Live in the moment

Live in the moment……

“ Your mind is flooded: first, with outward reactions and reflections which are natural; second, by subconscious thoughts which have been produced by the society; and third, by instinctive nature which has been suppressed totally. These three constantly flood the mind. And because of these you are constantly wavering – constantly wavering and trembling. You cannot even sleep. 

Dreams will continue; that means mind will continue wavering. Twenty-four hours a day, the mind is just a mad thing going round and round and round.

In this state of affairs, how can you be still? How can you attain the posture, the non-wavering mind? How can you achieve it? And when the rishi says that non-wavering knowing is the posture – the right posture – he means that unless these layers are broken and the contents released, you will never be in a state of pure knowing. The mind will not be cleansed; you will not attain the purity of perception. So what to do? What to do to achieve this non-wavering knowing?

Three things: one, whenever you are living moment-to-moment, don’t allow your subconscious to interfere constantly. Sometimes, just drop the subconscious and live in the moment. It is not needed…”
~OSHO~ :
The Ultimate Alchemy, Vol 1. Talks on the Atma Pooja Upanishad. CHAPTER 5. A STILL MIND: THE DOOR TO THE DIVINE.


“ The most characteristic feature of a modern man is the absence of unity in him and, further,
the absence in him of even traces of those properties which he most likes to ascribe to himself,
that is, 'lucid consciousness,' 'free will,' a 'permanent ego or I,' and the 'ability to do.'
It may surprise you if I say that the chief feature of a modern man's being ,
which explains everything else that is lacking in him ,
is , SLEEP. “
G. I. Gurdjieff

Osho's perspectives on milk

Osho's perspectives on milk

May 8, 2013 at 9:40am

It is rare to find a spiritual teacher wise and bold enough to challenge our fond assumptions about the goodness of milk. Osho rises to the occasion and shares from the heart...

Osho - When you are eating delicious food, with spices and all kinds of things, made to be tasty, perfumed, you are losing something that you don't know. You are destroying your taste buds. They are not meant for such strong things; they are very small, and very delicate.

I discovered the real taste of things only when I started following Devaraj's recipes. He has changed my dining room into a hospital. But I love it. Now you can put me into any hospital and they will not be able to do any harm to me.

Three vegetables, almost the same; four slices of bread just toasted and without any butter; and a cup of Indian sauce, chutney -- that's all. But in my whole life I have never been so satisfied with my food as I am now. In India there are thousands of kinds of food Perhaps there is no other country which has so many different varieties of food: each province has its own varieties. I have moved all over India, and I have eaten all kinds of foods. Every state has its own tremendous findings -- perhaps it has taken thousands of years for them to develop certain delicacies -- but all their food, howsoever tasty, is not good, healthwise.

My weight was good so I used to look very healthy. But I discovered it only late, that just to look healthy s not health. Now I am healthy -- but my mother comes, and she says every time she comes.... I remind her, "You have told this to me every time you have come:'What have you done to your health?"' and she thinks that I am wearing this long and loose robe just to deceive her.
I say, "I am not trying to deceive."

She says, "But I can see your hands on the video. You may be able to deceive others but you cannot deceive me. I have seen you from your very child]hood, and you had such a beautiful body." And I can see tears coming into her eyes looking at my food. And don't allow her... because she has been trying persistently for years to bring something, just a little.

I say, "No, nothing doing. My doctor does not allow it. I can take only what he prescribes, I cannot take anything else." But again and again -- and I know why, because she saw me in 1960 when I was one hundred and ninety pounds, and I had a body.... Just yesterday I was talking of Mahavira; I could have competed with Mahavira without any difficulty.

Actually, people used to say that my body... because I used to sit almost half-naked. Just a small wraparound lungi, even in winter, in the coldest places, even in New Delhi. My host in New Delhi used to say, "You are the only person I have seen in New Delhi who is sitting in just a wraparound lungi, with half the body naked and the fan on full. How do you manage it?"

People used to say that my body looked as if cut out of marble. It used to look like that because I was exercising so much: eight miles in the morning I was going for a walk, eight miles in the evening -- at least for twenty years, sixteen miles per day. If you add it all up I think it will come to nearabout three times around the earth or more.

I have hated milk from my very childhood, but because everybody loved my body, and my family insisted that without milk you cannot remain the way you are, I had been drinking milk against my will. That is the only thing in my life that I have done against my will. And the only way I could manage it was to stop breathing and take the whole glass in a single gulp so that I didn't smell it, because I can't stand it. I have tried all kinds of milks, but I can't stand the smell.

My feeling has been always -- and I told my family" -- Jainas should stop using all milk products because milk is just like meat. It is not vegetarian, it is animal food; and it has a double violence in it. From where does the milk come? It is the mother's mechanism, biological mechanism, that transforms her blood into milk. You are really drinking white blood."

My grandmother used to close her ears, "Don't say such words because then I will not be able to drink it. I will remember'white blood.' Never do such things to an old woman like me."

Now, Jainas cannot live without milk because that is their only vital food ingredient; otherwise, everything is just vegetable. So they eat all kinds of milk products -- butter, ghee, curd -- and all kinds of sweets made of milk. But I had a strong feeling from the very beginning that this was just blood. That's why it increases your blood so quickly, and that's why the child needs only milk; that's enough, that is all his food. The mother's milk provides the child all necessary food; nothing else is needed -- and those are the days of its growth. So milk is a whole food.

On the one hand I had a strong hatred for milk because it is non-vegetarian; secondly, you are depriving the child of the cow or the buffalo. That milk is not for you. The cow has her own kids, and the milk has come to her breasts for those kids, not for you.

You will be surprised that in a country like India which pretends to be non-violent, they kill the cow's kids because the cow will give milk first to the kids; otherwise she will try and kick you and your bucket and.... Naturally the mother wants her child to be taken care of first. Who are you? Sitting on a small stool with a bucket and trying to milk the cow -- who are you? And the milk is not meant for you.

The cow has no way to know that you have purchased her. She does not understand money and t purchasing or anything, but she understands one thing, that her own child is standing there deprived. So what do the Indians do? -- they kill the child, stuff it, and keep the dead stuffed child close to the cow's breasts so she goes on believing that the kid is there. The kid is dead, it is stuffed -- all his bones and everything have been taken out -- just to deceive the cow.

And these people believe that they are religious people, non-violent, believing in truth. They are even deceiving a poor cow. And the cow they call "mother cow"; in India the cow is worshipped like a mother. But what strange people: you worship your mother and you kill your brother? And particularly if the child is a male child, then certainly he has to be killed. If it is a female child then she is going to become a cow, so somehow she has to be preserved, but a male child can be killed. But if the cow is your mother, then the bull is bound to be your father, and you are committing patricide! -- killing bulls. And the purpose of this is just to deceive their "mother," whom they worship, for whom they create great political movements. They create riots if somebody kills a cow and continually they are asking the government to stop cow slaughter absolutely.

And what they go on doing is so ugly you cannot believe it. When I saw it for the first time in Calcutta, it was the worst thing I had ever seen. Hindus who call the cow the mother, and who are ready to be killed or to kill anybody to save the mother, do something which everybody in the world has to understand to appreciate how people can be hypocrites. They push a bamboo stick into the cow's vagina when they are milking her. Pushing this bamboo stick in her vagina forces her to give more milk, almost double the quantity. These people call the cow mother and are fighting for her so that cow slaughter should be stopped -- and this is what they are doing to their mother: pushing a bamboo in her vagina just to get the double quantity of milk.

When first I saw it with my own eyes, it became even difficult for me to drink milk with open eyes. But Devaraj has been of great help. He has dropped all milk products -- milk, butter, ghee, everything -- from my food, and I feel really clean. Of course, I have lost weight, but what purpose is weight? I don't look cut out of marble but there is no need to look cut out of marble -- there are enough marble statues.

