Chapter title: Search for the Undefined

‌Chapter title: Search for the Undefined‌

12 November 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

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Shanti means silence, peace, a state of no mind, and prabhu means lord; lord of silence. And that's how I see your energy moving -- it is moving towards the great silence. You are holding it. If you stop holding it you will simply plunge into a totally different dimension. So uncontrol is going to be your discipline -- don't control it. There is a silence that comes only when you are absolutely uncontrolled; it descends. That is the meaning of the parable when Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist, it is a beautiful way of saying the same thing: a dove, a white dove descended on him. The dove is a symbol of peace. It is just poetry, but beautiful poetry. The meaning is that it descended upon him from nowhere and he was completely transformed, he was no more the old -- the new being was born.

So you have to remember this -- that by your control you will be distracting your energy. The mind is a great dictator -- it tries to control everything. And if it cannot control something it denies it; it says it exists not. That's what all atheism is. The mind denies that God can exist because the mind thinks -- and rightly also -- that if God exists, the mind will not be able to control Him.

So all that is beyond control has to be denied. Then a man lives a very poor life, because all that is beautiful, good, true, is beyond control. One lives a very mundane life then... just a mechanical routine. No flower ever flowers, and no star ever shines, and no song is ever born, because they all come from the unknown, from nowhere like a dove descending. One has to be in a very deep

receptive mood -- not in a controlled state. One has to be almost a woman, not a man. The feminine capacity has to be developed so that you can receive it.

This meditation I would like you to do every night before you go to sleep. Just sit in the bed, put the lights off, and be finished with anything that you want to do because after it you have simply to go into sleep. Then don't do anything, the doer should not be allowed after the meditation, mm? Simply relax and move into sleep, because sleep also comes -- you cannot control it. There is one quality in sleep which is almost like meditation, silence -- that it comes. That's why in the West many people are suffering from insomnia. They are trying to control even that; hence the problem. It is nothing that you can do anything about. You can simply wait, you can simply be in a relaxed, receptive mood.

So after this meditation you have simply to relax and go into sleep so that there will be a continuity and the meditation will go on flowing in you. The whole night the vibration will be there. And you will feel in the morning when you open your eyes that you have slept in a totally different way. There has been a qualitative change -- it was not just sleep: something else, deeper than sleep, was present. You have been showered by something and you don't know what it is and how to categorise it.

The meditation is very simple. Sit in the bed, relax the body close the eyes, and just imagine that you are lost in a mountainous region. It is a dark night, no moon in the sky, and it is a very clouded sky -- you cannot see even a single star, it is absolutely dark -- you cannot see even your own hand. You are lost in the mountains and it is very difficult to grope your way. There is every danger -- any moment you can fall into some valley, into some abyss and you will be gone forever. So you are groping very cautiously. You are fully alert because the danger is tremendous, and when the danger is tremendous one has to be very alert.

So the imagination of the dark night and the mountainous region is just to create a very dangerous 1/08/07

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situation. And you are very alert -- even if a pin drops you will be able to hear it. Then suddenly you come near a precipice. One can feel that now there is no way ahead, and one never knows how deep is the abyss.

So you take a rock and throw into the abyss, mm? Just to see how deep it is. Wait and listen for the report of the rock falling on other rocks. But you go on listening, you go on listening, you go on listening, and there is no report -- as if it is an abyss with no bottom. Just listening, listening, listening, a great fear arises in you, and with that fear of course your awareness becomes a flame. Mm? but let it be an actual imagination. Do you follow me?

You throw the rock and you wait -- just your ear close by and you go on listening, listening, and you wait with a beating heart, and no sound. It is utterly silent. In that sound, fall asleep. In that soundless silence: fall asleep. And this you have to practise every day, and after three weeks you have to tell me. Mm?

Good!

[A sannyasin asks: Are drugs helpful in meditation? I had the experience some time ago I took LSD

and then I was one with everything I saw. It was a very big adventure. And so I tried to do it again for the second time but it was not the same. Now when I meditate I always think about it and I cannot come to the same point.]

I understand. It can be helpful, it can be a hindrance too -- it depends Because

LSD or any other drug simply changes the chemistry of your mind -- it does not change you. It simply helps you to withdraw your control on the mind. In that uncontrolled state sometimes you can feel very beautiful and sometimes very ugly. Sometimes it is an opening to God and sometimes you'll be meeting the devil. Sometimes it is heaven and sometimes it is hell. It depends on your mind and if your mind was in a good space -- LSD cannot create your space.

