a big rock in my hand. He returned -- it was getting dark -- and I dropped the rock on his head. He freaked out.
I said, "Shut up! Now do you believe in headaches?"
He looked at me surprised, a little bit shocked. He said, "Listen, we can negotiate. If you have a headache just raise one finger and I will allow you to go out, but don't make it a public thing. I will not say anything about this rock that you have thrown on me. It is a compromise."
I said, "I never compromise. In the first place, I don't believe that you have been hurt."
He said, "You are strange ..."
I said, "You are strange. Remember in the morning, at the beginning of the class, you said you don't believe in headaches? I am going to make this incident public knowledge."
But it is something far more important than just an incident. When you have a headache, how do you know? There must be a watcher behind the head who knows the headache. The headache itself cannot know; there must be a witness, a watcher, who knows the headache, who knows the stomachache, who feels emotions and can watch those emotions.
When you are full of anger, if you sit down and watch you can watch the anger clouds all around you, dark. When you are in love you can watch a certain perfume, a certain beauty, a certain blissfulness all around you. Every moment in ordinary life you are coming across the witness but you have never recognized it, you have just not taken note of it. At this very moment I am speaking to you, you are hearing me. Just look a little more back -- there is a witness who knows that you are hearing. That witness is your eternity.
"By all these mystics, the message has been conveyed intimately" means, they have brought people closer to them. All their words are nothing but fishermen's nets. Through their words they bring you closer. If their words trigger something in you, you feel pulled, magnetized, and the closer you come the less you are. And when you have become really Osho - The Language of Existence
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intimate, you disappear -- you, as you have known yourself -- and the one who is behind, who you had never taken note of, comes in front. For the first time you know you are only a witnessing consciousness, everything else is a clothing.
Your inner center, which is the connecting link with the universal heart from where you get your life, your love, your joy, is to be found in witnessing. The master is a witness.
Becoming intimate with him, the fire of witnessing simply jumps in a single, instantaneous moment. Where there was all dark suddenly becomes light; where there was all misery suddenly becomes a tremendous joy overflowing you, and a great longing arises in you.
Just as before you wanted more money, more power, more prestige, now there is only one longing -- how to spread this fire. Because unless a person is burned completely, all his falsities gone, he will never know the beauty and the truth and the splendor of existence, which was available to him every moment.
THE TEACHING OF THUSNESS HAS BEEN INTIMATELY COMMUNICATED BY
BUDDHAS. NOW YOU HAVE IT ...
Tozan must be talking to his disciples.
I am saying to you, you have it. I am not simply reading Tozan. On my own accord I am saying to you: you have it. Take note of it and don't forget it. In ordinary life go on remembering that you are a buddha. Nothing else is needed, this very remembrance that you are a buddha is going to transform all your activities.
I am reminded of a great mystic, Nagarjuna. He used to live naked, and even kings and queens used to touch his feet. He was absolutely a beggar -- he had not even a begging bowl.
So while he was visiting the capital the queen presented him with a golden begging bowl studded with diamonds. With tears she asked him not to reject it.
Nagarjuna said, "I will not reject it, I will not hurt your feelings, but it will be very difficult for me to keep it for long -- a naked man, and I have to sleep also. Anybody can steal it. I sleep under the sky, I sleep under a tree ... It is not going to be with me for long."
But the queen said, "It does not matter, I will prepare another better than this. Now it is a question of my prestige. So if it is lost, whenever I see you again you will get another."
Nagarjuna said, "I have no objection."
A thief was hearing all this and said, "My god. A golden bowl worth millions of rupees, studded with diamonds, and this naked man ... it is absolutely unsuitable, it does not fit." So he followed Nagarjuna thinking, "Let this fellow go to sleep
..." Nagarjuna was staying in ruins outside the town where doors were missing, where walls had fallen -- and this thief was hiding behind a wall.
Nagarjuna was watching -- "Somebody is following me. Obviously he cannot be following me to these ruins. He must be following for the begging bowl." Then he saw the thief hiding behind a wall. He threw the begging bowl outside the window and told the man, "Take it. I will not force you to become a thief, I give it to you as a gift."
Do you see how the buddhas behave? "I will not force you to become a thief because that will be my crime, not your crime. I give it to you as a gift. Just take it and run away." The man could not run away, could not believe it. He was almost frozen. He had never seen such a man, who can throw a thing worth millions of rupees just as if it is nothing, and he is saving him from being a thief. He is giving it to him as he would give a friend a gift.
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Something triggered in the thief's heart. He said, "Can I come inside and touch your feet and sit by your side just for a few minutes? I have never seen such a man like you."
Nagarjuna said to him, "That was exactly the purpose of throwing the bowl, to bring you in. Come in, sit down."
He followed everything. He asked Nagarjuna, "How could you manage to throw such a precious thing? I am a thief, to be honest. I cannot be dishonest to a man like you. And you have been so compassionate that you don't want me to be a thief, but that is my profession."
Nagarjuna said, "There is no harm, you continue to be a thief. Just remember one thing, that you are a buddha."
He said, "My god, I am a thief and you are telling me to remember that I am a buddha!"
Nagarjuna said, "This is enough. You just try, and I am going to stay for two weeks. You can come anytime, day or night, to give me the result, what happens."
After the third day he was there with the begging bowl, asking Nagarjuna, "Please take it back; otherwise I will be murdered. Now the whole town knows that I have got it. I have been hiding it here and there but it can be protected only by a queen or a king."
Nagarjuna said, "You leave it here, it is not important. What is important is, what happened to the discipline I had given to you?"
He said, "You have given me a tremendous discipline. I first thought, 'It is so easy just to remember that I am a buddha.' But you are very clever, because when I went to steal something, just the remembrance that 'I am a buddha' and I would get frozen, my hands would not move to take anything. For three days I have not stolen a single thing. This is unprecedented in my life. And I don't think that again I will be able to steal. This is a dangerous thing you have said to me, because the moment I find an opportunity to steal something, the remembrance that I am a buddha ... I simply relax, I escape -- it is not right for a buddha. I cannot let you down or let the buddha down."
Nagarjuna said, "That is your problem. But take this begging bowl because somebody will take it, and it does not matter who takes it."
He said, "Forget all about it. Just as you remember, I also remember: I am a
buddha."
The very remembrance of who you are is going to transform your whole life. You cannot do anything against your consciousness. You have been doing it because you have been unaware. The only secret is to achieve a recognition that inside you there is a witnessing self.
The name of the witnessing self is the buddha. In every act, in every word, just remember your inner being -- its blissfulness, its silence, its grandeur, its eternity
-- and you cannot be the same man.
This is called the transmission of the lamp. It happens in the intimacy of the master and the disciple. Nothing is said but something is understood. The very energy of the master, the very presence simply penetrates you and awakens you, brings you out of your dreams and your sleep. That is the meaning of the word 'buddha': one who is awake.
NOW YOU HAVE IT, SO KEEP IT WELL.