For the first time in my life I am feeling at ease with food. In India it was impossible because everybody was harassing me: "If you drop milk then there is nothing in the food. If you drop curd then there is nothing in the food. If you don't take butter then you will lose weight." But that weight was causing me all kinds of difficulties. Right now all of my difficulties have disappeared.

My breathing is no longer a trouble, and as my weight has been coming down my back has been getting better. Strangely, since the weight has come below one hundred and thirty pounds, my back is absolutely right. There is no strain at all; otherwise once in a while I used to feel the strain in a certain position. Now in no position am I feeling the strain.

And in my eating the same food every day my taste buds have discovered their sensitivity. I am tasting more than I have ever tasted, although there is nothing much to taste; but whatsoever there is, is immensely gratifying. I would like you to understand it -- that all spices are deceivers. They are strong enough to force the buds to feel their presence, but the stronger the spices, the duller become your taste buds. When there are no spices, then your taste buds come to their natural sensitivity.

Now, these are two different things: having something delicious because it is in the food, and enjoying something delicious because your taste buds are more alive and more sensitive. The second should be the case. That is why it is so difficult for anybody to understand what I can be excited about. I am excited about my taste buds, not the food. Food has lost meaning; a new meaning has arisen. And I feel that this should be the approach, the right approach. Then just boiled vegetables are so delicious, just bread without butter is so sweet, that one cannot imagine; one can only experience it.