If you were in a good mood and your energy was flowing high and you were at ease, LSD can open the windows. Because you were feeling good and high you will feel tremendously good and high, a thousand-fold. But if you are feeling bad and the energy is not going well and you are angry, sad, or something -- no -- you will be in hell; a thousand-fold will be your experience then too. So LSD only magnifies, it is a magnifier -- it is not a creator. If you feel some good space through it sometimes, then the desire will arise to experience that space again

and again. And it is never going to be the same: each time it will be something different because each time you are different. It does not depend on LSD -- it depends on the taker, it depends on you. And if you take it too many times your mind will become dull. Each drug dulls the mind.

Meditation is hard work, and LSD seems to be a very short-cut. Immediately you take it, you are there --

and meditation will take years. But there is a difference to be remembered: meditation really changes you. It is almost as if you are ill . If you want to become healthy you will have to do exercises, take medicine, go for walks, swim, breathe air, run; it will take months for you to become really healthy. Then some hypnotist says, 'You lie down and I will hypnotise you and within minutes you will feel happy.' He can suggest to you, and in a deep hypnosis you can believe also that everything is good, and you are a great man --

Mohammed Ali the Great; you are a very big man and very powerful. Under hypnosis you can feel that, but out of hypnosis again you are the same mouse that you were; you are no more Mohammed.

These are deceptions. But still I say, one experience can be good, but never become an addict. So if you have had a good experience you are blessed -- now forget about it. You had a glimpse -- now try to change your whole life in such a way that this glimpse becomes an ordinary thing, that each moment without any drug, you can live and you can live in it. Meditation is hard work, but real work. LSD is a deception. It is cheating with nature. It is forcing your body chemistry to have certain experiences, but it is violent and ultimately very very frustrating.

So if you had good experiences, thank God. Don t bother about it. Now work! Now you know that there is something like that and you can work for it. In a better world some day in the future, things like LSD will be used in this way: a person who has no idea of the unknown, no conception of the beyond, who is very earthly, can be helped. He can be given LSD or something like that, once -- in very good company, with beautiful music, flowers, gardens, a loving atmosphere -- so that he can have one glimpse of the unearthly, that's all. Then he is not to be given any more. He has to work now.

It is as if from a thousand miles away you have seen the Himalayan peaks with their beautiful eternal snow. Just one day suddenly in the morning, the sky is

clear and there are no clouds and from thousands of miles away you can see Everest, and it looks so close that you can touch it. It is so present that you forget 1/08/07

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the distance. But you cannot touch it -- the distance is there. Again the clouds will come and the sky will be covered and the peak will be lost, but now you know that it exists. Now you can trek to the mountains.

To reach to Everest is very difficult. One needs the courage of an Edmund Hillary... one needs to risk one's life. But if it is so beautiful from so far away -- what to say when you are close and you are able to touch, and you are able to sit on top of it? LSD can give you a glimpse. In the East it has been used for centuries that way. In the Vedas they talk about Soma. That was a sort of LSD, but it was used only by masters and it was given to disciples only in rare situations. It was not available in the marketplace. In fact nobody has yet been able to find out what it was exactly. Once the tradition disappeared India completely forgot the mushroom and from where Soma was created. It was a hidden secret, an esoteric secret. The master would only say to his chief disciple where to find it, how to find it, to whom to give, and how much, and only once. Just to give you a glimpse of the unknown -- then there is no need. Now you can move and work it out. In the same way some day it will be used.

Now both the parties the party which is in favour of drugs and the party which is against them -- are foolish. Those who are against are absolutely against; that is foolish. We know in the East that drugs have been used, and used very creatively. The party who are for them, the people like Timothy Leary and others, are also foolish because they are absolutely for them. They think LSD can become a substitute for samadhi

-- there is no need for any meditation. Both parties are just absurd. There seems to be no reasonableness about it.

I am neither on this side nor on that. My own opinion is that under proper guidance, once tried drugs can be of tremendous value. And whenever the

political climate is good and the politicians have a little more intelligence to them, this will become possible. But it has to be used only as an opening, mm? not as a habit.

So get out of it.

