Essence of Spiritualism

First Cover Page

Essence of Spiritualism

Osho Siddhartha

Second Cover (Flap) Page Upanishad means sitting at the feet of the master….And that’s exactly the work of a Mystery School. …. The whole work of a Mystery School is in how to bring consciousness to the disciple, how to wake him up, how to allow him to be himself…….The function of a Mystery School is that the master – speaking or in silence, looking at you or making a gesture, or just sitting with closed eyes – manages to create a certain field of energy. And if you are receptive, if you are available, if you are ready to go on the journey of the unknown, something clicks and you are no more the old person …. And every Mystery School can exist only in one way, and that is that they have a Living Master. Once the Living Master is gone, the Mystery School disperses -------Osho, Osho Upnishad , Chapter #1

Oshodhara Osho Ki Jivant Dhara

Presents

Essence of Spiritualism Based on Discourses of

OSHO & His Three Enlightened Disciples

Osho Siddhartha Osho Shailendra Osho Priya

Religion is not in the tradition, not in the rituals, and not in the so-called religions – Hindu, Christian, and Mohammedan. Religion has no adjective to it. Religion is simply religion, as love is love. Do you call love Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan? If love is neither Christian nor Hindu nor Mohammedan, then why should God be Christian, Hindu and Mohammedan? Has not Jesus said `God is Love’? Religion is not in the religions; religion is pure of all adjectives, pure of all definitions, and each one has to seek it. Nobody can be born into a religion; religion has to be born into you. You have to open your soul and receive religion. It is showering all around... but you are carrying toys, substitutes, false coins, in your hands, and thinking you are having religion. In the church it is not, in the mosque it is not, in the temple it is not. Go somewhere where a living Master is: it is there. And that too exists only for a few moments – the Master is gone, and the religion disappears…. ------------Osho, The Divine Melody, Chapter #1

First edition: July, 2006 Editor: Osho Siddhartha Special Assistance: Osho Moksha Artwork: Photography: Osho Maitreya, Osho Gopal Publisher: Dynamic Publications (India) Ltd. Printer: Price:

Foreword E

‘ ssence of Spiritualism’ is a treatise of all human endeavors aimed at searching our divine roots. From Lord Shiva, who appeared as the first master on the earth, to Osho, the greatest mystic of our times, many paths- Vedanta, Sankhya, Yoga, Tantra, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Christianity, Sufism, Zen, Hasid, Tao, Baul, Sikhism, etc., have been discovered to reach the peak of human consciousness, but there has been hardly any effort to synthesize these paths scientifically in a sequential manner. The present treatise is therefore a unique effort to present the essence of spiritualism preached and practiced down the ages. It depends upon disciples as to what height they give to their master. For example the height that disciples of Buddha, Lao-Tzu or Nanak could give to their Masters, the disciples of Jesus could not, although there is hardly any difference in experiences of all these masters. Similarly realization and contribution of Osho is not less than any of the above masters, but it will depend upon His disciples what height they give to their master. Both national and international media continue to picture Osho more as a sex Guru, philosopher and thinker, rather than one of the greatest spiritual Masters of all ages. The saddest part of the story is that journals claiming to propagate His message are adding fuel to the fire by publishing articles largely on sex and relationships, rather than on subjects of His core teachings, such as Blissful Living, Meditation, Divine Sound, Divine Light, Divine Bliss, Divine Love, Samadhi, Enlightenment etc. We do not say that articles on relationship and sex should not be published. We simply wish to emphasize that they are peripheral issues so far as spiritual exploration is concerned and by overemphasizing them, a reader is confused whether this is all Osho has to say. Similarly meditation techniques are very elementary part of Osho’s teachings. By over emphasizing these techniques as Osho’s main contribution, inadvertently we are reducing His stature as spiritual master. In fact in later years, Osho Himself asked to drop these chaotic meditations preached by Him after He was gone (Tao: The Golden Gate, Volume 1, #2).

Core teaching of all the sages, Upanishdic rishis, Lord Krishna, Mahavir, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Kabir, Nanak and Osho, is Omkar. Oshodhara has taken upon itself the responsibility to present this point in proper perspective so that world knows Osho as Master of Masters, a height which He rightly deserves. In fact we wish that all the journals related to Osho will do justice if they also toe this line and present Osho as Messiah of Omkar, rather than publishing articles only on sex and relationship.

This book presents the scientific and philosophical background of first four out of eleven levels of Samadhi Programs–Dhyan (Divine Awareness), Surati (Divine Sound), Nirati (Divine Light), Amrit (Divine Nectar), Chaitanya (Divine Consciousness), Divya (Divine Energy), Anand (Divine Bliss), Prem (Divine Love), Gyan (Divine Enlightenment), Kaivalya (Beyond Enlightenment) and Nirvana xxx–being regularly conducted in Oshodhara. I have immensely enjoyed editing these discourses and shaping them in form of a book. However, the treatise should be considered only a comprehensive map, and not a vehicle of spiritual journey. The real journey is possible only under active guidance of the Living Masters. -Osho Siddhartha --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Osho-An Introduction Osho was born in Kuchwada, M.P. on 11

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December,1931. His parents Swami Devateertha Bharti and Ma Amrit Saraswati became his disciples in later years. He was enlightened at the age of 21 years on March 21, 1953, while he was studying philosophy at D.N. Jain college in Jabalpur. In 1956 Osho did M.A. from the University of Sagar with First Class Honors in Philosophy. He joined Sanskrit College, Raipur in 1957. He was appointed Professor of Philosophy at the University of Jabalpur, in 1958, where He taught until 1966. During this period He traveled widely in India speaking to large audiences and challenging orthodox religious leaders in public debates. After nine years of teaching, He left the university in 1966 for regular spiritual work. He started conducting intense ten-day meditation and Samadhi camps. At times He addressed gatherings of 20000 to 50000 people. In July, 1970, He moved to Mumbai. By this time He came to be known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. He started initiating seekers into Neo-Sannyas, which did not involve renouncing the world. This was a great revolutionary step since sannyas in all other traditions requires renunciation. In 1974 He moved to Poona Ashram, where He gave 90 minutes discourses nearly every morning, alternating every month between Hindi and English. He spoke on Yoga, Zen, Taoism, Tantra and Sufism covering masters like Gautam Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tzu, and other mystics. These discourses have been collected into over 300 volumes and translated into 20 languages. In the evenings, during these years, He gave Energy darshan and sannyas. And while explaining the sannyas names He unraveled many secrets of divine sound, divine light, and other dimensions of spiritualism. These evening talks are compiled in 64 darshan diaries of which 40 are published. In March 1981, He moved to USA, where His disciples raised city of Rajneeshpuram from the ruins of the central Oregonian high desert. In October 1984 Osho ended His three and half years of self-imposed silence, and started speaking to small groups of people. In July 1985 He resumed His public discourses each morning to thousands of seekers gathered in a two-acre meditation hall.

On 14th September 1985 Osho's personal secretary Sheela and several members of the commune's management suddenly left after being exposed for their crimes. Osho invited law enforcement officials to investigate Sheela's crimes. The authorities, however, saw the investigation as a golden opportunity to destroy the commune entirely. But the authorities arrested Osho Himself without warrants, held Him without bail for twelve days, and subsequent events indicate that He was poisoned with the heavy metal thallium while in the jail. Finally He was fined $400,000 under a compromise deal and was deported from America. Among others, U.S. Attorney in Portland, Charles Turner, publicly conceded that the government was intent on destroying Rajneeshpuram. During 1985 - 1986 He undertook a World Tour and visited many countries including Nepal, Greece, Uruguay, Jamaica and Portugal. In all, 21 countries denied Him entry or deported Him after arrival. On July 29,1986, He returned to Mumbai, India and shifted to the ashram in Poona, India, in January, 1987. During January-February 1989 He stopped using the name "Bhagwan," retaining only the name Rajneesh. Later He adopted ‘Osho’ as His new name. On 19th January 1991 Osho left His body saying “I leave you my dream." Different people interpreted His dream differently. Some started building large structures in His name. Some others considered Him last prophet and started propagating His spoken words. Oshodhara has assumed the responsibility of enhancing His spiritual work by guiding seekers from meditation to samadhi and enlightenment. Very few people know that core teaching of Osho is not the dynamic and other chaotic meditations, which He Himself asked to drop in later years, but is Omkar, like all other sages, Lord Krishna, Mahavir, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Kabir, and Nanak. Osho continues to be controversial even after many years of leaving this planet. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sadguru Trivir—An Introduction Sadguru Trivir is a group of three enlightened disciples of Osho who are guiding seekers and Osho lovers from meditation to Enlightenment through a series of Oshodhara Samadhi Groups. Osho Siddhartha

Osho Siddhartha was born on 23rd September, 1942 at Karma, District Rohtas, Bihar, India. He did his schooling in Neterhat Residential School (1955-61), and did M.SC, AISM, PHD in Indian School Mines, Dhanbad, India, where he also served as lecturer till 1975. He joined Coal India Ltd in 1975 where he xxx worked as General Manager till 2002. He did senior Executive Course in Management at Manchester Business School, UK in 1991. Osho Siddhartha’s quest for truth took him to several Masters of different Spiritual traditions. He joined Osho’s Neo-Sannyas movement on 13th May 1980. Osho Siddhartha experienced satori in December 1988 and founded Indian Institute of Yoga and Management. He was blessed with Enlightenment on the 5th of March, 1997. He developed eleven levels of Samadhi programs under Oshodhara- a live stream originating from Osho – and through these programs he is helping the seekers on the path of Enlightenment. He appears daily on Astha Channel at 7.40 PM.

Osho Shailendra

Osho Shailendra was born on 17th June, 1955 as younger brother of Osho. He joined Osho’s Neo-Sannyas movement in 1971. He did his MBBS from Jabalpur University in 1978. He lived in Osho Commune in Pune during 1978-81. He went to Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, USA in 1981 and lived with Osho till 1985. He came back to India and served in Orient Paper Mills at Amlai (MP) as Chief Medical Officer during 1986-99. He again went to Osho Commune, Pune during August 89September 90 during last days of Osho leaving His body. He was blessed with Enlightenment on 5th January, 2001. He is a member of Osho Acharya Trivir, a Trinity of Living Masters, who are regularly conducting Oshodhara Samadhi Programs. He appears daily on Astha Channel at 7.40 PM.

Osho Priya

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Osho Priya was born on 8 May, 1958. She did her M. A. in Philosophy and Prabhakar in Music in 1979. She joined Osho’s-Neo-Sannyas movement in 1973. She married Swami Shailendra now known as Osho Shailendra in 1979. She lived in the Osho Commune in Pune during 197881. She went to Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, U.S.A, in 1982 and lived there with Osho till 1985. She came back to India and went to Osho Commune Pune in August 1989 and lived there till September, 1990 during the last days of Osho . She worked as a teacher in OPM Shikshan Kendra during 1990-99. th She was blessed with Enlightenment on 25 January, 2000. She is a wonderful singer and 25 of her albums of Bhajans (devotional songs) have already become very popular among the seekers. She had the privilege of singing some of her songs in the presence of Osho, who enjoyed her singing with much appreciation. She is a member of Osho Acharya Trivir, a Trinity of Living Masters, who are regularly conducting Oshodhara Samadhi Programs. She appears daily on Astha Channel at 7.40 PM.

Contents Fore word Osho-An Introduction Sadguru Trivir-An Introduction CHAPTER 1-DIVINE QUEST When I will not Be Here Commune No, Mystery School Yes Why Should We Be Religious? Unless Meditation Becomes Enlightenment Where A Real Seeker Should Go? Seek a Living Master How to Find a Master? Old Wine in New Bottle I Am Not the Last Prophet Osho: A Friend or a Master? The World Needs Masters Only A Living Master can Help My Quest for Bliss CHAPTER 2-DIVINE LIVING The Eight-Fold Path of Lord Buddha Right Paradigm Right Awakening Right Action Right Living Right Speech Right Commitment Right Effort My Only Message Is Love Let Your Heart Be Divine Love Yourself

Why My Sannyasins are Vegetarian? Choice Is Between Lesser and Greater Evil Friendship is higher than Love CHAPTER 3-DIVINE AWARENESS What is Meditation? Meditation is falling in Self Love Tantra: A Group Method of Awakening Watch Your Mind with Deep Love Karma Yoga—The Path of Action Tantra Yoga—The Path of Sensual Awareness Hath Yoga—The Path of Breathing Bhakti Yoga—The Path of Devotion Gyan Yoga- The Path of Wisdom Dhyan Yoga- The Path of Total Awareness Sankhya Yoga—The Path of Subjective Awareness The Eight Limbs of Yoga Secrets of Sadhana Seven Characteristics of Samadhi CHAPTER 4-DIVINE SOUND What Is God? Ek Omkar Satnam Real Religion Begins with Omkar The True Name Aum: The Soundless Sound What is Divine Sound? Sound of One Hand Clapping Divine Sound –What Other Masters Say Quality of Divine Sound The Art of Divine Listening Mantra Yoga Satyam Shivam Sundaram

Sat Chit Anand Hari Om Tat Sat Om Mani Padme Hum Om Shantih Shantih Shantih CHAPTER 5-DIVINE LIGHT What is Divine Light? Looking At the Darkness Divine Light–What Other Masters Say Nature of Divine Light The Art of Looking Inside Seeing Into Inner Sky is Meditation Divine Aura Mysteries of Inner Illumination Rainbow Experiences CHAPTER 6- DIVINE NECTAR What is Divine Nectar? Divine Nectar—What Other Masters Say Meditation—A Deathless Death The Invisible Body Out of Body Experience Art of Dying Helping a Dying Person Life after Death CHAPTER 7-DIVINE ENLIGHTENMENT Enlightenment is Your Birthright Discover Your Enlightenment LIMASS-Lessons in Meditation and Spiritual Science --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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DIVINE QUEST ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When I Will Not Be Here RELIGION exists in three dimensions. That is the original source of the concept of Trinity, or the Hindu idea of trimurti – the three faces of God. Or we can say that religion exists on three planes – because man exists on three planes. Man exists in the body, in the mind, in the soul. Religion also has a body, a mind and a soul. If you only exist in the body you cannot relate to any other religion except the outermost. If you exist as a psychology – as a mind, as a psyche – then you can relate to the second layer of religion, otherwise not. And until you start existing as a soul, there is no possibility of coming to encounter the innermost core of religion – tasawur, the ultimate, what the Sufis are searching for. The Sufis have three names for these three planes. They have to be understood; they are very significant. The first is called sharia. Sharia means the body of religion. It may be alive, it may be dead – both are possibilities. When a Buddha is alive, sharia is alive. When a Mohammed is alive, sharia is alive – because Mohammed breathes life into it.... When Mohammed was there to breathe life into it, it was a totally different kind of religion. That is called sharia. Sharia means exotericism – the ritual, the formal, the Sunday religion. It does not affect you at all. It gives you certain respectability in the society. It is more social than spiritual. And it is more political than religious. Islam without Mohammed and Hinduism without Krishna and Buddhism without Buddha are nothing but garbed political standpoints. In the name of religion politics continues... Dead Masters act for a while as if they were still alive. But only a little while – one year, ten years, fifty years, perhaps. In any case, a finite period. Yes, this happens. When a Mohammed disappears from the body, the body has tasted so much joy, the body has known so much celebration, that it goes on dancing – the runner goes on running. That myth is really beautiful and meaningful. At least about the great Masters it is true – for a few years things go on happening as if they are still alive. This happens because of the tremendous energy released by the dying Master. His very place becomes a sacred place for pilgrimage. That’s how a Mecca is created; that’s how Kailash becomes of great significance; that’s how Jainas have Gimar and Shikharji. On the mountains of Shikharji, twenty-three Jaina teerthankaras have died – out of twentyfour. Out of twenty-four great Masters, twenty-three Masters have died on a small hill. The whole hill has become suffused with the vibe of the beyond. But that continues only for a while – that also creates a problem. Then the disciples think that the corpse is still alive because things go on happening. When I am gone things will go on happening for a few years and for those who are deep in love with me it will be as if I am still alive. Naturally, they will think that everything is as it was before. But that is a fallacy.

Once the man is gone, within a few years time those vibes that were created, and the echo of those vibes that were created, will by and by disappear into nothingness.The sharia is the superficial core of religion – the body. Beware of sharia. The second layer is called haqiqa. The sharia is the circumference of a circle – haqiqa. The word ‘haqiqa’ comes from ‘haq’. ‘haq’ means truth – pure truth. haqiqat! That’s why Mansoor declared, ‘an-el-haq! – I am the Truth.’ haqiqa means the truth, pure, uncontaminated by anything. haqiqa means the centre of the circumference, the very soul of religion. At the point of sharia there is Mohammedanism, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism; at the point of haqiqa there is Sufism, Zen, Hassidism, Yoga. Remember it. To become a Mohammedan is not of much use, but to become a Sufi is immensely valuable. To become a Buddhist is just changing your clothes, but to become a follower of Zen is really moving towards transformation. To remain a Jew is nothing, but to be a Hassid is great splendor. This is the second point, the innermost core. At the first, sharia, there is politics, society, morality and a thousand and one things. Because of sharia the Koran is so full of social rules – so full of social rules . Because of sharia the Vedas are so full of rubbish. Because of sharia Manusmriti reads only as if it is a treatise on law. Only few and far between will you find real statements about religion. They are there – even in Manusmriti they are there. In the Vedas they are there, in the Koran they are there, but only few and far between. Only if you are really in search of them will you be able to find them, otherwise the diamond is lost in the mud – the mud is too much. The mud is sharia; the diamond is Sufism. Always rush towards the centre; never become too attached to the body. Create this continuous awareness of looking into depth, of looking into the centre of the circumference. And the circumference is big, the centre is very small. Islam is a great crowd, so is Hinduism, so is Christianity. Sufis you can count on your fingers; Yogis you can count on your fingers; Hassids or Zen Masters you can count on your fingers. They don’t exist like the crowd, you will have to search for them. And if you have a real desire to find them, only then will you find them – otherwise you will miss. For the sharia you need not go in search anywhere, the sharia comes in search of you. The sharia comes to convert you to Islam and the Buddhist monk comes to convert you to Buddhism. But if you want to search for a Sufi or a Hassid you will have to move, you will have to become a sincere seeker. And you will have to learn many things on the way – because for one real Master there are ninety-nine false Masters. And the false will appeal to you more because you are false. The false will appeal to you more because you understand the language of the false. The real may not appeal to you at all, the real may sometimes create fear in you. You will resist the real Master and you will fall and become a victim of the unreal. Beware of that! You are unreal, so naturally you are attracted by the unreal. The unreal promises you things that you want. He will say, ‘If you follow me, you will have more wealth, you will have more power, more prestige, this and that.... ‘That’s what you are seeking.

The real can only promise one thing: ‘If you come close to me, you will die.’ The real can promise only death. The real can promise only one thing: ‘I am going to destroy you utterly’ – because only after death is the resurrection. The real Master is a cross; the real Master is a door into death. You disappear into him. Yes, you will come out, but you will come out a totally new being. The real Master is a fire – one gets frightened, one feels very much afraid, one remains aloof. From far away one watches a real Master. Just the other day there was a young man – he is very young – who said that five or seven years before he had promised Guru Maharaji that he would devote his whole life and his work to him. Now he is in trouble. He does not feel that he is growing in any way. He has not gained a small, even the smallest insight through this contact or relationship. But now the promise that he has given.... Now he thinks that he is being very religious because he goes on clinging to his promise. It is not religion, it is ego. Now he cannot accept the idea of dropping his promise because that hurts the ego: ‘You are a man of your word. Once you have given the word you have to follow.’ But this seems to be stupid. If you are not getting well, getting integrated, if you are not growing, then one needs the courage to drop it. And in these five years you have become wiser than you were when you gave the promise. A stupid mind gives a promise, and for five or ten or fifty years you go on following the same promise knowing perfectly well that nothing has happened – is it not suicidal? How can the past be binding? I am not saying don’t give promises and I am not saying don’t fulfil your promises. Give promises, fulfil them, but when you come to see that nothing is happening then be courageous enough to drop the ego. This is just egoistic…. Beware of the false gurus – they are many. The false guru will promise you things of this world; even if he is promising them in the other world he is promising the same things. He will promise you beautiful women in Paradise – firdaus. He will promise you streams of wine in paradise. But he is promising the same thing. He may promise you golden castles, palaces studded with diamonds in paradise, but diamonds and gold and silver and women and wine – they all belong to this world. He is simply titillating you; he is simply befooling you. The real Master only promises one thing: your death. So wherever you find death waiting for you, then gather courage. You have to disappear for God to be. This is the second dimension or plane of religion: haqiqa. The third dimension or plane is called tariqa. Tariqa means the path, the method... from the outer to the inner. The outer is a circumference, the inner is a centre, and tariqa is the radius proceeding from the circumference to the centre – the initiative path that leads from outward observance to inner conviction, from belief to vision, from potency to act, from dream to reality. This TARIQA – method, technique, path, way, Tao, Dhamma – is the whole science of religion. The circumference is there, the centre is there, but one has to move from the circumference because we are there and we have to use a certain radius. Only a radius can join the circumference to the centre. What is the radius that Sufis propose? They are called the people of the path because they have devised many techniques.