Source - Osho Book "From Personality to Individuality"

~~~

NOTE: One of the most popular misconceptions of modern times is that cow's milk and all its derivatives like curd, cheese, ghee etc are good for us. To learn more about the effects of cow's milk on the human body I recommend the book "Milk: A Silent Killer" by N.K. Sharma or "Diet for a New America" by John Robbins. (John Robbins was heir to the billion dollar Baskin Robbins ice-cream empire, but turned it all down to tell us about the dangers of consuming dairy and animal products, an amazing book)

What is Meditation?

What is Meditation?

Meditation is a simple process

Of watching your own mind.

Not fighting with the mind

Not trying to control it either

Just remaining there, a choiceless witness.

Whatsoever passes you simply take note of it With no prejudice for or against.

You don't call it names

That this should not come to my mind

That this is an ugly thought and

This is a very beautiful and virtuous thought.

You should not judge

You should remain non-judgmental

Because the moment you judge, you lose meditation.

You become identified.

Either you become a friend or you become a foe.

You create relationships.

Meditation means

Remaining unrelated with your thought process Utterly unrelated, cool, calm Watching whatsoever is passing.

And then a miracle happens:

Slowly slowly one becomes aware

That less and less thoughts are passing.

The more alert you are, the less thoughts pass The less alert you are, the more thoughts pass.

It is as if traffic depends on your awareness.

When you are perfectly aware

Even for a single moment, all thinking stops.

Immediately, there is a sudden stop

And the road is empty, there is no traffic.

That moment is meditation.

Slowly slowly those moments come more and more Those empty spaces come again and again And stay longer.

And you become capable of moving easily

Into those empty spaces with no effort.

So whenever you want you can move

Into those empty spaces with no effort.

They are refreshing, rejuvenating

And they make you aware of who you are.

Freed from the mind you are freed

From all ideas about yourself.

Now you can see who you are without any prejudice.

And to know oneself

Is to know all that is worth knowing.

And to miss self-knowledge is to miss all.

A man my know everything in the world

But if he does not know himself

He is utterly ignorant

He is just a walking Encyclopedia Britannica.

Freedom without awareness is only an empty idea.

It contains nothing.

One cannot be really free without being aware Because your unconscious goes on dominating you Your unconscious goes on pulling your strings.

You may think, you may believe that you are free But you are not free, you are just a victim Of natural forces, blind forces.

So there are two types of people. The majority Follows the tradition, the society, the state.

The orthodox people, the conventional

The conformists – they follow the crowd

They are not free.

And then there are a few rebellious spirits Drop-outs, bohemians, artists Painters, musicians, poets; They think they are living in freedom But they only think. Just by rebellion Against the tradition you don't become free.

You are still under the rule of natural instincts.

You are possessed by lust, by greed, by ambitions.

And you are not a master of these things You are a slave. Hence I say Freedom is only possible through awareness.

Unless one transforms ones unconsciousness Into consciousness there is no freedom.

And that is where only very few people

Have succeeded – a Jesus, a Lao Tzu

A Zarathustra, a Buddha

Just a few people

Who can be counted on one's fingers.

They have really lived in freedom

Because they lived out of awareness.

That has to be the work for every seeker:

To create more and more awareness.

Then freedom comes of its own accord.

Freedom is the fragrance of the flower of awareness.

BEING A VEGETARIAN AND MEDITATION….

BEING A VEGETARIAN AND MEDITATION….

“ Man, naturally, should be a vegetarian, because the whole body is made for vegetarian food. Even scientists concede to the fact that the whole structure of the human body shows that man should not be a non-vegetarian. Man comes from the monkeys. Monkeys are vegetarians, absolute vegetarians. If Darwin is true then man should be a vegetarian.

Now there are ways to judge whether a certain species of animal is vegetarian or non-vegetarian: it depends on the intestine, the length of the intestine. Non-vegetarian animals have a very small intestine. Tigers, lions – they have a very small intestine, because meat is already a digested food. It does not need a long intestine to digest it. The work of digestion has been done by the animal. Now you are eating the animal’s meat. It is already digested – no long intestine is needed. Man has one of the longest intestines: that means man is a vegetarian. A long digestion is needed, and much excreta will be there which has to be thrown out.

If man is not a non-vegetarian and he goes on eating meat, the body is burdened. In the East, all the great meditators – Buddha, Mahavir – have emphasized the fact. Not because of any concept of nonviolence – that is a secondary thing – but because if you really want to move in deep meditation your body needs to be weightless, natural, flowing. Your body needs to be unloaded; and a non-vegetarian’s body is very loaded.

Just watch what happens when you eat meat: when you kill an animal what happens to the animal when he is killed? Of course, nobody wants to be killed. Life wants to prolong itself; the animal is not dying willingly. If somebody kills you, you will not die willingly. If a lion jumps on you and kills you, what will happen to your mind? The same happens when you kill a lion. Agony, fear, death, anguish, anxiety, anger, violence, sadness – all these things happen to the animal. All over his body violence, anguish, agony spreads. The whole body becomes full of toxins, poisons. All the body glands release poisons because the animal is dying very unwillingly. And then you eat the meat; that meat carries all the poisons that the animal has released. The whole energy is poisonous. Then those poisons are carried in your body.

That meat which you are eating belonged to an animal body. It had a specific purpose there. A specific type of consciousness existed in the animal’s body. You are on a higher plane than the animal’s consciousness, and when you eat the animal’s meat your body goes to the lowest plane, to the lower plane of the animal. Then there exists a gap between your consciousness and your body, and a tension arises and anxiety arises.

One should eat things which are natural, natural for you. Fruits, nuts, vegetables – eat as much as you can. The beauty is that you cannot eat more of these things than is needed. Whatsoever is natural always gives you a satisfaction, because it satiates your body, saturates you. You feel fulfilled. If some thing is unnatural it never gives you a feeling of fulfillment. Go on eating ice cream: you never feel that you are satiated. In fact the more you eat, the more you feel like eating. It is not a food. Your mind is being tricked. Now you are not eating according to the body need; you are eating just to taste it. The tongue has become the controller.

The tongue should not be the controller. It does not know anything about the stomach. It does not know anything about the body. The tongue has a specific purpose to fulfill: to taste food. Naturally, the tongue has to judge, that is the only thing, which food is for the body, for my body and which food is not for my body. It is just a watchman on the door; it is not the master, and if the watchman on the door becomes the master, then everything will be confused.
Now advertisers know well that the tongue can be tricked, the nose can be tricked. And they are not the masters. You may not be aware: much food research goes on in the world, and they say if your nose is closed completely, and your eyes closed, and then you are given an onion to eat, you cannot tell what you are eating. You cannot tell onion from apple if the nose is closed completely because half of the taste comes from the smell, is decided by the nose, and half is decided by the tongue. These two have become the controllers. Now they know: whether ice cream is nutritious or not is not the point. It can carry a flavour, it can carry some chemicals which fulfil the tongue but are not needed for the body.

Man is confused, more confused than buffaloes. You cannot convince buffaloes to eat ice cream. Try!

A natural food...and when I say natural I mean that which your body needs. The need of a tiger is different; he has to be very violent. If you eat the meat of a tiger you will be violent, but where will your violence be expressed? You have to live in human society, not in a jungle. Then you will have to suppress the violence. Then a vicious circle starts.
When you suppress violence, what happens? When you feel angry, violent, a certain poisonous energy is released, because that poison creates a situation where you can be really violent and kill somebody. The energy moves towards your hands; the energy moves towards your teeth. These are the two places from where animals become violent. Man is part of the animal kingdom.

When you are angry, energy is released – it comes to the hands and to the teeth, to the jaw – but you live in a human society and it is not always profitable to be angry. You live in a civilized world and you cannot behave like an animal. If you behave like an animal, you will have to pay too much for it – and you are not ready to pay that much. Then what do you do? You suppress the anger in the hand; you suppress the anger in your teeth – you go on smiling a false smile, and your teeth go on accumulating anger.

I have rarely come to see people with a natural jaw. It is not natural – blocked, stiff – because there is too much anger. If you press the jaw of a person, the anger can be released. Hands become ugly. They lose grace, they lose flexibility, because too much anger is suppressed there. People who have been working on deep massage, they have come to know that when you touch the hands deeply, massage the hands, the person starts becoming angry. There is no reason. You are massaging the man and suddenly he starts feeling angry. If you press the jaw, persons become angry again. They carry accumulated anger. These are the impurities in the body: they have to be released. If you don’t release them the body will remain heavy. “
OSHO
The Essence of Yoga, Talk #5

Three steps of awareness

“ There are three steps of awareness.

First, become aware of your body -- walking, chopping wood or carrying water from the well. Be watchful, be alert, aware, conscious. Don't go on doing things like a zombie, like a somnambulist, a sleepwalker.

When you have become aware of your body and its actions, then move deeper -- to your mind and its activity, thoughts, imagination, projections. 

