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The Only Meditation There Is: Watching

Osho: The Great Zen Master Ta Hui, Chapter 28

Osho,

Not "keeping the mind still," but mindlessness.

Though you may not fully know whether the teachers of the various localities are wrong or

right, if your own basis is solid and genuine, the poisons of wrong doctrines will not be able

to harm you, "keeping the mind still" and "forgetting concerns" included. If you always

"forget concerns" and "keep the mind still," without smashing the mind of birth and death,

then the delusive influences of form, sensation, perception, volition, and consciousness will

get their way, and you'll inevitably be dividing emptiness into two.

Let go and make yourself vast and expansive. When old habits suddenly arise, don't use

mind to repress them. At just such a time, it's like a snowflake on a red-hot stove. For those

with a discerning eye and a familiar hand, one leap and they leap clear.

Only then do they know lazy Jung's saying: right when using mind, there's no mental

activity. Crooked talk defiled with names and forms, straight talk without complications.

Without mind but functioning, always functioning but non-existent -- the mindlessness I

speak of now is not separate from having mind. These aren't words to deceive people.

There has been a long misunderstanding about these two things:keeping the mind

still andmindlessness. There have been many people who have thought that they are synonymous.

They appear to be synonymous, but in reality they are as far apart as two things can be, and there is no

way to bridge them.

So first let us try to find the exact meanings of these two words, because the whole of Ta Hui's sutra

this evening is concerned with the understanding of the difference.

The difference is very delicate. A man who is keeping his mind still and a man who has no mind will look

exactly alike from the outside, because the man who is keeping his mind still is also silent. Underneath

his silence there is great turmoil, but he is not allowing it to surface. He is in great control.

The man with no mind, or mindlessness, has nothing to control. He is just pure silence with nothing

repressed, with nothing disciplined -- just a pure empty sky.

Surfaces can be very deceptive. One has to be very alert about appearances, because they both look

the same from the outside -- both are silent. The problem would not have arisen if the still mind was not

easy to achieve. It is easy to achieve. Mindlessness is not so easy to achieve; it is not cheap, it is the

greatest treasure in the world.

Mind can play the game of being silent; it can play the game of being without any thoughts, any

emotions, but they are just repressed, fully alive, ready to jump out any moment. The so-called

religions and their saints have fallen into the fallacy of stilling the mind. If you go on sitting silently,

trying to control your thoughts, not allowing your emotions, not allowing any movement within you,

slowly slowly it will become your habit. This is the greatest deception in the world you can give to

yourself, because everything is exactly the same, nothing has changed, but it appears as if you have


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gone through a transformation.

The state of no-mind or mindlessness is just the opposite of stilling the mind -- it is getting beyond the

mind. It is creating such a distance between yourself and the mind that the mind becomes the farthest

star, millions of light years away, and you are just a watcher. When the mind is stilled you are the

controller. When the mind is not, you are the watcher. These are the distinguishing marks.

When you are controlling something you are in tension; you cannot be without tension, because that

which is controlled is continuously trying to revolt against you, that which is enslaved wants freedom.

Your mind sooner or later will explode with vengeance.

A story I have loved....

In a village there was a man of a very angry and aggressive type, so violent that he had killed his wife,

for something trivial. The whole village was afraid of the man because he knew no argument except

violence.

The day he killed his wife by throwing her into a well, a Jaina monk was passing by. A crowd had

gathered, and the Jaina monk said, "This mind full of anger and violence will lead you to hell."

The situation was such that the man said, "I also want to be as silent as you are, but what can I do? I

don't know anything. When anger grips me I'm almost unconscious, and now I have killed my own

beloved wife."

The Jaina monk said, "The only way to still this mind, which is full of anger and violence and rage, is to

renounce the world." Jainism is a religion of renunciation, and the ultimate renunciation is even o

clothes. The Jaina monk lives naked, because he is not allowed to possess even clothes.

The man was of a very arrogant type, and this became a challenge to him. Before the crowd he threw

his clothes also into the well with the wife. The whole village could not believe it; even the Jaina monk

became a little afraid, "Is he mad or something?" The man fell down at his feet and said, "You may have

taken many decades to reach the stage of renunciation. I renounce the world, I renounce everything. I

am your disciple -- initiate me."

His name was Shantinath, and shantimeans "peace." It often happens...if you see an ugly woman, most

probably her name will be Sunderbhai, which means "beautiful woman." In India people have a strange

way...to the blind man they give the name Nayan Sukh. Nayan Sukh means "one whose eyes give himgreat pleasure."

The Jaina monk said, "You have a beautiful name. I will not change it; I will keep it, but from this

moment you have to remember that peace has to become your very vibration."

The man disciplined himself, stilled his mind, fasted long, tortured himself, and soon became more

famous than his master. Angry people, arrogant people, egoistic people can do things which peaceful

people will take a little time to do. He became very famous, and thousands of people used to come just

to touch his feet.

After twenty years he was in the capital. A man from his village had come for some purpose, and he

thought, "It will be good to go and see what transformation has happened to Shantinath. So many


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stories are heard -- that he has become a totally new man, that his old self is gone and a new, fresh

being has arisen in him, that he really has become peace, silence, tranquility."

So the man went with great respect. But when he saw Muni Shantinath, seeing his face, his eyes, he

could not think that there had been any change. There was none of the grace which necessarily radiates

from a mind which has become silent. Those eyes were still as egoistic -- in fact they had become more

pointedly egoistic. The man's presence was even more ugly than it used to be.

Still, the man went close. Shantinath recognized the man, who had been his neighbor -- but now it was

beneath his dignity to recognize him. The man also saw that Shantinath had recognized him, but he was

pretending that he did not. He thought, "That shows much." He went close by Shantinath and asked,

"Can I ask you a question? What is your name?"

Naturally, great anger arose in Shantinath because he knew that this man knew perfectly well what his

name was. But still he kept himself in control, and he said, "My name is Muni Shantinath."

The man said, "It is a beautiful name -- but my memory is very short, can you repeat it again? I have

forgotten...what name did you say?"

This was too much. Muni Shantinath used to carry a staff. He took the staff in his hand...he forgot

everything -- twenty years of controlling the mind -- and he said, "Ask again and I will show you who I

am. Have you forgotten? -- I killed my wife, I am the same man."

Only then did he recognize what had happened....

In a single moment of unconsciousness he realized that twenty years have gone down the drain; he has

not changed at all. But millions of people feel great silence in him.... Yes, he has become very

controlled, he keeps himself repressed, and it has paid off. So much respect and he has no qualification

for that respect -- so much honor, even kings come to touch his feet.

Your so-called saints are nothing but controlled animals. The mind is nothing but a long heritage of all

your animal past. You can control it, but the controlled mind is not the awakened mind.

The process of controlling and repressing and disciplining is taught by all the religions, and because o

their fallacious teaching humanity has not moved a single inch -- it remains barbarous. Any moment

people start killing each other. It does not take a single moment to lose themselves; they forget

completely that they are human beings, and something much more, something better is expected othem. There have been very few people who have been able to avoid this deception of controlling mind

and believing that they have attained mindlessness.

To attain mindlessness a totally different process is involved: I call it the ultimate alchemy. It consists

only of a single element -- that of watchfulness.

Gautam Buddha is passing through a town when a fly comes and sits on his forehead. He is talking to

his companion, Ananda, and he just goes on talking and moves his hand to throw off the fly. Then

suddenly he recognizes that his movement of the hand has been unconscious, mechanical. Because he

was talking consciously to Ananda, the hand moved the fly mechanically. He stops and although now

there is no fly, he moves his hand again consciously.


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Ananda says, "What are you doing? The fly has gone away...."

Gautam Buddha says, "The fly has gone away...but I have committed a sin, because I did it in

unconsciousness."

The English word "sin" is used only by Gautam Buddha in its right meaning. The word "sin" originates in

the roots which mean forgetfulness, unawareness, unwatchfulness, doing things mechanically -- and our

whole life is almost mechanical. We go on doing things from morning to evening, from evening to

morning, like robots.