FILLING A SILVER BOWL WITH SNOW, HIDING A HERON IN THE MOONLIGHT
-- WHEN YOU ARRAY THEM, THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. WHEN YOU MIX THEM, YOU KNOW WHERE THEY ARE. THE MEANING IS NOT IN THE WORDS, YET IT
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RESPONDS TO THE INQUIRING IMPULSE. IF YOU ARE EXCITED, IT BECOMES A PITFALL; IF YOU MISS IT, YOU FALL INTO RETROSPECTIVE HESITATION.
TURNING AWAY AND TOUCHING ARE BOTH WRONG, FOR IT IS LIKE A MASS
OF FIRE.
When you go in, you are entering into a mass of fire. Touching it is dangerous. Turning away from it is dangerous. Just remembering it, that your inner world is not dark but is radiant with thousands of suns, is going to transform your life in every detail.
JUST TO DEPICT IT IN LITERARY FORM IS TO RELEGATE IT TO DEFILEMENT.
IT IS BRIGHT JUST AS MIDNIGHT. IT DOESN'T APPEAR AT DAWN. IT ACTS AS
A GUIDE FOR BEINGS -- ITS USE REMOVES ALL PAIN.
ALTHOUGH IT IS NOT FABRICATED, IT IS NOT WITHOUT SPEECH. IT IS LIKE
FACING A JEWEL MIRROR: FORM AND IMAGE BEHOLD EACH OTHER. YOU ARE
NOT IT, IT ACTUALLY IS YOU.
When you are facing a mirror, you see yourself in the mirror. Tozan is saying, YOU ARE NOT IT, IT ACTUALLY IS YOU.
It is a complicated phenomenon. When you stand before a mirror, one ray of light is going towards the mirror, making your reflection in the mirror; another ray is coming towards you so that you can witness that the mirror is reflecting you.
But you are neither the reflected one nor the reflection. You are the witness, which no mirror can reflect. A witness is always simply a witness. It cannot be anything, not even a reflection.
IT IS LIKE A BABE IN THE WORLD, IN FIVE ASPECTS COMPLETE. IT DOES NOT
GO OR COME, NOR RISE NOR STAND.
It simply is. It neither goes nor comes, it is neither born nor dies, it is neither young nor old, it is neither man nor woman. It is simply a pure witnessing,
watching.
You cannot go behind it, or beyond it. You cannot watch your own watching. That will create a logical regress -- what they call in logic 'infinite regression'. If you say that you can watch your watcher, that means watcher number one is being watched by watcher number two
-- what about number three? Where are you going to stop? Wherever you will stop ... you will have to stop somewhere. You will get tired -- millions and trillions, all watching the next.
Finally you will have to say that "This is the last." But why go so far away? The first is the last! You cannot go behind it.
Have you seen small children when for the first time they see a mirror? If you have not, you can do the experiment. A small child who cannot stand up yet and moves on all fours, just put a mirror in front of him. First he will be very inquiring -- the fellow is there ... He cannot think that it is his own reflection; he has never seen his own reflection. He does not know that mirrors exist.
First he will try to touch the fellow. But it is strange, the fellow also touches him. He laughs, the fellow laughs; he mimics, the fellow mimics. A strange fellow! And when he touches there is nothing but glass. Without exception, every child is going to have a look behind the mirror -- where is the other child hiding? He will crawl around the side and look behind.
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A Mulla Nasruddin story ... By the side of the road he found a small mirror. He looked into it, and he said, "My god, this looks like my father. I had never thought that he is so fashionable." He could not conceive that it was his own reflection, he had never seen a mirror before -- this was the first encounter.
And of course it looked ... the only way for him to conceive it was, it looked like his father. His father was dead; he himself had become very old. It really looked like his father.
But he said, "I have never thought that he is so fashionable. He was a very traditional man, very orthodox. But anyway, it is good I have found it. I will keep it as his memory."
So he came home, but he did not want his wife to know about it. But no man has ever been able to hide anything from his wife. Just by the way he entered the wife said, "It seems you have done something wrong."
He said, "My god, I have not done anything wrong."
She said, "I will see. Your face seems to be that of a guilty man."
He went upstairs and put the mirror in an old trunk. And when he had gone out for work the wife went up, opened the box and took out the mirror. She looked into it and she said, "My god. So, he is having a love affair with some ugly looking, tattered woman. Now let him come back ..."
If you have never seen a mirror, it is obvious -- you cannot immediately think that it is your reflection.
A drunkard came home. Not to create trouble, he went very silently into his wife's room.
He had to go to the bathroom, so he went into the bathroom and there he saw in the mirror that his face had scratches and blood on it, because he had been fighting in the pub.
He said, "This is going to be troublesome in the morning. When the wife sees it, I will be caught red-handed." So he tried somehow to hide those scratches, but he could not find anything other than a lipstick. He managed to cover all the scratches and was very happy at his success.
In the early morning, when the wife went into the bathroom, she shouted, "Who is the person ...? It must be you, you idiot! You destroyed my lipstick and you have destroyed the mirror." Because he had made all those lines on the mirror, where his face had been. This face was in a drunken state. Even that much was a great intelligence, to find that this is his face.
We are all drunk, almost living in sleepiness. Our actions go wrong; our intentions go wrong; our life becomes a misery, a pain, an anguish. But the
ultimate reason and cause is that we are not aware of our being. Just a single thing contains all the essence of all the religions: awareness of oneself. And then you cannot do anything wrong.
ULTIMATELY IT DOES NOT APPREHEND ANYTHING, BECAUSE ITS SPEECH IS
NOT YET CORRECT. IT IS LIKE THE SIX LINES OF THE DOUBLE SPLIT
HEXAGRAM: THE RELATIVE AND ABSOLUTE INTEGRATE. PILED UP, THEY
MAKE THREE; THE COMPLETE TRANSFORMATION MAKES FIVE. IT IS LIKE THE
TASTE OF THE FIVE-FLAVORED HERB, LIKE THE DIAMOND THUNDERBOLT.
The Zen experience is certainly a diamond thunderbolt. It comes like lightning, and suddenly everything that was dark becomes light. And once you have seen yourself, you cannot forget, even if you want to. Have you tried one thing: can you forget your name? Just Osho - The Language of Existence
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try. The more you try to forget it, the more you will remember it, because each time, to forget you have to remember.
We have never looked in. Once you look in, a lightning thunderbolt ... and the recognition of the face of the buddha within you, your original face. Then even if you want to forget it you cannot. Once a buddha, forever a buddha. It is your essential self. It is not an achievement; it is not something far away, that you have to travel to get it. It is just a question of looking in, where you have never looked before.
All our meditations are devoted to a single thing, looking in. A poem by Kanzan:
MY MIND IS LIKE THE AUTUMN MOON,
UNDER WHICH THE GREEN POND APPEARS SO LIMPID,
BRIGHT AND PURE.
IN FACT, ALL ANALOGIES AND COMPARISONS ARE INAPT.
IN WHAT WORDS CAN I DESCRIBE IT?
No words can describe the beauty of a moon reflected in the pond. Daio wrote:
NO LONGER AWARE OF MIND AND OBJECT,
I SEE EARTH, MOUNTAINS, RIVERS AT LAST.