When you have become deeply aware of the mind, you will be surprised. 

When you become aware of your bodily processes, you will be surprised there too. 

I can move my hand mechanically, I can move it with full awareness. When I move it with full awareness, there is grace, there is beauty. 

I can speak without awareness. There are orators, speakers.... I don't know any oratory; I have never learned the art of speaking, because to me it looks foolish. If I have something to say, that is enough. 

But I am speaking to you with full awareness, each word, each pause... I am not an orator, not a speaker. But when you are aware of speaking, it starts becoming art. It takes on the nuances of poetry and music..........

When you become aware of the mind, you are in for a greater surprise. The more you become aware, the less thoughts move on the track. 

If you have one hundred percent thoughts, there is no awareness. If you have one percent awareness, there are only ninety-nine percent thoughts -- in exact proportion.

When you have ninety-nine percent awareness, there is only one percent thought, because it is the same energy. As you become more aware there is no energy available for thoughts; they die out. 

When you are one hundred percent aware, the mind becomes absolutely silent. That is the time to move still deeper.

The third step: to become aware of feelings, moods, emotions. 

In other words, first the body -- its action; second, the mind -- its activity; third, the heart and its functions. 

When you move to the heart and bring your awareness there, again a new surprise. All that is good grows, and all that is bad starts disappearing. Love grows, hate disappears. Compassion grows, anger disappears. Sharing grows, greed disappears. 

When your awareness of the heart is complete, the last surprise, and the greatest surprise: you don't have to take any step. 

A quantum leap happens on its own accord. From the heart, you suddenly find yourself in your being, at the very center. 

There you are aware only of awareness, conscious only of consciousness. There is nothing else to be aware of, or to be conscious of. And this is the ultimate purity. This is what I call enlightenment.

And this is your birth right ! If you miss, only you are responsible. You cannot dump the responsibility on anybody else. 

And it is so simple and natural, that you just have to begin. Only the first step is difficult. The whole journey is simple. There is a saying that the first step is almost the whole journey. 

Okay? “
OSHO
Book - From Bondage To Freedom Chapter # 3 Chapter Name - Learn From This Experience
♡♪♫*¨*•.¸¸ ॐ

“Be conscious of the Truth, the center of consciousness, and perform your actions selflessly with non-attachment. 

No matter where you are—in your office, in the kitchen, in the shopping center, or in the midst of a crowd—meditation in action can be practiced. 

Learn not to forget the center of consciousness within you. Do not allow your mind to be scattered, and whatever you do, do it with full attention. 

Beneath all your deeds there should be awareness of the center of consciousness within.” 

—Swami Rama, Perennial Psychology of the Bhagavad Gita
♡♪♫*¨*•.¸¸ ॐ

Be aware of the second, vital body also

( PRANA ) ….be aware of the second, vital body also…

“ Remember this, remember this continuously: avoid all that which destroys your vital body. And much IS destructive. In a cinema hall it is not only the film which destroys you; rather, deeply, the film is relevant, but the whole crowd destroys you more. 

And it is a particular crowd – it is not just a crowd, it is a particular crowd – with a particular type of mind, with particular stone bodies. They destroy you more.

It is not the film really, the film cannot destroy you so much, but the crowd around you.... And continually for three hours, they are in a very rapt attentive mood – it is very dangerous because you become vulnerable.

For three hours continually, without blinking the eyes you are vulnerable! Anything can penetrate you, and all around, just bad vibrations – they go inside.

When you are out of a cinema hall, you have a very much lessened vital body, coming out from a temple, you have something plus. So be aware, not only of the physical body and its purification, be aware of the second, vital body also… “

OSHO :
That Art Thou. ( SARVASAR UPANISHAD ) CHAPTER 6..


“ Pain is inevitable. Suffering can be avoided by awareness . “
BUDDHA

Meditation is not a method (Tremendous)

Osho meets with followers of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi


In 1969 followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi invited Osho to talk to them. This was the first occasion on which Osho addressed a western audience, and the first time he talked publicly at length in English. The discourse has been published in Osho Times International on January 1 & 16, 1991; and February 1, 1991.

OSHO: Really, there can be no method as far as meditation is concerned. Meditation is not a method. Through technique, through method, you cannot go beyond mind. When you leave all methods, all techniques, you transcend mind. So meditation itself is not a method. Truth cannot be achieved through method.

Method is our own invention. We, who are ignorant, have achieved knowledge through methods constructed, created, projected, in our ignorance. Through method you can achieve a sort of self-hypnosis, a sort of auto-hypnosis. Any method, whatsoever its name, can only give you an illusory kind of peace. 

Through method you cannot go beyond yourself, because the method is yours, and it will strengthen you, your ego, your state of mind. If you leave all methods and all paths, and all ways, and remain in a total vacuum, doing nothing, thinking nothing – only then what we call meditation can be achieved.

But if you are following some method, some path, some guru, then you are going nowhere…

(Many people laugh loudly in disbelief)…. because it cannot lead you anywhere. It can only lead you into an illusory state of auto-hypnosis.

QUESTION: Since the material aspect of life is governed by physical application of the essence of life, it would seem that without any method at all that there would be no result since we must go from the physical to the non-physical.

So my question is: There must be some mechanical process involved, there must be, even if it is only working on a level, you know?

OSHO: No there cannot be any mechanical process, because through any mechanical process you cannot achieve consciousness. A mechanical process itself leads to unconscious states of mind, because a mechanical process itself is unconscious. If you are thinking in terms of seeking a state of awareness it cannot be achieved through any mechanical process. A mechanical process makes you a machine, not a man. The more you become mechanical, the more technical, the more like a machine, you lose consciousness. You can achieve some unconscious states of mind, but you cannot achieve awareness. Awareness is not an achievement through mechanical process.

And you make the distinction between the physical and the spiritual – there is no such distinction. There is nothing like physical and nothing like spiritual. There is one thing: when it is seen it is material, when it is unseen it is spiritual. And there is no going beyond the physical because there are not two things; there is not a gap between the material and the spiritual. The whole is one.

So don’t think in terms of material and spiritual. That is the old nonsense, the very old nonsense. People have made a gulf in the human mind, divided the human mind into parts – physical, spiritual, mental. There are no such divisions.

QUESTION: You say that there is no technique to achieve the consciousness of being. Then, one shouldn’t do anything. Right?

OSHO: That is very arduous. You may think that this is the simplest thing, not to do anything. That is the most difficult thing – not to do anything…. because our mind through old habits, and through old patterns, needs constant occupation.

The mind needs constant occupation. If you give it some occupation, then it is all right. You may be doing “japa” (chanting a mantra); that too is an occupation. If you don’t do anything, and even for a single moment can remain without doing anything – not even a single thought, not even doing any mantra, if you can remain for a single moment alone, not doing anything, that very moment leads through into inner depths.

QUESTION: I see that. But it seems to me that if we are really going to look at it as being no technique…I mean we do nothing. Just coming up to the mountain and doing anything – Like meditating, or sitting, or anything – is a technique of a sort.

OSHO: They are all techniques, so they are not spiritual. They are all things projected by the mind.

You cannot go beyond through any ceremony, any puja. That cannot do it.

QUESTION: You say, in other words, that a situation has to arrive where the mind is by itself for a period of time with no thought or no motion. And yet you say there is no way to really do that, it just happens. So if you are working in a shop, why come to the mountains, why sit down, why “do” anything?

OSHO: I tell you, there is no question of that. It can happen anywhere. But it can only happen in a mind which is totally unoccupied totally vacant. This is not a method rather this is an understanding of the total situation of life. If you understand it, then one thing becomes clear. If you have to go somewhere else than yourself, then there can be a method, there can be a path. But if you have to come to your own self, there cannot be any method, any path – because you are not going somewhere else. Every path leads to somewhere else.

QUESTION: But what is the value of that knowledge? It strikes me that the only value of that knowledge is not to undertake any spiritual activity. In other words, what does that give you beyond ignorance of any sort of spiritual activity where you just live your life for whatever reason you would live it, and if you happen to reach that state automatically you reach it? What’s the point of knowing that? That’s what I want to know.

OSHO: The very awareness of the situation that surrounds you, the very mind… one has to become aware of it – not to do something with it, but be aware of it.

Question: And then it will happen? If one is aware of this situation then one, without any further anything, will automatically at certain times go into that state – is that it?

OSHO: That is to create an opportunity. Not doing is an opportunity for the happening to come. It is not your effort that brings it; your effort cannot bring it. Any effort, whatsoever its name, cannot bring it. Your effort cannot be above you. If you are effortless, you are not doing anything, non-tense, not doing even meditation because that too is a doing – only then you are in a state of meditation. Not doing anything, totally unoccupied, then something happens.