A man who wants to enter into the world of mindlessness has to learn only one thing -- a single step

and the journey is over. That single step is to do everything watchfully. You move your hand watchfully;

you open your eyes watchfully; you walk, you take your steps alert, aware; you eat, you drink, but

never allow mechanicalness to take possession over you. This is the only alchemical secret of

transformation.

A man who can do everything fully consciously becomes a luminous phenomenon. He is all light, and his

whole life is full of fragrance and flowers. The mechanical man lives in dark holes, dirty holes. He does

not know the world of light; he is like a blind man. The man of watchfulness is really the man who has

eyes.

Ta Hui slowly, slowly is penetrating into the deeper secrets of inner transformation. He says, Though

you may not fully know whether the teachers of the various localities are wrong or right, if

your own basis is solid and genuine, the poisons of wrong doctrines will not be able to harm

you.

He says it is useless to think who is right and who is wrong. There are thousands of doctrines, hundreds

of philosophies, and if you go on searching for truth in those words, you will be lost in a jungle where

you cannot find the path. All that you know is to attain to a solid basis within yourself.

...."Keeping the mind still," and "forgetting concerns" included. If you always "forget

concerns" and "keep the mind still," without smashing the mind of birth and death, then the

delusive influences of form, sensation, perception, volition, and consciousness will get their

way, and you will inevitably be dividing emptiness into two.

Let go and make yourself vast and expansive....

It is not a question of controlling yourself separate from existence; it is a question of letting-go and

becoming vast -- as vast as existence itself. And in watchfulness you become infinite: that is the only

thing within you which has no limits.

Just have a look at your watching, witnessing. It is unlimited. No beginning, no end...it is formless.

This absolute stillness of the mind is exactly no-mind or mindlessness. It is not control, it is not

discipline; it is not that you are putting all your pressure on your mind and keeping it silent. No, it is

simply not there. The house is empty. There is nobody to control and there is nobody to be controlled.

All concerns for control have disappeared into a simple watchfulness. This watchfulness is expansive.

Once you have tasted it a little, it goes on expanding to the very limits of the universe.


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When old habits suddenly arise, don't use your mind to repress them. At just such a time, it's

like a snowflake on a red-hot stove.

He is reminding you that even when you are moving on the path of watchfulness, sometimes old habits

may revive. But don't be concerned; they are like snowflakes on a red-hot stove, they will disappear o

their own accord. You simply watch. Don't get concerned, don't get disturbed, don't be worried.

Sometimes there will be anger, sometimes there will be a desire, sometimes there will be an ambition,

but they cannot disturb your watchfulness. They will come and they will go without leaving a trace on

your mirror-like purity. But you have only to remember one thing: not to start fighting with them,

smashing them, destroying them, throwing them away. It comes very naturally to the mind that if

something wrong is happening, jump on it and destroy it. This is the only thing you have to be aware of,

because this is what never allows a man to get beyond the mind. Old habits will come -- and old habits

are very old, many, many lives old. Your awareness is very fresh and very new; your mechanicalness is

ancient, so it is very natural that it will come back.

Somebody insults you -- you don't have to be angry, but suddenly you find anger arising. It is not an

effort, it is just an old habit, an old reaction. Don't fight with it, don't try to smile and hide it. Just watch

it, and it will come and it will go...Like a snowflake on a red-hot stove.

For those with a discerning eye and a familiar hand, one leap and they leap clear. Only then do they

know lazy Jung's saying: right when using mind, there's no mental activity. If a man has learned the art

of watchfulness he can use his mind too, and still he has no mental activity.

I am talking to you, and I am using my mind because there is no other way.

Mind is the only way to convey any message in words; that is the only mechanism available. But my

mind is absolutely silent, there is no mental activity: I'm not thinking what I'm going to say, and I'm not

thinking what I have said. I'm simply responding to Ta Hui spontaneously without bringing myself into

it.

It is as if you go into the mountains and you shout and the mountains echo: the mountains are not

doing any mental activity, they are simply echoing. When I am talking on Ta Hui, I am just a mountain

echoing.

Right when using mind, there's no mental activity. Crooked talk defiled with names and

forms, straight talk without complications. Without mind but functioning.This is a strangeexperience, when you can use mind without any mental activity. Without mind but functioning,

always functioning but non-existent.

I was from my very childhood in love with silence.

As long as I could manage I would just sit silently. Naturally my family used to think that I was going to

be good for nothing -- and they were right. I certainly proved good for nothing, but I don't repent it.

It came to such a point that sometimes I would be sitting and my mother would come to me and say

something like, "There seems to be nobody in the whole house. I need somebody to go to the market to

fetch some vegetables." I was sitting in front of her, and I would say, "If I see somebody I will tell...."


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It was accepted that my presence meant nothing; whether I was there or not, it did not matter. Once or

twice they tried and then they found that "it is better to leave him out, and not take any notice of him" -

- because in the morning they would send me to fetch vegetables, and in the evening I would come to

ask, "I have forgotten for what you had sent me, and now the market is closed." In villages the

vegetable markets close by the evening, and the villagers go back to their villages.

My mother said, "It is not your fault, it is our fault. The whole day we have been waiting, but in the first

place we should not have asked you. Where have you been?"

I said, "As I went out of the house, just close by there was a very beautiful bodhi tree" -- the kind o

tree under which Gautam Buddha became awakened. The tree got the name bodhi tree -- or in English,

bo tree -- because of Gautam Buddha. One does not know what it used to be called before Gautam

Buddha; it must have had some name, but after Buddha it became associated with his name.

There was a beautiful bodhi tree, and it was so tempting for me.

There used to be always such silence, such coolness underneath it, nobody to disturb me, that I could

not pass it without sitting under it for some time. And those moments of peace, I think sometimes may

have stretched the whole day.

After just a few disappointments they thought, "It is better not to bother him." And I was immensely

happy that they had accepted the fact that I am almost non-existent. It gave me tremendous freedom.

Nobody expected anything from me. When nobody expects anything from you, you fall into a silence....

The world has accepted you; now there is no expectation from you.

When sometimes I was late coming home, they used to search for me in two places. One was the bodhi

tree -- and because they started searching for me under the bodhi tree, I started climbing the tree and

sitting in the top of it. They would come and they would look around and say, "He does not seem to be

here."

And I myself would nod; I said, "Yes, that's true. I'm not here."

But I was soon discovered, because somebody saw me climbing and told them, "He has been deceiving

you. He is always here, most of the time sitting in the tree" -- so I had to go a little further.

There used to be a Mohammedan cemetery....

Now people ordinarily don't go to graveyards. Of course, everybody has to go once, but except that,

people don't like going to graveyards. So that was the most silent place...because dead people don't

talk, they don't create nuisance, they don't ask you unnecessary questions, they don't even ask you

who you are or for introductions.

I used to sit in the Mohammedan graveyard. It was a big place, with many graves, with trees, very

shadowy trees. When my father came to know that I was sitting there he said, "This is too much!" He

came one day to find me and he said, "You can start sitting in the bodhi tree, or under the bodhi tree,

and nobody will disturb you. This is too much, this is dangerous -- and in fact, when somebody goes to

the graveyard he should take a bath and change his clothes. You have been sitting here the whole day

and sometimes at night, and when you come home we don't know from where you are coming."


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This is usual, that when you come back from the graveyard.... Ordinarily nobody goes there unless they

are sent, and they have to go; so, reluctantly they go. From the graveyard people normally go directly

to the river to take a bath, to change their clothes, and only then do they enter the house. So my father

said, "I don't know how long you have been doing this."

I said, "Since you disturbed me on the bodhi tree. I had to find some place...." And I told him, "Even

you will enjoy it once in a while. When you get tired and too tense, just come here -- no dead man

disturbs anybody."

He said, "Don't talk to me about dead men -- and particularly in a Mohammedan grave...."

Mohammedans are poor; their graves are mud graves. In the rain, sometimes a dead body will appear.

The mud has washed away and you can see the dead body -- somebody's head is showing, somebody's

leg is showing. He said, "Don't ever tell me to go there. Just the idea that one day I will be in such a

position, with my head showing out of a grave, makes me feel so frightened...you are a strange boy!"

I said, "What is wrong with it? The poor fellow is dead, he cannot do anything. It is raining, he cannotmanage to have an umbrella, what can he do? If one of his legs is showing, what can he do? He cannot

pull it in -- if he pulls it in then too there will be trouble, so he keeps silent and lets things be as they

are."

