HUMAN BODY HAS ALL POSSIBILITY?''OSHO''

BELOVED BHAGWAN, IF I AM GOD, HOW COME I WAKE UP EVERY MORNING TO FIND MYSELF IN THIS BODY?

FOR A GOD everything is possible.

WHAT SUICIDE REALLY IS?'OSHO''

BELOVED BHAGWAN,CAN THE MIND COMMIT SUICIDE?

THE MIND CANNOT COMMIT SUICIDE, because whatsoever the mind can do will

strengthen the mind. Any doing on the part of the mind makes the mind more strong. So

suicide is impossible.

Mind doing something means mind continuing itself -- so that is not in the nature of

things. But suicide happens. Mind cannot commit it -- mm? -- let me make it absolutely

clear: mind cannot commit it, but suicide happens. It happens through watching the mind,

not by doing anything.

The watcher is separate from the mind, it is deeper than the mind, higher than the mind.

The watcher is always hidden behind the mind. A thought passes, a feeling arises -- who

is watching this thought? Not the mind itself -- because mind is nothing but the process of

thought and feeling. The mind is just the traffic of thinking. Who is watching it? When

you say, "An angry thought has arisen in me," who are 'you'? In whom has the thought

arisen? Who is the container? The thought is the content -- who is the container?

The mind is like when you print a book: on white, clean paper, words appear. That empty

paper is the container and the printed words are the content. Consciousness is like empty

paper. Mind is like written, printed paper.

Whatsoever exists as an object inside you, whatsoever you can see and observe, is the

mind. The observer is not the mind, the observed is the mind.

So if you can go on simply observing, without condemning, without in any way creating

a conflict with the mind, without indulging it, without following it, without going against

it, if you can simply be there indifferent to it, in that indifference suicide happens. It is

not that mind commits suicide: when the watcher arises, the witness is there, mind simply

disappears.

Mind exists with your cooperation OR your conflict. Both are ways of cooperating --

conflict too! When you fight with the mind, you are giving energy to it. In your VERY

fight you have accepted the mind, in your very fighting you have accepted the power of

the mind over your being. So whether you cooperate or you conflict, in both the cases the

mind becomes stronger and stronger.

Just watch. Just be a witness. And, by and by, you will see gaps arising. A thought

passes, and another thought does not come immediately -- there is an interval. In that

interval is peace. In that interval is love. In that interval is all that you have always been

seeking -- and finding never. In that gap, you are no more an ego. In that gap you are not

defined, confined, imprisoned. In that gap you are vast, immense, huge! In that gap you

are one with existence -- the barrier exists not. Your boundaries are no more there. You

melt into existence and the existence melts in you. You start overlapping.

If you go on watching and you don't get attached to these gaps either... because that is

natural now, to get attached to these gaps. If you start hankering for these gaps... because

they are tremendously beautiful, they are immensely blissful. It is natural to get attached

to them, and desire arises to have more and more of these gaps -- then you will miss, then

your watcher has disappeared. Then those gaps will again disappear, and again the traffic

of the mind will be there.

So the first thing is to become an indifferent watcher. And the second thing is to

remember that when beautiful gaps arise, don't get attached to them, don't start asking for

them, don't start waiting that they should happen more often. If you can remember these

two things -- when beautiful gaps come, watch them too, and keep your indifference alive

-- then one day the traffic simply disappears with the road, they both disappear. And there

is tremendous emptiness.

That's what Buddha calls 'Nirvana' -- the mind has ceased. This is what I call suicide --

but mind has not committed it. Mind cannot commit it. You can help it to happen. You

can hinder it, you can help it to happen -- it depends on you, not on your mind. All that

mind can do will always strengthen the mind.

So meditation is not really mind-effort. Real meditation is not effort at all. Real

meditation is just allowing the mind to have its own way, and not interfering in any way

whatsoever -- just remaining watchful, witnessing. It silences, by and by, it becomes still.

One day it is gone. You are left alone.

That aloneness is what your reality is. And in that aloneness nothing is excluded,

remember it. In that aloneness everything is included -- that aloneness is God. That

purity, that innocence, uncorrupted by any thought, is what God is.

AM I IMAGINING?''OSHO''

BELOVED OSHO,DO YOU GIVE THE LADY SANNYASINS A MORE DIFFICULT TIME THAN THE MEN, OR AM I IMAGINING THINGS AGAIN?

LADY -- you are imagining.

THE WAY YOU ARE, DEFINES SAME.''OSHO''

BELOVED BHAGWAN,IS DIRT REALLY DIRTY?

IT DEPENDS. IT DEPENDS ON YOUR OUTLOOK. Nothing is good, nothing is bad. It

depends on your interpretation, on how you interpret. It depends on your mind.

Mind always divides things in two -- the good/the bad, the clean/the dirty, God/the Devil.

The mind continuously divides. Mind is a divider. The truth is undivided, the truth is one.

It is neither good nor bad, neither clean nor dirty.

I have heard:

A priest went into a tailor's shop and ordered a new suit. When he asked how much it

cost, the tailor said, "There is no charge. I never charge the clergy." So the next day the

priest sent the tailor a beautiful crucifix.

Then a rabbi went into the tailor's shop and ordered a new suit. When he asked how much

it cost, the tailor said, "There is no charge. I never charge rabbis." So the next day the

rabbi sent the tailor two more rabbis.

It depends on you, on how you look at things. Your mind is finally the decision-maker.

A successful cloak-and-suiter had finally found the girl of his dreams, and he made

preparations for a wedding the garment district would never forget. His own designers

prepared a wedding-gown for the bride of the finest imported silks and satins, and his

own marital raiment was truly a sight to behold.

The affair was nothing less than breathtaking. No expense had been spared. Then, as the

newly weds were about to embark on their honeymoon trip to Canada, an urgent message

arrived in the form of a telegram.

It is from my partner," the groom explained. "Urgent business. I'll have to attend to it

immediately."

"But what about our honeymoon?" the bride asked tearfully.

"Business comes first," he said. "But you go ahead. I'll catch a later plane and be there by

tonight."

"But what if you can't make it by tonight?" she moaned.

"Then..." he blustered, "start without me."

A businessman is a businessman. His whole outlook about life is that of a businessman.