They have the most potential TARIQA – it can transform you, it can transform you utterly. They are not concerned with theology at all, they are only concerned with methodology. They are not worried about whether God is or is not. They say, ‘Don’t talk nonsense! Here is a way. Go through it and see for yourself. This is the way to develop your eyes – and then see whether God is or is not.’ They don’t argue, they don’t try to convince; they demonstrate. They say, ‘Come with me. I know a window from where you can look into the open sky. Remaining closed in this dark room, how can I convince you that there is open sky – infinite?’ It will be as difficult as it was for the frog you have heard about, who lived in a small well. It is a Sufi story. One day it happened that a frog from the ocean came to the well – he must have been a tourist. He came into the well, introduced himself to the frog of the well, and said, ‘I come from the ocean.’ Naturally, the frog asked, ‘Ocean? What do you mean by ocean? What is it?’ And the frog from the ocean said, ‘It is very difficult to describe, sir, because you have never left this well it seems. It is so small. But still I will try.’ The frog of the well laughed. He said, ‘Nobody has ever heard about anything bigger than this well. How big is your ocean?’ And the frog of the well jumped one third of the space of the well and said, ‘This much?’ And the frog from the ocean laughed. He said, ‘No, sir.’ So the frog from the well jumped two thirds of the space and said, ‘This much?’ Then he jumped the whole space and said, ‘Now it must be exactly like this well.’ But the frog from the ocean said, ‘It is impossible to describe. The difference is not of quantity, it is of quality. It is vast! It is not circumscribed!’ The frog from the well said, ‘You seem to be either a madman or a philosopher or a liar. You get out from here! Don’t talk nonsense!’ That’s what the man of the world has always said to the mystic: ‘Don’t talk nonsense! Be practical and talk the language that we understand.’ Sufis don’t say anything about God, they only talk about tariqa – they say: ‘This is the way to know. You will have to know to know We cannot explain it to you. It is so mysterious that it will be almost a profanity to bring it to your level. Truth cannot be brought to your level; the only way possible, the only way left, is that you can be brought to the level of truth.’ That is what tariqa is. Philosophy is an effort to bring truth to your level so that you can understand it. tariqa is to take you to truth so that you can see – so that you can see on your own. Remember these three words. Everybody exists at sharia, and at SHARIA YOU will remain miserable because you are existing with only a dead body. Everybody needs to move towards haqiqa; only at haqiqa can you be fulfilled. And to reach to the HAQIQA YOU will have to follow a tariqa, you will have to follow a method, a discipline, a Master. And beware of the false Masters. They are there and they speak your language. They can be very convincing. Be a little more adventurous, courageous – seek somebody who can absorb you, who can transmute you, who can consume you, who is like a flame. The moth comes to the flame and is consumed – so is the disciple. He comes to a Master and is consumed. And remember, before you reach to the real Master, to the authentic Master, to satguru, you will come across many false Masters. So don’t get hooked. Even if

you promise, you have to be alert that no promise can be binding unless it is fulfilling you. If it is fulfilling you then there is no need. That’s what I wanted to say to the young man who said, ‘I have promised to Guru Maharaji....’ Then why are you here? There is no need. If you are really growing there, there is no need to be here. The very fact that you are here shows that you are searching. And now, if you remain hooked with your so-called Guru Maharaji, then there is no possibility. Then I cannot be of any help because you will not be able to take any help – because your heart will not be open, because you will not become part of me, you will not come close. And another person has written to me that he has been following George Gurdjieff for a few years. Now Guru Maharaji is a false master; it is utterly stupid to follow him. But Gurdjieff was a real Master – a satguru, a Sufi. If you are following Gurdjieff, perfectly good... but Gurdjieff is no more. Even if Gurdjieff is no more, a real Master dead is more potent than an unreal Master alive. But remember, if you can find a real Master alive you will not be going against Gurdjieff. No two real Masters are enemies; they cannot be. If you really followed Gurdjieff for eight years – as the seeker has written to me – if you have really followed him, then he has brought you here. Now if you want to create a barrier between me and you, in the name of Gurdjieff, it is for you to choose. But it will be your responsibility, don’t blame Gurdjieff. He has brought you here. He has already done too much for you. What I am saying is exactly what Gurdjieff was doing. Of course, I speak a different kind of language; I am a different kind of person. But only our fingers differ, the moon that we are pointing to is the same. If you have been following a real Master and the Master is no more, then it is the responsibility of the Master to send you to another real Master so that your growth can continue. Now don’t be obsessed by the past. Gurdjieff is no more – I am. Soon I will not be here either. And remember, I would like to remind my disciples especially: if you really love me, when I am gone I will direct you to people who will be still alive. So don’t be afraid of that. If I send you to Tibet or if I send you to China or if I send you to Japan or to Iran – go. And don’t say that because you belong to me you cannot belong to another real Master. Just look in the eyes and you will find my eyes again. The body will not be the same but the eyes will be the same. If your journey is not complete with me while I am here, if something is still to be done, completed, then don’t be afraid. By dropping me you will not be betraying me. In fact, by not dropping me and by not following the real, the alive Master, you will be betraying me. Keep it in mind. Jean-Paul Sartre has written something that I liked: ‘People have often said to me about dates and bananas – you cannot judge them. To know what they are really like, you have to eat them on the spot, just after they have been picked. And I have always considered bananas a dead fruit whose real taste escaped me. The books that pass from one period to another are dead fruits too. In another time they had a different taste

– sharp and tangy. We should have read Emile or the Persian Letters just after they were picked.’ I like this passage from Jean-Paul Sartre. Exactly so is the case with Masters. When they are alive they have a taste, sharp and tangy. When the fruit is right from the tree it has a totally different quality to it. A dead Master is like tinned fruit. You can open the tin and you can eat the fruit, but something will be missing. Be courageous and always trust in life. My love towards you or your love towards me should never become a hindrance. Love liberates. Love makes you free. So don’t be worried. If you have been following Gurdjieff for many years and you have come here, and now your heart starts throbbing with me, don’t be worried. Gurdjieff was not very monogamous! I know him perfectly well. And if he gets angry or anything, that is my problem. I will take care. But don’t find excuses. When a Master is alive, his TARIQA IS alive. It has a taste – sharp and tangy. Taste a Master while he is alive. Fools worship death; wise people worship life. -----Osho, Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 1, Chapter #3

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Commune No, Mystery School Yes Osho favored a small Mystery School for the visiting seekers, who would be initiated as Sannyasins. He proposed to replace western therapies by Eastern spiritual techniques. He emphasized that a Mystery School can happen only around a Living Master. He also wanted to include esoteric research and wished to replace modern western music by classical Indian music in the Mystery School. Osho wanted research on hypnosis and past life to be carried out in the Mystery School, but he cautioned that the results should be kept secret. Moreover, a small group and close contact with the Master is essential. Osho proposed to create oracles (Visionary women) and great Masters in the Mystery School. He felt that only a great energy of masters and enlightened people around the world can prevent the catastrophe of a third world war. He also proposed to create an esoteric group to influence the events of the world in positive direction, so that a divine world with single governance becomes a reality. In Oshodhara Mystery School all these are happening. Even enlightenment is no more a dream, but a hand reached reality. Most of the persons completing Gyan Samadhi, the eighth level program of Oshodhara, and forming Osodhara Sant Sagha (OSS), have attained enlightenment. The list of blessed ones forming OSS may be seen in the website www.oshodhara.com --Editor I have a few secrets to impart to you, and I would not like to die before I have imparted them to you – because I don’t know anybody else now alive in the world who can do that work. I have secrets from Taoism, secrets from Tantra, secrets from yoga, secrets from Sufis, secrets from Zen people. I have lived in almost all the traditions of the world; I have been a wanderer in many lives. I have gathered much honey from many flowers. All the honey that I have gathered I would like to share with you, so that you can share it with others, so that it does not disappear from the earth. This is going to be a very secret work…. I am keeping a great treasure for you. Be receptive....My commune is going to be a mystery school for inner exploration (Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol.2, # 2). I would like to call it the Mystery School rather than a commune. This time, from the very beginning, only a small nucleus of people who are absolutely necessary to run the Mystery School will be living with me. Everybody else will be a guest for a few days, a few weeks, a few months... as much as he can manage. But his being here with me will be all relaxation, meditation, so he can be rejuvenated. And then he can go back. The whole world is there to work on (Beyond Psychology #17). We have learned much. So now I am not going to create a commune. I am going to create a totally different thing: a Mystery School... forty, fifty people will be there to take care of the school, and two hundred, three hundred, five hundred people can come for a one month course, or a two month course, or a three month course, and move on.

And slowly, slowly we can train people so that they can open mystery schools around the world. A school is a different thing. You come for three months to learn something, to go through some experiences, and then you are back in the world, to your work, to your job. And in a year you will be able to earn so much money, save so much money, that you can come here for one month, two months, three months... as much as you can manage. Those three months are simply holiday. You forget the world for those three months. They are pure search for the truth. And after three months, whatever you have learned, continue it at home; there you have time….you can get at least two hours for yourself (Beyond Psychology# 38). I am a mystic and my whole work is my Mystery School. My sannyasins are part of the mystery school (Socrates poisoned again after 25 centuries #25). There are secrets which can be given only to those who are ready to receive. Sannyas simply means that you are showing your readiness, that you will not resist, that you will put aside all your prejudices, that from this moment you will be ready to hear what I am saying – and not only to hear, but to go into experimentation. It is a great exploration, the greatest adventure there is (The Rainbow Bridge #22). Now sannyas will be a totally different movement. It will be for more authentic seekers. Now sannyas will be a school, a Mystery School. Only those who want to grow and change will be joining it.…so that it becomes not just living together, but growing together (The Path of Mystic #37). “My people have to be continuously alert. This is a Mystery School; it is not for all and sundry, it is only for those who are ready to sacrifice everything for finding the truth of their life (The Messiah, Vol. 2 #23).” Therapy basically has nothing to do with spirituality. Once the Mystery School starts functioning, even these therapists will have to come to the Mystery School, and this time not as therapists but simply as disciples. There is not going to be any therapy. Now the school will function in a totally different way (Beyond Psychology #37). Upanishad means sitting at the feet of the master….And that’s exactly the work of a Mystery School. …. The whole work of a Mystery School is in how to bring consciousness to the disciple, how to wake him up, how to allow him to be himself…….The function of a Mystery School is that the master – speaking or in silence, looking at you or making a gesture, or just sitting with closed eyes – manages to create a certain field of energy. And if you are receptive, if you are available, if you are ready to go on the journey of the unknown, something clicks and you are no more the old person …. And every Mystery School can exist only in one way, and that is that they have a Living Master. Once the Living Master is gone the Mystery School disperses (Osho Upnishad #1).

Truth is a mystery, and it can be discovered only in a Mystery School. And this phase is going to be the most valuable. All that we have done before was a preparation…..The word `esoteric’ simply means you cannot put it objectively, scientifically. It is something inner, something subjective, something so mysterious, so miraculous that you can experience it but you cannot explain it. …..I have never planned, but existence functions in a very planned way. So all the phases that have passed were necessary, and now we are ready to enter into the last phase – the ultimate ecstasy. Ecstasy cannot be pragmatic. Love cannot be pragmatic. Trust cannot be pragmatic. All that is valuable is esoteric ( Beyond Psychology, #44). People have forgotten that music can take you downwards, and can also take you upwards. The modern music takes you downwards; it is concerned with the lowest center of your being, with the sex center. It gives you sexuality; it is pornographic. It has lost all heights. It is ugly – it is really noise and nothing else, noise that drowns you – jazz or other pop music. It is simply a kind of intoxicant. It is so deafening that you feel lost and you think something is happening. All that is happening is that you are pulled more and more towards the earth, more and more towards the animal within you. The ancient Indian music, the classical music, has a totally different effect: it pulls you upwards, it takes you beyond gravitation. It is part of levitation; you start floating upwards and upwards. It has a more meditative quality in it. It reaches to your higher centers. The real music worth calling music will have something to do with SAHASRAR – your seventh center, but very rarely a genius reaches there to create such music. But if even your heart center is moved, it is more than enough. If your heart center starts dancing and revolving, you are very close to meditation (Philosophia Perennis, Volume #1). Sometimes in your dreams you go deeper than the conscious mind can ever lead you. Many of your dreams are memories of your past lives, but you have no way to recognize that they are of a past life. So there is a special method which is something like hypnosis. It can be done by somebody else to you – which is simpler because you can relax completely, and he can lead you deeper into the past life. In hypnosis or in Buddhist or Jain terminology – because they discovered the method first – it is called Jati-Smaran: remembering the past lives. In hypnosis you don’t hear anybody else except the person who has hypnotized you. He can talk to you, you can answer him, yet you will remain fast asleep, you will not come to the conscious mind. So only in hypnosis can your unconscious be communicated with, asked questions…..And it is such a simple method that anyone can do it – it does not need any expertise. I will tell you about the method, how you can help each other……Soon, as existence allows me to settle somewhere, I will create people who can help everybody to go into the past, and experience and relive those moments (Beyond Psychology #34). The science of hypnosis is one of the most ancient sciences. The science of hypnosis and the science of meditation are two sides of one coin……The meditator goes alone. He goes to the same center, but he goes alone. That is something, part of the mans psychology. Hypnosis also takes you to the same place, but it needs a hypnotizer. A woman going alone feels afraid. That is against the feminine nature. ……In meditation, you simply relax yourself. It is auto-suggestion. In hypnosis, it is heterosuggestion…..And if meditation and hypnosis can both be joined together.... And that is my effort, that’s what I have been doing ….. In fact, they are halves of one whole. And

the moment you try the whole process – either beginning with hypnosis or beginning with meditation, that is simply your preference – you are moving into the same space from two doors towards one center .That center is your being…..This mystery school will try its best to bring all opposites together as complementary (Sermons in Stones #1). As far as I am concerned, hypnosis is going to be one of the most significant parts of the Mystery School. Such a simple method, which only demands a little trust, a little innocence, can bring miraculous changes in your life ……For spiritual growth I don’t think there is anything more important than hypnosis (Beyond Psychology #44). Hypnosis is a very powerful method, and one has to be always aware that it can do immense good, but it can also do immense harm. The question is, in whose hands is the power? …We have to be very cautious that these methods are not made available to politicians. Once anything is in their hands they are going to exploit it. That’s why I am calling this a Mystery School. We will work as a school, and once we start different schools in different countries, I have to make you aware about many things that have to come, that they should not be made public. At least their basic secrets should not be made public; they should remain in the hands of your school. Anybody who wants to go through the transformation has to come to the school, so that governments cannot start using them for their own vested interests (The Transmission of the Lamp #22). That is going to be one of the basic practices in the Mystery School, how to create oracles. The capacity is there – more in women, less in men. But it can be brought back to reality. The burning of thousands of women in the Middle Ages by the Christian church on the orders of the pope has not destroyed the capacity. We will bring it back. We will introduce techniques for how to reach to those trances. (The Transmission of the Lamp #30).” “There is a process of making Tirthankaras (Great Masters). They are made in Mystery Schools (In Search of the Miraculous,Vol.2 #7). ….And that is the joy of a master, to see his disciple also becoming a master. This is the meaning when I say that this commune is a Mystery School. The effort is to have everyone become a master. I want you all to be Masters. The world needs masters. Only a great energy of masters around the world can prevent the catastrophe of a third world war, which is looming on the horizon. So it is not only a question of your enlightenment. It is also a question of the life or death of this whole planet (From Bondage to Freedom #26). This is the function of this mystery school: to make you acquainted with simple methods so that you can attain to the very center of your being. That is the only possibility for saving the whole world. If only two hundred people are enlightened, then there is no way the world can be destroyed. And two hundred people is not a big number. Just in this commune we can manage two hundred enlightened people (From Bondage to Freedom #30). I have known so many esoteric groups – in this life and before. I have been in contact with many esoteric groups, but I cannot tell you their whereabouts. I cannot tell you their names, because that is not permitted, and it is of no use really. But I can tell you that

they still exist, they still try to help. Some groups are still very alive – for example, Ashoka’s group. If Ashoka has done something more meaningful than any emperor has done anywhere in the world, it was creating this esoteric group of nine….The Ashoka group has persisted for two thousand years. It is still alive with the key, still working. The whole Theosophical movement was initiated by this group. That is why in Theosophy Buddha became the supreme most person…..You can also be in contact with some esoteric group. There are techniques and methods. But then you will have to do much work upon yourself. As you are, you can never be in contact. You will just pass by an esoteric circle, but you will not even be able to detect it. You will have to change yourself, tune yourself, for new dimensions, for new vibrations to be felt; you will have to be sensitive…...Just around the corner, just around you, everything is happening. But you are blind or asleep or just unaware. I am here; you cannot conceive of what is happening here. You cannot conceive of it (I am the Gate #8). There is no need for nations. The whole world can be governed by one single government …. Seventy-five percent of the income of the whole world will be simply saved, because there is no need for a defense department…. A single humanity rejoicing in the lotus paradise (From Darkness to Light #12). -----Osho

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Why Should We Be Religious? WHY SHOULD WE BE RELIGIOUS, WHEN WE DO NOT KNOW THE BEGINNING, WHEN WE DO NOT KNOW THE END; WHEN WE HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE OF GOD OR ATMAN? WHY CAN’T A BUDDHA, WHO EXPERIENCES THE TRUTH GIVE HIS EXPERIECE TO ALL?

No one wants you to be religious – at least Lao Tzu does not tell you to be. Religious people have created such confusion that it is better if they cease to exist. No one wants you to be religious. Lao Tzu says only this: “Be what you are.” You may ask, “Why should we be what we are?” The answer is that that is all you can be. There is no way of becoming something else. You may try to become something you are not, but you will simply be wasting your life. Then you might say, “Why should we not waste our life?” Nobody can stop you from doing what you like. Buddhas also accept defeat. They cannot make you realize truth. What can sages do? All they can do is to tell you of the bliss they have attained; the peace, the enlightenment, that they have received. And in so doing, they can only hope to stimulate your thirst for the same. They cannot give you enlightenment on a platter, but can make you interested in it. You may ask why they attempt to arouse your thirst. Try to understand this a little. If you do not wish to be religious, how is it that you are here. How come you have raised this question? There is a restlessness within that has brought you here. You took so much trouble to raise this question! One thing is certain – you are seeking something. Otherwise why did you come? Why did you ask this question? There is some quest. What is it you seek? Buddha calls it dharma, Lao Tzu has named it Tao. Whether you know it or not, you are seeking religion. You do not even know what you seek. Investigate within. What are your expectations, what is your search? We do not even know who we are, why we are, for what reason! It seems as if we have been thrown into this world without any rhyme or reason. There is a turmoil within you. This restlessness will not end till you experience your roots within this existence. Till we realize the relationship between the existence and ourselves, this restlessness will plague us. What other meaning can there be of being religious? There is no need of indulging in words. To be religious means to be conscious of the relationship between the existence and myself, to establish a connection with

the vast universe so that I am no longer a stranger in this world, no longer a foreigner. The whole world is one large family, a family in which the sun and moon and stars, the rivers and the mountains, the animals and trees – all! all! – are equal members. It is to know that “I am in my own house.” To be religious is to feel that this world is your house. But a house is not a home. Houses there are in plenty. When a spiritual bond exists between you and the house, when there is a spiritual union, then a house becomes a home. The irreligious man lives in the mundane world; the religious man in God. A deep relationship is established between the religious man and the world. Everything in the world brings forth sweet melodies on the strings of his heart. Then the sun no longer is a stranger to him, nor the moon, nor the stars. Everything seems to be his very own. The whole vast expanse is his home. This feeling is religiousness. If you are seeking a family, if you are seeking love, then you are seeking religion. When you fall in love with a person, you make one person religious in this world. The larger the family, the greater is the joy. There are some people who are their own family. They have no relationships. If such people begin to feel like outsiders, where is the wonder? Colin Wilson has written a book called THE OUTSIDER. This book is a symbol of the world today. In this age, every man feels he is a stranger. He wonders why he is, what is his relationship to the world. Who is his, and to whom does he belong? There seems to be no connection. Man feels uprooted like a tree that has been pulled out from its roots. He is in limbo. A religious person is one who sets out to seek his roots. Simone Weil has written a book – ‘THE NEED FOR ROOTS’. She is one of the few religious people of this age. She has said, “Religion is the search for roots.” This uprooted tree, hanging in mid-air, wasting and withering away, has to be rooted firmly back into the ground. Then only will it become green once more; then only will it flower again. To be religious is to seek one’s own self. The quest for a bridge, for a connection between the universe and ourselves, is religion. Religion is to seek the deep, intrinsic love between ourselves and the universe. I am not telling you to become religious. I only say that there is not a single person alive on this earth who does not want to be religious. Even if he denies religion, he is seeking it. Each man seeks religion; what words he uses for his quest are his own choice. What form he gives to his desire is his own business. I can tell you with authority, I have not come across a single person who has not wanted to be religious. Those whom we call atheists, they too are in search. In fact, this alone is man’s search. He is eager to know whether he is an incongruous, useless part of the

world or whether he is of some significance. Is his being of some value to the vast expanse? The search for value is the search for religion. Value, not price. If there is a value to your bring, it means that the world has developed from within you, the enormous current of consciousness has evolved from within you. This whole universe loves you; it would be incomplete without you. It would never have been the same; something would have been missing. There is a profound flow of give and take between you and the universe. Each moment it takes from you; each moment it gives to you. There is a deep, inner union. The quest for this inner union is religion. I am not telling you to be religious. No one becomes religious this way. In fact, the irreligiousness of today is the outcome of the constant effort of the moralists to make people religious. Charles Darwin has written about a confounding experience he carried out. He had read that there are certain things which, when tried for a particular result, bring about the opposite consequence. He was a man of science. He found it impossible to believe without proof. He called ten youths from his neighborhood and placed a snuff-inhaler before them. He asked them whether they knew the effects of snuff. They all said, “Yes. We know that when it is inhaled it brings about a torrent of sneezes.” “Very well,” said Darwin. “I will place ten gold coins here. Whoever sneezes first will get the gold coins.” The ten boys tried their utmost; the prize was tempting. But not a single one could sneeze no matter how hard he tried! You also will not succeed. Try to sneeze – you cannot. Sneezing happens; it cannot be brought about. You can be religious, but nobody can make you religious. That is why religious teachers all over the world have made this earth irreligious. They have tried to tempt their followers. But everything has its own mechanism. There are things, which can happen only in the most natural conditions; they cannot be made to happen. Therefore, Lao Tzu stresses the natural. He says the absolute truth is revealed only in a natural state. The more simple and natural you become, the quicker will you be able to manage the jump. The harder you try to bring it about, the more impossible it will be. -----Osho, The Way of Tao, Volume 2, Chapter #21, Q 9

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Unless Meditation Becomes Enlightenment BELOVED OSHO, I HAVE HEARD MEDITATION SOMETIMES DESCRIBED AS A SCIENCE, AND OTHER TIMES AS AN ART; ON OCCASION YOU HAVE EVEN CALLED IT A KNACK. PLEASE EXPLAIN.

Meditation is such a mystery that it can be called a science, an art, a knack, without any contradiction. From one point of view it is a science because there is a clear cut technique that has to be done. There are no exceptions to it, it is almost like a scientific law. But from a different point of view it can also be said to be an art. Science is an extension of the mind – it is mathematics, it is logic, it is rational. Meditation belongs to the heart, not to the mind – it is not logic; it is closer to love. It is not like other scientific activities, but more like music, poetry, painting, dancing; hence, it can be called an art. But meditation is such a great mystery that calling it `science’ and `art’ does not exhaust it is a knack – either you get it or you don’t get it. A knack is not a science, it cannot be taught. A knack is not an art. A knack is the most mysterious thing in human understanding. For example, you may have come across people.... Somebody has the knack of becoming a friend immediately; just meeting him in the bus for a few moments and you suddenly feel as if you have known each other forever, perhaps for many lives. And you cannot pinpoint what is going on, because you have just seen the man for the first time. I have a friend. He is a doctor in philosophy. He has never earned a single cent in his life, but he lives like a king. He has a certain knack that anybody becomes his friend; he just has to look at you and you are his friend – and you feel as if you have been his friend forever. He has lived on borrowed money – which he never returns because he cannot, there is no way to return it, but nobody feels hurt about it. Even though he has borrowed money from you and he has never returned it, he has the nerve to ask you again – and you will give it! The man is so lovely, so beautiful, that to ask money from him simply doesn’t seem right. And he never feels embarrassed, he never avoids people he owes money to. I have asked him many times, “How long will you continue in this way?” He said, “How long? The population goes on growing – even if I live a million years, I will always have people to give me money.” And the beauty is that you give him money and you feel honored that he asked you, not anybody else. Now what will you call it? – art? science? It is simply a knack.

He travels without a ticket, he has never purchased a ticket. I have been traveling with him many times. And he will say, “Why are you wasting money on tickets? Let the ticket checker come; after all, he is a human being.” And once the ticket checker comes, he is caught into this man’s net. He offers him a cigarette, and they are chit-chatting, and they start playing cards, and the ticket checker completely forgets why he has come. And now it is too late to ask for the ticket – they have become so friendly to each other that the ticket checker asks him, “Can I help you in any way?” He says, “You have to – because I have lost my ticket!” He said, “Don’t be worried. I will be there at the gate.” He lives in friends’ houses. He has no house of his own. He moves from one city to another city, but he knows all kinds of tricks with playing cards, chess, tennis, all kinds of nonsense things in which people are interested. And he is a genius. In chess you cannot win against him, in cards you cannot win. And he is such a happy person that people like for him to come to them even if he is going to take their money, even if he is going to take their car and never return – still people like him, because he is simply likeable. It is not on any conditions that he is liked, it is just his whole personality. Once he was staying with me. And just next door used to live another professor who was Indian, married to an American woman. The American woman was also a professor at the university. I spent the day at the university, so he started making friendships in the neighborhood. The American woman got into his net, and her husband also became very friendly. Things came to such point that the professor’s wife wanted to leave with my friend. But he said, “It will be very difficult. I have no house, no shelter anywhere. I don’t know where I will be tomorrow morning. You will be in difficulty with me, and I love you so much that I will not create such a difficulty for you. And I love your husband too; I cannot disturb his life.” But the professor was so enchanted by him that he said, “If you want, you can take my wife.” I told him, “Don’t be stupid. You can take cars, that is okay; you can take people’s tape recorders, that is okay; you can take their cameras, that is okay. But if you start taking people’s wives, you will be in great trouble. So make it a point this is the limit. Don’t go beyond this limit.” He said, “You are right. Rationally I also think that this is right. But isn’t it worth trying once? When the husband is ready....” I said, “Any husband will be ready! You are an idiot. It is not because of your charm, every husband will be ready. How many wives can you manage? You don’t have any money. And remember, you cannot bring any woman into my house.” He said, “That’s not right, because that’s what I was thinking – I will leave this woman here. Another woman ... I will get caught and I will leave her here. You can have disciples!” I said, “I – these kinds of disciples are of no use to me.” A knack is something mysterious, just a few people can do it.