A love of silence and a love of being absent has helped me so tremendously that I can understand when

he says,Always functioning but non-existent -- the mindlessness I speak of now is not

separate from having mind. These are not words to deceive people.

Ta Hui is saying, "I am not using these words to deceive anyone; I am not trying to show my

knowledge; I am not trying to pretend that I am more knowledgeable than you are. I am saying these

words just to share my experience that no-mind and mind can exist together. There should be no

repressive methods used, only pure watchfulness...and slowly, slowly mind loses all content. It becomes

no-mind."

So mindlessness and mind are not separate. Mindlessness is mind without any content, without any

thought. It is just like a mirror not reflecting anything.

The silence of being a mirror not reflecting anything is the greatest bliss that existence allows man to

have. And from there things go on expanding -- mysteries upon mysteries...no questions, no answers,

but tremendous experiences...nourishing, fulfilling, giving contentment to the hungry soul which has

been wandering for lives upon lives.

It is time to stop this wandering.

To stop this wandering there is a simple method, and that is to start watching your mind, your body,

your actions. Whatever you are doing or not doing, one thing you have to be alert of -- that you are

watching. Don't lose the watcher -- then it doesn't matter whether you are a Christian or a Hindu or a

Jaina or a Buddhist.

The watcher is no one. It is just pure consciousness.

And this pure consciousness can only bring a new humanity, a new world, where people will not

discriminate against each other for stupid reasons. Nations, races, religions, doctrines, ideologies --


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those are just for children to play with, not for mature people. For mature people there is only one thing

in existence, and that is watchfulness.

...A monk is going to spread Gautam Buddha's message. He himself is not enlightened yet; that's why

Gautam Buddha calls him and tells him, "Remember, I have to say this because you are not enlightened

yet...you are articulate, you speak well, you can spread the message. You may not be able to sow the

seeds but you may be able to attract a few people to come to me -- but use this opportunity also for

your own growth."

The monk asked, "What can I do, how can I use this opportunity?"

And Buddha said, "There is only one thing that can be done in every opportunity, in every situation, and

that is watchfulness. You will sometimes find people irritated by you, angry because you have hurt their

ideologies, their doctrines, their prejudices. Remain silent and watchful. You may have days when you

cannot get food because the people are against you, they will not even give you water. Watch...watch

your hunger, watch your thirst...but don't get irritated, don't get annoyed. What you will be teachingpeople is of less importance than your own watchfulness.

If you come back to me watchful, I will be immensely joyful. How many people you approached does

not matter; how many people you spoke to does not matter. What ultimately matters is whether you

have come home, whether you yourself have found the solid basis of witnessing. Then all else is

insignificant."

This is the only meditation there is; all other meditations are variations of the same phenomenon.

So this sutra of Ta Hui is one of the most fundamental ones.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.


The New ManOsho: Philosophia Perennis, Volume 2, Chapter 2

Osho,

Not "keeping the mind still," but mindlessness.

Though you may not fully know whether the teachers of the various localities are wrong or

right, if your own basis is solid and genuine, the poisons of wrong doctrines will not be able

to harm you, "keeping the mind still" and "forgetting concerns" included. If you always

"forget concerns" and "keep the mind still," without smashing the mind of birth and death,

then the delusive influences of form, sensation, perception, volition, and consciousness will

get their way, and you'll inevitably be dividing emptiness into two.

Let go and make yourself vast and expansive. When old habits suddenly arise, don't use

mind to repress them. At just such a time, it's like a snowflake on a red-hot stove. For those


9/36

with a discerning eye and a familiar hand, one leap and they leap clear.

Only then do they know lazy Jung's saying: right when using mind, there's no mental

activity. Crooked talk defiled with names and forms, straight talk without complications.

Without mind but functioning, always functioning but non-existent -- the mindlessness I

speak of now is not separate from having mind. These aren't words to deceive people.

There has been a long misunderstanding about these two things:keeping the mind

still andmindlessness. There have been many people who have thought that they are synonymous.

They appear to be synonymous, but in reality they are as far apart as two things can be, and there is no

way to bridge them.

So first let us try to find the exact meanings of these two words, because the whole of Ta Hui's sutra

this evening is concerned with the understanding of the difference.

The difference is very delicate. A man who is keeping his mind still and a man who has no mind will look

exactly alike from the outside, because the man who is keeping his mind still is also silent. Underneathhis silence there is great turmoil, but he is not allowing it to surface. He is in great control.

The man with no mind, or mindlessness, has nothing to control. He is just pure silence with nothing

repressed, with nothing disciplined -- just a pure empty sky.

Surfaces can be very deceptive. One has to be very alert about appearances, because they both look

the same from the outside -- both are silent. The problem would not have arisen if the still mind was not

easy to achieve. It is easy to achieve. Mindlessness is not so easy to achieve; it is not cheap, it is the

greatest treasure in the world.

Mind can play the game of being silent; it can play the game of being without any thoughts, any

emotions, but they are just repressed, fully alive, ready to jump out any moment. The so-called

religions and their saints have fallen into the fallacy of stilling the mind. If you go on sitting silently,

trying to control your thoughts, not allowing your emotions, not allowing any movement within you,

slowly slowly it will become your habit. This is the greatest deception in the world you can give to

yourself, because everything is exactly the same, nothing has changed, but it appears as if you have

gone through a transformation.

The state of no-mind or mindlessness is just the opposite of stilling the mind -- it is getting beyond the

mind. It is creating such a distance between yourself and the mind that the mind becomes the farthest

star, millions of light years away, and you are just a watcher. When the mind is stilled you are thecontroller. When the mind is not, you are the watcher. These are the distinguishing marks.

When you are controlling something you are in tension; you cannot be without tension, because that

which is controlled is continuously trying to revolt against you, that which is enslaved wants freedom.

Your mind sooner or later will explode with vengeance.

A story I have loved....

In a village there was a man of a very angry and aggressive type, so violent that he had killed his wife,

for something trivial. The whole village was afraid of the man because he knew no argument except

violence.


10/36

The day he killed his wife by throwing her into a well, a Jaina monk was passing by. A crowd had

gathered, and the Jaina monk said, "This mind full of anger and violence will lead you to hell."

The situation was such that the man said, "I also want to be as silent as you are, but what can I do? I

don't know anything. When anger grips me I'm almost unconscious, and now I have killed my own

beloved wife."

The Jaina monk said, "The only way to still this mind, which is full of anger and violence and rage, is to

renounce the world." Jainism is a religion of renunciation, and the ultimate renunciation is even o

clothes. The Jaina monk lives naked, because he is not allowed to possess even clothes.

The man was of a very arrogant type, and this became a challenge to him. Before the crowd he threw

his clothes also into the well with the wife. The whole village could not believe it; even the Jaina monk

became a little afraid, "Is he mad or something?" The man fell down at his feet and said, "You may have

taken many decades to reach the stage of renunciation. I renounce the world, I renounce everything. I

am your disciple -- initiate me."

His name was Shantinath, and shantimeans "peace." It often happens...if you see an ugly woman, most

probably her name will be Sunderbhai, which means "beautiful woman." In India people have a strange

way...to the blind man they give the name Nayan Sukh. Nayan Sukh means "one whose eyes give him

great pleasure."

The Jaina monk said, "You have a beautiful name. I will not change it; I will keep it, but from this

moment you have to remember that peace has to become your very vibration."

The man disciplined himself, stilled his mind, fasted long, tortured himself, and soon became more

famous than his master. Angry people, arrogant people, egoistic people can do things which peaceful

people will take a little time to do. He became very famous, and thousands of people used to come just

to touch his feet.

After twenty years he was in the capital. A man from his village had come for some purpose, and he

thought, "It will be good to go and see what transformation has happened to Shantinath. So many

stories are heard -- that he has become a totally new man, that his old self is gone and a new, fresh

being has arisen in him, that he really has become peace, silence, tranquility."

So the man went with great respect. But when he saw Muni Shantinath, seeing his face, his eyes, he

could not think that there had been any change. There was none of the grace which necessarily radiatesfrom a mind which has become silent. Those eyes were still as egoistic -- in fact they had become more

pointedly egoistic. The man's presence was even more ugly than it used to be.