Nothing is good, nothing is bad; nothing is beautiful, nothing is ugly. It is you who

decide.

In India we have a certain stage of consciousness called PARAMAHANSA. The state of

paramahansa means the state of no division -- when ugly and beautiful, clean and dirty,

good and bad, both are alike. You can find a paramahansa eating, sitting by the side of

the road -- the gutter is overflowing, the dogs are running around him. Or even the dogs

also eating from the same bowl! Very difficult -- very difficult for the mind to

understand. The mind will say "What type of man is this? How dirty!"

But you don't know the state of a paramahansa. Don't condemn, don't be in such haste.

There is a state of consciousness where divisions disappear, when the mind is totally

dropped. Then one simply lives in a oneness with existence.

But, I am not telling you to BECOME paramahansas -- remember. You cannot become a

paramahansa; it descends on you. If you try to become a paramahansa, you will simply

go mad. I am not saying to drop distinctions. I am saying become more and more aware

so one day distinctions disappear. You can drop distinctions without becoming aware --

then you will be a madman, not a paramahansa. And sometimes paramahansas and

madmen look very alike.

IF YOU ARE UNABLE AT LAST,I WILL BE AVAILABLE.''OSHO''

BELOVED OSHO, I AM GOING SOON TO THE WEST. OSHO, IF I CALL YOU THERE, WILL YOUR HELP BE AVAILABLE TO ME AS IT HAS BEEN AVAILABLE HERE?

CALL ME ONLY WHEN IT IS ABSOLUTELY NEEDED, when you find that now
nothing can be done. First try to do all that you can do. And out of a hundred cases,
ninety-nine you will not need to call me. And if you have not called me for ninety-nine
cases, you have earned for the hundredth case -- you can expect me in every possible
way. But don't make it an everyday thing.
Let me tell you one anecdote -- and it is a true anecdote. It has already happened. And I
say it is true because it comes to me from a very reliable source: Kamal has sent this story

to me.
One day, Swami Arup Krishna, alias Chinani, and Sadar Gurdayal Singh were coming
towards the ashram. It had rained for two, three days, and the roads were muddy and dirty
water had collected everywhere, and the gutters were overflowing. And on a banana peel,
Gurdayal slipped. Not only that: a small coin fell from his pocket and was lost into the
gutter.
He immediately cried, "Satya Sai Baba, Satya Sai Baba -- help me!"
Of course, Arup Krishna was very surprised. He said, "Gurdayal, have you gone crazy?
You are Osho's disciple!"
Gurdayal said, "What do you mean? Should I call Osho in this dirty water in the gutter?!"
So remember it: whenever you need really, and it is not dirty water and a gutter, and not
only a small coin is lost -- then follow Gurdayal.

TRUTH IS TO DISCOVER NOT INVENT.''OSHO''

BELOVED BHAGWAN,YOU SAY BY JUST BEING HERE RIGHT NOW IS ALL WE NEED TO KNOW TRUTH. WHY DO I FIND IT THE HARDEST THING TO DO? AND IF I DO IT,
WHO IS HERE?

Truth is -- you have nothing to do for it; you have just to be. Truth is already there. You
are not to invent it, you have only to discover it. Even that word is not right, because truth
is not covered -- your being is covered.

It is as if the sun has risen but you are sitting with closed eyes. The sun is not covered,
only your eyes are covered. Open your eyes and the light is there. If you are in darkness it
is because you are keeping your eyes shut.
When I say just be, I mean be open. I mean don't try to be something else. Because in the
very effort of being somebody else you will be strained, you will be tense, you will be
under a stress, and you will remain closed. You can open only when you accept
whatsoever you are.
If a rose is trying to be a lotus, it will not be possible for it to be a rose. The whole effort
will make it so tense. A rose is a rose; that's why it opens and becomes a rose. There is no
problem about it. Don't try to be something else other than you are. Don't try to become
some ideal. That's what I mean when I say just be.
Being is a state of tremendous opening, of immense silence, no desire, no effort. You are
just here, present. You are just a presence. In that presence all happens -- because in that
presence you are so alert that nothing by-passes you. In that silence you start hearing god,
you start seeing god. In that silence visions open, doors of the unknown open. The
mystery is clear. But you have to be in that state. That's what meditation is all about just
to be.

LOVE OF MASTER.''OSHO''

BELOVED OSHO, WHAT DID WE DO TO DESERVE YOU AS OUR GURU, OUR MASTER?

I don't know anything about you, but I must have done terrible karma to deserve you!

I WILL COME TO BLESS YOU WHEN YOU BECOME ENLIGHTENED.''OSHO''

BELOVED OSHO, I think I have become Enlightened. What do you say about it?

Osho – Nisarga, THE moment one becomes enlightened, one does not think that one is enlightened; one simply knows. Thinking is guessing, it is not knowing. And when one becomes enlightened one never asks ‘whether I have become enlightened’, because it is self-evident; no certificate is needed.

And Nisarga, when you become enlightened I will come to you to bless you. You will not need to come to me and ask.

An old Welsh lady, seventy-five years old, is in the doctor’s surgery.

“Well, I know it is hard to believe, Mrs. Jones, but the tests are conclusive: you are pregnant!” the doctor tells her. “But I am seventy-five years old, doctor, and my husband is eighty-five years old. Are you certain? This will be such a shock for him.”

“Yes, I am certain. You must tell him very carefully because of his age. I suggest you telephone him from my office now.”

Mrs. Jones dials the number, then speaks: “Hello Hughie, darling, I have some news for you. Please sit down before I tell you. Are you sitting? Good. I am pregnant. The doctor is certain and the tests are all positive.”

There was a short pause and Hughie’s quavering voice was heard to say, “Who is that speaking, please?”

Nisarga, that’s what I would like to ask: who is that speaking, please?

If it has happened, you are no more. If it has happened, there will be nobody to ask the question. If it has happened, your fragrance will tell people; you will become luminous.

Mulla Nasruddin had a male child after producing fourteen girls in a row from his four wives. When he heard the good news he went on a week-long celebration that broke several records. On the seventh day somebody asked him, “Who does it look like, you or your wife?”