I know a man who can make his ear lobes move. I have not found another who can move his ear lobes. Now what do you call it? – science or what? Because I have asked doctors, “What do you say about ear lobes?” They say, “It is impossible.” But I brought my friend to one doctor and, I told him, “Show this doctor....” And the doctor said, “My God! He moves his ear lobes very easily, without any trouble.” In fact, ear lobes have no biological possibility of movement, you have no control over them – you try. You don’t have any control. They are your ear lobes, but you don’t have any control. But I know one man who manages. And I have asked him, “How do you manage?” He said, “I don’t know. Just from the very beginning I have been doing it.” It is absolutely impossible, physically impossible – because to move those lobes you need a certain nervous system to control them, and the nerve system is not there. The lobe is just flesh. Meditation, in the last resort, is a knack too. That’s why for thousands of years people have been meditating, teaching, but very few people have achieved heights in meditation, and very few people have even tried. And the vast majority of humanity has not even bothered to think about it. It is something ... a seed you are born with. If you don’t have the seed, a master can go on showering all his bliss on you, still nothing will happen in you. And if the seed is there, just the presence of the master, just the way he looks into your eyes, and something of tremendous importance happens in you – a revolution that you cannot explain to anybody. It is one of the difficulties for all meditators that they cannot explain to their friends, their families, what they are doing. Because the majority of humanity is not interested in it at all. And those who are not interested in it at all simply think about people who are interested, that something is loose in their heads, something is wrong. Sitting silently, doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself – but in the first place, why should you bother about the grass? Basho’s beautiful haiku will look absurd to them. Grass is going to grow by itself whether you sit silently or not, why waste your time? – grass is going to grow by itself. Let the spring come – spring comes by itself, grass grows by itself. Why are you wasting your time? – do something else meanwhile. If a man has not something in his heart already – a small seed – then it is impossible for him. He can learn the technique, he can learn the art. But if the knack is missing he is not going to succeed. So thousands of people start meditation, but very few – so few that they can be counted on ten fingers – ever achieve to enlightenment. And unless meditation becomes enlightenment, you have simply wasted your time. -----Osho, Sermons in Stones Chapter #4,Q5

Where A Real Seeker Should Go? Religion is not traditional – cannot be by its very nature. Tradition is that which is dead. Tradition is that, which has passed away, tradition is just the dust of the past; tradition is just the memory. Religion is always alive, breathing. Religion can never be traditional. Whenever religion becomes traditional, it serves the Devil more than God. Then it serves death more than life. Then it serves politicians, priests, organizations, churches, but it doesn’t serve the spirit of man. Then it is no more an opening towards the future. Tradition looks back; we have to go forward. Looking backward is meaningless; not only meaningless, but harmful too, dangerous – because we cannot go backwards, we have to go forwards, and looking backwards and moving forwards is bound to create trouble. The second thing: religion is not in the scriptures, cannot be. Scriptures are dead letters. Yes, there was religion some day, throbbing in those words, when an alive Master was uttering them. When Krishna told Srimat Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna, it was alive. It was alive because of Krishna, it was illuminated because of Krishna – when Krishna disappeared, the Bhagavad Gita became a corpse. Dead words: you can go on analyzing those words, interpreting this way and that... There are one thousand commentaries on the Gita – famous ones; there are many more. In fact, whenever anybody reads the Gita, he has his own meaning of it. Krishna’s meaning is lost; it disappeared with Krishna himself. The snake has passed... only the track on the sand is left. That track you go on worshipping as a scripture. When Jesus walked on earth and talked to his disciples, it was a throbbing truth, throbbing with life – alive, vibrating, and pulsating. The word was not dead; the word was God, the word was truth itself. The word had a heart in it. The word was suffused with love, experience, and existence, being. When Jesus has gone, life is gone. Then you can collect words and you can make as many gospels as you want. Those gospels are going to be of no help. Real religion is never in the scriptures. And a real religious seeker does not go in search of scriptures; he goes in search of a Master – a living Master. Go and search for a living Master! If you can come in contact with a living Master then dead scriptures will become alive again. They become alive only via the living Master – there is no other way, because the living Master is the only scripture. When the living Master touches the Bhagavad Gita, it will become alive; when he touches the gospel, the gospel will become alive. When he recites the Koran, the Koran will again become alive. He will give his own life to these words; they will start throbbing. But directly you cannot find religion in the scriptures. So religion is not in the tradition and religion is not in the scriptures and religion is not in the rituals. Rituals are formalities. Unless you are in communion with a living Master, rituals are a dead weight. They will burden you, they will dry you, they will kill you, and you will be lost in infinite formalities. With a living Master, a new ritual is born. It comes out of the contact; it has a context to it, a living reference to it. It is not learned by dead tradition being transferred from one generation to another. You live it – and through living it, you learn it.

When you come to a living Master, deep down something in you wants to bow down. It is not that you are going to do a certain formality – if you are doing, it is meaningless. But something really down in your spirit, deep in your spirit, deep in your center, wants to bow down. Then bowing to a Master is no more ritualistic. It is alive, it is meaningful, and it is not an empty gesture. But you can just go on bowing down to anybody, because you have been taught to bow down – then it is useless…. Religion is not in the rituals. Of course, whenever there is religion there is ritual – but that is a totally different matter. How can you avoid when Buddha walks amongst you, how can you avoid touching his feet? Impossible. You can do only two things and both are rituals: either you have to touch his feet, or you have to throw stones at him. Both are rituals – one is that of the enemy and one is that of the friend, but both are rituals. You cannot neglect Buddha, you cannot be indifferent, that’s all. The phenomenon is such that you cannot just bypass. Either you have to become a friend or you have to become an enemy; you have to choose. You have to have an attitude – that attitude is ritual. But then it is born into your heart, not learned from somebody else. It simply arises in your being. Religion, wherever it is, always brings rituals; but when the religion disappears, the rituals become dead. Don’t carry the corpse. Yes, you loved your mother very much and now she is dead – what are you going to do? Are you going to carry her corpse for your whole life? You have to burn it or bury it. You have to get rid of it, you cannot go on carrying it. But this same thing happens as far as religion is concerned. You loved the Buddha so much, and great passion arose in your soul, and great worship and great songs were born in his presence... now he is gone, you continue the song. By and by, it is a far away echo of the echo... goes on fading. When the pope speaks in the Vatican, it is not Jesus’ voice at all – cannot be. When Jesus speaks, he speaks on his own authority. When the pope speaks, he speaks on the authority of Jesus. A real Master speaks on his own authority; he is his sole authority. Religion is not in the tradition, not in the rituals, and not in the so-called religions – Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan. Religion has no adjective to it. Religion is simply religion, as love is love. Do you call love Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan? If love is neither Christian nor Hindu nor Mohammedan, then why should God be Christian, Hindu and Mohammedan? Has not Jesus said `God is Love’? Religion is not in the religions; religion is pure of all adjectives, pure of all definitions, and each one has to seek it. Nobody can be born into a religion; religion has to be born into you. You have to open your soul and receive religion. It is showering all around... but you are carrying toys, substitutes, false coins, in your hands, and thinking you are having religion. In the church it is not, in the mosque it is not, in the temple it is not. Go somewhere where a living Master is: it is there. And that too exists only for a few moments – the Master is gone, and the religion disappears…. You have to be very open and vulnerable, only then will you be able to feel a Master. Don’t go to a Master with a negative attitude, otherwise you will never reach him. The very negative attitude will not allow his vibe to reach you. The negative attitude will not allow you to move into the same wavelength in which he lives. Hence trust is needed. Hence, love is needed. Otherwise you will go empty and you will come empty – and when you will come empty you will say, `This is not the real Master. I went empty and I

have come empty.’ If you are not open, you will come empty. Only if you are open is there a possibility to feel. And don’t be afraid of open-ness. If you are open and the Master is not real, nothing will happen; and you will know it, and you will know it certainly, that this is not for you, that this is not the man you are seeking. But be open – because if you are open, only then can you know whether he is true or not. If you are closed, already closed, then there is no possibility. In fact, if you are closed, sooner or later you will become a victim of somebody who is a pseudo-Master – because pseudoMasters try to convince you argumentatively. The real Masters are very paradoxical, very contradictory. They are as contradictory as life itself, because they embody life. They are as inconsistent as God himself, because they embody God. They are not logical, they are very illogical – because they are super logical, because they are bringing something, which cannot be grasped through logic. In the closeness of a real Master you will feel you are close to an abyss... but if you are open – only then. If you are not open, you will become a victim to some pseudo-person who can convince you, who can talk you in, who can seduce you in. For example, if you are greedy he will talk about greed. He will tell you how much you are going to gain out of the meditation, the prayer. He will persuade your greed, how much you are going to have in heaven if you follow him. He will promise you much. A true Master never promises anything. In fact he shatters you completely – your greed, your desire, your idea of becoming somebody, being somebody – he shatters all in all. A real Master is a rock against which your boat is completely shattered... your whole mind is shattered. He drives you crazy; he does not argue. His argument is more of his being than of his words. But we are greedy. We live through greed, we are afraid, full of fear – somebody gives us consolation, we become victims. A real Master is not a consolation; he is not a solace. He is, in fact, death to you. He kills you, he destroys you, he is very destructive... but creativity is possible only when the old is destroyed. When the old ceases to be, the new can enter in. ------------Osho, The Divine Melody, Chapter #1

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Seek A Living Master YOU CALL THE HASIDIM A JOYOUS, ENLIGHTENED COMMUNITY, YET THE HASIDISM OF MODERN NEW YORK APPEARS TO BE SO RIGID, AUSTERE, DOGMATIC AND CONTEMPTUOUS OF BOTH GOYIM AND OTHER JEWS. HOW DID THIS TRANSFORMATION TAKE PLACE?

It always takes place. Truth cannot remain long on the earth; it comes and it disappears. If you are available it hits you, and then it is gone. You cannot hold it on the earth. The earth is so false and people are so engrossed in their lies that truth cannot remain here long. Whenever a Buddha walks on the earth, truth walks for a few moments. When the Buddha is gone, truth also disappears. Only the footprints are left and you go on worshipping the footprints. The foot prints are not the Buddha, and the words uttered by the Buddha are just mere words. When you repeat them they are just words, they mean nothing. It was Buddha who was the meaning behind the words. You can repeat exactly the same words, but they will not mean the same, because the person behind the words is no longer the same. The Hasidim were a choice community when Baal-Shem was there. When he walked on the earth, the Hasidim were one of the most beautiful communities on the earth – they flowered. A Master is needed, a living Master is needed. Only in a living Master’s presence does your innermost bud open, blossom. After Baal-Shem disappeared, there was only a tradition left. What he said, what he did, the legends about him, are many. And then people go on repeating them, people go on imitating them. These people are bound to be false. But this is natural so don’t be angry at them. Once I am gone from here this community will not be so joyous, cannot be. It is just natural. Then the words will be there and people will be repeating them and they will try to follow them religiously, but there will be effort. Right now there is no effort. You are simply flowing with me. Right now it is spontaneous, right now it is a love affair. Then it will be a sort of duty to be fulfilled. You will feel an obligation. You will remember me. You will want to live the same way, but something very vital will be missing – the life will be missing. Whenever a Master departs, only a dead corpse of his teaching remains. So always seek a living Master. A dead Master is of no use – because a dead Master means nothing but a dead teaching. Always seek a living Master. But it is very difficult because people’s minds are very slow. By the time you come to recognize somebody as a Master he is gone. This is the difficulty. By the time you recognize that Jesus is a Master, Jesus is no longer there. Then there are only Christians, then there are churches, then there are the Pope and the priest, and they catch hold of you. Yes, Hasidism has become orthodox but the Hasids were not. They were a living religion, a very living river…..

Once a tradition settles, once a religion is no longer revolutionary, you start interpreting it in your own ways. Then you don’t bother what Buddha meant, then you start reading your own thoughts into Buddha’s assertions. Then you don’t bother what Krishna says, you go on reading into the Gita whatsoever you want to read. Then perversion settles. That’s why I insist again and again: if you can find a living Master, be with him – because you cannot distort a living Master. You will try! But you cannot distort him because a living Master can stop you from distorting his message. But a dead book, a scripture – Holy Bible, Holy Koran, Holy Gita – what can they do? They may be holy but they are completely dead; you can do whatsoever you want to do with them. And man is very cunning and very clever….. Whatsoever we want to hear, whatsoever we want, becomes our scripture, becomes our interpretation. People are rigid. So whether they are Hasids or Buddhists or Sufis or Zen Buddhists does not matter – people’s minds are rigid. Wherever they belong they create rigidity there. You can move from being a Hindu and you can become a Christian, or from Christian you can become a Mohammedan, but it will not make much difference because you will remain you. And you will do the same by being a Christian; you will do the same by being a Mohammedan or by being a Hindu. What ideology you believe in does not matter much. The real thing that matters is you, your consciousness, your state of consciousness. You are here with me. Your children, the next generation, will believe in me simply because their father or their mother believed in me. They will not have any direct contact with me. They will simply believe; it will not be trust, it will be just a mental thing, a formal thing. It happens that sometimes the children come and when the mother takes sannyas, the child also wants to take sannyas. The child does not know what he is doing, where he is moving; he is just imitating the mother. The mother has come on her own, but the child has come just as a shadow. For the mother I have a totally different meaning, for the child I have no meaning at all. If the mother had gone to another Master, the child would have been initiated there. If the mother had become Mohammedan or Christian, the child would have become Mohammedan or Christian. There is no relevance for the child, it is not significant for the child – and it may become part of his ego that he is a sannyasin. Later in his life he may wear orange, may wear a mala, and he will do the formal thing, but he will be as ordinary a mind as there are all over the world. And he will do with his belief what the ordinary mind has always been prone to do: he will become rigid about it, fanatical about it. He will start declaring that here is truth and nowhere else. When you declare that only your belief is true and all else is false, you are not concerned with truth at all. You are simply concerned with the assertion of your ego. It is an ego declaration, ‘MY country has to be right; MY religion has to be right. Wrong or right, my country has to be right, my religion has to be right – because it is my religion.’ Deep down it is my ‘I’ that has to be right. -------------Osho, The Art of Dying, Chapter #6, Q5

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How To Find A Master? Sufism depends absolutely on the concept of the Master. Without the Master there is no Sufism. Sufism does not believe in the books, it believes in the living Master. One has to come to somebody who has come to know by himself. The books may contain great wisdom, but there is no way to decode it. If you decode it, you will decode it according to your mind. That will falsify the book. Islam is known as the religion of the book – the Koran. Hinduism is also known as the religion of the book – the Veda. And so is the case with Christianity. The word ‘bible’ simply means the book. But Sufism insists that the book cannot help you. No hook can help you. Sufis of course have a book, which they call The BOOK OF THE Books, hut it is empty. Nothing is written in it – not even a single word. That is their attitude about books – that although many things will be there, for you it will remain empty, because you can read only that which you know…. You may become very learned but you will never become a man who really knows. You will know many things about God but you will never know God. And you will know many things about truth but you will never know truth. And to know ABOUT IS just meaningless. To know is the thing, not to know ABOUT. To know about means you have missed. But the books can give you a very, very strong feeling that you know; without knowing at all you can have the feeling that you know – and that will become your greatest barrier to knowing. That will become a China Wall around you; your bridges will be broken. How to bridge? How to connect7 How to attain to this connection with the divine? The divine seems so far away; the divine seems almost impossible. The God is not obvious; the God is not close by. You look all around and the existence seems to be almost empty of God. That’s what Martin Heidegger says – ‘I have not found a single thing in the world which I can call sacred.’ From the ordinary standpoint he is right. Where can you find the sacred? The sacred is missing – not because the sacred is not there, but because you don’t know how to feel the sacred. You have not yet evolved that intuitive capacity that can feel the sacred. God is far away; the world is very close by. Matter is all around and you never come across the spirit. Hence religion remains just a theory, it never becomes an experience. Sufism believes that you can approach God only through a Master. A Master is one who can become a via media, who will be just between you and the divine – a door through whom you can have a glimpse. He knows – not as knowledge but as experience. His experience has transformed him, transfigured

him, transported him to another world. A Master lives in two realities together. A Master is a paradox. One of his feet is in the world, his other foot is in God. From one side he is just like you and from another side he is just the opposite of you. A Master is a paradox. Through the paradox of the Master you will be able to reach the divine; there is no other way. So the first step for a seeker is to fall in love with a Master, to seek a Master. If you can find a Master, half the journey is over. In fact, the most arduous part is over. To find the Master is the basic requirement of becoming a Sufi. Sufi seekers travel for thousands of miles in search of a Master, in search of the man with whom they can feel in tune, with whom they can vibrate into the unknown, with whom they can take the first step beyond the known. So the first thing, the first and the most important thing, is to find a Master. Sufis say that the greatest blessing of life is to be with a Master. If you are not with a Master, you have missed the whole opportunity. Then you live with the nonessential; then you never come in contact with the essential. And the only way to come in contact with the essential is to be connected with someone who is in contact…. Yes, it is a touch. It is the jump of a flame from one lamp to another lamp. Once you have felt it – and it is a feeling, there is no way of describing it – once you have felt it, you have become aware of the sacred. Then it is all over, then only it is. So Sufis say that the greatest blessing of life is to find a Master – one who knows, one who sees, one who is. You ARE only when you are in God – before that you are just empty, before that you are a house without a Master, before that you are just a dwelling where nobody dwells, before that you only think that you are, but you are not. You are very momentary; you are bubble-like. You don’t have any integrity, you don’t have any center; you don’t have any soul…. This is a Sufi insight. Sufis say that only the Master is. You are not. One who has seen God exists for the first time. You exist only when you confront God. You exist only when God looks into your eyes and you look into his eyes. You exist only when you are touched by God and you touch God. Before that, your existence was just an emptiness, a dark night of the soul. It was just a stumbling, a hoping, a waiting. It was very insubstantial; it was dream stuff. It had no reality in it…. A Master is one who is REALLY there. He has presence. He has a kind of radiance. And you can find it and you can observe it…

When a man has presence he is showering energy. He has too much energy. He is overflowing with energy. Whenever you come close to such a man you are blessed. Suddenly you feel the shower. You are close by a waterfall. You feel cool, you feel tranquil; you feel vital. You feel a kind of power and also a kind of poetry arising in you – all together. You would like to be with this man again and again. Just to be in the vicinity of this man is life-enhancing. The man of presence spreads his energy all around. He is reaching people and he has something to give. He is a giver. He is an emperor. That’s why in the East we have called sannyasins ‘swami’. ‘Swami’ means a Master – one who has something to give….. The Master is a man of presence. He has utter authenticity; a substantial being, he has soul. This soul has to be created – you are just a dwelling. You have to provoke the guest to come; you have to invite the guest to come. The house is ready but the guest has not come yet. Sufis say, ‘How are you going to learn the ways of being present unless you are in the presence of a man who is present?’ That’s what a Master is. A Master is not a teacher; a Master is a magnetic force, a magnetic field of positive energy, of presence. Sufis say that whenever you come to the Master you have BARAKA; YOU have grace. That is the meaning of the Hindu SATSANGA – being in the presence of the Master to receive his grace. He is giving, and you are not obliged when you receive his grace, because even if you had not been there he would have given. Even if nobody had been there he would have given – that is just natural. As rivers flow, as a flower opens and the fragrance is released, so is it the natural thing with a Master. He has bloomed and the fragrances are released to the winds. Whether somebody will receive them or not, that is not the point. If somebody can receive them, he will be blessed; if nobody receives them, then too the Master will go on showering. He does not shower especially for you – he cannot help it, he has to shower. Just as light goes on showering from a lamp, and fragrance from a flower, so is the case with a Master. Sufis are right. They say that a Master is one who knows, one who sees, one who is. That has to be remembered: one who is. To come into the presence of one who is, is the first step on the path. Before that, all is futile; before that, all is frustrating. The fulfillment starts only when you have become connected with one who is fulfilled. And this relationship between a Master and a disciple is a love affair; it is not a rational thing. It is more of feeling than of thinking. So those who think too much may go on missing. Only those who feel can connect. Remember, this shift has to happen: from thinking you have to go to feeling. Feeling is closer, closer to something in you that is called intuition.

Thinking is the farthest point from intuition. Thinking is a kind of tuition. What you have been taught by others; that is tuition. Something that has not been taught to you and blooms in you, that is intuition. Nobody has taught you – no school, no university, no college. Nobody has said anything about it to you. It explodes in you – that is intuition. You need not go anywhere; you only need to go inside yourself. Feeling is closer to intuition. I don’t expect the impossible. I don’t say just be intuitive – that you cannot do. Just now if you can do one thing – move from thinking to feeling – it will be enough. Then from feeling to intuition it is very easy. But to move from thinking to intuition is very difficult. They don’t meet; they are polarities. Feeling is just in the middle. From feeling, thinking and intuition are at the same distance. If you go this way you reach thinking; if you go that way you reach intuition. In feeling both meet and merge. Something of thinking remains in feeling and something of intuition too. Then you can choose. To find a Master means to have a change in your mind – you have to become more feeling. If you go to a Master with all kinds of thoughts, those thoughts will not allow you to be there. The thoughts will not function as bridges; they will function as walls…. The first step, Sufis say, is to come into the presence of one who is present. Before that, all is frustration; before that, there is no life. Only after that is there life. Life starts only when you are connected with a Master. Before that, it was only a dream, a mirage. Before that, it was only thoughts and thoughts and thoughts, a desert land. Only feelings bloom; thoughts never bloom. Thoughts are very unproductive, uncreative, because they are borrowed. They are never original. Not a single reality can be created by thought; not a single reality can be discovered by thought. Thought is very impotent. All that is known is known by feeling; all that is discovered, is discovered by feeling; all that is created is created by feeling. The second step is surrender... and then there are no more steps. The whole path is covered in just two simple steps: one is coming in contact with someone who is in contact with God, and the second is to surrender to him. Sufis say that two simple steps are enough. In two steps the journey of millions of miles is finished. The first is the most arduous. Once you have come into the presence, by and by you will start surrendering. You cannot resist long. The real thing is to come in contact. Sometimes it happens that you don’t come in contact, and you surrender. Then your surrender is false, then your surrender is from the mind, then your surrender

is just pseudo. Then you are pretending that you have surrendered. but you have not surrendered. It is just a strategy – you want to exploit the man of presence. There is no way to exploit him. You want to gain something. You think, ‘Okay, if surrender is the condition, I will surrender.’ But your surrender cannot be surrender. Surrender has to happen, you cannot do it, you cannot will it. It you will it, you can take it back. If you do it, you can undo it. Surrender is a happening. So go step by step. And there are only two steps. First be suffused with the presence of a Master, be drunk – and then a surrender comes on its own. You start feeling that you are bowing down. Don’t be in a hurry. Sometimes it happens that you do things in a hurry – in this age particularly, hurry is one of the problems. Everybody is in a hurry, wants to do everything fast and soon. So if you come to a Master and you hear that surrender is needed, you are ready to surrender. You say, ‘Why not? Let us see. If something happens, good; if nothing happens, there is nothing to lose.’ But this surrender won’t help. This is not the surrender Sufis are talking about, that’s why they say it is the second step, not the first. The first is to be in the presence of the Master… Sufis don’t believe in miracles. They think they are stupid and only stupid people are attracted towards miracles. A Master is ordinary. A Master is a normal man – a regular. A Master is so ordinary that he has no kind of ego in him. All extraordinariness is a kind of ego. A Master is simply nobody. His ordinariness is nobodiness. Only people who suffer from inferiority seek extraordinariness. If one has come home there is no search for extraordinariness, there is no search for speciality. To be ordinary is so extraordinarily beautiful…. The first step is to come in contact with a Master, and the second is surrender. And then, Sufis say, the whole journey is complete. How to find a Master? Not by thought, of course. By thinking, you go on keeping yourself in the same rut. in the same old rut, in the past. By thinking, you remain old, you stop all possibilities of being new. And watch, you are constantly thinking, there is a constant chattering inside – the internal talk. Even while you are listening to me – look in for just a second – the chattering continues, there is a constant internal talk. This internal talk divides you from reality. Once this internal talk disappears, even for a few moments, you are one – one with reality, one with the Master, one with the beloved, one with God. Whenever you want to be one with something – with your woman, with your man, with your Master, with your God, with the existence – whenever you want to be one with something, in a unison, this internal talk has to disappear. That is the only barrier.