THE DHARMAKAYA'S EVERYWHERE. WORLDLINGS, FACING IT,
CAN'T MAKE IT OUT.
Dharmakaya means your body of religiousness. Those who are looking outwards cannot find it; those who look inwards, they immediately jump into it. It is always there.
Question 1 Maneesha has asked:
OUR BELOVED MASTER,
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THOSE DIAMOND THUNDERBOLTS YOU HURTLE AROUND YOU WHEN YOU
DANCE WITH US EACH EVENING -- AT THE RATE WE'RE GOING, SOMEONE
COULD BE KNOCKED CONSCIOUS! BUT PLEASE, DON'T STOP!
Maneesha, I want you all to be knocked conscious. But you are so clever, such accomplished actors that you even act meditation. You follow Nivedano's drum just like actors. Nivedano drums and you start your gibberish just as if you are a robot, just waiting for Nivedano to push the button. But you are not total. If you are total, it will not be acting anymore.
You do, and you try to be total, but trying will not help -- you have to be total. I can hear and I can see: people are trying to do, in every possible way, but they know inside that it is all acting. That's where they miss the point.
Make it a reality, throw out all your garbage. Don't say relevant things; that you are doing every day, the whole day. Just for two minutes, go crazy without any fear. When you are going crazy yourself, you can come back any moment. When Nivedano beats his drum you will become silent.
But remember one thing: everything has to be authentic, sincere. Otherwise you will do every day the same thing; it will become automatic. You will become a good actor, but not a meditator. I want you really to be knocked conscious, because that is the only way to find the meaning and truth of life.
This evening, don't act, be real and be as total as possible. Throw out all the gibberish --
and you have enough. Don't be worried that you will miss it, it will come back! When you throw it out, it is just like a thrown ball. It hits the wall or the tree and comes back to you.
Here, all around, everybody is throwing his garbage. Once in a while it gets mixed up, entangled; I can see it, that you are getting somebody else's garbage.
But garbage is garbage ... and that's why I warn you, don't sit silently. Throw everything as fast as possible, because you have to throw yours and you have to avoid others' coming --
because everybody is throwing towards you. If you sit silently, you will collect such a good load of garbage that it will be very difficult for you even to move with that load -- a truckload!
I go on seeing, when people are throwing their garbage it goes on slipping from Stonehead Niskriya's head; it falls over it, jumps away. But he is really a stonehead. He remains silent, does not allow anything to enter into him.
Don't remain silent. Gibberish is one of the most scientific ways to clean your mind. And if somebody wants the garbage, he can take it; but here nobody wants it. So when you are throwing, be honest, don't act. When you are silent, be really silent. When you are looking in, then don't open your eyes even for a split second just to see what is happening to others. It is not your concern what is happening to them. Let them tackle their problem; you manage yours.
And when I say -- and Nivedano beats the drum -- to relax and let go, just fall like a falling tree; don't try to make yourself comfortable. That is the point where you miss. I see people making themselves comfortable. From the very beginning they look all around -- where will they have to relax? Which side to fall? You just fall as if you are falling dead. And there is no Osho - The Language of Existence
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harm if you don't return. We will miss you, but you will give us another occasion for celebration!
Before this knocking out happens, a few laughters just to prepare the way. Even if you have to die, die laughing. And one never knows ... everybody has to die. Someday somebody is going to die here, but here death will be a totally different phenomenon. It will be a conscious death. And to die consciously is the greatest achievement in life because then you are never born again, you enter into the eternal sources of life.
That's why I tell a few jokes for you to remember in your eternity. Once in a while you may meet another sannyasin. And you will be able to recognize sannyasins when they tell jokes; nobody else is going to tell jokes. You will meet dry-bone sannyasins, old-type, old-fashioned. This will be your distinction, you will be known by your laughter.
Jablonski wants to have a date with Sally-May, so he goes to the pharmacy. Behind the counter is pretty Lucy Go-Good.
"Ahem!" says Jablonski, clearing his throat. "May I see the manager or a male clerk?"
"I am the manager now," smiles Lucy, "and we have no male clerks. Tell me what you want."
"Well," says Jablonski, nervously. "I would like a few condoms." "Okay," replies Lucy. "What size?"
"Gosh!" says Jablonski. "I don't know. Do they come in sizes?"
"Come back here," says Lucy, taking him behind a curtain at the back of the store. "Just put it in," she says, lying back on a couch and lifting her skirt.
Jablonski is shocked, but seeing the situation, decides that it is okay. As he inserts his machinery, Lucy smiles and says, "Size seven. Take it out. Now, how many condoms do you want?"
Dazed, Jablonski staggers out of the store, with his package in his hand, and wanders down the street. He runs into Paddy.
"What do you have there?" asks Paddy, quietly finishing off a bottle of whisky.
Jablonski tells Paddy what just happened in the pharmacy, and Paddy's eyes light up. He dashes off and wobbles into the store where Lucy is still waiting behind the counter.
"Excuse me," slobbers Paddy, "but do you have condoms?" "Yes," smiles Lucy. "What size?"
"Size?" smiles Paddy, trying not to laugh. "Gosh, I don't know." "Well," remarks Lucy, easily, "come with me."
They go behind the curtain, Lucy lifts her skirt, throws herself on the couch and says, "Put it in." Paddy does, and does and does, until he is done.
"You take size eight," says Lucy getting up. "How many would you like?" "Well," replies Paddy, "actually, I don't want any. I just came in for a fitting!" Osho - The Language of Existence
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Fergus Fillup makes himself a small distillery and starts to brew some illegal White Lightning whiskey. His whiskey is so strong that Fergus boasts it can burn its way through a steel plate.
One day, Fergus drinks a little too much of his home-made whiskey, and he sees so many animals running around his room that he sticks up a sign outside his house which reads:
"Fergus Fillup's Circus."
Police Officer O'Leary and his men go to investigate. Fergus invites O'Leary into his room and puts a large glass of White Lightning whiskey into the policeman's hand.
When officer O'Leary staggers out half an hour later, his men gather around him excitedly, asking him what happened.
Officer O'Leary raises his hand for silence.
"It is all right, men," he slobbers, "the worst is over. He has agreed to sell me half of the elephants!"
Ivan Ivanovitch is sitting at home in his apartment in Moscow, when he hears a loud knock at the door.
"Who is it?" asks Ivan nervously.
"It is the Angel of Death!" booms a voice.
"Ah, thank god," says Ivan. "I thought it was the KGB."
Paddy and Sean are out duck hunting. They creep down to the edge of Farmer Banana's pond and find lots of ducks swimming around near Banana's cows.
"Hey," says Paddy. "Those ducks are not afraid of that cow."
"I can see that," replies Sean, "but if you shoot at the ducks you might hit the cow."
"Yes, man," says Paddy. "But think -- what if we were in the skin of the cow?"
The next day they go to the theatrical outfitters and hire a cow costume. Paddy is in the front end and Sean in the rear. As they approach the pool, the ducks do not move at all.
Suddenly, there is panic in the front end of the cow, as Paddy tries to start running.
"Stop that, Paddy," hisses Sean. "You will frighten the ducks."