“I don’t know yet,” the proud father happily chortled. “We have not looked at his face yet.”
When after fourteen girls you give birth to a male child, who has time to look at his face?

After millions and millions of lives, when you become enlightened, who bothers to ask? It is so absolute, and the sheer joy of it is such… yes, one can dance, but one cannot ask; one can sing, but one cannot ask. One will go almost mad: that’s what Kabir says. Again and again he says that those who know God go mad, mad in ecstasy.

Nisarga, you are perfectly in your senses; you have not gone mad. I have been watching you — there is no ecstasy. It may be just a desire, a wish-fulfillment. You would like to become enlightened, you would like somebody to tell you that you have become enlightened. You would like to be certified, but these things cannot be certified. These are not things of the outer world; when they happen there is a totally new phenomenon.

When a Buddha is there, or a Krishna, or a Kabir, or a Jesus, or a Mohammed, something of God penetrates into the very dense earth, something of the sky starts walking here on the earth. Those who have eyes can see it, those who have ears can hear it, those who have hearts can feel it, and those who are intelligent enough will learn the secret of it.

But you need not ask such questions; these questions are meaningless. I understand your desire, but on the way of enlightenment even the desire to become enlightened is a barrier — the greatest barrier.

Forget all about enlightenment! Dance to abandon! Whatsoever you are doing here, do it totally. Forget all about enlightenment — it will take care of itself, it will come of its own accord. You cannot bring it; it is not something that you can manage to do.

If you can be simply lost in the ordinary activities of life, totally lost, utterly lost… one day, when the ego is missing… You may be just cleaning the floor, or chopping wood, or carrying water from the well; when the ego is completely absent, as if there is nobody who is chopping wood — wood is chopped but there is nobody chopping wood — suddenly it is there. It comes as a surprise. And when it comes it brings its own absolute certainty

BELOVED MASTER,WHAT HAPPENED AFTER YOU ATTAINED ENLIGHTENMENT?''OSHO''

You ask me: What happened when you became enlightened?

I laughed, a real uproarious laugh, seeing the whole absurdity of trying to be enlightened. The whole thing is ridiculous because we are born enlightened, and to try for something that is already the case is the most absurd thing. If you already have it, you cannot achieve it; only those things can be achieved which you don't have, which are not intrinsic parts of your being. But enlightenment is your very nature.
I had struggled for it for many lives—it had been the only target for many many lives. And I had done everything that is possible to do to attain it, but I had always failed. It was bound to be so—because it cannot be an attainment. It is your nature, so how can it be your attainment? It cannot be made an ambition.

Mind is ambitious—ambitious for money, for power, for prestige. And then one day, when it gets fed up with all these extrovert activities, it becomes ambitious for enlightenment, for liberation, for nirvana, for God. But the same ambition has come back; only the object he changed. First the object was outside, now the object is inside. But your attitude, your approach has not changed; you are the same person in the same rut, in the same routine.
"The day I became enlightened" simply means the day I realized that there is nothing to achieve, there is nowhere to go, there is nothing to be done. We are already divine and we are already perfect—as we are. No improvement is needed, no improvement at all. God never creates anybody imperfect. Even if you come across an imperfect man, you will see that his imperfection is perfect. God never creates any imperfect thing.
I have heard about a Zen Master Bokuju who was telling this truth to his disciples, that all is perfect. A man stood up—very old, a hunchback—and he said, "What about me? I am a hunchback. What do you say about me?" Bokuju said, "I have never seen such a perfect hunchback in my life."
When I say "the day I achieved enlightenment," I am using wrong language—because there is no other language, because our language is created by us. It consists of the words "achievement," "attainment," "goals," "improvement" "progress," "evolution." Our languages are not created by the enlightened people; and in fact they cannot create it even if they want to because enlightenment happens in silence. How can you bring that silence into words? And whatsoever you do, the words are going to destroy something of that silence.
Lao Tzu says: The moment truth is asserted it becomes false. There is no way to communicate truth. But language has to be used; there is no other way. So we always have to use the language with the condition that it cannot be adequate to the experience. Hence I say "the day I achieved my enlightenment." It is neither an achievement nor mine.
[At this point there is a brief power failure: no light, no sound.]
Yes, it happens like that! Out of nowhere suddenly the darkness, suddenly the light, and you cannot do anything. You can just watch.
I laughed that day because of all my stupid ridiculous efforts to attain it. I laughed on that day at myself, and I laughed on that day at the whole of humanity, because everybody is trying to achieve, everybody is trying to reach, everybody is trying to improve.
To me it happened in a state of total relaxation—it always happens in that state. I had tried everything. And then, seeing the futility of all effort, I dropped…I dropped the whole project, I forgot all about it. For seven days I lived as ordinarily as possible.
The people I used to live with were very much surprised, because this was the first time they had seen me live just an ordinary life. Otherwise my whole life was a perfect discipline.
For two years I had lived with that family, and they had known that I would get up at three o'clock in the morning, then I would go for a long four- or five-mile walk or run, and then I would take a bath in the river. Everything was absolutely routine. Even if I had a fever or I was ill, there was no difference: I would simply go on the same way.
They had known me to sit in meditation for hours. Up to that day I had not eaten many things. I would not drink tea, coffee, I had a strict discipline about what to eat, what not to eat. And exactly at nine o'clock I would go to bed. Even if somebody was sitting there, I would simply say "Goodbye" and I would go to my bed. The family with whom I used to live, they would inform the person that "Now you can go. He has gone to sleep." I would not even waste a single moment in saying, "Now it is time for me to go to sleep."
When I relaxed for seven days, when I dropped the whole thing and when on the first day I drank tea in the morning and woke up at nine o'clock in the morning, the family was puzzled. They said, "What has happened? Have you fallen?" They used to think of me as a great yogi.
One picture of those days still exists. I used to use only one single piece of cloth and that was all. In the day I would cover my body with it, in the night I would use it as a blanket to cover myself. I slept on a bamboo mat. That was my whole comfort—that blanket, that bamboo mat. I had nothing—no other possessions.
They were puzzled when I woke up at nine. They said, "Something is wrong. Are you very ill, seriously ill?"
I said, "No, I am not seriously ill. I have been ill for many years, now I am perfectly healthy. Now I will wake up only when sleep leaves me, and I will go to sleep only when sleep comes to me. I am no longer going to be a slave to the clock. I will eat whatsoever my body feels like eating, and I will drink whatsoever I feel like drinking."
They could not believe it. They said, "Can you even drink beer?" I said, "Bring it!"
That was the first day I tasted beer. They could not believe their eyes. They said, "You have completely gone down. You have become completely unspiritual. What are you doing?"
I said, "Enough is enough." And in seven days I completely forgot the whole project, and I forgot it forever.
And the seventh day it happened—it happened just out of nowhere. Suddenly all was light; and I was not doing anything, I was just sitting under a tree resting, enjoying. And when I laughed, the gardener heard the laughter. He used to think that I was a little bit crazy, but he had never seen me laugh in that way. He came running. He said, "What is the matter?"
I said, "Don't be worried. You know I am crazy—now I have gone completely crazy! I am laughing at myself. Don't feel offended. Just go to sleep." theolo09