QUESTION: But if one is always accustomed to activity, isn’t it then an effort not to be active?

OSHO: We are accustomed to activity, and that is the hindrance. One has to be aware of this mechanical habit of being occupied every moment. I’m not saying that you should leave life, you should leave activity; I am simply saying that you should be aware of this very process of the mind to be engaged constantly. You should be aware of it – then moments come. They come by themselves – unknown, unconceived, they come by themselves – and when they come something is revealed. That is not your doing. Something is revealed.

QUESTION: They wouldn’t come by themselves unless you had this intellectual awareness, though.

OSHO: They come by themselves, only you have to be open. And a mind engaged is not open; a mind engaged is closed. A mind engaged has no windows.

QUESTION: But aren’t you using your intellect to be open? I think to myself, I will be open, and that is an effort of some sort. In other words, if one is truly open without effort, then it probably wouldn’t occur to oneself to be open.

OSHO: You cannot be open through effort. If you are thinking this, then you have not understood it. Thinking means non-understanding. The person who thinks is a man of non-understanding. A person who knows doesn’t think. (Much laughter) It is not a question of thinking. He sees, he is aware, but not in thinking. Thoughts are not opening, thoughts are closing; they close your mind.

The more you are in a thinking mood, the more you are closed and isolated from the whole. If you are not thinking, if you just are, if you are in a state of being, then something comes, that is not thinking, that is the realization. That is not thinking, you have not thought it. And the more you have thought about it, the less is the possibility for its coming. The known must go for the unknown to come. The thinking must go for the truth to be revealed.

One is to be aware of the mechanism of the mind, how the mind works, how the mind needs constantly occupation. Every moment mind needs to be occupied. It has become a mechanical tendency – you need occupation, you need occupation. Once you leave the so-called worldly occupations you become occupied in spiritual affairs, but you remain occupied. One is to be aware of this very process of the mind. That awareness of the mechanical process stops the process. Moments come – they break through – and you see something. That is not your thinking, not a by-product of your thought.

QUESTION: Isn’t it possible to use that tendency of the mind, that engagement of the mind to good purpose?

OSHO: No, there is no question of good purpose or bad purpose. Mind constantly deludes you.

QUESTION: Maybe we can give it something very engaging, so beautiful that it will engage the mind to something that is the most beautiful of all.

OSHO: It may be beautiful, it may be good, but an occupied mind cannot transcend itself.

QUESTION: But if there is something more beautiful that what the mind is occupied with, then it will throw off what it is not….

OSHO: Your mind or my mind cannot conceive something beyond it. The beauty must be below the mind. If something beyond is to be conceived, the mind must cease to be.

QUESTION: Yes. But what I am saying is, you talk of how the mind constantly is engaged. Now I am saying that isn’t it possible that we can give the mind….

OSHO: Who can give? The mind gives itself….

QUESTION: … A thought that is so beautiful to the mind that….

Osho: You are giving it!

QUESTION: No, no, I’m not.

Osho: And you are thinking it is so beautiful.

QUESTION: No, no, no.

Osho: That is your mind giving it.

QUESTION: No, I am not thinking it is so beautiful. The mind likes enjoyment, yes?

Osho: Yes.

QUESTION: Fine. Now, if the mind likes enjoyment, it will naturally be enjoyed with thoughts. Now is it possible that there is one thought that can be in the mind that is so beautiful it will keep the mind entertained until it finds something that is ultimate beauty – namely bliss, the Self? Is that possible?

Osho: It is not possible. (Laughter)

QUESTION: Why?

OSHO: It is not possible because mind likes enjoyment, that is right. Why does it like enjoyment? – To forget itself. It likes enjoyment to be occupied, to be engaged, to forget oneself. 

A mind which is constantly trying to forget oneself is a mind which is constantly seeking some type of hypnosis, some type of unconsciousness. 

A mind which dreams or which is engaged in puja, in ceremony, in bhajan, in prayer, is a mind which is constantly escaping from oneself. 

And the mind which is escaping from oneself cannot know oneself; because to know oneself one has to cut this constant escapement. 

A thing may be beautiful; you may project beauty on it – but you are projecting it. There is nothing like beauty or ugliness; that division is made by our own projections. There is nothing beautiful, there is nothing ugly. Things are, they exist in themselves. Without our projections they are, simply they are.

There is nothing beautiful, nothing ugly. But you can project, and escape from yourself. And we are always thinking how to escape from ourselves. It has become so burden-some to be oneself, it has become so ugly, it has become so tense to be oneself. We are – in love, in beauty, in films, in wine, in meditation even – we are escaping from ourselves.

That is to be understood: why are you escaping from yourself? And you cannot come to you through any escape from you. The active must cease. The constant seeking for pleasure, for enjoyment, must cease to be oneself, to know oneself, to know who you are.

QUESTION: What becomes of the desire? Let’s say you escape all worldly pleasures? Now how do you account for the desire that remains after you cut whatever it is you cut?

OSHO: Something new happens. The desire is gone; the very seeking for the enjoyment is gone.

Then really comes the divine enjoyment, the bliss you are seeking. It cannot come – it is not possible – through your occupation. 

It comes only in an unoccupied mind, in an aware mind – unoccupied, totally unoccupied. It comes – the bliss comes, God comes, the divine comes. It comes, not through your escape from yourself, but through your coming to yourself. How can you come when you are engaged in enjoyment?

QUESTION: If realization, if the ultimate beauty or knowledge of god, of bliss, of reality, lies in the Self, why are we constantly trying to escape from the Self? It would seem to me if that’s where it all lays, what a cruel trick for nature to play on us. We run away from what we are most looking for – it seems illogical.

OSHO: The bliss lies within oneself, but that you have gained from some scripture; you don’t know it. You don’t know there is bliss in oneself, there is God in oneself. If you know it, then there is no question. 

If you don’t know it, and this has become a borrowed part of your knowledge, then the question comes. The question is created by the borrowed knowledge, not by one’s own mind. 

You have not known the self; neither have you known the bliss; neither have you known God. If you have known it, then there is no question.

QUESTION: Do you know all at once, or could one feel the bliss of the Self before confronting God?

OSHO: No, there is no question of God! The very bliss is God.

QUESTION: You said earlier that the mind comes into a vacuum, if I understood correctly. If the nature of the mind is to think, then to put the mind into a vacuum would be going against the nature of the mind.

OSHO: No! That will be going certainly against the nature that we have known. There is no question of going against the nature; against the habit, yes. The nature is much more comprehensive.

QUESTION: What is the nature of the mind?

OSHO: To think is the nature of the mind. And if you don’t think then there is no mind. A state of no-mind comes, then you know. That is nature, this too is nature; that is not against this nature which creates ignorance, creates unknowing, creates conflict. We have not known the total mind; we have known only the mind which thinks. If you transcend it then you know the total mind – which knows.

Thinking is one thing, knowing is quite another.

QUESTION: The nature of the mind is to think, and then it ceases to think. What do you do in order to cause it not to think? Does it naturally not think?

OSHO: If you become aware of your thinking process, then the process by and by is dissolved. If you become aware, if you become aware of your thoughts, the passing, the going, the coming in and the going out of the thought – if you become simply aware, a witness then the process stops by itself.

QUESTION: It becomes more subtle until it stops….

OSHO: It stops. And then there is no mind. Then you are.

QUESTION: That’s a technique, which you’ve been discouraging.

OSHO: You can call it a technique, but when you call it a technique you have not understood…

Because awareness is not a technique. (laughter) Awareness is not a technique. (laughter)

Knowledge does not come in steps, in degrees; only ignorance goes in steps and degrees.

Knowledge comes in an explosion, that is not a process. The coming of the knowledge is not a process, the going of the ignorance is certainly a process, because when your mind is, by and by, awakening, becoming conscious of the thought process, thoughts become less and less. 

The process gains gaps, intervals. But this is not the coming of the knowledge, this is simply mind going in slow process. The mind is going, the mind is continuing. When the mind completely goes off, then the knowledge comes. It comes as an explosion, not in steps.

Q: It’s like a fuse on a piece of dynamite; the fuse burns a little bit at a time, right? And when it reaches the dynamite, then it explodes. But the path to the explosion nevertheless is a scientific process. It can be predicted, it can be measured and it can be taught to other people no?

Osho: No, it cannot be scientific.

QUESTION: Not the result, the approach to the result.

OSHO: Not even the process can be. The process cannot be scientific, cannot be known as a technique, because when you make it a technique, then everybody can follow it mechanically. The technique can be followed mechanically, and when it is followed mechanically you cannot become aware through it.

QUESTION: If you take the same fuse and you light it with your eyes closed or you light it with your eyes open, the dynamite’s still going to explode.

OSHO: It can explode, because the outer knowledge can be made a methodology, a technique, and it can be followed unknowingly. A mechanic who doesn’t know the process simply switches off or switches on and the explosion can go. But spiritual knowledge, the knowing of oneself, the gaining of bliss, cannot be like this. If it can be like this then you are simply creating through a process, through a technique, an illusory state of mind that can be created.

QUESTION: How do you know that?