[A visitor says: I have a fear of my spiritual energy. I don't know where rm going with it... about a year ago I did a Vipassana retreat for fourteen days, and I had a lot of experiences on the retreat. I felt the energy go clear through my spine and out the top of my head. After that I did a lot of reading -- Buddhism, Tibetan, Krishnamurti -- and I started feeling my head was going to split in half . It just came so strong through my head. In the last year I've been trying to get back into my body and out of my head.]

Mm mm. It almost always happens: when energy starts moving, fear arises. To move into any meditation is playing with fire. And one should not move into it just out of curiosity -- it can be dangerous.

If nothing happens there is no problem. And to ninety percent of people nothing happens so the problem does not arise. But for a few people something starts happening -- then there is danger because you have opened the door of some energy and you don't know what it is, and you don't know where to channel it, what to make of it. It can be very disrupting. And without a master one can go mad.

Hence in the East we have never allowed anybody to do something without a master there. Unless somebody is there to look after you who knows the possibilities, all the alternatives that can happen to you, who knows that madness is very close -- just one step and you can go mad.… Because you are moving on a tight rope. If everything goes right there will be a great synthesis, your whole being will become one. For the first time you will know what individuality is. For the first time you will be integrated and a tremendous benediction will shower on you.

But if everything goes right -- and there is no necessity for everything to go right... Without a master there is more possibility of things going wrong than right because you are simply groping in the dark. And if something goes wrong, then a split, schizophrenia, a dual personality will arise. For the modern man this danger is very very close -- and particularly in California, because all the

teachings have become available.

That was not the old way, not the ancient way -- to make teachings available to people generally; there was a sort of secrecy.

Teachings were only made available to people who were really ready to go into them and who were not just curious people; who were ready to risk and were ready to surrender. That is one of the greatest problems: it is easy to read a book; it is very difficult to accept a master, because reading, you remain the master. You can play around with things, this and that, and you can do things.

Teachings were never made so generally available as they have become now. Mm? the whole Pandora's box is open. And not only one teaching has become available thousands of teachings have become available which are diametrically opposite. Many people are victims now. They know everything -- and it is a hodge-podge. Each system functions in a different way -- functions on the same energy but in a different 1/08/07

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way; the devices are different. And when you know many things they become confused: one thing becomes associated with another thing, so one becomes a mess. Then it is very difficult to grow. There is more possibility of going berserk.

There are teachings which are for the right side of the mind; there are teachings which are for the left side of the mind. Now you can read both, and one day you will feel suddenly that your head is getting split in two. And you are the cause of it, because you have been using both minds. Only one has to be used. It is better not to know about the other and its techniques. Later on when you have arrived home, you can read all, you can know as much as you want. Then there is no problem, because now you are integrated and nothing can destroy your integration.

But if you are not integrated, anything is dangerous and everything is dangerous. Then it is better to be with a master and to follow one line. Things will be clear-

cut. And if somebody is there who knows what is ahead, he can plan. You cannot plan because you don't know what is ahead. So better choose a master rather than going through books.

Be with somebody and follow his instructions. A book is a dead thing. It has not been written particularly for you. It may be just a generalised teaching, abstract, not addressed to anybody in particular.

But if I am talking to you, I am talking to you; I am not talking to anybody else. And whatsoever I am saying to you is not a general statement -- it is addressed to you... it is meant for you. It will take care of your need, of your possibility, potentiality, of your past, of your future. Then you are on a safe path.

So the first thing for a seeker is to find a master. It is very difficult, because how to decide? How to choose? The old eastern way is just to move from one master to another. You cannot decide off-hand --

there is no way and there is no criterion; you have just to move and feel. Somewhere, with somebody, suddenly you feel at ease. A sort of at-onement happens, rhythms meet; there is something that strikes home. It is just like a hunch... something clicks. For a moment you have a vision that here is the man -

- now this will do. Then you have taken the greatest step in your growth. To find a master is almost half of the work done -- you have arrived fifty percent of the way. The harder part is already over -- now the journey can be a dance. You will laugh and enjoy because now you are in safe hands.

So rather than going through the books.… If one is simply reading the books for entertainment, it is okay. Then whether you read tibetan or zen books, or Krishnamurti or Gurdjieff, or anybody -- if you are reading only for entertainment then it is as much use as any detective novel. There is no problem in it, you can read. But I don't see that you are reading only for entertainment -- you have a sincere search. You have a great desire, a passion, to find out who you are, to find out why, for what life exists. The passion is there, then it is dangerous to go on reading, and one tends to try.