Still, the man went close. Shantinath recognized the man, who had been his neighbor -- but now it was

beneath his dignity to recognize him. The man also saw that Shantinath had recognized him, but he was

pretending that he did not. He thought, "That shows much." He went close by Shantinath and asked,

"Can I ask you a question? What is your name?"

Naturally, great anger arose in Shantinath because he knew that this man knew perfectly well what his

name was. But still he kept himself in control, and he said, "My name is Muni Shantinath."

The man said, "It is a beautiful name -- but my memory is very short, can you repeat it again? I have


11/36

forgotten...what name did you say?"

This was too much. Muni Shantinath used to carry a staff. He took the staff in his hand...he forgot

everything -- twenty years of controlling the mind -- and he said, "Ask again and I will show you who I

am. Have you forgotten? -- I killed my wife, I am the same man."

Only then did he recognize what had happened....

In a single moment of unconsciousness he realized that twenty years have gone down the drain; he has

not changed at all. But millions of people feel great silence in him.... Yes, he has become very

controlled, he keeps himself repressed, and it has paid off. So much respect and he has no qualification

for that respect -- so much honor, even kings come to touch his feet.

Your so-called saints are nothing but controlled animals. The mind is nothing but a long heritage of all

your animal past. You can control it, but the controlled mind is not the awakened mind.

The process of controlling and repressing and disciplining is taught by all the religions, and because o

their fallacious teaching humanity has not moved a single inch -- it remains barbarous. Any moment

people start killing each other. It does not take a single moment to lose themselves; they forget

completely that they are human beings, and something much more, something better is expected o

them. There have been very few people who have been able to avoid this deception of controlling mind

and believing that they have attained mindlessness.

To attain mindlessness a totally different process is involved: I call it the ultimate alchemy. It consists

only of a single element -- that of watchfulness.

Gautam Buddha is passing through a town when a fly comes and sits on his forehead. He is talking to

his companion, Ananda, and he just goes on talking and moves his hand to throw off the fly. Then

suddenly he recognizes that his movement of the hand has been unconscious, mechanical. Because he

was talking consciously to Ananda, the hand moved the fly mechanically. He stops and although now

there is no fly, he moves his hand again consciously.

Ananda says, "What are you doing? The fly has gone away...."

Gautam Buddha says, "The fly has gone away...but I have committed a sin, because I did it in

unconsciousness."

The English word "sin" is used only by Gautam Buddha in its right meaning. The word "sin" originates in

the roots which mean forgetfulness, unawareness, unwatchfulness, doing things mechanically -- and our

whole life is almost mechanical. We go on doing things from morning to evening, from evening to

morning, like robots.

A man who wants to enter into the world of mindlessness has to learn only one thing -- a single step

and the journey is over. That single step is to do everything watchfully. You move your hand watchfully;

you open your eyes watchfully; you walk, you take your steps alert, aware; you eat, you drink, but

never allow mechanicalness to take possession over you. This is the only alchemical secret o

transformation.

A man who can do everything fully consciously becomes a luminous phenomenon. He is all light, and his


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whole life is full of fragrance and flowers. The mechanical man lives in dark holes, dirty holes. He does

not know the world of light; he is like a blind man. The man of watchfulness is really the man who has

eyes.

Ta Hui slowly, slowly is penetrating into the deeper secrets of inner transformation. He says, Though

you may not fully know whether the teachers of the various localities are wrong or right, if

your own basis is solid and genuine, the poisons of wrong doctrines will not be able to harm

you.

He says it is useless to think who is right and who is wrong. There are thousands of doctrines, hundreds

of philosophies, and if you go on searching for truth in those words, you will be lost in a jungle where

you cannot find the path. All that you know is to attain to a solid basis within yourself.

...."Keeping the mind still," and "forgetting concerns" included. If you always "forget

concerns" and "keep the mind still," without smashing the mind of birth and death, then the

delusive influences of form, sensation, perception, volition, and consciousness will get theirway, and you will inevitably be dividing emptiness into two.

Let go and make yourself vast and expansive....

It is not a question of controlling yourself separate from existence; it is a question of letting-go and

becoming vast -- as vast as existence itself. And in watchfulness you become infinite: that is the only

thing within you which has no limits.

Just have a look at your watching, witnessing. It is unlimited. No beginning, no end...it is formless.

This absolute stillness of the mind is exactly no-mind or mindlessness. It is not control, it is not

discipline; it is not that you are putting all your pressure on your mind and keeping it silent. No, it is

simply not there. The house is empty. There is nobody to control and there is nobody to be controlled.

All concerns for control have disappeared into a simple watchfulness. This watchfulness is expansive.

Once you have tasted it a little, it goes on expanding to the very limits of the universe.

When old habits suddenly arise, don't use your mind to repress them. At just such a time, it's

like a snowflake on a red-hot stove.

He is reminding you that even when you are moving on the path of watchfulness, sometimes old habits

may revive. But don't be concerned; they are like snowflakes on a red-hot stove, they will disappear otheir own accord. You simply watch. Don't get concerned, don't get disturbed, don't be worried.

Sometimes there will be anger, sometimes there will be a desire, sometimes there will be an ambition,

but they cannot disturb your watchfulness. They will come and they will go without leaving a trace on

your mirror-like purity. But you have only to remember one thing: not to start fighting with them,

smashing them, destroying them, throwing them away. It comes very naturally to the mind that if

something wrong is happening, jump on it and destroy it. This is the only thing you have to be aware of,

because this is what never allows a man to get beyond the mind. Old habits will come -- and old habits

are very old, many, many lives old. Your awareness is very fresh and very new; your mechanicalness is

ancient, so it is very natural that it will come back.

Somebody insults you -- you don't have to be angry, but suddenly you find anger arising. It is not an


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effort, it is just an old habit, an old reaction. Don't fight with it, don't try to smile and hide it. Just watch

it, and it will come and it will go...Like a snowflake on a red-hot stove.

For those with a discerning eye and a familiar hand, one leap and they leap clear. Only then do they

know lazy Jung's saying: right when using mind, there's no mental activity. If a man has learned the art

of watchfulness he can use his mind too, and still he has no mental activity.

I am talking to you, and I am using my mind because there is no other way.

Mind is the only way to convey any message in words; that is the only mechanism available. But my

mind is absolutely silent, there is no mental activity: I'm not thinking what I'm going to say, and I'm not

thinking what I have said. I'm simply responding to Ta Hui spontaneously without bringing myself into

it.

It is as if you go into the mountains and you shout and the mountains echo: the mountains are not

doing any mental activity, they are simply echoing. When I am talking on Ta Hui, I am just a mountainechoing.

Right when using mind, there's no mental activity. Crooked talk defiled with names and

forms, straight talk without complications. Without mind but functioning.This is a strange

experience, when you can use mind without any mental activity. Without mind but functioning,

always functioning but non-existent.

I was from my very childhood in love with silence.

As long as I could manage I would just sit silently. Naturally my family used to think that I was going to

be good for nothing -- and they were right. I certainly proved good for nothing, but I don't repent it.

It came to such a point that sometimes I would be sitting and my mother would come to me and say

something like, "There seems to be nobody in the whole house. I need somebody to go to the market to

fetch some vegetables." I was sitting in front of her, and I would say, "If I see somebody I will tell...."

It was accepted that my presence meant nothing; whether I was there or not, it did not matter. Once or

twice they tried and then they found that "it is better to leave him out, and not take any notice of him" -

- because in the morning they would send me to fetch vegetables, and in the evening I would come to

ask, "I have forgotten for what you had sent me, and now the market is closed." In villages the

vegetable markets close by the evening, and the villagers go back to their villages.

My mother said, "It is not your fault, it is our fault. The whole day we have been waiting, but in the first

place we should not have asked you. Where have you been?"

I said, "As I went out of the house, just close by there was a very beautiful bodhi tree" -- the kind o

tree under which Gautam Buddha became awakened. The tree got the name bodhi tree -- or in English,

bo tree -- because of Gautam Buddha. One does not know what it used to be called before Gautam

Buddha; it must have had some name, but after Buddha it became associated with his name.