OSHO: You can know it.

QUESTION: In the bible there’s a very short sentence and it says, “Be still and know.”

OSHO: That is quite right!

QUESTION: “Be still and know that I am God.”

OSHO: That is right.

QUESTION: You have defined mind for us, I would ask you to define awareness. Someone else used the phrase “intellectual awareness” and you didn’t test him on that. I would like you to define awareness.

OSHO: There cannot be any intellectual awareness. Awareness is always total. It cannot be divided as intellectual, as emotional….

QUESTION: Do you agree with that sentence then that says, “Be still and know”?

OSHO: That sentence is beautiful. Be still means don’t make yourself still. Be still means be still.

Don’t make any effort to be still, just be still. And if you are doing something to be still, then the stillness will simply be a created, cultivated stillness not the real.

QUESTION: “Be still and know…. ”

OSHO: Then you know ultimately – there is no sense in prolonging the sentence – be still, and you know. There is no question of knowing. It comes by itself. Just be still….

QUESTION: Every man speaks from his own experience, his own level, right? Isn’t it possible that there might be a technique that would work that perhaps you haven’t experienced.

OSHO: No, it is not possible (laughter) because you are thinking always how to get a technique; that is, how to make it easy, how to make it simple, how to make it a market product – how to make it. 

But the awakening is so individual, it is so authentically individual, it is so uniquely individual, it cannot be made a mass technique.

QUESTION: But everyone thinks….

OSHO: Everyone thinks.

QUESTION: Everyone wants pleasure from thinking.

Osho: Yes.

QUESTION: So maybe there is something there that can be used for everyone. The individual knowing – that’s individual. But is it not possible that since everyone’s mind wants to think, wants to enjoy, it’s possible to somehow do something with that?

OSHO: Yes, everyone wants to enjoy, everyone wants peace, bliss, but then everyone wants to create some technique to achieve it. 

But the mind asking for enjoyment and the mind asking for technique is the mind of a person who is not ready to be aware. 

He wants to remain in his sleep and to cling to a technique. The sleep remains there, and he clings to a technique. The technique too will become a part of the sleep and will not disturb it, but will make it more convenient, more comfortable, and he will be more at ease in his sleep. 

The very need, the very asking for a mass technique is saying that I am not going towards the goal individually.

QUESTION: Why?

OSHO: I am asking others to be with me.

QUESTION: How long does it take to….?

OSHO: There is no question of how long.

QUESTION: If you had proof that this technique did work. If you would try the technique – like flipping a light switch on – and you recognized the fact that this switch…. this condition, that would bring the mind to this absolute….

OSHO: No! I understand you. She is saying that if someone says this technique, this method, this way has become for me the achievement, then you can follow it. But when you follow, then you are misguided forever. 

The very following is misguidance, the very following…. because the following is mechanical, the following can be without any awareness. 

When you follow someone you follow blindly; the very following is blindness. It cannot give you awareness. When you are not following anybody, you just become aware of the very process of life, or the very process of the mind, the very entanglement, the conflict, the anxiety, then you become aware of this whole life, this totality.

Something comes to you, not from following somebody else, not from going in the steps of others but in your own search. 

The search is so authentically individual you cannot follow anybody.

QUESTION: Each one finds this for himself only by being given the keys….

OSHO: There is no key. If there can be any key, then it can be produced and everybody can be given it.

QUESTION: Don’t believe it! This is so scientific, do not have faith in it and don’t believe it. Just try it. That’s all we ask. And when one starts to recognize the expansion of mind…. this greater energy, the greater energy for all things in life….

OSHO: You can try it and you can even experience what has been propagated. You can even experience it, because experiences are not spiritual. The very experiencing can be created through a technique. 

But those experiences are created through the technique, and you will think that the technique is right because the experience has come. 

But the experience which has come through a technique is not the explosion; it’s simply a false coin. It is not the real stillness.

QUESTION: It seems that there might be a slight confusion about the word ‘technique’ here. What we’re speaking about in terms of the word ‘technique’ is not a process where the mind is held up at each level. Or actually engages in some thought through an intellectual process whereby there is an experiencer and an object of experience.

OSHO: No!

QUESTION: What we’re speaking about is a technique whereby through no effort at all, through a situation which is entirely innocent, which is in each person, the object of experience becomes subtler, subtler, subtle until the object of experience is transcended, and we’re in a state of pure experience – alone. The self is left alone with the self. Not through any technique as such, but through a very innocent, effortless, natural flow of the mind to this state.

OSHO: If you begin with an object you cannot transcend the object. The very first step will be the last step. 

Don’t begin with the object. If you begin with the object the knowledge will remain objective; it will not transcend the object. The more subtle you go, the object may become more subtle, but you don’t transcend it.

QUESTION: No, but we do! (Lots of laughter)

Osho: You can be in illusion. (More laughter) And no one who is in illusion, no one who is in a dream, no one who is under hypnosis, will say, ”I am under hypnosis, I am in illusion.”

What I am saying is that mind can be made still. Mind can be brought to a state of stillness through method. But through method, when the mind comes to stillness, that stillness is nothing but self-hypnosis.

Through method, only, you can hypnotize; you cannot achieve. You can only achieve when the mind has not done anything. If the mind has done anything, then the creation is of the mind. If the mind has not done anything, only then…. If you are feeling, and thinking that you are feeling something, and you stop the process, then the feeling will go. I am saying that if you leave the technique, if you stop your meditations, this feeling will go. The feeling will continue only if you continue the process.

QUESTION: Not so! If you will excuse me saying so, in the New Testament, Christ says, “By their fruits ye shall know them. When we come out of meditation, the things which we have been feeling and doing which are negative just don’t happen. We are much happier out of meditation.

OSHO: You can be happier through LSD too.

QUESTION: We are not here to teach you the way of transcendental meditation, but to hear from you your path. And I think it’s better now to perhaps start with you telling us something of your path. Well, what I’d like to know is, when you realize your stillness you say that knowledge comes all at once. Well, I imagine it would, take a while until this would come, right? But then after this has come, are you like an enlightened man forever, or do you have to repeat this path?

OSHO: No, you have not to repeat.

QUESTION: You only have to do it once and then when you stop doing it … but what if you life in the world? How are your perceptions of the world and your actions in the world changed?

OSHO: They change totally. You are quite a different person – not even a person, because the person too was a part of your old mind; that too has gone. Not even are you an individual now – the individual has gone; you have become part and parcel of the whole. There is no ego, no doer; you become simply a part of the divine process, of the divine life.

When it comes, it comes and never goes. And if it is achieved through any process, it comes and it goes, because it has not come, really; it has been part of the feeling created by the process. When the process stops, it goes. It will go by and by, but it will go. And you will have to repeat the process constantly.

When the explosion comes, then it has come. In the explosion, it is not that you have achieved bliss, because in the explosion you have gone. 

Only the bliss is there… not even you, not even the experiencer. When you go through a technique the experiencer remains, the ego remains, and the ego says, “I have experienced, I am experiencing.” 

If the experiencer is there, then you have not come to the explosion, because the very explosion is the explosion of the experiencer. That experiencer is gone. There is now no experience, no experiencer, no object, no subject. There is only experience. Not even the experiencer is there.

QUESTION: This state of explosion, is there a corresponding state of the nervous system? What is the state of the physical nervous system that corresponds to the state you are speaking of?

OSHO: This body is not there, but the whole body of the cosmos is there. Your body has gone – not as body itself but “your,” the “your” has gone. The body is there but it has become a part of the whole cosmic body. It is not your body now, not your nervous system now.
QUESTION: Is it a dreaming or a waking or a deep sleep? Is there breathing? If a person looked at that body, would he describe it a being different than before it exploded?

OSHO: There is breathing, there is not sleep, there is not unconsciousness. But the breathing will become subtly different; it will be different from our normal breathing, because….

QUESTION: You see, what I am trying to establish is that in transcendental meditation this state of not in illusion corresponds to a physical state of the nervous system that possibly is the same to which you are referring, and that is the state of what is called restful alertness. Where there is no breath and the metabolic rate is lowered to nil. But the point is: Is there a state of the nervous system that one can look at and observe…?

OSHO: Yes, you can look and observe, but don’t think that a state cannot be illusory because there is a corresponding change in the nervous system. Even in illusion, the corresponding change can exist – even in illusion, because in a dream, in a nightmare, you awake; you feel that the whole body has been trembling. Even in the nightmare the body has gone through a change, the body has been affected. There has been a parallel change in the nervous system.

Because there is a change in the nervous system, you cannot say that a state is not illusory. There will be a change; there will be a change in the whole system because when the mind has gone, a transformation, a mutation, has taken place.