"Okay," says Paddy, "but you had better brace yourself. There is a bull right behind you!"
Now, Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) (Gibberish)
Nivedano ...
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Be silent. Close your eyes. Feel your body to be frozen. Go inside. Look deep,
as if you are looking into a deep well. Deeper and deeper ...
until you find the center of your life radiating, a light unto itself. The moment you feel the light, a great joy and a great silence arise in you. This center connects you with the universe.
To be more intimate with the universe, Nivedano ... (Drumbeat)
Relax ... let go. Just watch. The body is there, the mind is there, but you are not the mind or the body.
You are just the witness. This witness is the buddha.
Remember, around the clock, that you are carrying a buddha within you. Act accordingly, respond accordingly. This small remembrance of the buddha within you is going to transform you totally into a new being:
radiant and dancing with joy, grateful to the universe,
utterly humble, peaceful and loving.
This is the moment when Tozan must have said, THE TEACHING OF THUSNESS HAS
BEEN INTIMATELY COMMUNICATED BY ALL THE BUDDHAS. NOW YOU HAVE
IT, SO KEEP IT WELL.
Nivedano ... (Drumbeat)
Come back ... but not the same as you have gone in. Come back as a buddha, without any hesitation, silently, peacefully, gracefully.
Sit down for a few moments just reminding yourself that you are a buddha. And let this remembrance continue around the clock, and you will see a tremendous revolution happening within you and without you.
Your every act will become a poetry,
your every movement will become a dance, Osho - The Language of Existence
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your very breathing will become musical, your very heart will beat
in deep synchronicity with the universe. You will not be separate,
you will be one with the oceanic consciousness
that surrounds us all. Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Beloved Master.
Can we celebrate the ten thousand buddhas? Yes, Beloved Master.
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Please, settle for no-self
6 September 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium OUR BELOVED MASTER,
BUKKO SAID:
IT MAY BE ASKED, HOW IS THE SELF TO BE APPROACHED? BY LOOKING
INTO IT THROUGH THIS SORT OF INQUIRY: FORTY YEARS AGO, WHERE DID IT
COME FROM; AND A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE, WHERE WILL IT HAVE GONE
TO? AND RIGHT NOW, WHO IS THE PERSON WHO IS MAKING THE INQUIRY?
THAT TRUE FACE WHICH WAS BEFORE FATHER AND MOTHER WERE BORN, WHERE IS IT RIGHT NOW? WHEN SUDDENLY ONE DAY THE LIGHT OF LIFE, NOW SO BRILLIANT, WILL BE WITHDRAWN, WHERE DOES IT GO TO?
IN THIS SORT OF WAY, CONTINUED BUKKO, LOOK INTO THE SELF. LOOK
WHEN YOU SLEEP, LOOK WHEN YOU SIT, LOOK WHEN YOU WALK. WHEN YOU
FIND YOU CANNOT LOOK ANYMORE, THEN YOU MUST LOOK AND SEE HOW
THAT INABILITY TO LOOK APPEARS AND DISAPPEARS. AS YOU ARE LOOKING
AT HOW THE SIGHT COMES AND THE SIGHT GOES, SATORI REALIZATION WILL
ARISE OF ITSELF.
ON ANOTHER OCCASION, BUKKO SAID: THE DHARMA IS DIFFERENT FROM
SEEING, HEARING, PERCEIVING, KNOWING -- SEEING, HEARING, PERCEIVING, KNOWING ARE ALL DHARMA.
THIS MOUNTAIN PRIEST MAKES A HOME FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE WIDE
EARTH. WITHOUT THE DUST BEING RAISED, THEY ENTER THE REALM OF
PARADISE.
LIFTING HIGH HIS STAFF, BUKKO SAID: OM, OM, OM! HASTE, HASTE, HASTE!
QUICK, QUICK, QUICK! BOW, BOW, BOW!
THROWING HIGH, NOT REACHING THE SKY; LAYING DOWN, NOT REACHING
THE EARTH. ALL THE BUDDHAS AND PATRIARCHS FIND NO HOLD
AT ALL.
HOLD, NO HOLD. OM! -- DIVINE STREAMS RUSHING, RUSHING!
Maneesha, all the religions of the world are concerned with something objective, a God who is somewhere above the clouds, a heaven, a hell. But they are all outside of you, they are all objective. Zen's basic difference from all religions is, its inquiry is absolutely subjective. It does not bother about whether there is a God or not, whether there is a heaven and a hell or not. These are all fictitious questions, and all the answers given for or against are going to be fictitious.
To the Zen seeker, the only reality is inwards. He does not deny the outside reality, but he does not concern himself with it. That is the work of science, to inquire into the objective reality. The authentic religions should be confined to the inquiry into the subjectivity of your Osho - The Language of Existence
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consciousness: from where arises your life, your love, your dance; from where this whole existence arises, and to where you disappear.
Now we know even existence does not allow anything to be stable; even the greatest stars, which may have lived millions of years or trillions of years, one day have to die. Every day great stars die, and every day new stars are born -- but from where? What is the source of all life? Whether it exists in the poor grass leaves or in the richest and greatest star, it does not matter, the source of life is the same.
And the only right inquiry is to go withinwards, to find your roots, to find your center, to go deep into your center as much as possible. Finally you will be surprised to know that as you go deeper you start disappearing. A moment comes when you disappear and the whole universe opens all its mysteries.
The individual is a fiction -- the whole cosmos is a reality. We are just dewdrops on lotus leaves, very beautiful in the early morning sun. But a small breeze comes and the dewdrop slips into the ocean. It does not die, it simply becomes infinite, eternal. As a dewdrop it was going to die sooner or later. As an individual we are all going to disappear into the universe.
Before we disappear, the only way to live a life of joy and blissfulness, a life of gratitude and prayer, is to find your eternal roots. And they are so close within your grasp, you don't have to go anywhere, neither in time nor in space.
This very moment you are breathing the universe, your heartbeat is in tune with the universe; this very moment your roots are being nourished by the universe, just you have never looked within. And you have been unnecessarily begging for small things, while inside you are an emperor. The splendor that you have inside you is unimaginable, the treasure is incalculable. Just a single look inside and a new dimension of existence opens up. And this is your reality, authentic reality. It is so blissful and ecstatic that once you have tasted it you will carry this taste around the clock.
In terms of Zen this is called the experience of the buddha. Everybody is a buddha. A few buddhas are looking outward; hence they are not aware of their inner treasure and majesty.
And a few buddhas have looked inward and are amazed: what you are seeking outside is trivial, the real treasure is inside. And you were born with it -- it is not something to be achieved, it is something to be recognized, to be remembered. It is a forgotten language.
Zen can be reduced into a simple definition: it teaches you the forgotten language. It teaches you the language of the inner world. Simple are the steps; there is no complication.
You don't need to have a great intelligence, all that you need is a little courage ... a little courage to forget all the desires that lead you outwards; a little courage to look inwards, which is an unknown territory, untraveled. In the beginning it will look very dark and you will be very alone.