There was a beautiful bodhi tree, and it was so tempting for me.

There used to be always such silence, such coolness underneath it, nobody to disturb me, that I could


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not pass it without sitting under it for some time. And those moments of peace, I think sometimes may

have stretched the whole day.

After just a few disappointments they thought, "It is better not to bother him." And I was immensely

happy that they had accepted the fact that I am almost non-existent. It gave me tremendous freedom.

Nobody expected anything from me. When nobody expects anything from you, you fall into a silence....

The world has accepted you; now there is no expectation from you.

When sometimes I was late coming home, they used to search for me in two places. One was the bodhi

tree -- and because they started searching for me under the bodhi tree, I started climbing the tree and

sitting in the top of it. They would come and they would look around and say, "He does not seem to be

here."

And I myself would nod; I said, "Yes, that's true. I'm not here."

But I was soon discovered, because somebody saw me climbing and told them, "He has been deceivingyou. He is always here, most of the time sitting in the tree" -- so I had to go a little further.

There used to be a Mohammedan cemetery....

Now people ordinarily don't go to graveyards. Of course, everybody has to go once, but except that,

people don't like going to graveyards. So that was the most silent place...because dead people don't

talk, they don't create nuisance, they don't ask you unnecessary questions, they don't even ask you

who you are or for introductions.

I used to sit in the Mohammedan graveyard. It was a big place, with many graves, with trees, very

shadowy trees. When my father came to know that I was sitting there he said, "This is too much!" He

came one day to find me and he said, "You can start sitting in the bodhi tree, or under the bodhi tree,

and nobody will disturb you. This is too much, this is dangerous -- and in fact, when somebody goes to

the graveyard he should take a bath and change his clothes. You have been sitting here the whole day

and sometimes at night, and when you come home we don't know from where you are coming."

This is usual, that when you come back from the graveyard.... Ordinarily nobody goes there unless they

are sent, and they have to go; so, reluctantly they go. From the graveyard people normally go directly

to the river to take a bath, to change their clothes, and only then do they enter the house. So my father

said, "I don't know how long you have been doing this."

I said, "Since you disturbed me on the bodhi tree. I had to find some place...." And I told him, "Even

you will enjoy it once in a while. When you get tired and too tense, just come here -- no dead man

disturbs anybody."

He said, "Don't talk to me about dead men -- and particularly in a Mohammedan grave...."

Mohammedans are poor; their graves are mud graves. In the rain, sometimes a dead body will appear.

The mud has washed away and you can see the dead body -- somebody's head is showing, somebody's

leg is showing. He said, "Don't ever tell me to go there. Just the idea that one day I will be in such a

position, with my head showing out of a grave, makes me feel so frightened...you are a strange boy!"

I said, "What is wrong with it? The poor fellow is dead, he cannot do anything. It is raining, he cannot

manage to have an umbrella, what can he do? If one of his legs is showing, what can he do? He cannot


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pull it in -- if he pulls it in then too there will be trouble, so he keeps silent and lets things be as they

are."

A love of silence and a love of being absent has helped me so tremendously that I can understand when

he says,Always functioning but non-existent -- the mindlessness I speak of now is not

separate from having mind. These are not words to deceive people.

Ta Hui is saying, "I am not using these words to deceive anyone; I am not trying to show my

knowledge; I am not trying to pretend that I am more knowledgeable than you are. I am saying these

words just to share my experience that no-mind and mind can exist together. There should be no

repressive methods used, only pure watchfulness...and slowly, slowly mind loses all content. It becomes

no-mind."

So mindlessness and mind are not separate. Mindlessness is mind without any content, without any

thought. It is just like a mirror not reflecting anything.

The silence of being a mirror not reflecting anything is the greatest bliss that existence allows man to

have. And from there things go on expanding -- mysteries upon mysteries...no questions, no answers,

but tremendous experiences...nourishing, fulfilling, giving contentment to the hungry soul which has

been wandering for lives upon lives.

It is time to stop this wandering.

To stop this wandering there is a simple method, and that is to start watching your mind, your body,

your actions. Whatever you are doing or not doing, one thing you have to be alert of -- that you are

watching. Don't lose the watcher -- then it doesn't matter whether you are a Christian or a Hindu or a

Jaina or a Buddhist.

The watcher is no one. It is just pure consciousness.

And this pure consciousness can only bring a new humanity, a new world, where people will not

discriminate against each other for stupid reasons. Nations, races, religions, doctrines, ideologies --

those are just for children to play with, not for mature people. For mature people there is only one thing

in existence, and that is watchfulness.

...A monk is going to spread Gautam Buddha's message. He himself is not enlightened yet; that's why

Gautam Buddha calls him and tells him, "Remember, I have to say this because you are not enlightenedyet...you are articulate, you speak well, you can spread the message. You may not be able to sow the

seeds but you may be able to attract a few people to come to me -- but use this opportunity also for

your own growth."

The monk asked, "What can I do, how can I use this opportunity?"

And Buddha said, "There is only one thing that can be done in every opportunity, in every situation, and

that is watchfulness. You will sometimes find people irritated by you, angry because you have hurt their

ideologies, their doctrines, their prejudices. Remain silent and watchful. You may have days when you

cannot get food because the people are against you, they will not even give you water. Watch...watch

your hunger, watch your thirst...but don't get irritated, don't get annoyed. What you will be teaching


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people is of less importance than your own watchfulness.

If you come back to me watchful, I will be immensely joyful. How many people you approached does

not matter; how many people you spoke to does not matter. What ultimately matters is whether you

have come home, whether you yourself have found the solid basis of witnessing. Then all else is

insignificant."

This is the only meditation there is; all other meditations are variations of the same phenomenon.

So this sutra of Ta Hui is one of the most fundamental ones.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.


The Third Quantum Leap

Osho: The Last Testament, Volume 5, Chapter 16

Osho,

With Gautam Buddha religion took a quantum leap. God became meaningless and only

meditation was important. Now, twenty-five centuries after Buddha, again religion is taking

the quantum leap in your presence and becoming religiousness. Please talk about this

henomenon.

The credit of bringing a quantum leap in religion goes back twenty-five centuries before Gautam Buddha

to Adinatha, who for the first time preached a religion without God. It was a tremendous revolution

because nowhere in the whole world had it ever been conceived that religion could exist without God.

God has been an essential part -- the center -- of all the religions: Christianity, Judaism,

Mohammedanism. But to make God the center of religion makes man just the periphery. To conceive o

God as the creator of the world makes man only a puppet.

That's why in Hebrew, which is the language of Judaism, man is called Adam. 'Adam' means mud. In

Arabic man is called 'admi'; it is from Adam, again it means mud. In English, which has become the

language of Christianity by and large, the word human comes from 'humus' and humus means mud.

Naturally if God is the creator he has to create from something. He has to make man like a statue, so

first he makes man with mud and then breathes life into him. But if this is so man loses all dignity, and

if God is the creator of man and everything else, the whole idea is whimsical because what has he been

doing for eternity before he created man and the universe?

According to Christianity he created man only four thousand and four years before Jesus Christ. So what

was he doing all along through eternity? So it seems whimsical. There cannot be any cause, because to

have a cause for which God had to create existence means there are powers higher than God, there are


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causes which can make him create. Or there is a possibility that suddenly desire arose in him. That too

is not very philosophically sound, because for eternity he was desireless. And to be desireless is so

blissful that it is impossible to conceive that out of an experience of eternal blissfulness a desire arises in

him to create the world. Desire is desire, whether you want to make a house or become the prime

minister or create the world. And God cannot be conceived as having desires. So the only thing that

remains is that he is whimsical, eccentric. Then there is no need for cause and no need for desire -- just

a whim.

But if this whole existence is just out of a whim it loses all meaning, all significance. And tomorrow

another whim may arise in him to destroy, to dissolve the whole universe. So we are simply puppets in

the hands of a dictatorial god who has all the powers but who has not a sane mind, who is whimsical.

To conceive this five thousand years ago Adinatha must have been a very deep meditator,

contemplative, and he must have come to the conclusion that with God there is no meaning in the

world. If we want meaning in the world then God has to be disposed of. He must have been a man o

tremendous courage. People are still worshipping in the churches, in the synagogues, in the temples;yet that man Adinatha five thousand years before us came to a very clear-cut scientific conclusion that

there is nothing higher than man and any evolution that is going to happen is within man and in his

consciousness.