Without dropping internal talk, you cannot find a Master. The question arises in many people’s minds: ‘How to find a Master?’ You will have to learn ways to be silent. And when you come into the presence of somebody who is present, sit silently. Collect yourself together, calm down, don’t think – because thinking is an activity – just be. It will be difficult, but if you try, then for a few moments it will happen. They will be very, very small moments, just intervals; they come and they go. But even in that interval, like a flash, something will descend on you. You will be connected, disconnected, connected, disconnected, but it will happen. And once you have touched somebody who is, for even a single moment, you will know the taste of it. Even a drop of it will give you the taste of it. And then all other tastes start disappearing; then that taste becomes your only taste. Then all desires start converging into one desire – how to be with this man and how to be totally with him? And every day it goes on growing. One day suddenly you find you are surrendered. Yes, one day you find you are surrendered. It takes you unaware, you were not planning to surrender – it has happened. Internal talk is the way of the old self, is the way to remain hung-up with the past, is the way to remain in the ego. And you are constantly thinking, day in, day out. It is always there like an undercurrent. Once it is broken, you fall into the world of intuition. Intuition is hiding there just behind this layer of internal talk, so learn how to be without internal talk. That is the way to find a Master. And it will be easier for you to learn sitting by the side of the sea, looking at the roaring waves – when there is nothing much to think about, and you can just go on looking. Lying down on the grass looking at the sky, in the night looking at the stars, watching the trees – there is nothing much to think about. There is no need to think about stars. They are there, so beautifully there, you can just be with them. Learn first to be with nature, because nature is silent. It does not respond, it knows no language. So you will be able to fall below the level of internal talk. And then start searching, then start looking for people who have a presence. When you come near a person who has a presence you will suddenly see that you are infused with energy, you are vibrating with a new rhythm. A dance has entered you. Each cell and fiber of your being is pulsating. You are very close to something immense, something incredible. It is said of Buddha that on the day he became enlightened he started feeling a few hours before that that day something immense was just around the comer. It was driving him crazy. He could not figure out what it was, but something was there around the comer, something was going to happen. That urgency became very, very penetrating. At the last moment, just a few hours before he became enlightened.... It was almost like a pregnant woman. Her nine months are over and any moment it is going to happen, the child is going to happen. But the pregnant woman knows, she has a visible symptom – the child is there kicking inside her

belly. But when you are going to be reborn into Buddhahood, into satori, samadhi, nothing is visible. And something is kicking in the belly. Buddha was sitting underneath the tree where he became enlightened and a woman offered him some sweets in a bowl. He ate the sweets and went to the river to wash the bowl. And it was coming, it was everywhere, he could feel it. It became so urgent that he did something, which he had never done before. He put the bowl in the river and he said, to no one in particular, to existence itself, ‘If something is going to happen, give me some indication. Don’t drive me crazy.’ Buddha did not believe in any God so he could not address God. He was not talking to anybody in particular. He was simply talking to existence, or talking to himself. ‘Give me a visible indication. Let this be the indication: if this bowl starts flowing upstream then I will be satisfied that something is going to happen – because it is so heavy on me.’ And the story is beautiful. The story says that the bowl started floating upstream. Within seconds it disappeared upstream. Then Buddha was satisfied. Then he rested underneath the tree. ‘Yes, it is going to happen.’ And by the morning it had happened. This is just a parable. Don’t take it literally. Don’t think that the bowl really started floating upstream. It simply says that to be connected with God is as absurd a phenomenon as a bowl floating upstream. It is against all the so-called laws, against the law of gravitation. It is against all the so-called laws that we are aware of. It is a new phenomenon; it is a new law functioning. Things are upside-down. What has never happened before is going to happen. The consciousness was always empty; now it is going to be fulfilled. The consciousness was always going outwards; now the consciousness is going inwards. That is the meaning of the bowl floating upstream. The consciousness was always going low, downwards; now it is rising high, upwards; that is the meaning of the bowl floating upstream. A new law penetrates. To be connected with a Master is the beginning of a new world, a new universe. For that you will have to sacrifice the old. And to sacrifice the old, nothing else is needed – only the internal talk has to be sacrificed. That keeps you a captive in the old reality. That is the world that has to be dropped, that is the world that has to be renounced. And that is what surrender is. When you have seen something new which you have never seen before, when you have felt the presence of a man who IS, who is a man of God, then this is what is needed: you surrender your internal talk, you bow down. In the East this has been symbolic – the disciple puts his head at the feet of the Master. It is just symbolic; it has nothing to do with your physical head. It is simply symbolic. The head is the symbol of thinking, of mind. The disciple puts his mind at the Master’s feet and he says, ‘Now you take care.’ And the Master takes care. In fact, when you surrender to a Master you have nothing to surrender. Never think for a single moment that you have done something great. In fact, the Master has been really compassionate that he accepted you, because now the responsibility will be his. -----------------Osho, Sufis: The People of the Path, Volume 2, Chapter #9

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Old Wine in New Bottle OSHO, YOU ARE QUOTED AS BEING HERE TO PROCLAIM A NEW TRADITION, NOT TO PERPETUATE THE OLD. WHY IS THIS, AND HOW DO YOU SEE THE FUTURE?

First: the creation of a new tradition is the only way to perpetuate the old, the only way. The old has to become new again and again. Only then can it be perpetuated. It is like Buddha attaining enlightenment sitting under a Bodhi tree near Bodh Gaya.... That tree has existed, not exactly the same tree, but again and again branches of the tree were planted – three times it has happened. The old tree died and when the tree was dying a branch was planted. Then that tree also died, but before it died another branch was planted. It comes in the same continuum. It is not the same tree in a sense, just as your son is not you in a sense, but it is the same tree in another sense – just as your son is another you in a sense, your continuity. Each time the world consciousness takes a new turn, a new religion has to be born – and this new religion will in a sense be absolutely new, and in a sense absolutely old. It will contain all that is true in all the old traditions but it will be a new birth, a new body. The wine will be old but the bottle will be new. Truth cannot be new or old, it is the same truth always. It has no difference in time. That truth Buddha attained is the truth I have attained. That truth I have attained is the truth you will attain. It is not that truths are many – truth is one. But Buddha’s language is no longer relevant; my language is relevant. Buddha was talking two thousand five hundred years ago to a different kind of people, to a different kind of society, to a different kind of mind. Naturally, he had to speak a language that those people were able to understand. I speak to a different kind of world, to a different kind of time, to a different kind of mind. I have to speak a different language. Truth is the same, the wine is the same, just the bottle is different. You ask me: OSHO, YOU ARE QUOTED AS BEING HERE TO PROCLAIM A NEW TRADITION, NOT TO PERPETUATE THE OLD. To proclaim a new tradition is the only way to perpetuate the old. If you go on insisting on the old, you insist on something dead. If you cling to the old, you cling to the past. Each time, each age, has to discover truth on its own, has find its own way of expressing it, its own way of dancing it, its own way of singing it, its own gospel, its own scripture, its own Master. Each age has to find truth again and again. It is the same truth but it has to be found again and again.

It is not like science. In science you discover one thing and it is discovered forever. Then there is no need to rediscover it. Religious truth is utterly different; it has to be rediscovered again and again. Only then does it remain alive. I am proclaiming a new religion. But how can religion be new? It is the ancient most truth. But this is the only way to give it a new body and a new dress and a new language and new concepts, and a new stir and a new thrill – to make it alive for you. I am bringing the same religion for you that was brought by others for others. It is new in a sense; it is the ancient most in another sense. So those who understand me, they will find.... If they have loved Jesus, they will find Jesus in me; if they have loved Buddha, they will find Buddha in me; if they have loved Mohammed, they will find Mohammed in me. That’s why so many people have gathered around me. It is a rare phenomenon. Hindus are here, Jainas are here, Buddhists are here, Muslims are here, Christians are here, Jews are here. You can find all varieties of all kinds of people around here. It is rare; it has never happened this way before. It could not happen this way before because it is only in this twentieth century that the consciousness has become so alert about stupid things. It has become so alert about superstitions that is ready to drop them. If I had spoken the language that I speak in a Mohammedan country one thousand years ago, I would have been killed the first day, the very first day. It was not pos-sible, but now it is possible. You can ask Krishna Mohammed, you can ask Radha Mohammed.... I have Mohammedan sannyasins here. This is a rare phenomenon. They love me; they don’t find any conflict between me and Mohammed. In fact, they find Mohammed in me. Through me they become better Mohammedans. Jews are here, a great number of Jews are here. Jews are ordinarily very orthodox people. They have persisted in their own idea that they are the chosen people of God, that the real religion belongs to them, that God has spoken only to them. Jews could not accept their own son, Jesus, but fifty per cent of you here are Jews. You will be surprised – fifty per cent! And it is not an exaggeration, it may be more. This is rare. You could not accept Jesus, your own son, but you can accept me. What has happened? This twentieth century brings a new consciousness into the world, it is a quantum leap. Now you can see. now you are no longer bothered by language and words. You can see deep into my eyes and you can see the same truth as is revealed in Moses or as is revealed in Baal Shem. I am proclaiming a new religion – the essential religion. In Islam it is known as Sufism, in Buddhism it is known as Zen, in Judaism it is known as

Hassidism – the essential core. But I speak your language, I speak the way you understand, the way you can understand. I speak-a very religionless language. I speak as if I am not religious at all. That’s what is needed in this world. This twentieth century needs a religion completely free from all kinds of superstitions, utterly nude, naked. This century is trained in the ways of science, is trained very logically. Never before was any other human society so logically trained. I am talking about something which is basically illogical but I have to talk in a logical way. If you go to a Sufi he talks about the illogical in an illogical way. I talk about the illogical in a logical way. If you go to a Zen Master he simply talks in an illogical way. You will not be able to make a bridge between you and him. With me, the bridge is very easy. I go with you to take you with me further. First, I go with you. I make you perfectly happy that I am coming with you. Sooner or later you forget when things change and you start coming with me. I am ready to come into your valley – the darkest valley, wherever you are – I am ready to come into your unconscious cave... and in the way you want. I am ready to come there. Once I have entered there I can bring you out. That is the only meaning when I say, ‘I proclaim a new religion.’ And you ask me: HOW DO YOU SEE THE FUTURE? The future is great because the present is great. I don’t think about the future, the present is more than enough. But if the present is so beautiful then the future is going to be great – it will be born out of this present. That future will contain this present. We need not worry about the future, we need not be prophetic about the future, we need not say a single thing about the future. We should be joyous and happy in this moment, and the next moment will be coming out of this moment. It will be suffused with the celebration of this moment, and, naturally, it will lead you into a higher celebration. The future is going to come out of this present. There are two kinds of people: one who goes on thinking about the future, not bothering about the present at all. That future is not going to come, that future is just a fool’s imagination. I don’t think about the future. I am a totally different kind of person. I don’t think about the future at all, it is irrelevant. My whole effort is how to beautify this present moment, how to make people more celebrating, how to make people more joyous, how to give them a little glimpse of blissfulness, how to bring laughter to their life. And then the future takes care of itself. You need not think of the morrow, it comes. It comes out of this moment. Let this moment be of great celebration. --------Osho, Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 1, Chapter #10, Q 6 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I Am Not the Last Prophet BELOVED OSHO, WHEN YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT THE WAY THAT DIFFERENT BUDDHIST MASTERS HAVE BEEN ADDING THEIR OWN FLAVOR TO BUDDHA’S TEACHING, I STARTED WONDERING WHETHER THERE WILL EVER BE ANYBODY ADDING A NEW FLAVOR TO YOUR POT. IT LOOKS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO ADD A NEW SPICE TO SOMETHING, WHICH ALREADY CONTAINS ALL THE SPICES WHICH CAN BE FOUND ON THIS EARTH.

It seems almost impossible, but one can never predict about the future. The future remains open. What seems inconceivable today, may become conceivable tomorrow. We can never come to a point where the future closes. That’s the whole meaning of existence being eternal. It may be very difficult because I am not confined to any particular path, to any particular philosophical viewpoint. I am vast enough to contain contradictions, and whatever has happened on the earth as far as the evolution of consciousness is concerned, I have made it part of my own vision of life. So if you look backwards, everything else will seem a little poorer, even the greatest giants will seem limited. But you are looking to the past, you are not looking to the future – which is absolutely unpredictable. Things will go on happening, new things will go on being added. And I am not a pond, which is closed; I am more like a river, which goes on flowing, inviting every other river to join. Whatever I have been giving you will remain uncontaminated, but it will be enriched more and more by the future evolution of man, because it is an open phenomenon. I am not the last prophet, messiah or savior of a certain tradition. I am the beginning, not the end, of a totally new approach to life and its problems, inviting everything conceivable, unconceivable, to be my guest. So you are right. It seems very difficult, but existence is so vast and the possibilities so infinite that you can never say that the full stop has come. It never comes, not even a semicolon comes. Life knows no full stop, no semicolons; it

simply goes on and on, and it will continue to add spices of which we are not even aware. And it is good. It means that I am giving you something living, which will go on growing – even beyond us it will have its own growth. I am not giving you something dead, as was the convention of the old. Mohammed says, “I am the last messenger of God. Now there will be no other messenger. And the Koran is the last message. After the Koran there will be no other holy book.” He is not aware that he cannot stop existence with his own death. Many prophets have come and gone. They have added to the beauty of existence, but nobody should be so arrogant as to say, “I am the last.” The same is the situation with Mahavira. He is the last tirthankara of the Jainas. Now there is not going to be any other tirthankara, nothing can be added to his teachings, nothing can be taken away from his teachings. But these people were not aware that they are making their vision into a dead thing with their own hands. That’s why Christians are so afraid in case science should discover anything which goes against the Bible, Mohammedans are so afraid in case anybody should say anything that goes beyond the Koran. But these are the enemies of progress, enemies of life. I am not. I am just a friend, a humble beginning, a living reality with every day new excitement, new ecstasies, new spaces; and capable to absorb them all, not afraid of any progress. If anything is wrong, I am always ready to drop it, always to be on the side of truth. There are two kinds of people: those who want the truth to be always on their side – these are the egoists, arrogant. And there is another type of person who always wants to be on the side of truth, whatever the cost; if he has to lose everything, he is ready, but he cannot stop being on the side of truth. These are the humble ones, these are the true holy people of the earth – and there have been very few. ------------Osho, The Transmission of the Lamp, Chapter #23 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Osho: A Friend or a Master? BELOVED OSHO, FOR SOME TIME NOW YOU HAVE BEEN SAYING THAT YOU ARE OUR FRIEND AND WE ARE FRIENDS. I’M HAVING DIFFICULTY IN TRULY GETTING IT. OSHO, TO ME YOU ARE MY MOST BELOVED MASTER. PLEASE SHOW ME WHERE I AM MISSING.

The question is from Vivek. I can understand her difficulty. The same will be the difficulty of all those who have come close to me, loved me, received me in their hearts as a Master. I have been saying that I am your friend, and you are my friend for a very strange reason that may not be obvious to you. There was another question from Milarepa – why are a few sannyasins feeling very resentful towards you, angry with you? This has been an historical thing, that amongst disciples there are always a few who are accidental. The wind was blowing this way and they arrived. They saw a tremendous energy in the disciples, and they became greedy. But it was not a search for truth, it was not a search for love; it was simple greed. They also wanted to be spiritually powerful. They became sannyasins, they became disciples, but the distance between me and them remained the same. They could never become my intimate people. They could never become my people. Even though they were with me, deep down they were resentful, angry. I wanted them to drop their resentfulness, to drop their anger. It was not my problem, it was their problem, and I wanted to help them in every possible way. It was for this simple reason that I had said, “I am your friend, you are my friend.” Those who were not really with me were immensely happy that now their status and my status was the same. And amongst these were people that you would never have imagined... Just the other day I had the message from a sannyasin that Teertha is saying to people that my state and his state are now the same – we are friends. For this he was hanging around for fifteen years. Rajen is saying to people, “Now I am no longer a disciple but a friend, and I have the same status.” These were the people that I wanted to get rid of as peacefully, as lovingly as possible. But those who had loved me felt hurt – because they have loved me as

a disciple, and to be a disciple is something so valuable that who cares to be a friend? There is a story in Gautam Buddha’s life.... One of his closest disciples, Sariputta, was found to be not meditating enough. Even people who had come after Sariputta had gone deeper into meditation, people of lesser genius and lesser intelligence. Buddha called Sariputta one morning and said, “What is the matter?” He said, “You know it. I never want to be enlightened while you are alive. I simply want to sit at your feet the way I have always been sitting. To be your disciple, to be showered with your love... who cares about enlightenment? This is my enlightenment!” So I can understand Vivek’s difficulty. She has been for sixteen years with me. When she came she was only twenty years old; now she is thirty-six, almost twice the age. And all these sixteen years, day in, day out, she has been taking care of me with as much love as possible, with a deep devotion. It is difficult for her to think of herself as being a friend. It would not be a gain to her, it would be a loss. Those who have understood the joy and the celebration of being a disciple, of being in love with a Master, will all feel the same: that to be a friend is nothing compared to it; everything is lost. To be a friend becomes formal. So those who were really with me have been shaken, hurt, and those who were not really with me have been tremendously happy. Just by me calling you my friend, you do not achieve the state in which I am. If it was so easy I would have called the whole world my friend, and they all would have come to the same state….. …..I made them free – saying that you need not wear red clothes, you need not wear a mala, it is not compulsory anymore – simply to drop all the load of responsibility that they were unknowingly putting on me. They were hoping that just by wearing red clothes and putting the mala on, their work was finished, that now it is my responsibility to make them enlightened. I dropped that. They think that I was giving freedom to them; in fact I was simply making my own life as light as possible. I was simply dropping unnecessarily imposed responsibilities. And finally, not to let them feel that they were inferior to me in any way, I told them, “I am your friend and you are my friend.” And the people who wanted it, who had been waiting for it, rejoiced….. ……But, Vivek, you need not be worried about it. Those who love me, those who know me, know perfectly well that I am their Master, and they have traveled a long way with me, in devotion and love. And of course, it is impossible for them at any moment – even if they become enlightened – to call me a friend. That will be simply ungratefulness.

Again, I remember Sariputta. One day finally he became enlightened, and Buddha said, “You have to go to preach. Now you are enlightened there is no need for you to sit here by my feet.” He said, “This was the trouble! I was ready to drop the idea of enlightenment. You forced me to go on deeper into meditation, and now I am in a fix. I knew that this was going to happen – once I become enlightened you will tell me to go to spread the word. I don’t want to go anywhere. While you are alive, I want to be just your shadow.” But Buddha persuaded him. Finally he agreed, when Buddha was so insistent, but he said, “One freedom I want...” Just see the use of the word `freedom’, and you can see the freedom that your so-called resentful and angry sannyasins have: “One freedom I want, that wherever you are I should be allowed to bow down and touch your feet, from a faraway distance, in your direction.” But Buddha said, “You are already enlightened – you need not touch my feet!” He said, “You have to give me that freedom.” Love asks for a freedom which logic cannot understand. Sariputta was asked again and again in his journeys... Every morning he would get up, take his bath, and the first thing he would do was to bow down on the ground with folded hands towards the direction where he knew Buddha was dwelling. They would say, “To whom are you praying this way?” – because there is no God in Buddhism. And he would say, “I am not praying to any God, but Buddha is God to me; he is my master.” And they would say, “But you are enlightened!” He said, “That does not matter. I am enlightened because of him. Without him I don’t think it would have happened in many lives’ time, I cannot conceive how it could have happened. So he may say he is not responsible for the happening, but I cannot accept the idea. This freedom I have asked from him, and this is a special privilege.” I am feeling very relieved – relieved of all those who were not my people but somehow were hanging around. Now I want only those who are really with me. Yesterday while Vivek was reading the questions to me, when she read her own question she started crying. I said, “What is the matter? Whose question is this?” She said, “It is my question.” And I know that is the situation of many hearts – but only those hearts who have learned to love a master.

All those egoist people were pretending to be disciples. I did not want to hurt them, so the best, the graceful way was that I declared: you are my friends, and I give you total freedom. And they accepted immediately, joyously, not knowing what they were accepting. They were free... they met me; now they are again free, in the same position. They have lost something, but they think their egos have gained something. Whenever the ego gains, you are the loser. It is one of the reasons that I don’t want to have another commune. I want only a mystery school, so those who really are interested can come, learn, go back. It has been a tremendously meaningful experience, but it was not new. At every turn of my life I have had to drop a few people. And I don’t want to say to somebody, “I am dropping you.” I can’t be that unkind, ungraceful. I have managed things so that they drop themselves. It has happened many times – this was not the first time. And it is natural that as you go along, you start gathering some junk, some unnecessary luggage, and there comes a point where it has to be dropped. But these are living people. Although they are junk, they are just luggage, useless, I am still respectful towards them. So I have to find a certain device so they can go happily, not feeling that they have been dropped, but on the contrary, that they have gained what they wanted. It was simply hilarious when I read Teertha’s letter. In the end he writes, “I am doing the same work as you are doing; the only difference is that you are doing it on a bigger scale and I am doing it on a personal scale, individual to individual. But the work is the same.” And then came this second news that he told somebody on the phone, who informed me, “I am of the same state.” It is good that they are feeling good. As far as reality is concerned, those who were real disciples are still disciples – even if they become enlightened, they will not lose their disciplehood. In fact, they have attained to the ultimate of disciplehood. Their gratitude and their love towards the Master is not less but more than ever. --------------Osho, Beyond Psychology, Chapter #27 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The World Needs Masters BELOVED MASTER, CAN YOU EXPLAIN THE FINE LINE BETWEEN OUR TRUST IN YOU AND THE SAYING, “IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD, KILL HIM.”