I am reminded of the fateful day of twenty-first March, 1953. For many lives I had been working—working upon myself, struggling, doing whatsoever can be done—and nothing was happening.
Now I understand why nothing was happening. The very effort was the barrier, the very ladder was preventing, the very urge to seek was the obstacle. Not that one can reach without seeking. Seeking is needed, but then comes a point when seeking has to be dropped. The boat is needed to cross the river but then comes a moment when you have to get out of the boat and forget all about it and leave it behind. Effort is needed, without effort nothing is possible. And also only with effort, nothing is possible.
Just before twenty-first March, 1953, seven days before, I stopped working on myself. A moment comes when you see the whole futility of effort. You have done all that you can do and nothing is happening. You have done all that is humanly possible. Then what else can you do? In sheer helplessness one drops all search.
And the day the search stopped, the day I was not seeking for something, the day I was not expecting something to happen, it started happening. A new energy arose—out of nowhere. It was not coming from any source. It was coming from nowhere and everywhere. It was in the trees and in the rocks and the sky and the sun and the air—it was everywhere. And I was seeking so hard, and I was thinking it is very far away. And it was so near and so close.
Just because I was seeking I had become incapable of seeing the near. Seeking is always for the far, seeking is always for the distant—and it was not distant. I had become far-sighted, I had lost the near-sightedness. The eyes had become focussed on the far away, the horizon, and they had lost the quality to see that which is just close, surrounding you.
The day effort ceased, I also ceased. Because you cannot exist without effort, and you cannot exist without desire, and you cannot exist without striving.
The phenomenon of the ego, of the self, is not a thing, it is a process. It is not a substance sitting there inside you; you have to create it each moment. It is like pedalling bicycle. If you pedal it goes on and on, if you don't pedal it stops. It may go a little because of the past momentum, but the moment you stop pedalling, in fact the bicycle starts stopping. It has no more energy, no more power to go anywhere. It is going to fall and collapse.
The ego exists because we go on pedalling desire, because we go on striving to get something, because we go on jumping ahead of ourselves. That is the very phenomenon of the ego—the jump ahead of yourself, the jump in the future, the jump in the tomorrow. The jump in the non-existential creates the ego. Because it comes out of the non-existential it is like a mirage. It consists only of desire and nothing else. It consists only of thirst and nothing else.
The ego is not in the present, it is in the future. If you are in the future, then ego seems to be very substantial. If you are in the present the ego is a mirage, it starts disappearing.
The day I stopped seeking…and it is not right to say that I stopped seeking, better will be to say the day seeking stopped. Let me repeat it: the better way to say it is the day the seeking stopped. Because if I stop it then I am there again. Now stopping becomes my effort, now stopping becomes my desire, and desire goes on existing in a very subtle way.
You cannot stop desire; you can only understand it. In the very understanding is the stopping of it. Remember, nobody can stop desiring, and the reality happens only when desire stops.
So this is the dilemma. What to do? Desire is there and Buddhas go on saying desire has to be stopped, and they go on saying in the next breath that you cannot stop desire. So what to do? You put people in a dilemma. They are in desire, certainly. You say it has to be stopped—okay. And then you say it cannot be stopped. Then what is to be done?
The desire has to be understood. You can understand it, you can just see the futility of it. A direct perception is needed, an immediate penetration is needed. Look into desire, just see what it is, and you will see the falsity of it, and you will see it is non-existential. And desire drops and something drops simultaneously within you.
Desire and the ego exist in cooperation, they coordinate. The ego cannot exist without desire, the desire cannot exist without the ego. Desire is projected ego, ego is introjected desire. They are together, two aspects of one phenomenon.
The day desiring stopped, I felt very hopeless and helpless. No hope because no future. Nothing to hope because all hoping has proved futile, it leads nowhere. You go in rounds. It goes on dangling in front of you, it goes on creating new mirages, it goes on calling you, 'Come on, run fast, you will reach.' But howsoever fast you run you never reach.
That's why Buddha calls it a mirage. It is like the horizon that you see around the earth. It appears but it is not there. If you go it goes on running from you. The faster you run, the faster it moves away. The slower you go, the slower it moves away. But one thing is certain—the distance between you and the horizon remains absolutely the same. Not even a single inch can you reduce the distance between you and the horizon.
You cannot reduce the distance between you and your hope. Hope is horizon. You try to bridge yourself with the horizon, with the hope, with a projected desire. The desire is a bridge, a dream bridge—because the horizon exists not, so you cannot make a bridge towards it, you can only dream about the bridge. You cannot be joined with the non-existential.
The day the desire stopped, the day I looked and realized into it, it simply was futile. I was helpless and hopeless. But that very moment something started happening. The same started happening for which for many lives I was working and it was not happening.
In your hopelessness is the only hope, and in your desirelessness is your only fulfillment, and in your tremendous helplessness suddenly the whole existence starts helping you.
It is waiting. When it sees that you are working on your own, it does not interfere. It waits. It can wait infinitely because there is no hurry for it. It is eternity. The moment you are not on your own, the moment you drop, the moment you disappear, the whole existence rushes towards you, enters you. And for the first time things start happening.
Seven days I lived in a very hopeless and helpless state, but at the same time something was arising. When I say hopeless I don't mean what you mean by the word hopeless. I simply mean there was no hope in me. Hope was absent. I am not saying that I was hopeless and sad. I was happy in fact, I was very tranquil, calm and collected and centered. Hopeless, but in a totally new meaning. There was no hope, so how could there be hopelessness. Both had disappeared.
The hopelessness was absolute and total. Hope had disappeared and with it its counterpart, hopelessness, had also disappeared. It was a totally new experience—of being without hope. It was not a negative state. I have to use words—but it was not a negative state. It was absolutely positive. It was not just absence, a presence was felt. Something was overflowing in me, overflooding me.
And when I say I was helpless, I don't mean the word in the dictionary-sense. I simply say I was selfless. That's what I mean when I say helpless. I have recognized the fact that I am not, so I cannot depend on myself, so I cannot stand on my own ground—there was no ground underneath. I was in an abyss…bottomless abyss. But there was no fear because there was nothing to protect. There was no fear because there was nobody to be afraid.
Those seven days were of tremendous transformation, total transformation. And the last day the presence of a totally new energy, a new light and new delight, became so intense that it was almost unbearable—as if I was exploding, as if I was going mad with blissfulness. The new generation in the West has the right word for it—I was blissed out, stoned.
It was impossible to make any sense out of it, what was happening. It was a very non-sense world—difficult to figure it out, difficult to manage in categories, difficult to use words, languages, explanations. All scriptures appeared dead and all the words that have been used for this experience looked very pale, anaemic. This was so alive. It was like a tidal wave of bliss.
The whole day was strange, stunning, and it was a shattering experience. The past was disappearing, as if it had never belonged to me, as if I had read about it somewhere, as if I had dreamed about it, as if it was somebody else's story I have heard and somebody told it to me. I was becoming loose from my past, I was being uprooted from my history, I was losing my autobiography. I was becoming a non-being, what Buddha calls anatta. Boundaries were disappearing, distinctions were disappearing.
Mind was disappearing; it was millions of miles away. It was difficult to catch hold of it, it was rushing farther and farther away, and there was no urge to keep it close. I was simply indifferent about it all. It was okay. There was no urge to remain continuous with the past.
By the evening it became so difficult to bear it—it was hurting, it was painful. It was like when a woman goes into labour when a child is to be born, and the woman suffers tremendous pain—the birth pangs.