This was the first quantum leap -- God was disposed of.

Adinatha is the first master of Jainism. The credit does not go to Buddha because Buddha comes

twenty-five centuries later than Adinatha. But another credit goes to Buddha. Adinatha disposed of God

but could not manage to put meditation in its place. On the contrary, he created asceticism, austerities,

torturing the body, fasting, remaining naked, eating only once a day, not drinking in the night, not

eating in the night, eating only certain foods. He had come to a beautiful philosophical conclusion but it

seems the conclusion was only philosophical, it was not meditational.

When you depose God you cannot have any ritual, you cannot have worship, you cannot have prayer;

something has to be substituted. He substituted austerities, because man became the center of his

religion and man has to purify himself. Purity in his conception was that man has to detach himself from

the world, has to detach himself from his own body. This distorted the whole thing. He had come to a

very significant conclusion, but it remained only a philosophical concept.

Adinatha disposed of God but left a vacuum, and Buddha filled it with meditation. Adinatha made a

godless religion; Buddha made a meditative religion.

Meditation is Buddha's contribution. The question is not to torture the body; the question is to become

more silent, to become more relaxed, to become more peaceful. It is an inward journey to reach to

one's own center of consciousness, and the center of one's own consciousness is the center of the whole

existence.

Twenty-five centuries have again passed. Just as Adinatha's revolutionary concept of godless religion

got lost in a desert of austerities and self-torture, Buddha's idea of meditation -- something inner, that

nobody else can see; only you know where you are, only you know whether you are progressing or not -

- got lost into another desert, and that was organized religion.

Religion says that single individuals cannot be trusted, whether they are meditating or not. They need


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communities, masters, monasteries where they can live together. Those who are on a higher level of

consciousness can watch over others and help them. It became essential that religions should not be left

in the hands of individuals, they should be organized and should be in the hands of those who have

arrived at a high point of meditation.

In the beginning it was good; while Buddha was alive there were many people who reached self-

realization, enlightenment. But as Buddha died and these people died, the very organization that was

supposed to help people to meditate fell in the hands of a priesthood, and rather than helping you to

meditate they started creating rituals around the image of Buddha. Buddha became another God.

Adinatha disposed of God, Buddha never accepted that God exists, but this priesthood cannot exist

without a God. So there may not be a God who is a creator, but Buddha has reached godhood.

For others the only thing is to worship Buddha, to have faith in Buddha, to follow the principles of

Buddha, to live life according to his doctrine; and Buddha got lost in the organization, the imitation. But

they all forgot the basic thing, which was meditation. My whole effort is to create a religionless religion.

We have seen what happened to religions which have God as the center. We have seen what happenedto Adinatha's revolutionary concept, godless religion. We have seen what happened to Buddha --

organized religion without God.

Now my effort is -- just as they dissolved God -- dissolve religion also. Leave only meditation so it

cannot be forgotten in any way. There is nothing else to replace it. There is no God and there is no

religion. By religion I mean an organized doctrine, creed, ritual, priesthood. And for the first time I want

religion to be absolutely individual, because all organized religions, whether with God or without God,

have misled humanity. And the sole cause has been organization, because organization has its own

ways which go against meditativeness. Organization is really a political phenomenon, it is not religious.

It is another way of power and will to power.

Now every Christian priest hopes some day to become a bishop at least, to become a cardinal, to

become a pope. This is a new hierarchy, a new bureaucracy, and because it is spiritual nobody objects.

You may be a bishop, you may be a pope, you may be anything. It is not objectionable because you are

not going to obstruct anybody's life. It is just an abstract idea.

My effort is to destroy the priesthood completely. It remained with God, it remained with godless

religion, now the only way is that we should dispose of God andreligion both so that there is no

possibility of any priesthood.

Then man is absolutely free, totally responsible for his own growth. My feeling is that the more a man isresponsible for his own growth, the more difficult it is for him to postpone it for long. Because it means

if you are miserable, you are responsible. If you are tense, you are responsible. If you are not relaxed,

you are responsible. If you are in suffering, you are the cause of it. There is no God, there is no

priesthood that you can go to and ask for some ritual. You are left alone with your misery, and nobody

wants to be miserable.

The priests go on giving you opium, they go on giving you hope, "Don't be worried, it is just a test of

your faith, of your trust; and if you can pass through this misery and suffering silently and patiently, in

the other world beyond death you will be immensely rewarded." If there is no priesthood you have to

understand that whatever you are, you are responsible for it, nobody else.

And the feeling that "I am responsible for my misery opens the door. Then you start looking for


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methods and means to get out of this miserable state, and that's what meditation is. It is simply the

opposite state of misery, suffering, anguish, anxiety. It is a state of a peaceful, blissful flowering o

being, so silent and so timeless that you cannot conceive that anything better is possible. And there is

nothing which is better than the state of a meditative mind.

So you can say these are the three quantum leaps: Adinatha drops God because he finds God is

becoming too heavy on man; rather than helping him in his growth he has become a burden -- but he

forgets to replace him with something. Man will need something in his miserable moments, in his

suffering. He used to pray to God. You have taken God away, you have taken his prayer away and now

when he will be miserable, what will he do? In Jainism meditation has no place.

It is Buddha's insight to see that God has been dropped; now the gap should be filled, otherwise the gap

will destroy man. He puts in meditation -- something really authentic, which can change the whole

being. But he was not aware -- perhaps he could not be aware because there are things you cannot be

aware of unless they happen -- that there should be no organization, that there should be no

priesthood, that as God is gone religion should also be gone. But he can be forgiven because he had notthought about it and there was no past to help him to see it, it came after him.

The real problem is the priest, and God is the invention of the priest. Unless you drop the priest, you

can drop God, but the priest will always find new rituals, he will create new gods.

My effort is to leave you alone with meditation, with no mediator between you and existence. When you

are not in meditation you are separated from existence and that is your suffering. It's the same as when

you take a fish out of the ocean and throw it on the bank -- the misery and the suffering and the

tortures he goes through, the hankering and the effort to reach back to the ocean because it is where

he belongs. He is part of the ocean and he cannot remain apart.

Any suffering is simply indicative that you are not in communion with existence, that the fish is not in

the ocean.

Meditation is nothing but withdrawing all the barriers, thoughts, emotions, sentiments, which create a

wall between you and existence. The moment they drop you suddenly find yourself in tune with the

whole; not only in tune, you really find you are the whole.

When a dewdrop slips from a lotus leaf into the ocean it does not find that it is part of the ocean, it finds

it is the ocean. And to find it is the ultimate goal, the ultimate realization, there is nothing beyond it.

So Adinatha dropped God but did not drop organization. And because there was no God, the

organization created rituals.

Buddha, seeing what had happened to Jainism, that it had become a ritualism, dropped God. He

dropped all rituals and single-pointedly insisted on meditation, but he forgot that the priests who had

made rituals in Jainism are going to do the same with meditation. And they did it, they made Buddha

himself a God. They talk about meditation but basically Buddhists are worshipers of Buddha -- they go

to the temple and instead of Krishna or Christ there is Buddha's statue. There was no statue of Buddha

for five hundred years after Buddha. In Buddhist temples they had just the tree under which Buddha

became enlightened, engraved on marble, just a symbol. Buddha was not there, only the tree.

You will be surprised that the statue of Buddha that we see today has no resemblance at all to Buddha's


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personality, it resembles the personality of Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great came to India

three hundred years after Buddha. Till then there was no statue of Buddha. The priests were in search

because there was no photograph, there was no painting, so how to make a statue of Buddha? And

Alexander's face looked really superhuman, he had a beautiful personality, the Greek face and

physiology; they picked up the idea of Buddha's face and body from Alexander. So all the statues that

are being worshipped in Buddhist temples are statues of Alexander the Great, they have nothing to do

with Buddha. But the priests had to create the statue -- God was not there, ritual was difficult, around

meditation ritual was difficult. They created a statue and they started saying -- in the same way all

religions have been doing -- have faith in Buddha, have trust in Buddha, and you will be saved.