Vipassana is good, but may not be the right method for you, and how are you going to decide?

Sometimes the method may be right for you, but the right time has not arrived. After three months of working on other meditations, maybe Vipassana suits you,

but right now if you go into it, it may not suit you, or it may give such an explosion of energy that you may not be able to control it. You will be thrown off your centre rather than getting centering from it. You can lose whatsoever centering you had before.

Just a few years before a monk was brought to me from Ceylon. For three years he had not been able to sleep. All sorts of medicines were tried, tranquillizers, and nothing would help. Somebody brought him to me, and I told him, 'Simply stop Vipassana for fifteen days and then we will see.'

By the third day, he was fast asleep and snoring -- and for three years he had not slept! He was surprised. He had never thought about it -- that Vipassana can be such a disturbance in sleep. He was a very soft man. The effort to be aware went so deep into his heart, that even in the night he would not be able to sleep -- that awareness continued. It would keep him awake and .alert. He was becoming mad !

For three years if you cannot sleep, naturally you will become . mad. He continued his meditation and nobody told him.… I told him, 'First do some cathartic meditations. For one year simply follow dynamic meditations, and forget about Vipassana, and then come back.'

After one year he started Vipassana again, but now it was not disturbing his sleep. Now he had become a little harder. Now he was a little more integrated, and he could take in Vipassana. So it depends on the individual, on the right timing. Otherwise things can always go wrong. The more possibility is that they will go wrong than not.

So if you are really interested, come back, be here for a few weeks, meditate here and just feel me.

Much is possible... and if you become afraid you will be stuck. The fear is natural, because you opened something for which you were not ready.

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[Osho gives her sannyas]

Anand means bliss and arupam means formless; formless bliss. And bliss is formless. Happiness has a form to it, it is limited. Sadness also has a form to it, it is limited. But bliss has no form, it is unlimited, it has no boundary -- it is unbounded. Happiness is of the mind, sadness too, but bliss is not of the mind -- It is of the beyond.

So the deeper you go, the more you come to the formless. If you look at something from the mind, it has a form. If you touch something through the body, it has a form. It is almost as if you are standing at a window and looking at the sky; then the sky also has the same frame as the window. The sky is frameless, but the window is giving it a frame.

A few modern artists have tried not to put their paintings into frames -- a great experiment, because to put a painting into a frame is not right. Its nature is without any frame. It goes on and on So when you put a painting into a frame,

you destroy, you falsify.

Truth is without a frame -- so is beauty, so is bliss. And only the formless can satisfy you because you are the formless.

That's why we are never satisfied in ordinary life. Whatsoever we get, some dissatisfaction somewhere continues... some frustration follows like a shadow. Even in the most beautiful moments of happiness, you will find a certain shadow of frustration. Something is missing. You may not even be able to finger it, to pinpoint it, but you know that everything is not all right -- something is missing.

Even in very beautiful moments of love, there is something missing. That's why lovers go on fighting with each other. They think the other is cheating -- not giving as much as he should. Nobody is cheating, but through the body things have a limitation -- they are framed. Through the mind they are a little bigger, but still they are framed. And your innermost core is formless. The formless can be fulfilled only by the formless. How can you fulfill the formless with form? Forms are too small. The hunger is for the formless, and you go on feeding it form. Something remains empty.

So remember that -- that one has to search the undefined. And even when you

touch somebody's body in deep love always remember that if the touch ends on the body, it is not going to go very deep. So let the body be the vehicle of the formless. Then the body too, is beautiful. When you say something, always remember not to say it only from the mind -- let the mind be in service of the no- mind. When words are in the service of silence they are golden. They have a tremendous grandeur... they are throbbing with life. They simply become poetry. Ordinary words coming with silence, become poetic, transparent -- you can see through them, and you will find the formless there, alive, waiting.

So always remember, do anything with the body but remember the bodiless. Do something with the mind, but remember the mindless. One should continuously remember the formless, the beyond. Use everything -- I am not against anything, but never forget the formless. That is the meaning of Arupam.

Good!

The Shadow of the Whip

Chapter #6

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