I used to go to sleep in those days near about twelve or one in the night, but that day it was impossible to remain awake. My eyes were closing, it was difficult to keep them open. Something was very imminent, something was going to happen. It was difficult to say what it was—maybe it is going to be my death—but there was no fear. I was ready for it. Those seven days had been so beautiful that I was ready to die, nothing more was needed. They had been so tremendously blissful, I was so contented, that if death was coming, it was welcome.
But something was going to happen—something like death, something very drastic, something which will be either a death or a new birth, a crucifixion or a resurrection—but something of tremendous import was around just by the corner. And it was impossible to keep my eyes open. I was drugged.
I went to sleep near about eight. It was not like sleep. Now I can understand what Patanjali means when he says that sleep and samadhi are similar. Only with one difference—that in samadhi you are fully awake and asleep also. Asleep and awake together, the whole body relaxed, every cell of the body totally relaxed, all functioning relaxed, and yet a light of awareness burns within you…clear, smokeless. You remain alert and yet relaxed, loose but fully awake. The body is in the deepest sleep possible and your consciousness is at its peak. The peak of consciousness and the valley of the body meet.
I went to sleep. It was a very strange sleep. The body was asleep, I was awake. It was so strange—as if one was torn apart into two directions, two dimensions; as if the polarity has become completely focused, as if I was both the polarities together…the positive and negative were meeting, sleep and awareness were meeting, death and life were meeting. That is the moment when you can say 'the creator and the creation meet.'
It was weird. For the first time it shocks you to the very roots, it shakes your foundations. You can never be the same after that experience; it brings a new vision to your life, a new quality.
Near about twelve my eyes suddenly opened—I had not opened them. The sleep was broken by something else. I felt a great presence around me in the room. It was a very small room. I felt a throbbing life all around me, a great vibration—almost like a hurricane, a great storm of light, joy, ecstasy. I was drowning in it.
It was so tremendously real that everything became unreal. The walls of the room became unreal, the house became unreal, my own body became unreal. Everything was unreal because now there was for the first time reality.
That's why when Buddha and Shankara say the world is maya, a mirage, it is difficult for us to understand. Because we know only this world, we don't have any comparison. This is the only reality we know. What are these people talking about—this is maya, illusion? This is the only reality. Unless you come to know the really real, their words cannot be understood, their words remain theoretical. They look like hypotheses. Maybe this man is propounding a philosophy—'The world is unreal'.
When Berkley in the West said that the world is unreal, he was walking with one of his friends, a very logical man; the friend was almost a skeptic. He took a stone from the road and hit Berkley's feet hard. Berkley screamed, blood rushed out, and the skeptic said, 'Now, the world is unreal? You say the world is unreal?—then why did you scream? This stone is unreal?—then why did you scream? Then why are you holding your leg and why are you showing so much pain and anguish on your face. Stop this? It is all unreal.
Now this type of man cannot understand what Buddha means when he says the world is a mirage. He does not mean that you can pass through the wall. He is not saying this—that you can eat stones and it will make no difference whether you eat bread or stones. He is not saying that.
He is saying that there is a reality. Once you come to know it, this so-called reality simply pales out, simply becomes unreal. With a higher reality in vision the comparison arises, not otherwise.
In the dream; the dream is real. You dream every night. Dream is one of the greatest activities that you go on doing. If you live sixty years, twenty years you will sleep and almost ten years you will dream. Ten years in a life—nothing else do you do so much. Ten years of continuous dreaming—just think about it. And every night…. And every morning you say it was unreal, and again in the night when you dream, dream becomes real.
In a dream it is so difficult to remember that this is a dream. But in the morning it is so easy. What happens? You are the same person. In the dream there is only one reality. How to compare? How to say it is unreal? Compared to what? It is the only reality. Everything is as unreal as everything else so there is no comparison. In the morning when you open your eyes another reality is there. Now you can say it was all unreal. Compared to this reality, dream becomes unreal.
There is an awakening—compared to that reality of that awakening, this whole reality becomes unreal.
That night for the first time I understood the meaning of the word maya. Not that I had not known the word before, not that I was not aware of the meaning of the word. As you are aware, I was also aware of the meaning—but I had never understood it before. How can you understand without experience?
That night another reality opened its door, another dimension became available. Suddenly it was there, the other reality, the separate reality, the really real, or whatsoever you want to call it—call it god, call it truth, call it dhamma, call it tao, or whatsoever you will. It was nameless. But it was there—so opaque, so transparent, and yet so solid one could have touched it. It was almost suffocating me in that room. It was too much and I was not yet capable of absorbing it.
A deep urge arose in me to rush out of the room, to go under the sky—it was suffocating me. It was too much! It will kill me! If I had remained a few moments more, it would have suffocated me—it looked like that.
I rushed out of the room, came out in the street. A great urge was there just to be under the sky with the stars, with the trees, with the earth…to be with nature. And immediately as I came out, the feeling of being suffocated disappeared. It was too small a place for such a big phenomenon. Even the sky is a small place for that big phenomenon. It is bigger than the sky. Even the sky is not the limit for it. But then I felt more at ease.
I walked towards the nearest garden. It was a totally new walk, as if gravitation had disappeared. I was walking, or I was running, or I was simply flying; it was difficult to decide. There was no gravitation, I was feeling weightless—as if some energy was taking me. I was in the hands of some other energy.
For the first time I was not alone, for the first time I was no more an individual, for the first time the drop has come and fallen into the ocean. Now the whole ocean was mine, I was the ocean. There was no limitation. A tremendous power arose as if I could do anything whatsoever. I was not there, only the power was there.
I reached to the garden where I used to go every day. The garden was closed, closed for the night. It was too late, it was almost one o'clock in the night. The gardeners were fast asleep. I had to enter the garden like a thief, I had to climb the gate. But something was pulling me towards the garden. It was not within my capacity to prevent myself. I was just floating.
That's what I mean when I say again and again 'float with the river, don't push the river'. I was relaxed, I was in a let-go. I was not there. it was there, call it god—god was there.
I would like to call it it, because god is too human a word, and has become too dirty by too much use, has become too polluted by so many people. Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, priests and politicians—they all have corrupted the beauty of the word. So let me call it it. It was there and I was just carried away…carried by a tidal wave.
The moment I entered the garden everything became luminous, it was all over the place—the benediction, the blessedness. I could see the trees for the first time—their green, their life, their very sap running. The whole garden was asleep, the trees were asleep. But I could see the whole garden alive, even the small grass leaves were so beautiful.
I looked around. One tree was tremendously luminous—the maulshree tree. It attracted me, it pulled me towards itself. I had not chosen it, god himself has chosen it. I went to the tree, I sat under the tree. As I sat there things started settling. The whole universe became a benediction.
It is difficult to say how long I was in that state. When I went back home it was four o'clock in the morning, so I must have been there by clock time at least three hours—but it was infinity. It had nothing to do with clock time. It was timeless.
Those three hours became the whole eternity, endless eternity. There was no time, there was no passage of time; it was the virgin reality—uncorrupted, untouchable, unmeasurable.
And that day something happened that has continued—not as a continuity—but it has still continued as an undercurrent. Not as a permanency—each moment it has been happening again and again. It has been a miracle each moment.
That night…and since that night I have never been in the body. I am hovering around it. I became tremendously powerful and at the same time very fragile. I became very strong, but that strength is not the strength of a Mohammed Ali. That strength is not the strength of a rock, that strength is the strength of a rose flower—so fragile in his strength…so fragile, so sensitive, so delicate.