There is no fine line. Unless you trust, you don’t have a Buddha, you don’t have a master. Buddha has made the statement: “If you meet me on the way, kill me.” It is not said to those who don’t trust him, who don’t love him, who have not merged their identity with his being. Once you are in deep trust with a master, there is a danger that you may become so blissful with the merger of your identity with the master that you may not like to become enlightened on your own; hence, the statement. The statement is saying that you are feeling so blissful, just being in tune with an awakened being, you don’t know how much more bliss is possible if you yourself become awakened. But to become awakened you will have to drop this identity. You will have to forget even the master. It is something about the inner journey. When a person is moving in meditation on the inner journey, the last thing is the master. It is easy to drop other ideas, other feelings; it is easy to drop greed, anger. But finally you come to a point when you have to drop the master too. That is the last barrier. It is just in your mind. You have loved the man so much, your love has made it so difficult, that you would prefer to remain unenlightened than to drop the master. And a real master will say, “Drop me, so that you can also become a master in your own right.” It happened in Ramakrishna’s life – and Ramakrishna was alive just in the last part of the preceding century, so he is not very far away, he is very close to us. He was a great devotee of the mother goddess, Kali. And it was not a formality, it was not just like going every Sunday to the church. He was the priest of the temple of Kali, but his behavior was strange. Sometimes he would worship, sometimes he would not open the doors of the temple at all. Sometimes he would worship the whole day, from morning to evening, till he fell down unconscious from dancing. Rani Rasmani had made the temple near the Ganges in Calcutta – a beautiful temple and a very scenic place. But Rani Rasmani, although she was a queen of a small kingdom, belonged to the fourth caste of the Hindus, the untouchables. So no brahmin was ready to become a priest in the temple of an untouchable. For years there was no priest. Rasmani was very much in trouble. She looked all

over Bengal; she was ready to give any salary the priest wanted, but no brahmin was ready to worship in a temple of a sudra, an untouchable. But when Ramakrishna was approached, he said, “I will come.” Even Rasmani was a little puzzled: the man seems to be a little mad, because no brahmin was ready to come. Ramakrishna said, “Whether the temple is made by an untouchable or by a brahmin, the highest caste, the mother Kali is the same; it doesn’t matter. I am coming, and whatever salary you feel is right, must be right. I don’t know much about money – you are a queen, your decision will be far better.” When she heard that sometimes he dances, sings songs the whole day, and sometimes he does not even open the door, Rani Rasmani called him and said, “This is not right.” He said, “Nobody can say to me what is right and what is wrong: it is a love affair. Only I know and my mother Kali knows. Sometimes I get angry at her when she does not behave. I have been for three days dancing, and she has not even given a little vision to me? Now let her be punished! I am not going to open the doors, and I am not going to offer the food.” Rasmani said, “You are strange! You are supposed to be a priest – you have to do the ritual.” He said, “I am not a priest, and I am not supposed to do any ritual. I love! I love the Kali in my village. I will continue; if you are worried you can stop my salary... because when I prepare food for Kali first I taste it, then I offer it to her. So that’s enough, I don’t need much – I can just taste a little more!” This was unimaginable. In India you cannot taste anything and then offer it to God, or to a goddess. Rasmani said, “This is too much!” He said, “No. My mother used to do the same. She would taste everything before she gave it to me. Was it worth giving or not? Has the taste come out right or not? I cannot offer anything to my mother without tasting it.” This man, Ramakrishna, was really in love with that statue. Nobody was there, but his love was real. The goddess was unreal, but his love was not unreal. One wandering mystic came to the temple and said to Ramakrishna, “You have not yet attained to the ultimate consciousness, and I can see you are capable of it. You are very close to it. Only one thing is blocking the way: this mother goddess, Kali. You love her too much. She does not exist, but your love certainly exists. And you have created a great image of her. You have dropped everything else from your mind, you are ready to reach to ultimate samadhi, ultimate ecstasy, but you will have to cut off the head of Kali.” Ramakrishna said, “That is a little hard. Killing one’s own mother? – what are you saying? I would rather remain unenlightened. And anyway, the moment I close my eyes I see her; she is so beautiful and so alive, I cannot do this.”

But the mystic insisted. He said, “I have never come across a man who is so close – just one step!” Ramakrishna was a simple man. He said, “Then you will have to help me, because when I close my eyes I will not remember you. And Kali is standing before me, so gorgeous, so beautiful! And it is such an immense bliss to see her, I completely forget.” Many times he tried. He would close his eyes, and soon he was swaying, as if from an inner dance. And the mystic would say, “Wake up! Don’t forget what I have said.” Ramakrishna would open his eyes and say, “But this seems to be impossible.” Then the mystic found a way. He brought a piece of glass, really sharp, like a knife, and he said, “I will do one thing: I will just cut your forehead with this piece of glass. It will be painful, but it will remind you. The same way, you cut the mother Kali.” Ramakrishna said, “Let us try.” The mystic cut Ramakrishna’s forehead and the mark remained all his life. Blood started flowing, the pain was intense, and he remembered: with great courage, he cut the image of Kali in two parts – it was just in his imagination – and Kali fell in two parts. And he went into transcendental ecstasy. It took six days to wake him up, he was so deep in ecstasy. And the mystic said, “Don’t disturb him.” After six days he was awakened, and his first words were, “The last barrier has fallen! I am grateful to you,” he said to the mystic. “If you had not insisted, I would have remained happy, but now I know what bliss is. It is a millionfold more.” That is the meaning of Gautam Buddha’s saying. It is not for all, because you don’t have that love. When you go inside you will not find Gautam Buddha. You may find all kinds of idiots there: the attorney general of Oregon, Governor Atiyeh, Ronald Reagan – anybody. The statement is not for you. The statement is for those who had loved Buddha so much that Buddha knew that they could drop everything else, but they could not drop him. So he had to say, “When you meet me on the way” – that way is the inner way – “just chop my head off, so that you can become an enlightened person on your own.” And that is the joy of a master, to see his disciple also becoming a master. This is the meaning when I say that this commune is a mystery school. The effort is to have everyone become a master; just disciplehood won’t do. I want you all to be masters. The world needs masters. Only a great energy of masters around the world can prevent the catastrophe of a third world war, which is looming on the horizon. So it is not only a question of your enlightenment. It is also a question of the life or death of this whole planet. ----------------Osho, From Bondage to Freedom, Chapter 26, Q2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Only a Living Master can Help Religion is a risk, a rebellion, and a rebirth. Religion is not a consolation, it is not conformity, it is not convention. Religion is not part of the world – it is something of the beyond. Religion cannot be learnt: it can only be imbibed. There is no study which is going to help you to become religious. All studies lead astray. Religion is not a kind of learning. On the contrary, it is unlearning. Not that you have to know more, but that you have to come to a point where all knowing disappears, and you become innocent, and you are a child again. And again the wonder is fresh and the mystery of life is revealed to you. The knower lives in his mind. And the mind goes on pretending that is knows. And because the mind pretends that it knows, it demystifies existence. Knowledge is the most irreligious phenomenon there is in the world – because without the experience of the mysterious there is no possibility of being in contact with God. The mystery is the door. Knowledge has to be dropped so that you can open your eyes again like a child – fresh, young, full of wonder, knowing nothing, or, only knowing that you know nothing…. Why do I call religion a risk, and not only a risk but the greatest? Why? Because you have to lose yourself. There are other risks in life, but they are small risks. You have to lose your money, or you have to lose your prestige, or you have to lose your wife... or this or that. But in religion, nothing less than your totality is required – you have to lose yourself. Naturally, one shrinks back, one is frightened. It is a jump out of the ego and into the ego less abyss. It is a discontinuity with the past, with all that you have thought you are. It is a breakthrough. You lose your identity – it is a great crisis in identity. You have known yourself as this or that – a name, a form, a society, a nation – religion requires that you lose all your identity. A religious person is neither an Indian nor a Chinese, neither a Hindu nor a Mohammedan. A religious person is neither black nor white. All these things are stupidities. Then who is a religious person? He is not a person at all, but only a presence. He drops his personality. He cannot say who he is. He cannot define himself. But in that indefinable state of consciousness, he knows who he is. This is a paradox: those who know who they are don’t know; and those who are ready to risk their whole identity and come to a point where they don’t know who they are, only they

are the people who become capable of knowing. It is a gamble.... Very few people have that much courage. Religion is not for the cowards. For the cowards is politics. Religion is not for the inferior. For the inferior is politics. The WHOLE political world depends on the inferiority complex. When a man feels himself to be nothing, nobody, he starts projecting himself in the world of ambition – politically he wants to become somebody, a president, a prime minister. Or, money wise he becomes a millionaire, famous. Or he wants to become a Nobel Laureate, or something.... These are the ways of ambition. And why does ambition arise in the first place at all? It arises out of the inferiority complex. You feel inferior within yourself, you feel nobody. It hurts. It is like an open wound. You want to hide it. You become occupied in ambition. You rush away from yourself as far as you can. You want to forget yourself! You want to get occupied in the world of money, power, prestige. Religion is for those who are ready to go into this nothingness of their being, who don’t think that they have to be somebody. All that they want is to know who they are. They don’t want to be somebody. They don’t project. They simply want to enter into the innermost shrine of their being and to see what is there. If it is nothingness, then it is nothingness. Then nothingness is beautiful. Then this is our nature. Then there is no problem, it is not a wound. One need not search for any medicine for it; it needs no healing. The ambitious person runs out, afraid to encounter nothingness. The religious person rushes in to know “What is this nothingness that I am?” Risk is there. Death is there. But out of this death is resurrection, is rebirth. But if you go to the temples and the churches and the mosques, you will find a totally different kind of person praying there – he is cowardly. His God is out of fear. He is as ambitious as anybody else. He is seeking support of the God so that he can succeed in his ambition. He is not interested in God himself. He wants to exploit God too, in some way or other. He has a motivation. He is cowardly, and out of his cowardliness he has created a great religion, ritual – the priest, the church. Religion is in the hands of irreligious people. A Mahavir, a Buddha, a Mohammed, a Mansoor, a Rumi, a Kabir, a Nanak -- -these are not people who are afraid. These are NOT people who are praying out of fear! They are praying out of love, not out of fear. They are praying out of sheer joy. They are praying out of thankfulness. They are not asking for anything from God – because God has already given all that is needed. The real religious person needs to be immensely courageous to enter into his nothingness, and inside there is a great nothingness... as vast as the sky, as infinite as the sky.

There is an outer sky and there is an inner sky. The worldly person moves out, the religious person moves in. To move out is very easy, because millions are moving there. You can become part of the crowd; you need not have any individual courage of your own. You can simply ride on the mob psychology. All the people are doing something – you can become part of it. Man is an imitator. If anything proves that man comes from the monkeys it is his tremendous capacity to imitate. But to go in, you are alone, absolutely alone. Nobody can be there with you, not even a friend. Great courage is needed for this internal journey – the courage to be alone. But only those who are ready to be alone will be able to know what God is – because God is found in your innermost aloneness. God is the innermost center of your aloneness. God is not found as an object: God is found not as the sought but as the seeker. God is never found there: God is always found here. Never then: always now. God is not a goal, distant from you: God is your very consciousness, your very being, your very existence. But for that, this courage is needed – courage to be alone, courage to drop the attachment to the crowd, courage to drop ambitions, projections, courage to be a non-entity. That’s why the other day I said: I am a very ordinary person, extraordinarily ordinary. And I would like you also to become extraordinarily ordinary – because in that VERY ordinariness, God is found. To try to be somebody, to try to be special, is the way of ambition and the way of the ego. And the ego never meets God. That’s why the other day I told you that I am not perfect – or, I am perfectly imperfect. And that’s what I would like you to be too. Imperfect – perfectly imperfect. Then you can relax. Then there is no way to go anywhere, and no need. Then there is no ideal to be fulfilled. Then you are not constantly trying to improve upon yourself – you simply relax. You are in a let-go. And when you are in a let-go, a prayer arises from the very ground of your being – which is not DONE by you. It arises as fragrance arises out of flowers, as light falls from the stars. It naturally arises! And when prayer is natural, it has tremendous beauty, tremendous power. It liberates. Be courageous. And let me repeat: the greatest courage is to be non-ambitious. Religion is not a formality; it is not a kind of behavior; it is not a certain etiquette. You can learn the behavior of the religious people. You can go through the whole act of being religious. You can bow down in the temple, you can pray, you can even manage tears to flow down your cheeks. And deep down you know you are not in it. It is just a put-on act. Maybe you have become very skillful in it. You have done it so long that it looks almost natural, but it is not. Your heart is not in it.

You can say to your wife during the day a hundred times, “I love you.” But if your heart is not in it, you know that these words are dead, that these words have no wings. And you know that moment also when you really love, and you say, “I love you.” And the difference! And the difference is immense. The words are the same; there is no way to detect any difference in the words. No phonetic analysis, no analysis of the sound, is going to find any difference. But you know: when you love, those words are no more ordinary – they are radiant, they have a luminosity, they are aflame. Your heart beats in them, they are alive. And when you are just repeating it because it has to be repeated – because there are books in the world like Dale Carnegie’s books and Napoleon Hill’s books, which go on saying that even if you don’t love, go on repeating – it helps. It lubricates relationship. Maybe they are right, it lubricates, but it is not the true thing. You may live a smooth life, but just to live a smooth life is worthless. One has to live a life of passion and prayer and love – not just a smooth life. One has to live a life of adventure, of exploration. NOT just a smooth life! One has to live totally. One’s life torch has to burn from both ends – even though it is only for one single moment, but then that single moment is eternity. When you live at the optimum, then you know what life is. And then you know the celebration of it and the benediction of it. Religion is not a formality. Avoid formalities. If you really want to be religious some day, avoid formalities. The greatest danger with formality is that if you become accustomed to formality you will never become aware that you are missing the real thing. The man who carries false coins and thinks they are real coins will not search for the real. That is going to be his misfortune. Never be formal about religion. Never be a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan – these are all formalities. Be prayerful, but not in a formal way. Let prayer arise. Wait for it. Long for it! Search for it! Imitation is borrowed. Formality is borrowed. OTHERS teach you what to do. And religion requires a mature person, not just a person who is like a parrot. It is not a formality because it is not part of culture, civilization, society. In fact, religion is basically asocial – not anti-social but asocial. It takes you beyond society. You are caught up by the society, you are conditioned by the society. The society is your prison It does not allow you to move out of its boundaries. It gives you enough rope so that you can have a certain feeling of freedom, but you are not free. No society allows freedom. No society exists for freedom. The name of freedom is being exploited, but no society is free. To have a free society will mean to have no society at all – then there will be pure individuals. And all that we know as society will be just a formal arrangement: like the post office and the railway department – a formal arrangement. No imposition of any inner structure. No imposition of any obedience, but a help, a nourishing help, so that everybody can become himself. Not that he has to conform to a certain mould.

No society yet exists which is religious, not even the Indian society. Indians like the idea very much, and their so-called gums go on roaming around the world and declaring to the world that India IS religious – it is all nonsense. Formally they are right, but religion has nothing to do with formality. Religion is rebellion; it is the spirit of rebellion. Rebellion of the individual. Rebellion of the soul. Search for freedom, and ultimate freedom. Great courage is, of course, needed. Guts are needed. That’s why so many people think they are religious, but very few are. Only once in a while do you find a religious person. And remember that religion is not a scholarship. You to can learn the Vedas and the Bible and the Koran, and you can become really efficient, yet you will not be religious. The same work can be done by a computer in a far better way. Only one thing the computer cannot do, and that is: it cannot feel. The computer can think. Now we have machines which can think, but no machine can feel. Religion has something to do with the feeling part of your being, not with the thinking part of your being. You can study, you can become very knowledgeable, you can be burdened with great knowledge, but all this burdening slowly will dry the juices of your heart. This knowledge will be like rocks, and your heart will flow no more. Your heart will be too much surrounded by rocks. It needs a little freedom to flow. It is a small stream of love. Arid only that small stream of love knows how to go to God. No rock can go to the ocean – only that small stream of love knows how to reach the ocean. And it needs no maps, no guidebooks. It simply knows. The knowing is intuitive. Every man simply knows how to love – there is no need to teach him. What is needed then? All that is needed is a loving atmosphere where the spirit can be imbibed. That’s what happens when you go to a Master, when you enter a Sufi TEKKIA – a Sufi school, or a Buddhafield, or when you enter into the energy world of a Master: you are going into a magnetic field where love is flowing, where many hearts are dancing, where minds have been put aside, where feeling has become supreme. Just all that you need is a climate. The Master is a climate, an atmosphere, in which you suddenly become aware of your own potential. Not that the Master gives you something – there is no need! All that is needed has always been given to you by God. But in the presence of the Master, some chord in your heart starts responding, as if somebody is playing music and the very hearing of it and a dance arises in you. Your whole body wants to dance. You are in the grip of the music; it has touched and moved your heart. You are connected, bridged. A Master is a musician. He sings a song. He lives a song. He vibrates, pulsates a certain melody. And those who are intimate with him, those who allow themselves to be close to him, those who can be in a kind of let-go with him, those who relax with him... this is what satsang is: relaxing with a Master, dropping

your tensions. There is a pool of energy; if you drop your tensions, suddenly you will become aware of your own pool too. A very famous ancient story: It happened, a small group of sheep was passing through a valley. A lioness jumped from one side to the other side, from one hillock to another hillock. And just while she was jumping, she gave birth to a child. The child fell into that small group of sheep. The child was brought up by the sheep. Naturally, the child knew from the very beginning that he was a sheep. He never became aware of his being a lion – although he was a lion! Just by forgetting, your nature does not change. He became very big, but the growth came so slowly, so slowly, that the sheep also accepted him – he was a freak child, it appeared. Something strange, eccentric, a little bit off the track, outlandish, but in every other way he was a sheep. Absolutely vegetarian he was, and walked like sheep, and lived with sheep, and talked like sheep. One day this miracle was seen by another lion. An old lion passing by looked at this miracle – he could not believe his eyes. It was impossible! The young lion was walking with the sheep and the sheep were not afraid. They were going so together in such great friendship – he could not believe his eyes! He had never heard of such a thing. He rushed to catch hold of the lion. “What has gone... has he gone mad or something?” And the sheep escaped, and the sheep lion also escaped, naturally – so much afraid, trembling. But the old lion became very curious, and somehow he got hold of him, took him to the river. And he was NOT willing to go. He was shrinking back and holding back, and he was saying, “Just leave me, please. Leave me alone! Let me go with my people.” I know this story, because this is what I go on doing to you every day, and you say, “Leave me alone. Let me be a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian – let me go to my people! Where are you taking me? I am just a sheep, and I am perfectly happy. Don’t disturb me!” But the old lion persisted He forced the young lion to the river, and there they both looked into the river, the silent river, no ripples. It was like a mirror. And the old lion said, “Look, you are not a sheep. Look in the river!” Just the look... and do you know what happened? A great lion’s roar, suddenly! This is what Zen people call ‘sudden enlightenment’. It was not a gradual process. Not that he said, “Okay, I will think about it.” Not that “First I will have to go to school and study how to be a lion.” Not that “Sir, I am very grateful to you – let me become your disciple. And, slowly slowly, one day, in this life or in some other life, I will attain to this enlightenment. I am grateful that you have showed me the path.” Nothing of this sort. Just seeing his face and seeing the old lion’s face similar, a roar exploded. In a single moment! In fact, in no time, with no interval of time. Timelessly. Instantly. Immediately... the sheep disappeared and there was a young lion. This is the meaning of being with a Master. You are not what you think you are. You have been taught you are this and that. You are not these small identities, these small egos. You are vast. You are infinite. You are eternal. TAT-TVAM-ASI: Thou art That! Not less than that. You are gods and goddesses. But you have fallen into many traps.

So it is not a question of studying. Religion has to be imbibed from someone who has arrived. It is from a Master to a disciple. It is not from the book to the student. It is from the alive Master to the alive disciple. It is a transmission of insight. The Master is not a person but only a climate, a music, a silence. If you love, you also become silent – because whatsoever you love, you become like that. Remember it! Be very cautious in loving something, because whatsoever you love, you will become that. The man who loves money, becomes money. He thinks only in terms of money and nothing else. The man who loves things, possessions, himself becomes a possession and nothing else, becomes a thing. Love something great! If you love a flower, it is better than loving money. If you love the moon, it is better than loving a house. If you love a woman, a man, a child, it is better than loving power and prestige. But if you can find a Master and fall in his love, then that is the door to the divine – because on this earth, nothing is closer to God than a Master. And the difference between you and the Master is not of quality: the difference is only of remembrance. Remember again the old lion and the young lion. What is the difference? There is no existential difference, no difference at all fundamentally. But there IS a difference, a small difference, but that makes all the difference. The young lion has forgotten who he is. His heart has forgotten the language of a lion. He knows no more how to roar, how to shake the mountains with his roar. In the presence of the old lion, he imbibed, he recognized. Looking in the eyes of a Master, you will recognize who you are. Walking with the Master, you will recognize who you are. Just think of sitting with a Buddha... how long can you go on thinking that you are a sheep? Sooner or later the lion’s roar.... Religion is a spark; you can get it only from an alive Master, not from the dead ones. Christ cannot help you. Buddha cannot help you. You will have to find a living Christ, a living Buddha – because the spark has to jump from one living heart into another living heart. Buddha helped many, but only when he was alive. And Christ helped many, but only when he was alive. A Master can help only when he is alive. And there are people who were not even helped when Buddha was alive, and they are thinking now that they will be helped when-he is gone. You go on missing living Masters, and then you hope that you will be able to have some contact with the deed Masters? You are very cunning. This is the way to avoid the contact. You can go on pretending that you are such a religious person – you worship Buddha end you pray to Buddha and you read the Dhammapada and you recite his sayings, and you follow whatsoever he has said, you cultivate your character according to him, you live as he wanted his disciples to live... but all this is bogus, because the living fire is no more there. Your lion’s roar can be provoked by another living lion – there is no other way. -----Osho, The Perfect Master, Chapter 7

My Quest for Bliss I was born on 23

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September 1942, on a full moonlit night, in a middle class family in Bihar, India. My father was a signalman in the British Army during the Second World War. My mother was a simple housewife. She came from a family blessed by a great sage. His name was Janaki Baba. He was a regular visitor to my family. His age was more than 70 years when I started taking note of him. His complexion was very fair. I was always amazed to see such a charm, such a shine, and such a grace on his face. He always looked fresh and joyful. I never found him angry or miserable. In fact he looked so divine, so different that I always considered him a man from another planet. Even at his old age he cooked his own food. He was a constant traveler, but never used any vehicle, bullock cart, horse, or elephant, which was offered very frequently by rich men of those times. He loved me probably more than any father could love his child. Practically every month he visited me and my family. He had a yakshini Siddhi. He could get anything just by getting his hands in the air. Whenever I asked him for sweets or dry fruits, instantly he used to provide. As a child I asked him many times to teach me this great art, so that I can influence my friends. But every time he refused to do so by telling me that I have been sent to this earth for a much bigger role and asked me not to indulge in these trifles. At the age of 13, I had to go to distant Netarhat School, a very famous residential school, located in Palamau district of present Jharkhand State in India. However, Janaki Baba continued to visit my family. My mother told me that he used to collect my old clothes, wear them, and go to Vindhyachal, a famous place of pilgrimage near Varanasi, for some Tantrik Sadhana. He left his body sometime in 1960. My maternal uncle, who was his disciple, told me that Janaki Baba asked him to convey his blessings and a message that I have to perform a great divine mission. I felt sad to hear of his passing away, more so, because I could not get any spiritual guidance from him. But an intense thirst grew in me. Could I live a blissful life like Janaki Baba? I was married in 1964 and had four children by 1971. After my Master’s Degree in Earth Science, I started teaching at the Indian School of Mines, popularly known as ISM, Dhanbad. My quest for bliss took many forms. Later, I realized that religious quest is an inherent quality of all human beings. Whether we know it or not, we are on a religious quest. It may assume different names – peace, beauty, joy, love, bliss, freedom, infinity, purity,

energy, truth, soul, nirvana, etc. God is a name given to the combination of all these qualities. Even the so-called atheists, who are against the word “God”, are searching for these aspects of Godliness. Politicians are seeking godliness as ultimate power. Traders are seeking godliness as ultimate wealth. They may not be aware of what they are looking for, but everyone has a thirst for spiritual attainment experiences. I met Paramhans Swami Satyanand Saraswati of Bihar School of Yoga, Monghyr. I was asked to conduct his discourse program at ISM auditorium. I was influenced by his insight on Hath Yoga. He also showered his affection on me and visited my house to bless our newly born son, Pankaj, who is presently serving IBM at Detroit, USA. I learnt different aspects of Hatha Yoga under his stewardship untill 1974, when I fell seriously sick presumably because of some mistake in practice of Hath Yoga. I was told by my doctors that I was suffering from porphyria, an incurable disease, and my days on this earth were counted. It was an evening of Diwali, the great light festival of India, in 1974. My children were enjoying, as usual, in a great festival like this. I was watching the sky, which was so beautiful. The sun was setting, dispersing beautiful colors in the western horizon. The birds were chirping on the green trees. But I was not able to focus on chirping birds or leaves of the trees. I whispered to myself, “Diwali will come next year too. My children will enjoy the festival; the sun will set with all the brilliant colors; but I will not be in this world to watch this beautiful world.” I became sad. This creation of God looked so beautiful to me. I murmured to myself,” If I ever get a new lease of life, I will not waste it as before.” My father came to pay his last visit to me. He asked me as to what he could do at this juncture of my life. I asked him whether he was having my Janma Kundali– my birth chart. “Why do you want your birth chart for?” he asked. “I want to see whether astrology can predict about death.” “I do not have it with me right now. But I shall try to procure it from the astrologer who made it.” My father went to the astrologer only to hear that he had passed away. But his son searched and located my birth chart, which was made by his father. He saw the birth chart. He exclaimed, “Oh, this is the birth chart my father very often used to talk about.” “What is special about it?” My father enquired.