Most people in life have tried to look inwards, then immediately came back to the outside world. They have become too much accustomed to being a sheep in a crowd. They don't have the guts to be a lion, and to be alone. They don't know the beauty of aloneness; they don't even know the distinction between loneliness and aloneness.
Loneliness is always begging for somebody, loneliness is missing somebody. Loneliness is a miserable state. But aloneness is finding yourself in such glory, in such beauty and benediction, that no desire remains. Even clouds are below your
feet, even faraway stars suddenly come close to you, because you are getting more and more intimate with the existence.
Osho - The Language of Existence 92
Chapter 8 - Please, settle for no-self The only richness is to know oneself.
By knowing oneself one comes to know that he was only a door to the vast and the infinite, to the eternal and the deathless. It is a very strange paradox that the moment you know yourself, you are not, the whole is. The dewdrop has disappeared, and all around is the ocean.
One of the Indian mystics, Kabir, in his youth wrote a small poem, the beginning of which means, "I have been searching my self, my friend. But on the contrary, finding myself, I found no 'myself.' The dewdrop disappeared in the ocean, now where to find it? I am no more."
At the time of his death he called his son, Kamal, and said to him, "Correct those lines. As I have become more intimate with reality I see that a correction is urgently needed, and I am going to die. After me nobody will have the courage to correct me." And in fact those lines are so beautiful, there is no need to correct them.
Kamal said, "Those lines are so beautiful -- the dewdrop disappearing into the ocean --
what more do you want?"
Kabir said, "Change it, make it the other way around -- the ocean disappearing into the dewdrop. My first experience was that the dewdrop is disappearing; my last experience is that the ocean has disappeared into me. Now I am the whole."
What people like al-Hillaj Mansoor say -- "ANA'L-HAQ!" I am the truth -- is not bragging, they are simply stating an ordinary fact of everybody's life. You either know or you don't know -- it is up to you. You can delay as long as possible; you have the whole eternity to postpone. But by postponing the truth
you are living in utter misery, suffering, anguish, anxiety. Your whole life is just a tragedy -- tragedy upon tragedy, failure upon failure.
Everybody is trying to hide his tears and failures. Your love is unfulfilled, your desire is incomplete, whatever you have longed for has disappeared as a mirage
...
You know the ordinary proverb of the ancients: man proposes and God disposes. There is no God, and what purpose will be served by God disposing your desires? He will be getting mad by disposing everybody's propositions. Everybody is proposing a thousand and one things, and God goes on disposing! He seems to be a head clerk or something, who simply disposes of files without even looking in them.
But the proverb carries meaning. God may not exist, but in the very fact of proposing you have disposed yourself. In the very fact of proposing you have asked existence to be according to you, and this vast existence cannot be according to you. If you want it to be according to you, you will have to be according to it.
Don't try to swim upstream, just let the river take you to the ocean. Why make unnecessary effort and get tired? That is one of the essentials of Zen: no effort, total relaxation into the hands of totality; no seeking, but just looking in. Because it is already there, you don't have to seek.
Zen will not agree with Jesus -- neither do I agree. The words are very beautiful; one is tempted to agree with Jesus when he says, "Seek and ye shall find" -- it is poetry -- "Knock and the doors shall be opened unto you. Ask and the answer will be given to you."
It hurts to object, but one is helpless. Jesus has to be criticized on those points, because Zen says, if you seek you will go far away. Don't seek, just be. In seeking you have to go somewhere, you have to do something, you have to follow some guide. Don't seek, just be; or Osho - The Language of Existence
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don't seek and find. On whose doors are you going to knock? It is beautiful when
you read Jesus, "Knock and the doors shall be opened unto you." We can forgive him for his poetry, but on whose doors are you going to knock?
There are no doors to existence. Don't waste your time knocking on doors. Just close your eyes and the whole sky of the inner is open; there are no doors, no windows, no locks, no keys. And Jesus says the answer will be given to you if you question. Zen says you are the answer, just drop the question. It is the question that is hindering your finding the answer.
Don't question, just enter inside yourself with grandeur, an essence of birthright. Without any question, you are the answer. Your consciousness, your awareness, your being, reveals all the truths and all the mysteries of existence.
Bukko is an important master. He says:
IT MAY BE ASKED, HOW IS THE SELF TO BE APPROACHED? BY LOOKING
INTO IT THROUGH THIS SORT OF INQUIRY: FORTY YEARS AGO, WHERE DID IT
COME FROM; AND A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE, WHERE WILL IT HAVE GONE
TO? AND RIGHT NOW, WHO IS THE PERSON WHO IS MAKING THE INQUIRY?
That is the most significant point. You are asking a question, but are you aware who the person is behind the question, who is asking the question? The question cannot arise from nowhere, there must be someone hidden inside you who is asking the question. Drop the question and find the questioner. And in finding the questioner, you will find the answer. It is a very strange and paradoxical world. Howsoever difficult it may seem in the beginning, if you just take a single step inwards, everything goes on becoming more and more simple.
Gertrude Stein, one of the most significant women poets, was on her deathbed. Her friends had gathered, knowing that her death was close. Suddenly, she opened her eyes and asked,
"What is the answer?" Everybody looked at each other, thinking, "It seems she
has gone senile
... We don't know the question, how can we say what the answer is?" Somebody gathered courage and asked, "You are being very illogical. You are asking us, 'What is the answer?' but we don't know the question."
Gertrude Stein laughed and said, "Okay, then tell me what the question is!" And she died with a smile.
To me, in the West very few people have attained to the state Gertrude Stein attained. In her last moment she certainly became a buddha. She is saying, there is no question and there is no answer. Life is so simple, so beautiful, so honest. There is no place for any question or for any answer. Life can be sung, life can be danced, life can be loved; but there is no question and there is no answer.
Bukko is saying:
WHO IS THE PERSON WHO IS MAKING THE INQUIRY? THAT TRUE FACE
WHICH WAS BEFORE FATHER AND MOTHER WERE BORN, WHERE IS IT RIGHT
NOW?
You must have had a face before you were born. Or were you faceless? And you will have a face when you are dead. Or do you think you won't have any face?
Zen's most significant inquiry is to find the original face. This face that you have right now is not your original face, it is changing every moment. Every moment you are becoming older; every moment death is coming closer. Just a few years before you were a child, and just a few Osho - The Language of Existence
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years afterwards you were an old man. A few more years and not even a trace of you will be found anywhere. How many millions of people have lived before you?
Some crackpot has inquired -- because only crackpots inquire into such things -- and found that wherever you are sitting, there have been at least eight graves in the past. You are sitting on eight ghosts! And just think of the implication -- you will be the ninth. And the tenth ghost will be sitting on your head. Where have all those people disappeared?
No. This face, this body, this mind which comes and goes, is not your true being, your original face. You have to find something in you which never changes. In Zen language, that which never changes in you is your original face. All others are masks.
Only one thing never changes in you and that is witnessing, watchfulness, awareness.
Everything changes. You are aware of the anger, anger will change. How long can you be angry? The hottest person is going to be cool sooner or later, and the coolest person can be driven to be hot. You love, but the moment you say, "I love," you should remember that love has started dying. Soon you will be carrying the corpse of love, still saying the old words, repeated dialogues. But deep inside you know the love that was a romance, a poetry, a song, is no more there; your heart no more sings, no more dances.