The rock will be there, the flower can go any moment, but still the flower is stronger than the rock because it is more alive. Or, the strength of a dewdrop on a leaf of grass just shining; in the morning sun—so beautiful, so precious, and yet can slip any moment. So incomparable in its grace, but a small breeze can come and the dewdrop can slip and be lost forever.
Buddhas have a strength which is not of this world. Their strength is totally of love…Like a rose flower or a dewdrop. Their strength is very fragile, vulnerable. Their strength is the strength of life not of death. Their power is not of that which kills; their power is of that which creates. Their power is not of violence, aggression; their power is that of compassion.
But I have never been in the body again, I am just hovering around the body. And that's why I say it has been a tremendous miracle. Each moment I am surprised I am still here, I should not be. I should have left any moment, still I am here. Every morning I open my eyes and I say, 'So, again I am still here?' Because it seems almost impossible. The miracle has been a continuity.
Just the other day somebody asked a question—'Osho, you are getting so fragile and delicate and so sensitive to the smells of hair oils and shampoos that it seems we will not be able to see you unless we all go bald.' By the way, nothing is wrong with being bald—bald is beautiful. Just as 'black is beautiful', so 'bald is beautiful'. But that is true and you have to be careful about it.
I am fragile, delicate and sensitive. That is my strength. If you throw a rock at a flower nothing will happen to the rock, the flower will be gone. But still you cannot say that the rock is more powerful than the flower. The flower will be gone because the flower was alive. And the rock—nothing will happen to it because it is dead. The flower will be gone because the flower has no strength to destroy. The flower will simply disappear and give way to the rock. The rock has a power to destroy because the rock is dead.
Remember, since that day I have never been in the body really; just a delicate thread joins me with the body. And I am continuously surprised that somehow the whole must be willing me to be here, because I am no more here with my own strength, I am no more here on my own. It must be the will of the whole to keep me here, to allow me to linger a little more on this shore. Maybe the whole wants to share something with you through me.
Since that day the world is unreal. Another world has been revealed. When I say the world is unreal I don't mean that these trees are unreal. These trees are absolutely real—but the way you see these trees is unreal. These trees are not unreal in themselves—they exist in god, they exist in absolute reality—but the way you see them you never see them; you are seeing something else, a mirage.
You create your own dream around you and unless you become awake you will continue to dream. The world is unreal because the world that you know is the world of your dreams. When dreams drop and you simply encounter the world that is there, then the real world.
There are not two things, god and the world. God is the world if you have eyes, clear eyes, without any dreams, without any dust of the dreams, without any haze of sleep; if you have clear eyes, clarity, perceptiveness, there is only god.
Then somewhere god is a green tree, and somewhere else god is a shining star, and somewhere else god is a cuckoo, and somewhere else god is a flower, and somewhere else a child and somewhere else a river—then only god is. The moment you start seeing, only god is.
But right now whatsoever you see is not the truth, it is a projected lie. That is the meaning of a mirage. And once you see, even for a single split moment, if you can see, if you can allow yourself to see, you will find immense benediction present all over, everywhere—in the clouds, in the sun, on the earth.
This is a beautiful world. But I am not talking about your world, I am talking about my world. Your world is very ugly, your world is your world created by a self, your world is a projected world. You are using the real world as a screen and projecting your own ideas on it.
When I say the world is real, the world is tremendously beautiful, the world is luminous with infinity, the world is light and delight, it is a celebration, I mean my world—or your world if you drop your dreams.
When you drop your dreams you see the same world as any Buddha has ever seen. When you dream you dream privately. Have you watched it?—that dreams are private. You cannot share them even with your beloved. You cannot invite your wife to your dream—or your husband, or your friend. You cannot say, 'Now, please come tonight in my dream. I would like to see the dream together.' It is not possible. Dream is a private thing, hence it is illusory, it has no objective reality.
God is a universal thing. Once you come out of your private dreams, it is there. It has been always there. Once your eyes are clear, a sudden illumination—suddenly you are overflooded with beauty, grandeur and grace. That is the goal, that is the destiny.
Let me repeat. Without effort you will never reach it, with effort nobody has ever reached it. You will need great effort, and only then there comes a moment when effort becomes futile. But it becomes futile only when you have come to the very peak of it, never before it. When you have come to the very pinnacle of your effort—all that you can do you have done—then suddenly there is no need to do anything any more. You drop the effort.
But nobody can drop it in the middle, it can be dropped only at the extreme end. So go to the extreme end if you want to drop it. Hence I go on insisting: make as much effort as you can, put your whole energy and total heart in it, so that one day you can see—now effort is not going to lead me anywhere. And that day it will not be you who will drop the effort, it drops on its own accord. And when it drops on its own accord, meditation happens.
Meditation is not a result of your efforts, meditation is a happening. When your efforts drop, suddenly meditation is there…the benediction of it, the blessedness of it, the glory of it. It is there like a presence…luminous, surrounding you and surrounding everything. It fills the whole earth and the whole sky.
That meditation cannot be created by human effort. Human effort is too limited. That blessedness is so infinite. You cannot manipulate it. It can happen only when you are in a tremendous surrender. When you are not there only then it can happen. When you are a no-self—no desire, not going anywhere—when you are just herenow, not doing anything in particular, just being, it happens. And it comes in waves and the waves become tidal. It comes like a storm, and takes you away into a totally new reality.
But first you have to do all that you can do, and then you have to learn non-doing. The doing of the non-doing is the greatest doing, and the effort of effortlessness is the greatest effort.
Your meditation that you create by chanting a mantra or by sitting quiet and still and forcing yourself, is a very mediocre meditation. It is created by you, it cannot be bigger than you. It is homemade, and the maker is always bigger than the made. You have made it by sitting, forcing in a yoga posture, chanting 'rama, rama, rama' or anything—'blah, blah, blah'—anything. You have forced the mind to become still.
It is a forced stillness. It is not that quiet that comes when you are not there. It is not that silence which comes when you are almost non-existential. It is not that beautitude which descends on you like a dove.
It is said when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, god descended in him, or the holy ghost descended in him like a dove. Yes, that is exactly so. When you are not there peace descends in you…fluttering like a dove…reaches in your heart and abides there and abides there forever.
You are your undoing, you are the barrier. Meditation is when the meditator is not. When the mind ceases with all its activities—seeing that they are futile—then the unknown penetrates you, overwhelms you.
The mind must cease for god to be. Knowledge must cease for knowing to be. You must disappear, you must give way. You must become empty, then only you can be full.
That night I became empty and became full. I became non-existential and became existence. That night I died and was reborn. But the one that was reborn has nothing to do with that which died, it is a discontinuous thing. On the surface it looks continuous but it is discontinuous. The one who died, died totally; nothing of him has remained.
Believe me, nothing of him has remained, not even a shadow. It died totally, utterly. It is not that I am just a modified rup, transformed, modified form, transformed form of the old. No, there has been no continuity. That day of March twenty-first, the person who had lived for many many lives, for millennia, simply died. Another being, absolutely new, not connected at all with the old, started to exist.
Religion just gives you a total death. Maybe that's why the whole day previous to that happening I was feeling some urgency like death, as if I am going to die—and I really died. I have known many other deaths but they were nothing compared to it, they were partial deaths.
Sometimes the body died, sometimes a part of the mind died, sometimes a part of the ego died, but as far as the person was concerned, it remained. Renovated many times, decorated many times, changed a little bit here and there, but it remained, the continuity remained.
That night the death was total. It was a date with death and god simultaneously. 