“My father has mentioned in this chart that this person would face death at the age of 32, but will not die. He will come out of his sufferings if Mrityunjay Japa, a mantra chanted to save from untimely death, is taken recourse to.” After a brief pause he asked my father, “Is he enlightened?” My father said, “To the best of my knowledge he is not.” “Then don’t worry. He is destined to be enlightened. He will not die before that.” My father took a sigh of relief and came to me with the birth chart. He narrated the whole story. A wise man was approached. His name was Baidyanath Pathak. He was a colleague and a friend of mine at ISM. He agreed to chant Mrityunjay Mantra for seven days. The very first day a strange thing happened. One S.P. Saha, a physiotherapist, came to me on his own and offered his services to cure me of my illness. I agreed. S.P. Saha was a member of the Ramkrishna Mission started by Swami Vivekananda, the famous disciple of Paramhansa Swami Ramkrishna. He gave me massage and physiotherapeutic treatment for six months, one hour every day, and during this time he told me so many nice things about spiritual practices in Ramkrishna Mission. He also told me about his meeting with so many other sages and their traditions. Miraculously, I fully recovered from my illness. I was a seeker without knowing what the object of my seeking was. At a very late stage in life it became clear to me that my seeking is for happiness, which is a normal state of life, and not to be obtained from outside endeavors. Then next question came in my mind as to how to explore it. How others have explored it? Has anyone got happiness in the market? Can I purchase it as a commodity? Therefore, what should be my approach in exploring the blissful state of my being? On the basis of my own experience I would like to give some guidelines below: 

Be a seeker, not a customer. A seeker is obliged for what he receives, whereas a customer simply pays for what he gets.

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Look for a Master, and not for a teacher. A master shares his experiences, whereas a teacher simply shares his knowledge.

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Drop your shopping mentality. A western mind has shopping mentality, characterized by visiting different masters and try to learn something from here and something from there.

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A master is intelligent enough to identify such persons and does not like to share any mystery with them.

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You can read any number of books, but knowing will come through a Master, and not through books. Therefore, look for a Living Master.

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If you have been connected with any Master, who has left his body, He will be of help only through a Living Master.

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Be a disciple, not a student or a follower. A student is independent, a follower is dependent, and a disciple is interdependent.

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Interdependence is a higher value than independence, says Stephen R. Covey in his famous book ‘Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.’ A student is interested simply in knowledge, a follower is interested in salvation and a disciple is interested in knowing.

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It is difficult to get a genuine Master. One who knows Divine Sound and Divine Light, and is prepared to share his experiences of Samadhi, try him as a Master. Do not be stuck up due to age, gender, caste, creed, religion, language, country, dress, physical appearance, economic status or living style of the Master. When a Living Master leaves, and your journey is still incomplete, do not hesitate in accepting your enlightened brother or sister disciple as your Master, although your ego will strongly come in the way.

 

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Be with the Master for a reasonable period. If you feel happy, growing, love and warmth, if your heart pulsates with him, if you find yourself at the same wavelength, then surrender to Him. However, if you do not feel yourself in tune with Him, then better to thank Him and go away.



In India it is customary to express your gratitude by bowing down to the feet of the Master. It melts your ego and helps you in shifting from head to the heart and from heart to the soul.

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There are so many spiritual traditions in India and other countries. It is advisable to join a live tradition which has a Living Master.

I left ISM in 1975 and joined Coal India Limited (CIL) at Dhanbad itself. Although I had recovered from my prolonged illness, but was afraid to start my spiritual pursuits thinking that I might again fall sick due to some other blunders in yoga practices. But the destiny could not allow me to be a drop out in the path of spiritualism. It was a cold January of 1979. I was going to participate in the Indian Science Congress at Ahmedabad. I asked one of my friends, Dr J.P. Sinha, a Central School Hindi teacher, whether he could give me any book for my reading during

my traveling. He instantly agreed and asked me whether I would like to read a book by Bhagwan Rajneesh. I reacted sharply, “Do you mean that sex guru who talks on sex to samadhi?” “Have you read any one of his books?” He enquired. “No, not at all, but I have read his criticisms in various newspapers.” “Brother, is it proper for a man of wisdom like you to frame any opinion about a person without knowing him or reading his books directly?” I felt sorry. I asked him to kindly give me a book of Bhagwan Rajneesh. Dr Sinha obliged me gladly and gave me one of his books in Hindi on Lord Krishna entitled ’Krishna Meri Dristi Me.’ Its translation in English has come with the title ’Krishnathe Man and the Philosophy.’ I did not open the book till my arrival at Mount Abu. Before going to sleep I just opened the book. The very first sentence thrilled me and made me so ecstatic that I could not resist reading the book for almost the whole night. I woke up as a different person altogether. “So this is the person I was looking for,” I murmured. After returning from my journey, I profusely thanked Dr Sinha and asked him, “At many places in his book Bhagwan is mentioning about meditation. Do you know any one of his meditation techniques? “Yes, I know a few.” Dr Sinha was kind enough to teach me Dynamic meditation. I started doing it sincerely every morning. I felt better every day. But the most wonderful experience I had on was 6th July, 1979, when during the meditation I went out of my body. What a thrilling experience it was! I then decided to be His disciple. I started looking for some other friends and disciples of Bhagwan Rajneesh, who could give me company. Finally myself and three other friends went to Pune on 10th May, 1980. I was told that being disciple of Bhagwan Rajneesh means taking sannyas. I took sannyas in this great tradition on 13th May, 1980. I started practicing meditation regularly with great hopes. I was transferred to CMPDI, Ranchi in December, 1983. I planned an official tour to Dhanbad and Giridih on 19th January, 1990. I was to start at 7 AM. But everything started going in the wrong direction. I could not start till it was 11AM. My colleague B.P. Singh was also with me. We were scheduled to take lunch with Mr.J.V.S. Rana at Bokaro, but we reached his place late at 3PM. After lunch we proceeded for Dhanbad. But on the way I felt very sad and despondent for no visible reasons. B.P. Singh was sensitive enough to notice it. He asked, “You do not appear to be okay Is there something wrong?” “I do not know, but I am not feeling well. Can we go back to Ranchi?” I proposed.

“I do not think so. We are on official mission. It will not be proper to give up the tour half way.” B. P. Singh was firm in his reply. We proceeded further. By the time we reached Kusmunda, I felt extremely uneasy. Mr. U. S. Singh, a friend of mine, was posted at Kusmunda as General Manager of the area in BCCL. He was disciple of a very famous Indian sage Aughar Bhagwan Ram. I had met his guru several times and still I have great reverence for him. It was always my pleasure to meet Mr. Singh and his wife and pass some time talking mostly on spiritual matter of common interest. I decided to pass some time with him. Mr. U.S. Singh was sitting in his chamber. He was very happy to receive us. We had a cup of tea. It was 5 PM. Suddenly I felt relaxed. It may be because of the tea, I thought at that time. Mr. U.S. Singh invited us to stay in his area guest house to which we readily agreed. After dinner I went to bed late. Suddenly I felt something is happening around me. I kept lying silently in bed. But B.P. Singh woke me up. It was a cold dark night. There was no electricity. “What happened? Still it is night. Isn’t it? I grumbled. “Please wake up. Something very unusual has happened. A golden light appeared from out side and turned into a form similar to Osho. He blessed you and asked me to convey the message that you are to carry on his work after he was gone.” B.P. Singh’s voice was choked with emotions. “Are you sure you have not seen a dream? Only a Buddha can present himself in golden light, and that too when he leaves his body. Osho is still alive. How can you see him like this?” I was not prepared to accept that my master had left for the other world. “I don’t know that. But certainly it was not my dream.” “Okay. This is a very important experience. I have no explanation right now.” After completing our official work at Dhanbad we proceeded to Giridih. First I went to the house of Swami Ratan Bharti, a disciple of Osho. His son came out to inform us that Ratan Bharti was still sleeping. “Please wake him up. He is a friend of mine. He will not mind.” I requested his son. Soon Ratan Bharti came out. His eyes were red. “What’s the matter?” I asked. Ratan Singh started crying. “Probably you don’t know. Osho has left His body.” “Oh,God!” I turned towards B.P. Singh and whispered in his ears: “So, you had rightly seen Osho in the night.” I spent sometime with Ratan Singh and went to a Sufi Master where I used to stay whenever I visited Giridih. B. P. Singh shared his vision with the Sufi Master and asked for his comments.

“Yes, you have seen everything correctly. I know myself that Siddhartha has to carry forward Osho’s mission after Osho has left.” The Sufi Master commented. “I am not enlightened. How can I do His work?” I raised my doubt. “You are destined to be. You don’t know, but I can see that.” He was prophetic in his reply. First I had met a great sage at Haridwar in 1986 on the occasion of Kumbh Mela, the greatest human congregation on this planet taking place once every three years turn by turn at four places in India. The sage’s name is Swami Anand Deo, but popularly he is known as Tat Baba, because he remains almost naked and wears cloths made up of jute (or tat) only below his waist. He has ashrams in Vrindavan, Delhi and Manali in India. During one of our conversations Tat Baba asked me, “Is there any Living Master in Osho’s tradition today?” “I don’t think so, I have yet to discover some one.” I replied humbly. “It is really unfortunate. Without a Living Master I do not see any hope for survival of the Osho tradition in the future.” He commented. “Will the Destiny play such a cruel joke? Such a great master came on this planet and there will not be any one to carry forward His mystic work?” I murmured to myself. I was not sorry for myself. But certainly I felt that the great tradition of my master is facing a serious challenge of extinction. I was transferred to South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL), Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, India in 1992, where I intensified my meditation practices. I met Tat Baba again in December 1996 in one of the spiritual functions at Shahdol in M.P. One morning he asked, “Are you enlightened?” “Not yet.” I smiled. “Then you are going to be soon, maybe within three months.” His prophecy came true and I was enlightened on 5th March.1997 at Bilaspur. I prepared myself to carry out the task assigned to me by my Master in the night of His departure. ------Osho Siddhartha

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------CHAPTER 2

DIVINE LIVING ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Eight Fold Path of Lord Buddha THE BUDDHA SAID: THOSE WHO FOLLOW THE WAY ARE LIKE UNTO WARRIORS WHO FIGHT SINGLE-HANDED WITH A MULTITUDE OF FOES. THEY MAY ALL GO OUT OF THE FORT IN FULL ARMOR; BUT AMONG THEM ARE SOME WHO ARE FAINT-HEARTED, AND SOME WHO GO HALFWAY AND BEAT A RETREAT, AND SOME WHO ARE KILLED IN THE AFFRAY, AND SOME WHO COME HOME VICTORIOUS. O MONKS, IF YOU DESIRE TO ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT, YOU SHOULD STEADILY WALK IN YOUR WAY, WITH A RESOLUTE HEART, WITH COURAGE, AND SHOULD BE FEARLESS IN WHATEVER ENVIRONMENT YOU MAY HAPPEN TO BE, AND DESTROY EVERY EVIL INFLUENCE THAT YOU MAY COME ACROSS; FOR THUS YOU SHALL REACH THE GOAL.

GAUTAMA THE BUDDHA has no leaning towards abstraction, philosophy or metaphysics. He’s very practical, down-to-earth practical. He’s very scientific. His approach is not that of a thinker; the approach is existential. When he attained and became a Buddha, it is said that the God of the Gods, Brahma, came to him and asked him, “Who is your witness? You declare that you have become a Buddha, but who is your witness?” Buddha laughed, touched the earth with his hand, and said, “This earth, this solid earth is my witness.” He is very earthy; he made the earth his witness. He could have said so about the sky, but no; he could have said so about the sun or the moon or the stars, but no. He touched the earth and said, “This solid earth is my witness.” His whole approach is like that. Before we enter into these sutras, his basic steps have to be understood. Buddha’s Way is called ‘the eightfold Way’. He has divided it into eight parts. Those divisions are arbitrary, just utilitarian; the Way is one. It is not really divided, it is divided so that you can understand it easily. And this is very fundamental: if you can understand these eight steps or eight divisions of the Way, the Way will open just in front of you. You are already standing on it, but not aware; your mind is wandering somewhere. The Way is in front of you. So try to understand these eight steps as deeply as possible….. And all these eight steps are concerned with rightness – right view, right intention, right speech, right morality, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and the eighth, the ultimate, right SAMADHI. The word ‘right’ has to be understood first because the Sanskrit word SAMYAK IS SO meaningful, is so

pregnant with meaning that it cannot be translated. ‘Right’ is a very poor translation for it for many reasons. First, the word ‘right’ immediately gives the idea as if it is against the wrong. SAMYAK never gives that idea; SAMYAK IS not against the wrong. Buddha’s right is not against the wrong, because Buddha says, ‘Wrongs are many, right is one – so how can the right be against the wrong?” Health is one, diseases are many. There are not as many healths as there are diseases, so health cannot be against the diseases – otherwise there would be so many healths. Somebody is suffering from TB and then he becomes healthy, somebody is suffering from cancer and he becomes healthy, and somebody is suffering from flu and he becomes healthy. These three healths are not three healths. The diseases were different, but health is one, and one cannot be against the many. Exactly the same is true about right and wrong. Right is one. Wrongs are millions; you can go on inventing wrongs. Right cannot be invented; it does not depend on you. Right is a state of affairs where you are in tune with the whole. That is the meaning of health too: when you are in tune with the whole you are healthy. The music flows between you and the whole, there is no obstruction. You feel a well-being. There is no noise, everything is in harmony. When the individual is in tune with the universal, right exists, health exists. When you fall out of tune then so many wrongs arise – there is no limit to them, they are endless. And you can invent new wrongs… Buddha says: Right is that which is not your invention. It is already there. If you go away from it you are wrong, if you come close to it you are right. The more close you are, the more right you are. One day, when you are exactly home, you are perfectly right. SAMYAK and SAMADHI both come from the same root SAM. SAMYAK IS the step towards SAMADHI. If you don’t understand SAMYAK, YOU will not be able to understand SAMADHI. So seven steps ultimately lead to the final step. ‘Samadhi’ means: now everything has fallen in tune with existence. Not a flaw exists; the music is utterly perfect. But there is no better word in English than ‘right’, so you have to understand it. ‘Right’ in the Buddhist meaning of the term means: balanced, centered, grounded, harmonious, tranquil – all of these things. But the basic thing can be understood even if there is no synonymous term in English to translate it…. The right is when you start feeling that you are at home. Nothing is alien, nothing is strange. These eight steps are just indicators, by and by, of how to come to that tremendous courage, that ultimate courage where you take the quantum leap and you simply disappear. When the self disappears, the Universal Self arises.

The first is: Right View (Right Paradigm). Buddha says: Look at things without any opinion, otherwise you never look at reality. Look at things without any philosophy, without any prejudice, without any dogma, creed, scripture. Just look. Look at things as they are. Be factual; don’t create a fiction. If you are looking for something with a prejudice, you will find it – that is the trouble. If you are already full of a belief you will find it because the mind is so creative, so imaginative, so capable of autohypnosis, that whatsoever it believes it can create. Buddha says: Go to reality without any belief. Belief is the barrier. You must have watched it. If you are born a Hindu – that means if you are being conditioned from your childhood by Hindus – that means you are a victim of Hinduism. And the same applies to Mohammedans and Christians, Jews, Jains, communists: the whole humanity is a victim of this school or that, of this prejudice or that, of this belief or that. If you are born a Hindu, have been conditioned in certain dogmas, and you start meditating, you will start seeing visions of Krishna, Rama – it depends on what you have been taught, who has been enforced and engraved in your mind – but Christ will never come to you. Christ comes to a Christian, Buddha comes to a Buddhist, Mahavira comes to a Jaina. To a Jaina, Mohammed can never come; it is impossible. Even to conceive the idea is impossible. Even in a dream, Mohammed will not come to a Jaina. What is happening? Are these Buddhas, Mahaviras, Christs, really coming or is your own belief creating them? Your own belief is creating them. To a communist, nobody comes. His belief is that all religion is nonsense, an opium for the people, a dangerous poison to be got rid of as soon as possible – then nobody comes. It depends on you. If you have a belief, that very belief becomes a dream; and if you are very, very sensitive, receptive, that dream can look more real than the reality. In fact, this happens every day, even in nonreligious people. You dream in the night and when you dream the dream looks so real. You have dreamed your whole life and every morning you cancel it as unreal. But again, next night you dream, and in the dream again it seems real. The dreaming faculty lives on belief. If you have a strong belief then the dreaming faculty joins with the belief, pours its energy into the belief, makes the belief a reality, and you start having visions. Buddha is not in favor of any visions – because he says: “That which is, needs no visions. It needs simply clarity to see.” Your mind need not have any dreams, great dreams of great saints, heaven and hell; these are all your creations. Right View is: having no prejudice, having no belief, having no opinion whatsoever. Difficult... Buddha’s path is arduous; he demands too much. It almost seems to be a superhuman feat. But it is possible – and that is the only way towards truth.

If you have any opinion you will impose your opinion on the truth. You do it every day. If you come to me with the opinion that this man is good, you will go convinced that this man is good; if you come with the opinion that this man is bad. You will go convinced that this man is bad. Your belief will always find that which it wants to find. Belief is very selective…. It depends on how you look at things. You can look at the same thing, and you may not be seeing the same thing. If you are listening to me in trust, you listen differently. If you are listening to me with disbelief, you listen to me differently. If you are listening as a disciple, you listen differently. If you are listening just as an outsider, a visitor – just by the way, you have come with a friend – you listen differently. What I say is the same, but how you interpret it will depend on you. Right listening will be that you listen as nobody: neither for nor against, with no prejudice – just listening. If you can see things without any idea in the mind, then Buddha says it is right view…. The second step is: Right Intention (Right Acceptance). We live result-oriented, we live goal-oriented, we live with intention, with desire: “Things should be like this, then I will be happy. If they are not like this then I’m going to be unhappy.” That’s why we are so frustrated. Buddha says: Your frustration comes from your intentions. Your intentions seem to be going against reality; then you are frustrated. Drop intentions, drop desires, and just move moment to moment with reality, wherever it leads. Just become a driftwood; just float with the stream and you will never be frustrated. Frustration comes whenever there is conflict between you and the real. And remember, the real is going to win; you cannot win against the real. Nobody can win against God; that’s not possible, that doesn’t happen. You can win only with Him. Whenever you succeed remember, somehow, accidentally you must have been with Him. All success simply means this: that unknowingly you must have stepped with Him, and that’s why you have succeeded. Failure means that unknowingly you must have stepped against Him. Failure is an indication, success is an indication. A man who has learned this drops all his intentions. He has no private desires. He says exactly what Jesus said on the cross: Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done. He surrenders. Buddha has no concept of God. His approach is more scientific than Jesus’. Jesus is more poetic. God is poetry, a beautiful poetry. Buddha is not a poet, he is very mathematical. He says: There is no need to talk about God. Only one thing can be understood: you drop intentions. When you don’t have any intentions, you have the right intention. And you have to remember this paradox in all the eight steps. ‘Right intention’ means no intention on your part. Then the universe flows through you. Then the universe goes on fulfilling its intention through you. You become a vehicle…..

The man who has no intention of course lives moment to moment. He cannot project into the future. To whatsoever is needed in this moment, he responds accordingly. He is spontaneous and he is responsible. When I use the word ‘responsible’ I use in its original sense. He is response-able; he can respond, and he can respond totally, because he has no intention of his own. He can simply say, “Yes l” and he can say it totally. He will not hold back anything. His yes will not be a reluctant yes. It will be like a flower... blooming, releasing its fragrance to existence. The man of right intention lives a life without any tension. Look at the word ‘intention’; it is made of tension. All intention will create tension. It is made of two words, ‘in’, and ‘tension’. When your inner reality is tense, it is IN TENSION. When your inner reality is relaxed and there is no tension – you are not going anywhere, you are not chasing anything, you are not after anything, you are just here and now, relaxed – that state of no tension or no intention is what Buddha calls right intention. Because then suddenly the universe starts flowing through you. You become like a hollow bamboo. You become a flute. The third is Right Speech. Buddha says: Say only that which is. Never move into fictions. Only say that which is true and real. Only say that which you have experienced. Never talk about others’ experiences. If you have not known God, please don’t say anything about God – because whatsoever you say will be a falsification, will be sacrilege, will be a sin. Because whatsoever you say will be wrong. If you have known God, only then; otherwise not. The world would be more beautiful, less confused, if Buddha’s dictum were listened to: right speech. He says: Say only that which you have experienced, which is grounded in your experience, rooted in your experience. Never say anything else….. The fourth is: Right Morality (Right Commitment). Buddha says: The morality that comes from without is not the right morality. The morality that comes from within is the right morality. All that we think is moral is not really moral. It is just conditioned by the society. You have been taught to behave in a certain way and you behave in a certain way – but that behavior is the behavior of a slave. It is not that of a free man, it is not out of freedom. And how is morality possible out of slavery? Buddha says: Morality is possible only when you are totally free, without any conditioning. Not that you have to do certain things, not that it is your duty, not that you have to follow a certain rule; but that you have become conscious, you have become aware. And out of that awareness you behave in a certain way. AWARENESS is right morality; unawareness is wrong morality. You can be truthful. You may not be a thief, and you may not fool around with others’ wives, and you may not be a deceiver, but if it is just because society has forced these things on you, you are not moral. You may be a good citizen but morality is a greater thing: it is not so cheap. You may be good to the society; society does not want anything more than that. If you don’t create any trouble – enough; if you don’t create any mischief

– enough – you are a good citizen. But to be moral means something more than being a good citizen. It means... a good man; it has nothing to do with society. It has something to do with your inner integrity. Buddha says: Become more conscious. Live through consciousness rather than living through conscience. Conscience is made by the society. If you are born in a Jaina family you will not eat meat, but it does not mean that you are non-violent. How can you be non-violent just by not eating meat? – because from your very childhood you have been taught not to eat meat and it has become nauseating. The Jaina cannot even look at meat: even seeing meat he starts feeling nauseous, he starts feeling sick. When I was a child, in my home even tomatoes were not allowed. I asked my mother, “Why are tomatoes not allowed?” She said, “They look like meat. One starts feeling sick if one looks at tomatoes.’ Tomatoes, poor tomatoes... you cannot find more innocent people than tomatoes! But I had not tasted tomatoes for a long time in my childhood. When I went to a hostel, only then did I gather courage to eat tomatoes. And the first day, when I ate them, I could not sleep the whole night. My whole stomach was rumbling, and I was afraid I had committed a great sin. In the morning I vomited – just a conditioning. Your morality never transforms you. So Buddha says: Right morality is from within, from awareness – not out of fear, not out of greed. The fifth step is: Right Livelihood. Buddha says: Life should be simple, not complex. Life should be based on needs, not on desires. Needs are perfectly okay: you need food, you need clothes, you need a shelter, you need love, you need relationship. Perfectly good, nothing wrong in it. Needs can be fulfilled; desires are basically unfulfillable. Desires create complexity. They create complexity because they can never be fulfilled. You go on and on working hard for them, and they remain unfulfilled, and you remain empty. The first thing about livelihood is: it should be based on needs, not on desires. Then a very small quantity of things is enough. Secondly: it should not be violent. You should not do something just because you can get some money out of it. You can kill somebody and get some money, you can be a butcher and you can make your livelihood, but that is inhuman... and very unconscious. Better ways are possible. One should be creative in one’s livelihood, one should not be destructive….. The sixth is: Right Effort (Right Action). Buddha says: Never strain and never be lazy. One has to balance between the two. Then there is right effort; effort, which is basically effortless.