But awareness remains the same. At one time it was aware that you loved, now it is aware that love is gone. Seasons come and go, flowers blossom and disappear in the dust, but at the deepest core of your being is the greatest mystery of awareness, which is eternal, which is your original face.
WHEN SUDDENLY ONE DAY THE LIGHT OF LIFE, NOW SO BRILLIANT, WILL
BE WITHDRAWN, WHERE DOES IT GO TO?
IN THIS SORT OF WAY, CONTINUED BUKKO, LOOK INTO THE SELF. LOOK
WHEN YOU SLEEP, LOOK WHEN YOU SIT, LOOK WHEN YOU WALK.
And you will be surprised that the awareness remains the same. When you are sitting, it does not mean that the awareness is sitting also. When you are walking, it does not mean that the awareness is walking also. When you are
going to your bed, it does not mean the awareness is also going to sleep. Who watches the dreams? Asleep or awake, sitting or standing, walking or not walking -- one thing in you is absolutely the same. And to find this is the whole of religion; everything else is non-essential.
WHEN YOU FIND YOU CANNOT LOOK ANYMORE, THEN YOU MUST LOOK
AND SEE HOW THAT INABILITY TO LOOK APPEARS AND DISAPPEARS.
It is the experience of all meditators that sometimes you are aware, and then you forget and you are not aware, and then again you remember. But behind this awareness, forgetfulness, awareness, forgetfulness, there is a deeper awareness, which always remains. What changes is your mental recognition of awareness. Sometimes it is there, sometimes it is not there.
Mind cannot continue remembering a thing forever. It is a flux. Every moment new thoughts are coming, every moment new desires are arising, every moment new longings are knocking on your doors. There is so much busyness without business in the mind that remembering you are a buddha is only a momentary thing. Soon you will forget and you will start behaving in the ordinary way. And suddenly, at some moment you will again remember, what are you doing? You are a buddha and you are smoking a cigarette? It does not look good
-- a buddha and smoking cigarettes? You may drop the cigarette -- nobody can drop buddhahood for a cigarette.
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But these are mind recognitions which change; otherwise, underneath there is an awareness which knows when you remember and when you forget. That is your original face.
AS YOU ARE LOOKING AT HOW THE SIGHT COMES AND THE SIGHT GOES, SATORI REALIZATION WILL ARISE OF ITSELF.
Satori is the Japanese name for SAMADHI. Samadhi is the ultimate experience; its very meaning is, everything is solved. Samadhi means everything is solved -- no question, no answer. One is at peace with existence, one has come home ... a tremendous relaxation which is never disturbed again. Just following awareness, going deeper and deeper from the mental to the non-mental awareness, you end up in realization of satori, or samadhi.
ON ANOTHER OCCASION, BUKKO SAID: THE DHARMA IS DIFFERENT FROM
SEEING, HEARING, PERCEIVING, KNOWING.
But he does not include awareness.
SEEING, HEARING, PERCEIVING, KNOWING ARE ALL DHARMA.
But none of them is comprehensive enough to make dharma-nature its monopoly.
But he has not mentioned awareness. Perhaps he is talking to people who are not yet meditators; otherwise awareness is dharma. Awareness includes everything, and something more that cannot be said.
THIS MOUNTAIN PRIEST, says Bukko, MAKES A HOME FOR THE PEOPLE OF
THE WIDE EARTH. WITHOUT THE DUST BEING RAISED THEY ENTER THE
REALM OF PARADISE.
There is no need to make much fuss about your religion. It has to be utterly silent; even your neighbor should not know what you are doing inside yourself. But the people of the earth have been behaving differently. Everybody is proclaiming who he is -- a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Christian, a Jew, a Jaina, a Buddhist. A dharma should be such a secret phenomenon, so intimate that you would not like to talk about it.
I have not, in my whole life, voted in any election, for the simple reason that the form that has to be filled in to become a voter has a question in it: to what
religion do you belong? That I cannot say. That is my secret, that is my privacy. No government is allowed to enter into my privacy.
And when I refused, saying, "I will not fill in this question," the poor man who was collecting the forms said, "But you are a strange fellow -- everybody fills it in. If you don't have any religion you can say you are an atheist."
I said, "I am not an atheist, but I am not a theist either. I am just myself. And finding myself, I have found the beauty of being natural. It need not be given an adjective -- Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian. To give an adjective to nature is to defile a great experience."
But everybody is making so much fuss about religion. Religion should be an absolutely silent phenomenon. In the deepest night, sitting on your bed, you should enter into yourself.
Your own wife, or your husband, or your children will not know about it. It is not something which can be done as a crowd, or as a family. It is something which is absolutely individual.
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Yes, at the ultimate peak, when you will be disappearing into the universal energies, your individuality will also be lost. Then nothing is private, then everything is universal; but there is nobody to declare it.
I have just mentioned al-Hillaj Mansoor, a Sufi mystic who was killed just like Jesus Christ -- of course in a more primitive and ugly way. He was cut part by part -- legs, hands, head ... And his only crime was that he had declared "ANA'L-HAQ" -- I am the truth. His own master, Junnaid, used to calm him down: "Yes, we all know you are the truth, but there is no need to say it."
I have been deeply inquiring into Junnaid, because al-Hillaj Mansoor has become world famous. Junnaid also knew, "I am God, I am truth," but he was a
more understanding, more sane person.
He used to tell Mansoor, "If you know it, you need not say it. Your saying simply means that you want a confirmation. But who can confirm it? Only you know." There is something in the inner experience that nobody can confirm and nobody can certify. No government can give a certificate to you that, yes, you are enlightened. No committee can confirm it, no university can offer a degree in enlightenment -- it is absolutely private.
I agree very much with Junnaid; he understands the psychology of enlightenment far more deeply than al-Hillaj Mansoor. He is saying, "Your statement means you want others to recognize you, but this very desire for recognition is poor. This desire for recognition simply means you are not certain, there is still some doubt lurking inside you about whether you are enlightened or not."
But Mansoor did not listen to him -- he was too young. He was right, but to declare that you are the truth in a crowd means that you are going to offend people. And he did not complete the sentence. If he had said, "Just as I am the truth, you are also the truth," things would have been different.
Jesus was crucified for his proclamation that he is the son of God; Mansoor was crucified for his declaration that he is the ultimate truth. In India thousands of buddhas have expressed this, but they have always expressed it in a way which includes you, which does not exclude you from their experience. They say that they are the buddha, but they also say that you are also the buddha, and the difference between them and you is very slight, not even worth calling a difference. They have opened their eyes to their own reality; you are still a little sleepy -- maybe last night's hangover ... Just a little more -- another turn in the bed, pulling the blanket over your face. But how long are you going to do this? I don't think you will be able to do it for eternity. One day you are going to jump out of the bed: "Enough is enough, Ana'l-haq!"
LIFTING HIGH HIS STAFF, BUKKO SAID: OM, OM, OM!