QUESTION: It’s obvious by now that we can’t arrive at a conclusion using words, so therefore, if you call my experience an illusion….

OSHO: No, no, I am not calling your experience illusion. I am calling a particular experience achieved through a technique an illusion. I’m not calling your experience illusion – don’t take it that way.

QUESTION: Is it illusion or the end of illusion?

OSHO: The means create the end, so if you use illusory means you create an illusory end.

QUESTION: My end is not an illusion; you can’t call my end of absolute being my illusion.

OSHO: No, no, I am not calling your end an illusion. (The group laughs) If you are achieving some states of mind through techniques then through techniques only illusion can be created.

QUESTION: But in your state of Enlightenment, are you a witness to everything around you?

OSHO: No, not even a witness. Even the witness has gone. You are not even a witness.

QUESTION: You’re not a witness anymore?

OSHO: You are one with it – not even a witness.

QUESTION: Are there thoughts too?

OSHO: No, there are no thoughts then.

QUESTION: You do not have thoughts?

OSHO: There are no thoughts then.

QUESTION: I see, I see.

OSHO: When I am talking to you, I am using thoughts as means.

QUESTION: Yes, that’s what I mean. What is your relationship to those thoughts?

OSHO: As a means of expression, not as a means of achievement.

QUESTION: Are you the thought, or do you watch the thought?

OSHO: No, there is no thought, so there is no question of watching the thought.

QUESTION: I thought you said you just use thoughts as a vehicle, as a means of expression.

OSHO: Of course.

QUESTION: So there are thoughts. All right; now, what is your relationship to the thoughts?

OSHO: No, there is no question of relationship. The relationship comes if there are two – then the question of relationship comes. If there is only one, there is no question of relationship.

QUESTION: Then you are your thoughts.

OSHO: No, there is no question of you and your thoughts.

QUESTION: There’s just one.

OSHO: Just one. There is no question of relationship.

QUESTION: Let me go back a little while here. You said before that you could not experience this. But how could you talk about explosion without experiencing it?

OSHO: One can talk about explosion, not what comes out of it. The explosion can be talked about but what comes after it cannot be talked about. That is impossible to say.

QUESTION: Without knowing the explosion, could one talk about it?

OSHO: No. How can you talk without knowing it? But when you talk, something different comes out of the words, something quite different; rather, quite opposite to what you have experienced. This going out of existence, going out of existence of the experiencer, it comes after the explosion.

QUESTION: It comes in degrees?

OSHO: No, how can explosion come in degrees?

QUESTION: I want to make sure I understand: In your philosophy, is the mind and the Self the same?

OSHO: If the mind is without thoughts, it is the same.

QUESTION: The mind and the Self are then the same?

OSHO: The same – if there are no thoughts. But if there are thoughts then the barrier between the self and the mind is created. The thought is the barrier.

QUESTION: What happens to the Self when the mind ceases?

OSHO: It is! It is simply… It is the very isness, the very being. When we ask “What happens?” then we are again thinking of becoming. What happens? – no?

QUESTION: The mind is a physical thing, is it not?

OSHO: The brain is a physical thing, not the mind.

QUESTION: You are making a distinction between the brain and the mind?

OSHO: A distinction to be discussed; there is no distinction in the reality.
QUESTION: I just want to make an observation. I think it is very obvious to me – I don’t know if it is obvious to many people – that in this situation with the person we are communicating with…. he hasn’t even given his position, so we have done a reverse technique… to defend our position. Remember what Shakespeare said: “Thou doth protest too much.” It is an indication to me of a lot of insecurity that we all have about our position. Why don’t we let our learned gentleman – who I basically agree with everything he says on an intellectual level – state his position, and what his movement is about, because that is what we want to learn about. (Clapping)

OSHO: There is nothing like my position, because to posit a position, to conceive a position, is to be untrue. I have got no position. 

You may have got your position, so you can be opposed to me, but I have no position of my own. I am totally negative. I am negative, I am not a positive mind. I am totally negative. 

I will negate what you say, but I won’t say anything as my position, because to me a positive mind cannot become a vacuum, cannot become vacant, cannot be a nonentity. 

A positive mind can never be; only a negative mind. A mind which comes through thinking to be negative, negates everything. 

When you negate everything then the mind becomes a vacuum. This is my position. (Laughter)

QUESTION: Can you tell us how you manage to get an unoccupied mind – because that is the first step for your experience, yes?

OSHO: I tried to understand the occupied mind. My own mind, occupied constantly – I observed it. The very observation of the occupied mind makes the mind unoccupied. If you go deep and deep and observe it, simply observe it, don’t do anything – the moment you do something the observation has gone. Even if you criticize it, even if you say it is bad or good, even if you appreciate it or condemn it, then the observation has gone. If you simply observe it, then through the observation the unoccupied mind comes, the occupied mind goes. Simple observation.

QUESTION: Can a vacant, an unoccupied mind be a dynamic, a creative mind?

OSHO: Of course. Only an awakened mind can be creative – only.

QUESTION: Awakened, but I said vacant and unoccupied.

OSHO: Aha! A vacant and unoccupied mind becomes awakened, and an awakened mind is a dynamic and creative mind. Only an awakened mind is a dynamic and creative mind.
QUESTION: So in the state of Enlightenment it is no longer vacant and unoccupied, it is occupied?

OSHO: No! It is not occupied, it is creative. But to be creative and to be occupied are two different things.

QUESTION: What do you mean by creative?

OSHO: To be creative means constantly, moment to moment, living as a creative force – as a creative force, not as an occupied doer, not as a doer. There is no doer so there is no occupation, but the creation goes on. The very creation of the world, the very creation of the cosmos goes on. Not that there is an engineer, a God who is thinking about it, a painter – not thinking about it. There is no thinking.

QUESTION: Watching it?

QUESTION: What about the process of observation?

OSHO: Only an authentic painter is really not different from his painting. The painter and the painting are one. There is no actor, there is no ego, and there is no occupation, because when there is no ego, who can be occupied?

QUESTION: By explaining this process, you only explained to us what we should not do, but we want to know what to do.

OSHO: No, I won’t say, because that is the wrong… that is the pseudo path. If someone says, “Do this,” then he creates a positive mind, and the positive mind is a filled mind, an occupied mind – not vacant, not receptive, not open. So I won’t say what to do, I will say what not to do.

QUESTION: That’s a fullness too. You are filling the mind with negative things, not to do this, not to do that. That’s horrible! (Many comments all at once, and a voice: “Oh, come on, we’re starting to argue again!”)

OSHO: Hmmm?

QUESTION: I have a question, sir. Before we try to start you on transcendental meditation, I think you said something about “freedom from the known.” Strangely, coincidentally, this is a title of a book by Krishnamurti. I would like to ask if he is in accord with you, and more pointedly, is there something I can do to liberate myself?

OSHO: No, you cannot understand through any comparison. There is a book by Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known, but if you want to understand me, understand me; why bring Krishnamurti between us? There is no sense….

QUESTION: But is there anything I can do to liberate myself from it all? Is there something that I can do – must I simply sit and wait and hope, or can I act?

OSHO: You think that simply sitting is something simple? (Laughter) It is the most difficult thing! If you can simply sit then everything will come to you; then there is no question.

COMMENTS: That’s again process….

OSHO: In the word, in the expression – because our whole language, our whole terminology is based on process, technique, method. So in words you cannot express a thing which has not been experienced – in words, in thoughts. So when I say it, it looks like a process, but it is not a process.

QUESTION: What is it?

OSHO: It is the very stopping of the process.

QUESTION: Again the process….

OSHO: The word – the word carries the meaning of the process.

QUESTION: Because stopping something means, I thought….

OSHO: Of course, in language. That is what you are saying. That’s what you are understanding. In language you cannot say anything which is not a doing, not a process. So it has to be understood.

QUESTION: Again a process?

OSHO: Of course, I am saying that. Every word is a process, every word! Every word is a process. But there are things which are not a process. If you can understand, then it is alright. If you don’t understand, then too it is all right!

QUESTION: What you are saying and what you are teaching cannot be thought, because….

OSHO: It cannot be thought.

QUESTION: How long will it take to learn the technique of not using a technique? (Laughter)

OSHO: If you can understand, then this very moment is the moment. If you don’t understand, there is no question of the length. It can be for lives. If you understand, you understand in this very moment, NOW!

QUESTION: But is understanding the same as being?

OSHO: Of course, it is the same.

QUESTION: I think we are saying the same thing. It’s just a matter of vocabulary and semantics. Why should we make an issue out of it when basically we agree? (Comments all together)

QUESTION: Except, except….

QUESTION: We make it simple, you make it difficult!

OSHO: About truth, only the negative statement can be made. You can only be consistent with the untrue, because the truth is so vast. 

It comprehends the contradictions. So about truth, whenever someone speaks he is bound to make contradictions, and if someone is constantly consistent, not making any contradictions, he is not concerned with the truth. He is concerned with a hypothesis. 

A man-made hypothesis can be consistent, but the real – that which is – is always contradictory. There is darkness and light, both, it comprehends both, it comprehends the birth and the death. 