Both the revolutions were lost. I would like that what I am doing is not lost. So I am trying in every

possible way to drop all those things which in the past have been barriers for the revolution to continue

and grow. I don't want anybody to stand between the individual and existence. No prayer, no priest,

you alone are enough to face the sunrise, you don't need somebody to interpret for you what a beautiful

sunrise it is.

It is said that every morning Lao Tzu used to go for a walk in the hills. One friend asked him, "Can I

come with you one day? I would particularly like to come tomorrow, because I have a guest who is very

much interested in you, and he will be immensely glad to have the opportunity to be with you for two

hours in the mountains."

Lao Tzu said, "I have no objection, just one simple thing has to be remembered. I don't want anything

to be said because I have my eyes, you have your eyes, he has his eyes, we can see. There is no need

to say anything."

The friend agreed, but on the way when the sun started rising the guest forgot. It was so beautiful by

the side of the lake, the reflection of all the colors, the birds singing and the lotuses blossoming,

opening, he could not resist, he forgot. He said, "What a beautiful sunrise."

His host was shocked because he has broken the condition. Lao Tzu did not say anything, nothing was

said there. Back home he called his friend and told him, "Don't bring your guest again. He is too

talkative. The sunrise was there, I was there, he was there, you were there -- what is the need to say

anything, any comment, any interpretation?"

And this is my attitude: you are here, every individual is here, the whole existence is available. All that

you need is just to be silent and listen to existence. There is no need of any religion, there is no need o

any God, there is no need of any priesthood, there is no need of any organization.

I trust in the individual categorically. Nobody up to now has trusted in the individual in such a way.

So all things can be removed. Now all that has been left to you is a state of meditation, which simply

means a state of utter silence. The word meditation makes it look heavier. It is better to call it just a

simple, innocent silence and existence opens all its beauties to you.

And as it goes on growing you go on growing, and there comes a moment when you have reached the

very peak of your potentiality -- you can call it Buddhahood, enlightenment, bhagwatta, godliness,

whatever, it has no name, so any name will do.

Osho: The Last Testament, Volume 5, Chapter 16


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Creating a Conscious World

Osho: Om Shantih Shantih Shantih, Chapter 27

Osho,

The other day I heard you mention the idea of an academy for meditation, and an academy

for bringing the body into one, organic whole. Could you say more about this, and how you

see two such academies complementing each other?

Prem Anubuddha, it is one of the most complicated questions. It does not appear to be so

because you are not aware that for centuries man has been told all kinds of life-negative

things. Even to torture your body has been a spiritual discipline.

My idea of having an academy is for science to become for the first time intentional and not

accidental. Up to now science has been accidental. People have stumbled upon some

discoveries, inventions. Even discoveries were made for which they were not looking, but just

groping in the dark with no sense of direction. And obviously the politicians of the world --who liked more and more destructive power in their hands -- immediately got the idea to

enslave scientists. Now every scientist is a slave to some nation, to some government and he

functions only for purposes which are anti-life, destructive. The more destructive things he

can find, the more he is praised by the governments, the more he is awarded.

My idea of an academy is of creative science which will consciously avoid anything that

destroys life and will seek and search only for that which enhances life. This academy cannot

be only of science because science is only a part of human reality. The academy has to be

comprehensive, it has to be for creativity, for art, for consciousness; hence it will have three

divisions, major divisions, not separated, but just for arbitrary purposes to be denominated

as separate.

. The most fundamental thing will be creating methods, techniques, ways of raising human

consciousness, and certainly, this consciousness cannot be against the body; this

consciousness is residing in the body. They cannot be seen as inimical to each other; in every

way, they are supportive. I say something to you and my hand makes a gesture without my

telling the hand. There is a deep synchronicity between me and my hand. You walk, you eat,

you drink and all these things indicate that you are a body and consciousness as an organic

whole. You cannot torture the body and raise your consciousness.

The body has to be loved -- you have to be a great friend.

It is your home, you have to clean it of all junk, and you have to remember that it is in your

service continuously, day in, day out. Even when you are asleep, your body is continuously

working for you digesting, changing your food into blood, taking out the dead cells from the

body, bringing new oxygen, fresh oxygen into the body -- and you are fast asleep! It is doing

everything for your survival, for your life, although you are so ungrateful that you have never

even thanked your body. On the contrary, your religions have been teaching you to torture it:

the body is your enemy and you have to get free from the body, its attachments.

I also know that you are more than the body and there is no need to have any attachment.

But love is not an attachment, compassion is not an attachment. Love and compassion are

absolutely needed for your body and its nourishment. And the better body you have, the more


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is the possibility for growing consciousness. It is an organic unity.

A totally new kind of education is needed in the world where fundamentally everybody is

introduced into the silences of the heart -- in other words into meditations -- where

everybody has to be prepared to be compassionate to one's own body. Because unless you

are compassionate to your own body, you cannot be compassionate to any other body. It is a

living organism, and it has done no harm to you. It has been continuously in service since you

were conceived and will be till your death. It will do everything that you would like to do,

even the impossible, and it will not be disobedient to you. It is inconceivable to create such a

mechanism which is so obedient and so wise.

If you become aware of all the functions of your body, you will be surprised. You have never

thought what your body has been doing. It is so miraculous, so mysterious. But you have

never looked into it. You have never bothered to be acquainted with your own body and you

retend to love other people. You cannot, because those other people also appear to you as

bodies. The body is the greatest mystery in the whole of existence. This mystery needs to beloved -- its mysteries, its functionings to be intimately inquired into.

The religions have unfortunately been absolutely against the body. But it gives a clue, a

definite indication that if a man learns the wisdom of the body and the mystery of the body,

he will never bother about the priest or about God. He will have found the most mysterious

within himself, and within the mystery of the body is the very shrine of your consciousness.

Once you have become aware of your consciousness, of your being, there is no God above

you. Only such a person can be respectful for other human beings, other living beings,

because they all are as mysterious as he himself is, different expressions, varieties which

make life richer. And once a man has found consciousness in himself, he has found the key to

the ultimate.

Any education that does not teach you to love your body, does not teach you to be

compassionate to your body, does not teach you how to enter into its mysteries, will not be

able to teach you how to enter into your own consciousness. The body is the door -- the body

is the stepping stone. And any education that does not touch the subject of your body and

consciousness is not only absolutely incomplete, it is utterly harmful because it will go on

being destructive.

It is only the flowering of consciousness within you that prevents you from destruction.

And that gives you a tremendous urge to create -- to create more beauty in the world, to

create more comfort in the world. That's why I include art as the second part of the academy.

Art is a conscious effort to create beauty, to discover beauty, to make your life more joyful, to

teach you to dance, to celebrate. And the third part is a creative science.

Art can create beauty, science can discover objective truth, and consciousness can discover

subjective reality. These three together can make any system of education complete. All else

is secondary, may be useful for mundane purposes, but it is not useful for spiritual growth, it

is not useful to bring you to the sources of joy, love, peace, silence. And a man who has not

experienced the inner ecstasy has lived in vain unnecessarily. He vegetated, he dragged

himself from the womb to the grave but he could not dance and he could not sing and he


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could not contribute anything to the world.

According to me a religious person is one who contributes to the world some beauty, some

oy, some happiness, some celebration which was not there -- something new, something

fresh, some more flowers. But religion has never been defined the way I am defining it.

All the ways religion has been defined have been proved absolutely ugly and wrong.

But they have not helped humanity to rise to the heights of joy and beauty and love. They

have drowned the whole humanity in misery and suffering, they have not taught you

freedom. On the contrary, they have enforced on you all kinds of slavery in the name of

obedience. Obedience to whom? Obedience to the priests, obedience to those who have

money, obedience to those who have power -- in short, obedience to all the vested interests.

A small minority has been enslaving the whole humanity for centuries. Only a right education

can transform this ugly and sick situation.

My idea of a World Academy of Creative Science, Art and Consciousness is really in other

words my vision of a real religion. Man needs a better body, a healthier body. Man needs a

more conscious, alert being. Man needs all kinds of comforts and luxuries that existence is

ready to deliver.

Existence is ready to give you paradise herenow, but you go on postponing it -- it is always

after death.