Om is the silent sound, when the mind stops all chattering and you enter into the world of no-mind. The music of no-mind is something closer to Om. It is not exactly Om, but Om comes very close to that subtle sound.
BUKKO SAID: HASTE, HASTE, HASTE!
All the buddhas are saying that. Why are you postponing your own blissfulness, your own divinity? Why are you postponing?
QUICK, QUICK, QUICK!
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This is not only Bukko. All the buddhas down the ages have been concerned about your continuous snoring. They make every effort, they throw cold water into your eyes, but rather than getting up, you simply freak out. You become angry rather than becoming a buddha.
They have been pulling your legs, they have been pulling your blankets, and you become angry: "In the early morning it is too cold, and this old guy has nothing else to do -- he is pulling my blanket."
You become angry, you shout, but you don't understand that all these buddhas are calling for you to be quick out of compassion.
Bukko says: BOW, BOW, BOW!
Existence is calling for your gratitude, for your prayer, for your gratefulness. But how can you be grateful if you have not experienced it? You have been sleeping for centuries, for hundreds of lives. You cannot be grateful to existence. It has given you only misery up to now, only suffering. It was not existence's responsibility, you were creating it yourself.
You are a great genius in creating misery! If someday you find yourself untroubled, unworried, unconcerned, you will jump on your rented cycle to go somewhere, to do something. This is not natural, sitting silently; it looks a little weird. Just sit silently like a buddha and the neighbors will start looking at you -- "Something has gone wrong; what has happened to this poor fellow? He was running here and there on his rented bicycle, and now he does not even care who is taking his bicycle! He is sitting with closed eyes, undisturbed.
Something must have gone wrong."
And you will also think, "Something seems to be wrong. Somebody is taking notes from my pocket and I am saying nothing. Have I gone mad?"
All your miseries are your own creations; you cannot live without them. You hug them, you sleep with them. They are very familiar, friendly, well known to you. And you brag about them: how many migraines you have. As if it is something great that you have a migraine, that your stomach ... People are talking about amoebas, stomachs, headaches, migraines, and they call it great conversation! It seems the whole world is a big hospital.
THROWING HIGH, NOT REACHING THE SKY; LAYING DOWN, NOT REACHING
THE EARTH. ALL THE BUDDHAS AND PATRIARCHS FIND NO HOLD AT ALL.
HOLD, NO HOLD. OM!
He is saying, there is nothing to hold, but don't be worried -- existence will take care of you. It has always taken care.
If it was left for you to remember to breathe, do you think you would have been alive? If it was left up to you to remember to keep your heart beating, do you think you would be here today? Long ago you would have been in your grave, or on a funeral pyre. You would have forgotten very easily.
If somebody insults you, at that time do you think you will remember to breathe? If somebody is taking away your rented bicycle, do you think at that time you will remember that the heart should continue to beat? There are a thousand and one opportunities in a day to forget.
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continue, you can fight and still your heart will not stop. You can do everything;
the essential things of life are not dependent on you. They are connected, rooted in the universe.
The universe is already taking care of you, but you have not been grateful. The only prayer I know of is the prayer of gratitude -- "I am nobody and still the whole existence takes care of me."
ALL THE BUDDHAS AND PATRIARCHS FIND NO HOLD AT ALL. HOLD, NO
HOLD. OM! -- DIVINE STREAMS RUSHING, RUSHING!
You don't be worried. HOLD, NO HOLD, whether you have any possessions or no possessions, whether you are or you are not, the divine stream is rushing continuously. You are part of it, or you are the whole of it -- it all depends on you: to remain a part or to become the whole.
I mentioned Kabir. First he was just a dewdrop disappearing into the ocean, but at the last moment of his life he recognized, from the other side, that the ocean had disappeared into the dewdrop. The truth became complete.
Daio wrote:
THE CLOUDS ARE THIN, THE RIVER ENDLESS.
THE UNIVERSAL DOOR APPEARS WITHOUT DECEPTION. QUESTIONING THE BOY,
HE DOES NOT YET KNOW IT EXISTS. HE WENT USELESSLY SEARCHING
IN THE COLD OF THE MIST AND WAVES IN A HUNDRED CITIES.
There are people who are searching in the mountains, in the cities, in the forest, and they don't know that it is their own consciousness that they are searching. They cannot find it anywhere -- until they fall, tired of the search, as Gautam Buddha fell one night. It was a full-moon night and he dropped the very desire of searching; he was tired and fed up. That very night he became enlightened.
When you give up, the universe takes you in its millions of hands. Let-go is the only way to find yourself, and to find yourself dissolving into the ultimate.
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Chapter 8 - Please, settle for no-self Question 1
Maneesha has asked:
OUR BELOVED MASTER,
LATELY I HAVE FELT AWARE THAT WE ARE JUST BIG VACUUMS, EMPTINESSES, WALKING AROUND WITH A FACADE OF PERSONALITY THAT
DOES THINGS AND THINKS THOUGHTS. BUT BUKKO TALKS OF "APPROACHING
THE SELF." IS THE SELF ANYTHING OTHER THAN THAT SENSE OF EMPTINESS?
ARE THE QUESTIONS JUST A MEANS TO DISCOVER THERE IS NO SELF?
Yes, Maneesha. All inquiry in the beginning is to find the self. But when you find it, it is not the self. When you find it, it is no-self. But to tell somebody, "Go on a search for no-self,"
he will say, "Are you mad? I am already puzzled and in trouble, and I should go in search for no-self, no-mind, emptiness, nothingness? I am already troubled
and you are encouraging me to go into more troubled waters. Why should I search for no-self?"
Hence the buddhas say to you, "Go to search the self." Because they know you will find no-self, so there is no problem. They say, "Go and search inside and you will find everything."
But you will find only a pure nothingness.
But that cannot be said. That can be said only to the adepts, to those who are on the path and are able to listen and understand that the ultimate search can only be a dissolution into the whole cosmos, just like a wave disappearing into the ocean, or a stream running fast --
according to Bukko -- with haste, reaching to the ocean just to disappear.
People's minds are oriented to achieve something. If you say to them, "Search for God," it is understandable, because finding God will be a great joy, and he will give you all that you had always desired. He will give you a right place to live in heaven, a beautiful palace, where rivers are full of wine, and where young women who never grow old ... at least up to now it has never been heard that they ever grow old -- they have been at the age of sixteen, fixed, for centuries.
My own understanding is that they are not real women but plastic, pumped with air. They don't perspire -- that is significant to understand. The scriptures make it clear that they don't perspire. Only plastic does not perspire, and only plastic never grows old. And it is very good and transportable. Just take the air out, fold up the woman, put her in your suitcase, and wherever you are going, go. You can even have two or three women in one suitcase.
I have heard ... Two scientists were going to explore in Siberia. They were in the last village post, and they were collecting everything that they would need in the cold, in the eternal snows. And they were going to live there for almost a year, so they were collecting all the things that they would need .
The shop owner said, "Listen, I have been here selling things to scientists, explorers, and I always suggest to them ... first they feel shocked, but then finally they agree with me." Those two scientists said, "What do you mean?"
He said, "You take a plastic woman with you -- I have very beautiful models."