HOW THE FEAR EXIST ON TODAY'S WORLD? CAN WE OVERCOME IT?( PRESENT CONDITION, COVID-19 VIRUS)

Fear is natural, but it can feel overwhelming. 

In dying, as in any other phase of living, it is normal to feel fear sometimes. Fear is an inbuilt mechanism that warns us to be alert: danger could be at hand. So it is not something to be ignored. However, when fear threatens to overwhelm us or when we are chronically anxious, fear is counter-productive. Then it is no longer protecting us but blocking our ability to live as we’d like to.

There are several ways to reduce fear or even to have it disappear altogether. The first step is acceptance. Only in facing whatever feeling might be troubling us can we go beyond it.

When we stop fighting with what is, miraculously the problems we had created can disappear. If, in spite of acknowledging fear you feel you need more support, here are four suggestions to consider. 

1) Talk to a good listener

A good listener doesn’t judge you or leap in with advice when you’d rather they just let you talk – or cry or whatever. They understand that by your talking about your feelings, those emotions move from the basement of your mind into the light of day and that that can help you to find some clarity and understanding.

The ‘good listener’ might be a friend or family member. Yet in some instances you might feel more comfortable talking to someone you don’t know, such as a professional counsellor. (Maneesha and Sudheer offer individual counselling sessions in person or by Skype.)