Have you seen children playing? They play, but there is no effort, there is no strain. They enjoy it. Have you seen a painter painting, a poet writing his poetry, a musician playing on his instrument? or a dancer? There is no effort. If there is effort then the dancer is not a real dancer. Then the dancer is just trying to earn something out of it. Then he is result-oriented, goal-oriented. Then the activity itself, the dance itself, is not his joy. When Buddha says ‘right effort’ it means: everything that you do should be a joy unto itself. It should be an intrinsic value. It should be playful. And Right Mindfulness (Right Awakening) is the seventh step. ‘Mindfulness’ is Buddha’s word for meditation. By mindfulness he means: you should always remain alert, watchful. You should always remain present. Not a single thing should be done in a sort of sleepy state of mind. You should not move like a somnambulist, you should move with a sharp consciousness. Buddha used to say: Not even your breath should be allowed to go out and in without your consciousness. He said to his monks: Always go on watching your breath coming in, the breath going out. If you move, go on watching your feet moving. If you are talking, be watchful. If you are listening, be watchful. If you are eating, be watchful. Never allow any act to be done without awareness, and then nothing else is needed. This awareness will spread all over your life; it will be a twenty-four-hour thing. There is no need to keep separate hours for meditation. And Buddha says that meditation cannot be separate from life; it has to spread and mix with life, it has to be one with life. And the eighth, the last step is: Right Samadhi – when you are totally absorbed into the center of existence.... These seven steps will bring you to it, but still he says: Right Samadhi. That means there is a possibility of a wrong Samadhi too? Yes, there is a possibility. If you fall into unconsciousness, if you fall into a coma, that is wrong Samadhi; it is not right. It should bring you to total awareness, to perfect awareness. You should not fall in a coma, you should not become unconscious. One can become unconscious. One can go inside so deeply that one can forget the outside. Now look – we ordinarily live outside, we have forgotten the inside. Inside we are unconscious; outside there is a little consciousness. We are out-moving, out-going. Then one day you just stand on your head, you change the whole process: you start forgetting the outside and you start becoming aware inside. A moment comes when you are totally inside and you have forgotten the outside. Buddha says that this is wrong Samadhi. It is the same man just standing in a reverse posture. Buddha says: Right Samadhi is when, in and out, you are totally aware; not at the cost of the out. In or out, you are aware. Your light of consciousness is burning so bright, it fills you with light, it fills your outside also with light. In fact, in right Samadhi the inner and the outer disappear; there is only light. Right Samadhi is not inner. Right Samadhi is transcendental to both inner and outer. Right Samadhi is transcendental to duality, to division. ------ Osho, The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 4,Chapter #1

Right Paradigm My intense search for ultimate truth which became a long nightmare, finally turned out to be a cosmic joke. Can you tell me what it actually was- a nightmare or a joke? When I took life as a serious problem, it appeared like an insoluble puzzle. And, when I dropped that foolish attitude, my gestalt changed completely. If you are wearing red glasses, the world will be red for you. If you change your glasses to green, everything will be green for you. Is the reality red or green? If you drop all kinds of goggles, physical and psychological, then you will have clarity. A vision free of fictions and mental projections is called Sam Dithi in the words of Lord Buddha or Right Paradigm, which is one of the most important and the first constituent of the Eight Fold Path. Buddha asks us to look at things without any opinion, without any philosophy, prejudice, dogma, creed, or scripture. Look at things as they are. Be factual; don’t create dreams. That is the only way to learn the truth. Existence has no obligation to fit with our imaginations and ideas. Therefore, a man of right paradigm will transform himself rather than denying or trying to change the reality. Our life teaches every moment. No amount of bookish knowledge can match what we can learn by reading our own book of life. One way of reading our life is by analyzing events of the past in three parts-Fact, Fiction, and Truth. Fact is actual happening, the reality. Fiction is our conditioned paradigm and story added to it. Truth is the lesson we learn from it. MAYA or Illusion: This is not a philosophical hypothesis. We do live in our personal illusory world. Small children are unable to differentiate between dreams and reality. A child may cry in the morning for a toy which broke down in a dream during sleep. Our situation is not much different. Most of our miseries are due to some broken dream-toys. Hindus called this state of living in spiritual sleep as maya. This doesn’t mean that the world is hallucination- these trees, mountains, rivers, and stars do not exist; but maya simply means that the way we perceive the world, it is a mind created phenomenon, non-substantial just like a dream. We create fictitious images about ourselves, as well as about others. Others are living in their own illusions. Dreams are very personal, none can be shared with anyone else, that’s why it is so difficult to communicate with each other, and so easy to misunderstand. I carried some image in my mind about a certain person for many years, and then some event took place, which made a drastic change in the image. When

my previous idea proved to be wrong, how can I be sure that my new concept is right? Do you remember this kind of story in your life? Watching a movie in a theater, whatever picture comes on the screen, in that moment it appears to be true, and we get involved in it. Next minute a different scene comes, and we immediately get involved in that one. All those events are only parts of a fictitious story. But we become so much emotionally occupied with the unreal, that we forget the real- the white screen, the film projector, and most important: the watcher. When we hate someone, we create a fiction that the other is a devil. When we love someone we create a fiction that the other is an angel. Love, hate, cruelty, compassion, liking, disliking, friendship, enmity, affection, jealousy, attachment, indifference, fear, anger, and all kinds of positive or negative sentiments are emotional goggles of different colors. We live in a world of maya, projected by ourselves. Mind is the projector inside, the world is the vast screen outside, and beyond both exist our consciousness- the watcher. Except for this real trinity, we are aware of everything else. With Right Paradigm, man comes back to himself- the watcher- the goal of spiritual path, the pathless path which doesn’t lead to some far away target but to one’s own home. We create so many types of fictions. Some typical examples are given below: Time is a fiction: We not only create fiction about our surroundings, the people around us, but also about time. We hardly realize that only the present moment is real. Past is a fiction, just a memory. Future is a fiction, just an imagination. The past is no more now, the future is only in imagination. Both are non-existential. Only now exists. Scientists have been arguing on so many theories about space and time for last two centuries, without any conclusion. Their debate may continue forever, because objectively it is impossible to draw any eternal principle out of momentary imaginations, which are changing continuously. Now is the only time, and here is the only space. But regarding time, place, people, events, etc. rather than accepting facts as facts, we project our desires, wishes, emotions, expectations, ideas, thoughts, and conceptions, turning our whole life into a bundle of fictions. Every fiction leads us to misery, because it can not fulfill our dreams. Is there any way out to get rid of these? Instead of creating imaginary stories we can learn a lesson from every incident. This is how we can be free from the past, and start living in present, moment to moment. This is known as truth. For example the death of our near ones may be taken as reminder of our own death and this may trigger death awareness. Then this will be the truth of the incident. This may inspire us to know the secret of death, so that we may depart in full awareness when death knocks at our door.

Every truth takes us nearer to the bliss. Death is a fiction: When my grandmother died in 1971, I felt very sad, and miserable, because of some negative interpretation that I had drawn from that event. I considered death as a suffering. This was a fiction. Those who have come back after experiencing near-death phenomena say that death is not a suffering at all. It is such a joyful phenomenon, a natural process, and the nature takes our full care during death. When I look back, it is obvious that my grandmother, bed ridden for past seven months, due to paralysis caused by brain hemorrhage, got relieved from all those disabilities and sufferings. I myself survived a bomb blast in 1981 and considered death as frightening and the end of life, at that time. This again was my fiction. After having out-of-body experiences in Amrit Samadhi, now I know that death is a natural Samadhi, provided one dies in relaxation. It is a great opportunity to realize the Self, if one has learned a little art of meditation. It is not the end, but culmination of this life. We have been here in many lives, and we will be here again and again in different bodies. This life is a small episode of an endless series. There is nothing frightening in death; on the contrary it is an enlightening process, a precious gift from nature. Osho often said, ”Ninety percent of my disciples are going to be enlightened. If some of them miss in their life time, then their death will provide another great opportunity.” Enlightenment and death happened simultaneously in case of my father and a few more sannyasins, including Swami Vimalkirti, the price of Hanover, Germany. I asked a question to Osho about this strange looking coincidence, recorded in a Hindi book, titled–Peevat Ramras Lagi Khumari. He replied,” It is easier to be awakened while dying, than while living.” My father, Swami Devateerth Bharti became enlightened on early morning of September 8, 1979, and left his body the same evening. His death was celebrated, and Osho announced that this day should be celebrated every year as Mahaparinirvana Day, in the sacred memory of all those sannyasins, which left or will leave their bodies enlightened. You may be surprised to know that Osho pre-arranged a great celebration to take place after his own death. He asked to write following words in golden letters on his Samadhi: Osho Never Born, Never Died. Only Visited This Planet Earth Between December 11, 1931, and January 19, 1990. Death, considered to be a cause of misery, agony, sadness, and helplessness, is celebrated with joy in the Osho tradition, and also by followers of Kabir, a revolutionary Indian saint, who lived in Varanasi five hundred years ago. Kabir made a joke of his own death. Hindus believe that by dying in the holy city of Varanasi, people reach heaven, and those dying in the town of Maghar, go to

hell. This unique genius, Kabir lived his whole life in Varanasi, but just before his death he moved to Maghar. He used his death also to teach people against their blind belief. Good and Bad is a Fiction: Our every interpretation that this is good and that is bad is a fiction. Whatever happens in our life is essential for our growth. It is our fiction that results as per our objective are good and the same opposite to our objective are bad. Osho narrated this story: There was a blissful sage in a small village. He was having a beautiful horse. An Army General of that state spotted his horse and wanted to purchase it. He was ready to pay one thousand gold coins. But the sage refused to part with the horse saying that the horse was as dear to him as his son. His neighbor told him, “You made a great mistake; this horse is not even worth one hundred coins. Your decision is stupid.” The sage smiled, “I did not sell the horse; this is a fact. Labeling it as a stupid mistake is your fiction.” A few weeks passed. One evening the horse did not return from the forest where he had gone for grazing. The villagers gathered around the sage and told him, “it is a very unfortunate incident, that your horse is stolen.” The sage told them,”It may be your fiction for we never know what is good and what is bad for us.” The horse was not stolen in fact, but somehow got lost in the jungle. He developed friendship with seven more horses in the forest and one fine morning, returned to his master along with them. The villagers gathered again and congratulated the sage, “It was a fortune that the horse did not return that day. Now your son can give training to wild horses and sell them for good money.” The sage replied, “You are changing your statement. How do you know that these seven horses will be proved as fortune? You are creating a new fiction now.” One day the son of the sage fell down from one of the wild horses while giving the training and broke one of his legs. The villagers gathered again and said,”What a bad thing has happened. These wild animals made your son crippled. Bad luck!” The sage was as peaceful as ever. He laughed, “Fractured limb is a fact. Interpreting this event as an accident or bad luck is a fiction.” One day the great army of the powerful neighboring state attacked the poor kingdom of the sage. All the able bodied youths of the village were compulsorily enrolled in the army, as per the royal order. However, because of the broken leg the son of the sage was left. The villagers gathered again, crying and weeping, because most probably their sons would never come back alive from the battlefield. The enemy was too strong. They said that it was good that the leg of his son was broken that day. At least his son, though physically handicapped, would be before his eyes.

The sage reminded them again that when they would drop creating fictions? Belief is a Fiction: All belief-systems are fictions. All opinions based on any philosophy, prejudices, dogma, creed, scriptures are fictions. A seeker just looks at things as they are. He does not create a fiction. If someone is looking for something with a prejudice, he will find it. If someone is already full of a belief he will find it because the mind is so creative, so imaginative, and so capable of auto-hypnosis, that whatsoever it believes, it can create and it can find proves in support as well. One fine morning while old Mullah Nasiruddin was sprinkling a little water on the road, chanting a mantra, someone passing by asked him,”What are you doing sir?” Mulla replied, “Sir, I am doing this ritual with a powerful protective mantra, so that no wild animal like tigers, elephants, lions, etc. can come in this place.” The questioner was surprised, “Really! But I am living in this city for last 50 years, and I have never heard about any wild animals entering in the city.” “How could you hear my son,” Mulla said confidently and proudly, “Don’t you know, I have been doing this protective ritual every morning for the last 70 years.” In all religions people believe in heaven and hell as geographical places. In fact they are fictions created by those who are interested in exploiting people’s greed and fear instincts. Their business depends on it. They can create any kind of fiction regarding what happens after death and nobody can argue against it. Neither one can prove it, nor can anybody disprove it. A seeker tries to know what life is. He does not bother about post-mortem heaven and hell. He celebrates life. Similarly, there are innumerable religious, social, political, economical, educational fictions, and unfortunately even so called scientific men blind themselves. So-called scientific ideas look funny when outdated. But while they are in fashion, it is very difficult to see the truth. If you watch the history of evolution of sciences, it is not less wondrous than that of so called religions. Rejection is a Fiction: Acceptance is one of our needs. But sometimes we are not accepted by the people the way we would like to be. One of our participants, Anand, shared that he fell in love with a girl, Meena. He proposed to marry her, but she refused. Now he feels rejected not only by Meena, but by entire girl community. The fact is that Meena did not wish to marry Anand. They are so many possibilities. Meena may not be in favor of marriage at all or she might have selected some other boyfriend in her mind as marriage partner. Therefore Meena’s refusal to marry Anand does not amount to rejection, but to selection of someone else. And even if it sounds so, why should Anand

feel total rejection? The world is so big. There are so many other pretty girls. With a new zeal he can look around. He will definitely fall in love again. But many people feel like Anand. They feel so much rejected and miserable that they even want to commit suicide. In fact, a study suggests that most of the suicide cases have origins in fiction of past or potential rejection. Small events and short term targets become more important than the ultimate target and life itself. Stephen R. Covey advocates some guidelines for Putting First Thing First as a part of Right Paradigm: Life is more important than events. People are more important than things. Principles are more important than relations. Truth and justice are more important than commitments. Interdependence is a higher value than independence. Long term goals are more important than short term goals. Personality is a Fiction: Personality is what we pretend to be, but we are not. Personality is what we show outside, not our reality inside. Personality is our exhibition, not our authentic being. Personality is what we create around ourselves. This personality has a false center called “ego”. A seeker does not pretend that which he is not, otherwise he will never be able to drop the ego. He never tries to look in any way different than what he is. Whatsoever the cost, he is true to himself. He does not decorate himself in unnecessary formalities, manners, etiquettes, falsities. This word ‘personality’ comes from a Greek root meaning ‘false face’. In ancient Greek dramas, actors used to wear masks called persona. Sona means sound, voice. Persona means the mask through which an actor’s voice is heard. An authentic man in search of his ‘Original Face’ should become aware of all masks. This way he will come to his real self. --- Osho Shailendra

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Right Awakening Sammasati, as Buddha puts it, or the Right Awakening, is one of the important milestones of the Eightfold path of Lord Buddha. It means remaining alert, watchful to everything happening within or around us – our movements, breathing, talking, listening, eating, etc. We should never allow any act to be done without awareness. Our consciousness has two layers – Individuality as the center and the Personality as the periphery. They are also referred to as Essence and Presence, True Self and False Self, Original Face and Mask, Buddha Nature and Ghost Nature or Soul and Ego respectively. When we become fully aware of our true self, ego disappears. Realizing the original face, identification with the mask evaporates. Then ego-centered activities and behavioral pattern changes completely. Ordinarily 95% of our way of living is ego-centered. A Buddha, Christ, and Osho live without a mask. That’s why they look like Super-human Beings. Rarely, in five percent instances, they may have to use the mask to avoid unnecessary conflicts with the society, where everyone is wearing multiple layers of automatically changing masks. Individuality: Individuality is our original or Buddha Nature. We have brought it from our mother’s womb, and that we had before our birth, even before we entered the womb of the mother. We have had our individuality since eternity. It is our essential consciousness which is covered with so many layers of so many lives that it is lost completely and we have forgotten the way how to reach back to it. Individuality is pure consciousness. The individuality is bound to be unique. And there is no other way except meditation to discover our individuality. Small children do not have any personality. Up to the age of three years they live at the level of their individuality. It is because of this that if we want to remember our past we can go back only up to the age of three years. The reason we can not now remember these three years is because we had no personality. Children are authentic, sincere, since they live in individuality. They do not take any note of others’ opinions. But as they grow in age, they collect opinions of the people. Those opinions create their personality, their false identity. Our individuality has the signature of God on it. Individuality is simply individuality. It is neither Christian nor Hindu nor Muslims, it is neither Catholic nor communist, and it is neither Eastern nor Western. In fact, individuality is neither male nor female. Individuality is egoless, selfless, a state of no-mind. It has no ambitions, no desires, because it is immensely fulfilled just being itself. It need not fight for its existence; it is existential. It cannot be destroyed; it is indestructible.

Individuality is our essence. It is our true essential self or Buddha Nature, or Christ Consciousness. We are born with it. Personality or the Ghost Nature: Personality is conditioned by family, culture, civilization, education, people and environment. The personality is created by the society, so it wants everybody to be almost similar – the same dress, the same haircut, the same mannerism, etiquette. It tries in every way immediately to force you to become part of the society. Being a Hindu or a Jain or a Buddhist or a Christian or a Jew are all personalities. Our personality is a social phenomenon. Hence there are Christian personalities, Hindu personalities, Muslim personalities, and so on and so forth. Personality has all kinds of divisions, categories, aspects- Indian, American, and African personalities; Black and White, Eastern and Western, Capitalist and Socialist, Traditional, and Revolutionary personalities. A so called rebellious person may think that he is breaking all patterns forced on him, but his reaction is also an ego-centered pattern. He is following the old tradition of revolutionaries. He is not really free. He has simply changed the prison cell. Personality is always stubborn. Personality has to be stubborn, because it is false. If it is not stubborn it cannot exist at all. It has to be maintained continuously – you have to fight for it. The personality consists of nothing but egoistic attitude, selfishness, competition, ambition, greed, jealousy, anger, violence. Deep down you are aware of the trembling, the fear. Deep down you know your inferiority, your personality-hole; and you are trying to hide it, cover it. Personality is borrowed. It is given by the society to us. It is our Ego or Ghost Nature. Why am I calling it ghost? Because actually it does not exist. Ego is not substantial. During the internship period of my graduation in Medical College at Jabalpur, when I was posted in the Department of Ophthalmology, a young truck driver was admitted after a traffic accident, with swelling on the face. Due to increased pressure on left eye ball from side, he became squinted, and started having double vision. He was unable to differentiate between real and false images. He would try to pick up something which is not there. It became difficult for him to take lunch. The bread appeared in the place where the rice was in the plate. When the nurse wanted to count his pulse rate, he lifted his forearm towards the false nurse, who appeared 20 centimeters away from the real one. While attempting to enter the bathroom through the wall instead of the door, he got more injury on his head. Other patients in the general ward became amused by his problems. Seeing people laughing, he became very nervous. After examining his visual acuity I came to know that his right eye had been very much short sighted since a long time. His left eye has normal vision, so had become habitual to seeing through his left eye. Normally we get two images of one object, but in our visual cortex area of brain, both get superimposed, and we perceive the object as one. This patient’s brain had developed the capacity to impose the prominent left image on the faint right image. After injury, the squinted left eye

was capable of sending clear but false information, while the right eye kept on sending real but very blurred pictures to the brain. The driver was unable to read names of medicines printed in English, so the nurse told him to take red and white pills after breakfast, yellow capsules thrice daily and green tablet at bed time. Next day he complained that he slept most of the daytime, but could not sleep in the night at all. After close inquiry the nurse discovered that the driver has taken the green sleeping pill after breakfast in place of the red vitamin tablet, and vice-versa. She reported to me. I examined him for color vision test and came to know that he is color blind. This incapability to distinguish between red and green was the actual cause of accident. He saw the red traffic signal as green. He knew this fact but was purposely hiding it, afraid that he would loose his driving license and his job. The same evening I went to see a famous circus with some colleagues. There was an exhibition of mirrors in a laughing room. Each mirror reflected in a special distorted way. In one mirror, the viewer would look very tall and thin, while in another very short, and fat. In still another mirror the face would be distorted, clothes discolored and so on so forth. People were laughing. I told my friends, “just imagine if that color blind squint driver had never seen his face in an ordinary mirror, and he comes to watch this circus, how he would perceive? Suppose he does not know the trick of these magical mirrors, and thinks the reflections are true, then what kind of idea would he develop about himself?” That’s how our ego is. A has a false vision about B. B also has a wrong paradigm about A. Both are worrying and thinking, “What the other thinks about me?” A sees his distorted and colored image in B’s eyes, and vice-versa. For them each other’s eyes function like those circus mirrors. Distortion gets even more distorted. If A has never known himself directly, he gets information about himself only through B, C, and D…..X Y, Z, all contradictory and highly confusing, and always changing with the time; all the mirrors giving different impressions. Each one of us is trying to produce a permanent good image of one self in this laughing room called world fitted with over 6 billion different kinds of distorting mirrors known as human beings. Moreover, everyone is squint and color blind and has never seen his face directly. How funny and impossible task! The greatest cause of misery in our life is to create a non substantial ego and then to fight for protection of that imaginary ghost from other nonexistential hostile ghosts all around. Struggles, conflicts, anger, hate, personal and communal fights, violence, and wars are the final outcome. Anxiety, worry, fear, nervousness, apprehension, insomnia, and phobia are the results of this ego, which can best be described as ghost nature. There are four pairs of ghosts. Almost everybody is under predominant influence of one of these ghosts.

PAIR Fourth Third Second First

PRO-ESTABLISHMENT I am justified I will dominate I will possess I am right

ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT You are not justified You can not dominate You can not possess You are wrong

When persons having opposite ghosts confront each other, there is always a possibility of a fight. Therefore, persons containing opposite ghosts should not enter into business or marriage partnership. But opposite ghosts attract each other just like north and south poles of a magnet. This is the secret of constant conflicts between lovers, the intimate enemies. When they are away they strongly pull each other, when living together they quarrel. “Now it has become impossible to live with a stupid woman like you,” shouted angry husband at his wife, “It is better to die than to live with you. If somebody brings poison for me, I shall feel gratitude towards him.” “Why somebody,” She cried loudly. “You lazy idiot, why can’t you do it yourself?” The first pair enters in childhood or possibly comes from the past birth. But it manifests fully in teen age. As the child grows, ghosts get promotion. ‘I am right’ is promoted to ‘I will possess’, ‘I will dominate’, and finally to ‘I am justified’. Similarly, ‘You are wrong’ is promoted to ‘You can not possess’, ‘You can not dominate’, and finally to ‘You are not justified’. The higher category of ghost possesses some of the qualities of lower category, but lower category of ghost does not possess qualities of higher category of ghosts. For example, ‘I am justified’ ghost will possess some of the qualities of ‘I will dominate’, but ‘I am right’ ghost will not possess qualities of “I am justified”. ‘I am right’ to ‘I am justified’ ghosts are other centered and love is their path towards spiritualism. ’You are wrong’ to ‘You are not justified’ ghosts are self centered and meditation is their path. Characteristics of different ghosts are described below. I am Right: This ghost has following characteristics: It is a teen age or adolescent ghost. It seeks attention and appreciation. It likes status quo. It seeks love and respect. It does not like to quarrel easily. It does not like dogs, maybe because dogs bark mostly at the wrong type of people. It suppresses emotions.