They said, "What nonsense! Plastic women? What will we do with plastic women?"
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The old shopkeeper said, "You will miss ... don't take the chance, be on the safer side. And it will not take much space in your suitcase." And he brought a folded woman, pumped air into it -- and it was really a good model, a Sophia Loren. They both thought, "It looks a little weird, but what is the harm?" But one said, "No, I don't want to be so stupid. Carrying a plastic woman ... and I am a great Nobel Prize winner!"
The other said, "You remain a Nobel Prize winner, but remember, it is my woman. I am purchasing it, and if I ever find you fiddling with her, you know my temper -- then I will not remember whether you are my friend or not. My gun is always loaded."
The friend said, "You are getting unnecessarily hot; let the time come. Let us go
-- you put the woman in your suitcase."
The man who had the woman enjoyed the woman very much, and the other fellow forgot all about Nobel Prizes; he felt very lonely. One day when the friend had gone out, he pumped up the woman ... When the other fellow came back he saw the woman flying out of the window. He came inside and he said, "What happened? Why has the woman flown out of the window?"
He said, "I forgot, and I bit on her breast too hard; the air leaked out and the woman simply jumped!" True to his word, the man simply shot his friend immediately.
After a year when he came back to the village to collect things again, the old man said,
"How are things going with the woman?"
He said, "It is a very sad story. You will have to supply me with another woman -
- but that one was a very rare model."
The shopkeeper asked, "And what happened to your friend?"
He said, "I told him from the very beginning, 'Don't fiddle with my woman!' And that idiot bit on her breast so deeply that she flew out of the window. And she flew out just when I was coming back, so I shot the man. Now you can give me another woman and we will live in peace. And I have discovered a great truth: it is better than a real woman, because there is no harassment, no nagging. And whenever you want to fold it you can; it is so convenient. It never says, 'I have a headache.' It is always available ..."
My feeling is that if there is a God and there is a paradise, then those saints must have been playing with plastic women for centuries. Real women anyway are not allowed to go to heaven. No religion allows women to go to heaven, so naturally that is the only alternative, a plastic woman. And the poor saints, they can't afford a real woman; they could not manage here -- how can they manage there?
They escaped from the world -- in fact they escaped from the woman. 'The world' is just the name. When they say somebody has renounced the world, they mean he has renounced the woman. The world? Where are you going? Wherever you go it is the world; nobody can renounce the world.
But people call it 'renouncing the world' to hide the fact that it is simply renouncing the woman. And without renouncing the woman you cannot be a saint. It is a tragedy that you renounce a real woman, and in paradise you get a plastic woman with a pump.
I don't believe that you should think of any positive achievement through meditation. You won't get any God, because what will you do with God? You both will feel very awkward.
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After saying, "Hi!" what are you going to say to God? All the miseries of the
world that he has created ... This is the worst kind of world that anybody could have created.
I had an old Mohammedan tailor. I used to go to different cities, lecturing in different universities. I told the old man -- he was a very nice guy -- I told him, "I am going in six days, so you have to prepare my clothes; give the priority to my clothes, put everything else away."
He said, "Listen. Do you know that God created the world in six days?" I said, "What has that to do with my clothes?"
He said, "It has something to do with it. Look at the world -- it is in a mess! If you want your clothes to be made in six days, then don't complain -- they will be a mess."
What are you going to say to God? Perhaps you have never thought about it, that it will be a very awkward encounter. And what are you going to do with your paradise? It is a question of eternity; forever and forever the same plastic women, and the same dirty wine flowing in the rivers. And I know perfectly well that Indians must have reached there, and they will be doing all kinds of nasty things -- that wine is no more of any use.
So please, settle for no-self.
Enough of seriousness. This is not a serious place, it is a temple of laughter.
Ace pilot, Captain Cliffski, and his faithful co-pilot, Captain Kurtski, borrow a small airplane from the main runway of Bombay airport to go for a joy-ride.
They are flying around and having a great time, and everything is going fine, when suddenly Kurtski remembers he has a hot date with Gertie, the Polack Airlines stewardess.
"Hey, Cliffski," shouts Kurtski, over the buzzing of the engines, "it is time to land. I've gotta pee and I've got a date."
"Roger-dodger," shouts Cliffski, taking the plane into a nose-dive towards the earth.
Kurtski is clutching the controls while Cliffski is frantically working the foot pedals, and shouting out readings from all the instruments.
They finally get the plane onto the ground, but have to screech to a stop. "Wow!" screams Cliffski, mopping his forehead. "That was a short runway." "Yes," pants Kurtski, collapsing in his seat, "but look how wide it is!"
Mrs. Benzini, the big Italian Catholic mama, herds her large family into the cinema, and explains to the cashier which of them is entitled to half-price admission.
"These-a two," points out Mrs. Benzini, "are under five. These-a two are under seven.
These-a two are under eight, and the older twins will be-a ten next week."
"Mama mia!" exclaims the cashier. "Do you and Mr. Benzini have-a twins every time?"
"Not every time," blushes Mrs. Benzini. "Lots and lots of times we don't-a have- a any kids at all."
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Olga Kowalski enters an elevator on the forty-second floor of the Polack Salami Emporium.
It is the operator, Mad Melvin, the escaped lunatic's first day on the job.
Suddenly Melvin, giggling hysterically, throws the switch and drops the elevator through space at a dizzy speed. Then he throws on the brake and brings the elevator to a grinding, shuddering halt.
Seeing Olga standing there in the lift with her eyes crossed, Melvin asks, "Did I stop too quick?"
"Oh no, Melvin," replies Olga, wobbling. "I always wear my panties down around my ankles."
Now, Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano ... (Drumbeat)
Be silent ... close your eyes ...
Feel your body to be completely frozen.
No movement, so that all your energy can gather inside. Look in!
Deeper, and deeper ...
The deeper you go, the more you will feel
what it is to be aware, what it is to be a buddha.
Don't come back without reaching to the very sources of your life. Be acquainted with this territory, with this space.
Remember this silence, this peace, this bliss, twenty-four hours, just like an undercurrent.
Soon it will become your very breathing, your very heartbeat.
Then there is no difference between you and a buddha. You have reached to the ultimate significance of existence and you have touched the eternity, immortality of your being.
To make it clear, Nivedano ...
(Drumbeat)
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Relax ... just let the body be there, the mind be there, and you are neither. You are a watcher. Watch the body, watch the mind, and remember: you are simply the watcher.
Bodies come and go, mind changes every moment, only the watcher remains for eternity.
This watcher is your original face.
Let the experience sink deep into every fiber of your being. It is going to transform all your activities. It will radiate in your actions, in your gestures; it will radiate from your eyes, from your words, from your silences.
This moment you are in
the very land of the buddhas.
This moment you are a contemporary of all those who have known.
Be grateful. Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) Come back,
but don't come back as you have gone in. Bring something new with you;
bring the buddha with you.
Sit silently for a few moments, just recollecting and remembering
where you have been, to what space.
This has to become your everyday experience.
It has to penetrate all your life around the clock.
Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Beloved Master.
Can we celebrate the gathering of the buddhas? Yes, Beloved Master.
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