2) Let it be – and Watch!

Osho suggests that if fear is creating a trembling inside, rather than trying to ignore it or repress it, just tremble. Try this Trembling Meditation….

Allow it to happen. It will go by itself. There will be a shaking and a trembling; it will be just like an earthquake. The whole soul will be disturbed by it. But let it be. Don’t try to do anything with it because all that you can do will again be suppression. Just by allowing it to be, by letting it be, it will leave you – and when it has left, you will be altogether a different man.

The cyclone has gone and you will now be centred, centered as you never were before. And once you know the art of letting things be, you will know one of the master keys that opens all the inner doors. Then whatsoever the case is, let it be; don’t avoid it.

Remain a witness and allow whatsoever happens to happen.

Fear has to be faced to go beyond it. Anguish has to be faced to transcend it. And the more authentic the encounter, the more looking at it face to face, the more looking at things as they are, the sooner the happening will be there.

It takes time only because your authenticity is not intense. So you may take three days, three months or three lives – it depends on the intensity. Really, three minutes can also do, three seconds can also do. But then you will have to pass through a tremendous hell with such intensity that you may not be able to bear it, to tolerate it. If one can face whatsoever is hidden in oneself, it passes, and when it has gone you are different because all that has left you was part of you before and now it is no longer a part.

So don’t ask what to do. There is no need to do anything. Non-doing, witnessing, effortlessly facing whatsoever is, not even making a slight effort, just allowing it to be…. Remain passive and let it pass. It always passes. You will come out of it new, with a new glory and dignity, a new purity and innocence. [1]

3) Stay in the Present

Fear is generally about something in the future – such as having a certain procedure, or being in pain, or about dying itself. When you notice yourself ‘Awfulising’ – imagining scary possible situations – bring yourself back to the present moment.

Doing something that gives you a sense of connection with your body is helpful because – fortunately for us! – the body can only be in the present. It’s an anchor in the moment. Try an activity such as running or even just walking very mindfully, feeling your feet making contact with the ground with each step. Or, if you are weak or confined to bed, watching your breathing can have a similar anchoring effect.

Rather than awfulise about what hasn’t happened yet (and which might never happen), just take things one moment at a time….

Once there was a great king who asked his magician to find him a courageous man for a dangerous mission. After a long search, the magician brought four men before his master. The king, wishing to choose the most courageous of the four, asked the magician to arrange a test.

The king, the magician and the four men went to the edge of a large field, on the other side of which stood a barn. The magician gave instructions: ‘Each man shall have his turn. He is to walk to the barn and bring forth what is there inside.’

The first man walked across the field. Suddenly a storm came up: lightning flashed, thunder rolled, the ground shook. The man hesitated. He was frightened. As the storm increased, he fell down in fear.

The second man walked across the field. The storm grew worse, until it was a tempest. The second man passed the first man, but finally he also fell down.

The third man started with a rush, and passed the other two. But the heavens opened, the ground split, and the barn itself waved and cracked. The third man fell down.

The fourth started slowly. He felt his footing. His face was white with fear. But he was more afraid of being thought afraid than of anything else. Slowly he passed the first man, and he said, to himself, ‘I’m alright – so far.’ Foot by foot he went on until he had passed the second man, and again he said to himself, ‘So far I’m alright.’

Little by little he closed the gap between him and the third man, while the storm got worse. When he passed the third frightened man he said to himself, ‘So far I’m all right. Nothing has happened to me. I can go a little farther.’ So little by little, an inch at a time now, he went towards the barn. He got there at last, and just before he touched the latch he said, ‘So far I’m alright. I can go a little farther.’ Then he put his hand on the latch.

Instantly the storm ceased, the ground was steady, and the sun shone. The man was astonished. From inside the barn came a munching sound. For a moment he thought it might be a trick. Then he thought, ‘I’m still alright,’ and opened the door. Inside he found a white horse eating oats. Nearby was a suit of white armour. The man put it on, saddled the horse, rode out to the king and the magician, and said, ‘I am ready, Sire.’

‘How do you feel?’ asked the king.

‘I’m alright so far,’ the man said. [2]

4) Meditate

Meditation provides a way to move inwards – beyond the mind where scary thoughts are created – to the dimension of simply being. The Zen people call this ‘no-mind’ or ‘your original face’; others call it ‘your true nature, your ‘ground of being’ or, simply, ‘consciousness.’ Whatever the label, the reality is one, and the same: vast, silent, timeless and peaceful. Meditators invariably report ‘That space feels like the real me.’

Constantly returning to who we really are keeps everything on the periphery in perspective.

There are literally hundreds of meditative techniques available. If you are new to meditation read our Meditation section. We’ve assembled a varied and growing selection of meditations, loosely categorised as four sections – Health & Ageing, Pain, Illness and Dying. Find them here.

When you are unburdened of fear it’s as if the brambles have been cleared from a pathway that was always there but which you couldn’t see.

Then you can find that the way forward takes you to an unexpected clearing – one that reveals aspects of yourself, of life and love and the search for meaning that you had not been aware of. You can begin to appreciate that there is a positive dimension to dying; that even while outwardly dying, inwardly you can grow.”

Experientially facing our fears

Our approach in our OSHO Sammasati workshops is to work with fear through discussion and the use of specific meditative methods. They can open the way to an experiential understanding, one that can be literally life- and death- changing. That’s what so many of our workshop participants and individual clients confirm.

One expresses it like this: ‘The Osho Sammasati Support-Person training* has been an exercise in sobering me, in grounding me more, in bringing my understanding closer to basics facts in life about this body, this life, this human nature. While I would have thought that abandoning so many old dreams, fantasies and beliefs would create a sort of desperation and vacuum, interestingly enough, this process has not made me sad. Quite the opposite; in practical terms in my daily life it is making me bolder in that I am asking for what I want/need, very well knowing that this is the time (and no other in a future to come), that there might not be other chances, that there is no space for stupid fears or polite limitations. A window has been opened where I can be more real.’

And another: ‘…  I feel as if I have died and been reborn into my own daily life; so it has a different feel, there is a slightly different edge to everything, as if I am a stranger in town seeing all that is going on impartially, dispassionately, and I am also here enjoying it all the more, at the same time.