In Sri Lanka one great mystic was dying... He was worshipped by thousands of people. They

gathered around him. He opened his eyes: just a few more breaths would he take on the

shore and he would be gone, and gone forever.

Everybody was eager to listen to his last words. The old man said, "I have been teaching you

for my whole life about blissfulness, ecstasy, meditativeness. Now I am going to the other

shore. I will not be available anymore. You have listened to me, but you have never practiced

what I have been telling you. You have always been postponing. But now there is no point in

ostponing, I am going. Is anyone ready to go with me?"

There was a great pindrop silence. People looked at each other thinking that perhaps this

man who had been a disciple for forty years ... HE may be ready.... But he was looking at the

others -- nobody was standing up.

ust from the very back a man raised his hand. The great mystic thought, "At least, one

erson is courageous enough."But that man said, "Please let me make it clear to you why I am not standing up. I have only

raised my hand. I want to know how to reach to the other shore, because today of course I

am not ready. There are many things which are incomplete: a guest has come, my young son

is getting married, and this day I cannot go -- and you say from the other shore, you cannot

come back.

"Some day, one day certainly, I will come and meet you. If you can just explain to us once

more -- although you have been explaining to us for your whole life -- just once more how to

reach the other shore? But please keep in mind that I am not ready to go right now. I just

want to refresh my memory so that when the right time comes..."

That right time never comes.


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It is not a story only about that poor man, it is the story of millions of people, of almost all.

They are all waiting for the right moment, the right constellation of stars... They are

consulting astrology, going to the palmist... inquiring in different ways what is going to

happen tomorrow.

Tomorrow does not happen -- it never has happened. It is simply a stupid strategy of

ostponement. What happens is always today.

A right kind of education will teach people to live herenow, to create a paradise of this earth,

not to wait for death to come, and not to wait for death to come, and not to be miserable till

death stops your misery.

Let death find you dancing and joyous and loving. It is a strange experience that if a man can

live his life as if he is already in paradise, death cannot take away anything from that man's

experience.

My approach is to teach you that this is the paradise, there is no paradise anywhere else, and

no preparation is needed to be happy. No discipline is needed to be loving; just a little

alertness, just a little wakefulness, just a little understanding. And if education cannot give

you this little understanding, it is not education.

My conception of a world academy means that the whole world should have the same

education of meditation, of art, of creative science.

If we can create a sane educational system around the world, then the divisions of religion

and the discrimination between white and black and nations, the ugly politics that exists

because of them, and the stupid behavior of men preparing continuously for war...

Whenever I see a soldier I cannot believe that this man has a mind at all. Even animals don't

become soldiers. But man seems to have only one interest: how to kill, how to kill more

efficiently, how to go on refining instruments for killing.

A right education will teach you how to find your own song and how to learn the dance and

not be shy; how to celebrate the small things of life and make this whole planet alive. It is

only one, as far as we know, where people can love, where people can meditate, where

eople can become buddhas, where people like Socrates and Lao Tzu can exist.

We are most fortunate to be on this small planet. It is one of the smallest planets in the

universe, but even the greatest stars, millions of times bigger than this earth, cannot claim a

single Albert Einstein or a Jesus or a Yehudi Menuhin. It is strange that in this vast universe

existence has been successful only on this small planet to create a little consciousness, a

little life. Now it is in our hands to grow from this small beginning into the infinite heights

which are our potential and which are our birthright.

Up to now education has not been in the right direction. It has been torturing people

unnecessarily with history, with geography. If somebody is interested, these subjects should

be available. If somebody is interested to know about Constantinople, then let him know. And

if somebody is interested to know about Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, let him know. But there is

no need to teach people compulsorily all the nonsense and garbage that has happened in the


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ast. That is so stupid and so unbelievable. To teach people that there have been persons like

Genghis Khan and Nadirshah and Tamerlane and Alexander the Great is to teach people about

the wrong side of their being.

I have been fighting in the universities, "Why don't you teach about Socrates? Why don't you

teach about Chuang Tzu? Why don't you teach about Bodhidharma...?" These are the right

side of consciousness.

And teaching about the wrong kind of people gives you an idea that it is perfectly good if you

are wrong. If you are going slowly to be a Genghis Khan it is perfectly right. You are not

doing something new, man has always been doing this.

We have to sort out history, cut out all those wrong people and protect our children

from being conditioned that man has been involved in nothing but war, fighting, competition,

greed. We should teach our children not what has been but what can be -- not the past, butthe future. Why waste so much time on teaching subjects which are of no significance in

actual existential life and not give them a single direction about the art of love, the art of life,

the meaning of existence, preparation for death with joy, silence and meditativeness. All that

is essential is missing, and that which is non-essential and absolutely stupid is being forced.

They say history repeats. History does not repeat. It is our stupidity that we go on and on

teaching the same thing to each generation. The poor children are conditioned to imitate the

same great heroes who were really criminals, not heroes. Just a single man, Genghis Khan,

killed forty million people. It is better to drop all information about these people from

education. Give an education about the dance of a Shiva, the flute of Krishna. Teach them all

that has been beautiful and good so that they become accustomed that all that is good is

natural, and the bad is accidental -- that the bad does not happen, has never happened, and

the good is absolutely normal.

To be a buddha is not something abnormal. It should be taught to every child that to be a

buddha is a normal phenomenon. Anybody who is wise enough is going to become a buddha.

You are going to become a buddha.

The greatest revolution has to happen in education and its systems; otherwise, man will go

on repeating history.

Now time for silence and time for laughter....

Hymie Goldberg comes home from work one evening and Becky says, "Did you go to the store

and pick up the snapshots, like I asked you? You probably did not! You never listen to me!

You never remember anything! Oh! You did get them. Well, thank goodness for miracles. Let

me see them! This shot is terrible and this one is even worse. My God! This one is horrible

and this one is a disaster. In fact, this is the worst lot of photographs I have ever seen in my

life.

"You can't do anything right! You can't drive a car properly! You can't even change a fuse.

You can't sing in tune, and as a photographer, you are the worst!

"Just take a look at these pictures: in every one you took of me, I have my mouth open!"


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A reformed prostitute is giving testimony on a street corner with the Salvation Army. She

unctuates her talk by beating on a big drum.

"I used to be a sinner!" she shouts.

BOOM! goes the drum.

"I used to be a bad woman!" she cries.

BOOM!

"I used to drink!"

BOOM!

"Gamble!"

BOOM!

"Chase men!"

BOOM! BOOM!

"I used to go wild on Saturday nights and raise hell!"

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

"And now what do I do on Saturday nights?" she cries.

"I stand on the street corner beating this fucking drum!"

Osho: Om Shantih Shantih Shantih, Chapter 27

Zorba the Buddha - the Ultimate Synthesis

Osho: Sermons in Stones, Chapter 1

Osho,

Many contemporaries and enlightened ones -- Raman Maharshi, Meher Baba, George Gurdjieff

and J. Krishnamurti -- have worked with people, but people get more offended by you than by

anybody else. Osho, where does your technique differ from that of other enlightened ones?

The question is very fundamental. It arises in many people's minds, and it needs a very deep insight

into the workings of different masters.

We will take each of the masters named in the question separately.

RAMAN MAHARSHI is a mystic of the highest quality, but a master of the lowest quality. And you have

to understand that to be a mystic is one thing; to be a master is totally different.

Out of a thousand mystics, perhaps one is a master. Nine hundred and ninety-nine decide to remain

silent -- seeing the difficulty, that whatever they have realized is impossible to convey in any possible

way to others; seeing that not only is it difficult to convey, it is bound to be misunderstood too.

Naturally, one who has arrived to the ultimate peak of consciousness will most probably decide not to

bother with the world anymore. He has suffered for hundreds of lives living with these miserable people,

living with all kinds of misunderstandings, groping in the dark and finding nothing. And these blind

people who have never seen the light all believe they know what light is.

From ancient days, a philosopher has been defined as a man who is blind, in a house that is completely


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dark, searching for a black cat which is not there.

And the search goes on....

After a long, long, tedious journey, someone has come to the sunlit peak of relaxation, for the first time

is at ease with existence, and decides not to get involved with all kinds of blind people, prejudiced

people, deaf people who are going to misunderstand you

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