Life is both, birth and death. It is not contradictory in life, but to us it seems contradictory – two things quite opposite. 

Another thing: Maharishi says there is a path from the here to there. But there can be no path from the here to the here. There is the illusion. The point there – is the illusion. 

The question is coming from the here to the here, and until and unless the “there” is dissolved you cannot come from the here to the here. The “there” is the disturbance. You are always going to the “there” and always going there, going there, going there – in richness, in meditation, in religion, in science, going there. That is the question.

The mind which goes there cannot be here. (Laughter) A mind which leaves going there can be here – just this moment can be here. The very going to there is the hindrance, so there can be no path. Only one has to be aware of this constant trick of the mind of going there, going there – this very business.

This “there” is the illusion, this is the very point of illusion. It may be anything – it may be a god, a liberation, a moksha – but mind always longs for there, and that has been the disturbance, that has been the misguiding of the mind. One is to be here.

So the question is not going in the hotel; the question is going somewhere where you are already.

So there can be no path, there is no possibility of there being any path. A path can join two points – here and there, present and future. 

A path can join two different points, but you are and there is no question of there, you are here – always here. You have been here always. 

And unless and until the there is dissolved you cannot know what here is. So there is no possibility of there being any technique.

And one thing more Maharishi says: If you sit still the mind will become dull. If you do something, the mind by the very doing becomes dull. If you don’t do anything, the mind is completely fresh, total; how can it be dull? 

Mind can be made dull through any process. The very process makes the mind dull because the process is a repetition. The repetition is yet dullness. Whenever you repeat something you become dull. You go on repeating, go on repeating, repeating, repeating, you become a dullness.

The very achieving mind, the mind which longs for achievement, the mind which seeks achievement, the mind which is after achievement, is the hindrance. This longing to achieve is the hindrance. 

So God cannot be made an achievement. The enlightenment cannot be made an achievement. You cannot make it an achievement. It is the non-achieving mind which achieves.

QUESTION: Does it depend on what level the mind is on?

OSHO: There is no such thing as level. There is no question of level. Maharishi says there are deeper realms, there are…. There is only Being. There is no question of level. There is only a total Being.

MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI: It is necessary to be here. It is necessary to be here only if we are there. If we are here then it is not necessary to be here. We have gone there, and if we have gone there, in illusion we are here. Now Enlightenment will be that we come back here. So there is here. If we have to come back, then we have to come back. That means it’s a procedure whether we come back in a car or in a jet or…. If you have gone really….

OSHO: If we have gone really, then some means must be used. But if you have not gone, if you are simply asleep here, simply asleep here – there are two steps – asleep here or we are here. There is no question of there: asleep here, or we come here.

MAHARISHI: Fine, beautiful. Here and here! But from sleep to waking from one to the other, there is no difference in space. But there is…. in time. Sleep and waking, and if there is simultaneous solution that we have accomplished through actually…. 

If I become awake, there is no question that I am awake. And for me I believe I do have to be awake. I am. So If I am not and if I have to be, then that way I adopt a technique, a procedure, a simple something, so that the difficulty may be over. 

The teaching of spirituality is to show a simple, natural, direct way which will prove to be a very less way. 

Actually speaking, Acharya Rajneesh means that there cannot be a way to the only present because that is there where I am, that is where I am, and therefore, because the state of Enlightenment is awareness of the omnipresent unboundedness which my own nature is, therefore, there cannot be a way to it that if I am help up in the waking state or in the dreaming or sleeping as is our ordinary state of awareness, then I am not open to that which is omnipresent. 

If I am open to the omnipresent, if my awareness is already back then I am here and I Am, but I Am and the device is needed. But I am not open to myself then I have to be opened to myself, thrown to where I am opened. If I am opened here and here and here in the gross field of perception, then my perception has to be brought to finer regions, and then it has to travel to that fineness and get to that unboundedness of your awareness.

When I have done…… in transcendental awareness will increase. 

But a teacher is needed. A …… is needed. So that shifting of the awareness from the waking to the transcendental has to be correct so that if something has to be achieved then that way it can be achieved in a systematic manner, so that it is easily achieved. 

And if nothing is to be achieved, then, if I am established in the goal, fine. I don’t have to take the course in any method or anything.

OSHO: …..

MAHARISHI: When you are on the path, then you are on the path. Then you have transcended the path, and you can only transcend the path by trekking it. The reality of the path is experience, experience, experience. 

The reality of the goal is that we are in a state of being. As long as you are proceeding, as long as the awareness is not open to that unbounded, pure, transcendental consciousness, as long as your experience in something……

QUESTION……

MAHARISHI: Transcending on the verge of the finest perception is of the immediate. That can be gross perception or, if one has arrived at the finest perception that one has, then he experiences. And…. he experiences. Eventually in a very systematic manner the awareness reaches the pure awareness – it transcends. 

Transcending is applicable from the level of gross perception, through all the subtle perceptions, to the subtlest perception. Transcending, one has to take one’s awareness, and this is the method. What can be refuted is the practice of meditation if I have already achieved cosmic consciousness where the pure awareness is already established. But if I know I am not living in this consciousness, then something has to be done to live it. And if you can say there nothing to be done, fine. Nothing is to be done and the…. can be achieved.

OSHO: The very achieving mind, the mind which longs for achievement, the mind which seeks achievement, the mind which is after achievement, is the hindrance. This longing to achieve is the hindrance. So God cannot be made an achievement. The enlightenment cannot be made an achievement. You cannot make it an achievement. It is the non-achieving mind which achieves, the non-achieving. It can never be an achievement, because that which has been achieved has been always with me. It has never been lost.

QUESTION: But how do you know it?

OSHO: This knowing, in that knowing, you also know this: that this has been with you, and you were not knowing it. But nothing has been achieved.

QUESTION: But you know it afterwards.

OSHO: You have simply awakened that which was asleep. Then when you try to go through safe, secure, systematic methods, your mind is a mind which longs for serenity, safety, systems. All that you gain is a big ego.

MAHARISHI: The state of Enlightenment is not inertia. It is an achievement. God-Realization, when we say you have God-Realization, it is an achievement from the state where you have not achieved it. 

Enlightenment, the very word Enlightenment, means “I was so long in ignorance, and now I am in light; so this, in the common language of ignorance, is called Enlightenment. In the language of the enlightened people it has ever been, it is ever; nothing has been realized. 

If you have lost the awareness of your glasses and then you begin to be aware of the glasses here and here, you have the glasses on, but yet you are searching and somebody says it is there, it is lost. It is lost in the awareness. 

It was present there certainly. If achieved, it is realized. It has been there, but I have lost it; without really losing it I have lost it, and without really gaining it, I have gained it. It is there. So this is the achievement of the already achieved. 

Omnipresent is that thing, and eternal is that thing. And it is nothing that I was – never – not it, or it is nothing that I would at one time be it. From this level of…. state of awareness, nothing to be achieved, nothing to be done, nothing to be done. 

And, therefore, if there is need of achieving it, there is need of being that we achieve it quickly through a technique. It happens, it happens, and then it will happen through a technique. It happens, it happens, and then it will happen at all, at all, at all.

These are different ways of expressing. There is a story in some Upanishad with three or four very good seekers of truth come to an acharya and said, “we want to ask some questions.” He said, “Questions to ask? All right. Remain in my ashram for a year, and after that I’ll give a chance, and if I know the reality, I’ll tell you.” He doesn’t give a guarantee that even after the year he will tell them actually where…. Are. He just says, “Remain in my ashram, and after a year.” 

With preconditions, with a devotional attitude – service to the Master, obedience; what is the relevance? If someone knows a thing, if you ask in good faith, but it is necessary to get acquainted with the language of a teacher. It is to the expression that we can go. 

And if you live with him for some time, then you know what he means by what. The Indians feel you have to be near a teacher to know what he means by what expression. 

Otherwise, he has his usual way of expressing; you have your usual way of understanding. There may not be any connection between the two. You may not be understood by him. He may not be understood by you. There will be a lack of achievement…. That is why familiarity with the teacher, familiarity with the way of his expressing, what he says when he says something, what he means when he says something; that is why nearness to the teacher is necessary. 

You have been exposed to a phraseology with which you were not familiar. And once you hear Acharya Rajneesh a few times, you will know what he means because you are familiar with the expressing.

1969 pm in Pahalgam, Kashmir, India

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