It is very mindful of reputation and prestige. It speaks lies to appear right. It is prone to depressions. It does not welcome change. I Will Possess: This ghost has following features: It is an adult ghost. It is a capitalist ghost. It likes status quo. It likes to create wealth and possess it. It likes to be a trader or businessman. It does not like to quarrel, unless money is at stake. I Like To Dominate: This ghost has following characteristics: It is a middle-aged ghost. It is a dictator ghost. It likes status quo. It is interested in power. It takes care of others and likes to serve society. It gives uncalled for advice and sermons to others. It likes to be a parent, teacher, doctor, nurse, priest, guru etc. It can be a good subordinate, but not a good boss. I am Justified: This ghost may be recognized by these qualities: It is an old age ghost. It likes status quo and traditions. It gives reasons for whatever it does or says. It is very sensitive to criticisms. It tries to justify itself and everyone.

You are Wrong: Characteristics of this ghost are as following: It is an adolescent ghost. It is against the status quo. It tends to fight, but does not carry it too far. It likes dogs, maybe because dogs bark mostly at the wrong people.

It will express disagreement without any argument. It will not hesitate in condemning and pointing out mistakes of others. It tends to be a journalist. You cannot Possess: This ghost has following features: It is an adult ghost. It is against the status quo. It is a jealous ghost and believes in equality. It does not like those in possession of wealth and will tend to fight with them. It tends to be communist, extremist, thief, dacoit, terrorist etc. You can not Dominate: This ghost can be recognized by following qualities: It is a middle-aged ghost. It avoids domination of others. It does not like advice and directions. It does not have good relation with the boss. It likes to be a trade union leader. It is rebellious and likes freedom. You are not Justified: This ghost has following characteristics: It is an old age ghost. It is a revolutionary ghost. It is against the status quo. It is against tradition. It likes changes. It tries to develop a new order. It criticizes others with arguments. It likes to be a lawyer or a judge. . Ego is the root cause of conflict. If we think ourselves superior, higher, holier, special, we will be constantly in conflict, because the world is not going to accept it. In fact everybody else also thinks in the same foolish way. Thus, when there are so many great people, conflict is bound to arise. Everybody is trying to prove that, they are greater than others. Hence, can we avoid conflict? Our individuality is the greatest and permanent gift to us given by the Existence. No one can take it back from us. So why worry? Why to enter into conflict in our day to day activity? It is better to avoid conflict; otherwise it becomes an unnecessary wastage of energy, time and resources. It is better to follow the rules of ordinary life, just as one follows the rules of a game. When in America keep to the right, when in India keep to the left.

Under the effect of our ghost nature, our conduct often leads to feuds and conflicts. Moreover, we believe in taking revenge. Our literature, films, TV serials, all glorify revenge. But forgiveness is a better option. It is better to take a lesson from the past and forget it. This is Right Awakening or Samyak Smriti, or Sammaasti , which is one of the important segments of the Eight Fold Path of Lord Buddha. Stephen R. Covey likes to call it “Synergizing”. Between right and wrong, between fight and flight, between surrender and attack, a third synergetic solution is possible. Every occasion of conflict may be used as an opportunity for friendship. Every obstacle in the path may be used as a stepping stone. However, where fight is necessary for self defense, not just for proving right or wrong, it should be taken up with great determination as a last resort. Self Analysis: In your life you must have felt many times that you are right and others are wrong, you are justified and others are not. In your family, student life or professional life you might have fought with some people. Friends might have turned into foes, boss might have gotten enraged, co-workers and colleagues might have become revengeful. Even today you may be facing such a situation. Remember such events of the past and present and find out your own ghost and those of your family members and friends. Now a small exercise: Remember those who hurt you ever. Remember them one by one and tell them ‘Although you may have hurt me, I still forgive you. I forgive you from the core of my heart. I really forgive you. I forgive you forever.......’ ---- Osho Shailendra ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Right Action Everybody is unique and extraordinary. Everybody is gifted with some creative talents. Flowering these talents is self-actualization and all actions guided in this direction strengthens our Buddha Nature and is known as Right Actions or Samyak Karma which is one of the constituents of the Eight Fold Path of Lord Buddha. In other words, to be proactive or extraordinary is Right Action. It is the golden mean between inactivity and over activity, sluggishness and nimbleness, stillness and restlessness. We can start living our ordinary life in an extraordinary way. The simplest and most effective way of living an extraordinary life is living in awareness. Whatsoever we do, we shall do it with self-remembrance. Our actions should be rooted in our consciousness and freedom, not in reaction of what others are doing. Reaction is not right action, it is governed by unconscious mind, and it is controlled by others. Reaction is never free. It has strong bondages with the person or principle we are reacting against. Many times we are not as much bound and attached to friends as we are bound to foes. Friends may not be able to change our life, but enemies do make a great impact on our life. We can choose anybody as a friend, but we have to be careful in choosing an enemy, because sooner or later we are going to become like him, or even worse than him. Reaction takes us downward. Right Action moves our energy upward, and allows us to grow. Ordinarily man lives identified with the body and the mind, at the level of the personality. The moment we start transcending the personality we start becoming extraordinary. We start living mostly on higher planes, at the level of our individuality and divinity. Once passing through a village, Gautam Buddha was insulted by a few people. They did not like his philosophy and were very angry. They were abusing Buddha. He listened with patience. When they became exhausted, he said, “Friends, please just answer my one question. Before reaching your village, I crossed a small town. Some people came to see me. They brought sweets for me, but I had already taken my meals about an hour ago, so lovingly I returned their gift with gratitude. I told them that right now it was not needed, next time whenever I would pass through their town, I would definitely knock at their doors for begging. Now my question is: what they would have done with those sweets? Kindly tell me your answer.” That angry group replied, “Are you a Buddha or a Buddhu? (Buddha means enlightened one, and Buddhu means an idiot) You stupid, Can’t you understand this simple thing, even a child can comprehend what they would have done with those sweets? They must have distributed sweets to the family members, to the neighbor, and must have eaten themselves as well.” “Thanks for your wise answer,” Buddha smiled, “I did not accept their sweets, so they consumed it themselves. I did not receive your abuses and angry words also; I wonder what are you going to do with them? I am a Swami (Master) of myself. I am free to select whether to accept or reject something. As I did not receive sweets, similarly I don’t need

your anger, hate, condemnation, criticism, and abuses. That’s why I was listening peacefully. Dear friends, I am feeling pity on you. Are you going to distribute this rubbish to family, neighbor, other villagers, and amongst yourself?” Buddha’s action was not a reaction. He acted out of super-consciousness, and freedom. Those people could not force him to be angry and hateful. He remained peaceful, loving, smiling, and compassionate. Rather, he used this incidence to teach a beautiful lesson to them about right action. ‘Swami” a word, used for sannyasin, is very significant; it means a master of his actions, feelings, emotions, thoughts, and his whole life. Swami means an Extraordinary and Proactive person, who lives his life neither according to tradition, nor in revolution. To be in reaction is as much a bondage as following someone, or a certain philosophy, ideology, principle, religion, system, etc. Follower and rebel are equally bound, one in favor, other in antagonism. Both are dependant. An independent person does not waste his energy in favor or against somebody, he tries to understand other’s views and opinion, but always makes his own decisions with responsibility and uses his precious time in finding out his individual way to develop the hidden talents within himself and live life accordingly in joy. To achieve this target some guidelines given below may be considered: 

Give greater importance to positive values like friendship, love, life, joy, laughter, self-expression, and creation.



When confronted with an obstacle, try to bring improvement in the system, rather than fighting any individual. Honor your commitments. Turn breakdowns in relations into breakthroughs. Work for self-satisfaction rather than for duty alone. Responsibility means ability to respond. The word ‘Duty’ carries serious connotations, so let us use ‘responsibility’ instead. In above mentioned story it is Buddha’s response, not a conditioned reaction, not a psychologically programmed behavior, not a predetermined performance. He responded to a situation out of his consciousness in that moment. That ability of response is responsibility. Do something creative for your own contentment and in the larger interest of the society, the nation, and the world. Action coming out of compassion to help someone is an extraordinary action. Our heart feels for others- this is a natural phenomenon. We can observe it in animals and birds also. My wife has been fond of keeping pets. She often noticed unbelievable incidences of compassion in them. Practiced compassion is not compassion at all.

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I have heard: A priest often used to quote the statement of Jesus- “if someone slaps on your cheek, give him your other cheek also. If somebody snatches away your coat, give him your shirt also. A man, tired of listening to this sermon, decided to test whether the priest

himself follows Christ or not. One Sunday, as soon as the priest finished his speech, the man reached close and slapped him. Very religiously, the priest showed him the other cheek. But that man thought it’s better to examine completely. He slapped the other cheek as well. To the surprise of audience in the church, the priest jumped over that man and started beating him very cruelly. People rushed and somehow saved that man. He asked, “What happened to your sermon and Christ’s teachings?” The priest replied, “My Lord has only mentioned to give the other cheek, I did follow him exactly. But he said nothing regarding ’what is to be done after the second slap’. Moreover, I don’t have third or fourth cheek. Therefore, I have to use my own intelligence in such a case. And that’s what I did. Better you run away from here, otherwise I will give you a good lesson once again.” 

Your actions should come out from your own feelings and conviction, rather than from your social conditionings.



Revengefulness is conditioned by the mob-psychology; everybody around us is doing it. We have learned it from others. Accept the failures, rather than forwarding reasons for the same. Do not blame luck, God or others for your failures. Take responsibility yourself. Rise above from silly things like ‘I am right and you are wrong’ or ‘I am justified and you are unjustified’. Be always punctual and honor your commitments.

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In my hometown Gadarwara, Mr. Harsey was a friend of my father, and tailor for our whole family. He had no sense of time or commitment at all. He never kept a calendar or a clock. Sometimes he took days, weeks, months, or even years to complete a small job. His argument was- “What is the hurry?” I said, “Uncle, by the time you will finish my school uniform the width of my chest and length of my body will increase.” “So what?” He replied patiently, “If the shirt and trousers do not fit you, your younger brother or cousin or nephew may wear it”. “And what about me uncle, shall I start going to school naked?” “No, my dear son,” he smiled and revealed the secret, “I haven’t stitched your elder brother’s clothes for the last 8 months, now they will fit you perfectly well.” Once an old man became very angry on Mr. Harsey, “This is too much…. More than six years have passed…..Are you going to prepare my clothes after my death? Will you deliver them in my next life? I am a Christian, and I don’t believe in next life anyway. Do you know , Bible says, God created this whole world in six days only.” Taylor replied, “God did the job in too much hurry, that’s why the world is in such a mess. Whatever work I do, I like to do it perfectly. I may be slow, but nobody ever complains to me. Look in the churches and temples, millions of people complain daily to, “Tell me who took your order in my shop?” “Your assistant, Mr. Das.” The tailor master became very annoyed at his assistant, “I told you so many times, Mr. Das, never take urgent orders, particularly from elderly people not believing in next lives.” I shall tell you more funny stories of my tailor later on.

Being Proactive: Being proactive or to take initiative is one of the most important values in life. People, who can not take initiative in the direction of their growth, miss many things in life. For example, unless we take initiative to be happy with ourselves, we can not be happy with anything or with anybody else. The first step is to be happy with one self. Then whatsoever we do will have a fragrance of our grace, our silence, our love, our joy in it. We are often afraid of taking initiatives. It involves risk of opposition, criticism, and at times rejection too. That is why most of the people like to be passive, waiting, and part of the crowd. They live at the minimum of their life energy. Not that all initiatives result into success. But it is better to try and fail and learn, rather than living at the receiving end. Right action means enjoying the thrill of initiative. It makes us lively. It gives us glow, charm, grace, and beauty. This is the only way to grow in life. The following is another instructive story. After graduation from university, young Mulla Nasiruddin went to see Seth Chandulal, the richest man in the city; and asked his secret of success. Chandulal said, “Very simple, No secret! I always do the right thing in my business.” “Please tell me how do you decide what is right or wrong action?” Mulla’s curiosity increased, ”I also want to become successful but do not know the art of taking the right decision.” “Don’t worry; slowly you will learn when you become experienced like me.” “Sir, kindly inform me, how did you become so knowledgeable and experienced?” “By taking wrong decisions,” replied Seth Chandulal. Self Analysis: Have you ever faced any breakdowns in relations? Will you be happy if the broken relations are reestablished? But are you waiting for the other party to take initiative? No! You seize this opportunity to flower the extraordinary hidden within you. You take the initiative and turn all such breakdowns into breakthroughs. ------Osho Shailendra ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Right Living Samajeev

or Right living is one of the eight constituents of the Eight Fold Path

of Lord Buddha. Meditation means the art of being with the self and Right Living means art of being with others. A person, who does not keep happy and friendly relationship at home as well as at work place, can not go deep in meditation and Samadhi. Similarly, a person who does not know how to be with himself cannot truly relate with others. Inner meditation and outer relationship are interdependent and influence each other. We may begin to transform our life from either end, but usually it is easier to start from the outside, because most of us are extrovert bynature. We can take the first step only from a place, where we are standing. We must watch how we behave with our wife, friend, or children. Patanjali calls it Yam. Yam means creating a friendly environment around us. If we are inimical to people around us, we cannot move inwards. We shall be so much disturbed on the surface that the inner journey will not be possible. When we relate with others nicely, at least they don’t create trouble for us in our inner journey. Osho says it so beautifully: “The person who is not capable of being with others … will find it very difficult to relate with himself, because the art of relating is the same: whether you relate with others or you relate with yourself does not make much difference, it is the same art. Both these arts have to be learned together, simultaneously; they are inseparable. Be with people, and not unconsciously, but very consciously. Relate with people as if you are singing a song, as if you are playing on a flute; each person has to be thought as a musical instrument. Respect, love, and worship – because each person is a hidden face of God. So be very careful, very attentive. Remember what you are saying. Remember what you are doing. Just small things destroy relationships, and small things make relationships so beautiful. Sometimes just a smile and the other’s heart is open to you; sometimes just a wrong look in your eyes, and the other’s is closed – it is a delicate phenomenon. Think of it as an art: just as the painter is very watchful of what he is doing to the canvas, each single stroke is going to make a lot of difference. A real painter can change the whole painting just by a single stroke…Life has to be learned as an art: very cautiously, very deliberately... So relationship with others has to become a mirror: see what you are doing, how you are doing it and what is happening. What is happening to the other? Are you making their life more miserable? Are you giving them pain? Are you creating a hell for them? Then withdraw. Change your ways. Beautify life around yourself. Let every person feel that the meeting with you is a gift: just being with you something starts flowing, growing, some songs start arising in the heart, some flowers start opening.” (The Rainbow Bridge, Chapter 24)

Marital Relationship: I am very fortunate to have my greatest friend Osho Priya as my wife. Both of us must be one of the happiest couples on this planet. We just celebrated the silver jubilee of our marriage on May, 2003. Four years ago I started conducting stress management classes. Listening to people’s stories about their family tensions and conflicts, I could not comprehend what they were talking about! I did not know that almost 99% of married couples are living in hell. Their serious incidences of fighting and sometimes even physical violence seemed like jokes. It took a few months for me to understand that they are not telling funny stories. For me, a loving warm relation between husband and wife was a normal, natural phenomenon. Only lately I realized that it is just opposite. Friendly relations are rare. ‘Intimate enemies’ are common. I have not cultivated my marital relationship; I did not try to develop it. But now looking back retrospectively I can see the differences between my natural attitudes creating a heaven, and other people’s paradigms making a hell of their life. Analyzing these, I can formulate some guidelines for keeping marital relationship warm and mellow: Please never forget that interdependence is a higher value than independence and dependence. Marriage is a good example of interdependence. It is a commitment between the two partners to live together with love, respect, and responsibility towards each other and other family members including children. In due course of time, stimulation of love diminishes and only other two factors form basis of marital relationship. Love is like a saal tree, which cannot be cultivated. Respect is like a mango tree, which can be grown in our home garden. Love is a breeze, which comes through the window. We can not invite, control, or return it. Respect is like an electrical fan, we can do something with it. Every person is free to hold his or her own views. However, if the differences are going to affect the partner, it is better to develop understanding through a dialogue based on the principle, ‘Seek first to understand and then to be understood.’ Whenever there is a difference in house management or financial management, it is better to develop a system and go on improving it as discrepancies surface out. The basis of all relationships, including marital ones, should be Win/Win. This means that first we have to look after interest of our partner and children (51%) and then our own interest (49%). Relationship is just like small plants. It must be irrigated and nourished continuously. Culmination of all relationships is Friendship, which means relationship based on respect. Therefore, marital partners should ultimately try to grow as friends. Some suggestions are being given below to cultivate happy and friendly relationship: 

We must respect what we have. Normally we do not have appreciation for what we already have. This deprives us from pleasure that we can draw from persons and possessions that we already have.

         

We often become crazy for things, which we do not have. There is no harm in making efforts for things we need. But being worried to get the things early makes us miserable. Before telling or doing something watch within whether everything is calm and quiet. If you feel disturbed, remain inactive and silent. In such negative space, whatever is done brings misery. If you feel calm and quiet, in a positive mood, you must do your act. Do not remain inactive during this beautiful time. Use the great opportunity to communicate. Whatever is done in such moments brings joy. Pay adequate attention to your spouse, family, and friends. Appreciate the good things done by other people. Right appreciation strengthens friendship and costs nothing. Develop the habit of listening to others people with patience, try to understand them, and then communicate your feelings, opinions, and thoughts; what you have to tell. Work with mutual respect, trust, and cooperation with colleagues and fellow friends. Keep the workplace neat and clean. Do not create tensions in work life, and always remain happy. Learn to work in a team. This can be best achieved through Kaushal Chakra.

Kaushal Chakra: Total Quality Management is now being widely acknowledged as the most efficient management system. It develops a participative culture where each employee can directly participate in the decision making process. It builds positive attitudes among employees. It is implemented through Total Quality Circle or Kaushal Chakra. Kaushal Chakra is a small group of co-functional or cross- functional persons (five to twenty one) related to a common work place, who meet at fixed intervals (generally weekly) to solve work related problems by consensus and also contribute towards its implementation. The persons forming a Kaushal Chakra are known as members. They elect a leader and a deputy leader who conduct and record the minutes of the meetings. Kaushal Chakra meets for one hour on a fixed day at fixed intervals. The Kaushal Chakra members sit along with invited members, in a closed circle. The leader of the Kaushal Chakra invites each member clockwise one by one to identify the work-related problems, only one in one round, and give solutions. A discussion starts on the solution given by the member and a consensus is arrived at. The leader goes on asking other members one by one till the first round is completed. He also records as to who will take action to implement the solution decided by consensus. The leader then repeats the same process in the second round and so on till the prescribed one hour time of the meeting is over. The leader also seeks opinion of the invited members for arriving at the consensus decision. In subsequent meetings a review is presented by the leader to apprise the members regarding the status of implementation of the solutions presented by them in the previous meetings.

Living Win / Win: Stephen R. Covey says that relationship can be of four types: Win/Lose Lose/ Win Lose /Win Win/ Win Relationships based on Win/Win only can remain cordial and stable. Relationships with the Boss: We live in groups (family, society, working teams). We must remain cheerful if we wish our groups to be happy. Every group has a leader, who is known as head of the family or boss in an organization. Some guidelines are being given to keep your relation cordial with the boss:  Work with sincerity.  Do not avoid domination by the boss.  Try to understand implicit orders along with the explicit ones.  Do not depend upon only one boss.  Use the boss.  Give credit to the boss.  Do not praise yourself before the boss.  Be loyal to the boss.  Keep the boss informed about progress of the work.  Accept the boss as he is.  Remain calm and cheerful. Right Conduct: Right conduct means to be always happy, blissful, and gentle in our behavior, not hurting anybody in any way. It helps us in avoiding unnecessary problems. Sometimes even a small problem can become destructive to our whole life. Right conduct means moving in this world in such a way that there is no conflict with others, moving in such a way that we don’t create unnecessary enemies, rather we create friends. Since we live mostly at the periphery of our consciousness under domination of our ghost nature, very often we pick up quarrels with others. We often feel that we are right and others are wrong. We want to dominate, but we avoid domination by others. We try to justify our actions, often invalidating those of others. These are characteristics of egoist persons. Right conduct means maintaining sweet and cordial relationship with others. ------------Osho Shailendra

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Right Speech Ma Yoga Neelam, Osho’s secretary and in charge of Osho Commune International, Pune, India, requested me many times to become a meditation camp leader, but I always refused. My argument was, “I can not say things which I have not experienced myself. I want to be very authentic. I have not reached the goal of spiritualism, so how can I preach about it? If in the future, I experience the divinity, definitely I shall shout from the rooftops. But right now I am in darkness; I have no authority to speak about light and guide people. Please excuse me, let me remain silent and do my own sadhana.” I remember the fortunate day of January 19, 1998, when I started hearing a source less melody suddenly. In the evening when my wife retuned from her job, I wanted to tell her about this strange wordless voice. But before I could speak anything, she said, “Do you know, something went wrong with my ears. Since morning meditation, I hear some mysterious music continuously.” I exclaimed, “What! The same thing I was going to tell you.” Both of us could not figure out anything regarding it. Being a doctor I was sure it wasn’t an ear disorder. A week later, Osho Siddhartha came to visit Amlai, the place where I lived for a decade; and he explained the mystery of the divine sound, what Zen masters call ‘the sound of one hand clapping.’ After attending the first Samadhi Pragya program under his guidance, in April 1998, at a small hill station Amarkantak, a transformation happened in my life. I got glimpses of the eternal truth within myself. I informed Neelam, that I was ready. I had received the gift, which Osho always wanted to give us in silence. It is the same gift, which was given to Mahakashyapa by Buddha, to Meera by Raidas. I started conducting meditation camps and stress management workshops in May 1998. For the first time I started giving public discourses, answers to questions from audience, interviews to press media, etc. During one of such programs, I met an old classmate, who was my neighbor in the hostel. He was surprised to see me talking the whole day, from morning to evening. This was unbelievable for him, because when I was studying medicine, I lived with more than 500 students in a medical college hostel, and he lived next door to me. I spoke so little during that period of five and half years that many of my hostel mates had never heard my voice. I was often mute, preferring silence, and I never had to repent for that. I observed that most of the fights amongst the students, sometimes reaching up to violence, start with a few ugly words only. Later on, I thought it over and found that it’s not only true about small conflicts; the same phenomenon takes place on large-scale bloodshed’s as well. Even wars start because of improper words coming out of a politician’s mouth. If humanity learns the art of speech, the paradise can descend on the earth.

There is an old Sanskrit saying: “Satyam bruyat, priyam bruyat.” Speak the truth, but it should be humble and sweet. Courtesy costs nothing. Be courteous all the time with all people. Courtesy means politeness and frankness. Be polite, but not a hypocrite. Be frank but not rude. Living a courteous life or Right speech or Sam Vacha, is one of the eight constituents of the Eight Fold Path. Right speech means true and authentic speech based on our experience, rather than hearsay. If we really want that our words should have value, then we must learn to be silent inside, that’s what meditation is all about. Right speech comes out of our silence. When the mind is overburdened with too many thoughts, completely useless inner monologues- the constant chattering is going on; nothing valuable can come out of it. Surprisingly, all original ideas are born out of silent moments. Great thoughts are produced by meditative minds devoid of unnecessary thoughts. Zen masters call this a state of No-Mind or thoughtless awareness. If we are not in a position to speak properly, let us be silent. I promise you, you will never have to repent for what you did not say. Because of our harsh or faulty speech, we often fall in trouble. Most of the problems we are suffering today, originated in our wrong speech. The following guidelines may be useful for Right Speech:      

First Listen. Understand what the other person has said. Convey to him what you have understood. Appreciate his genuine points. Politely tell your point of view. Do not argue. -------Osho Shailendra

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Right Commitment Right commitment is one of the constituents of the Eight Fold Path of Lord Buddha. This means having determination, courage, inner strength, and willpower to do whatever we think is right, and to follow whichever path seems right for us to fulfill our objective. Once a young girl asked my advice, “I am in a great dilemma; please help me,” she said. “Should I join Electronic Engineering, Computer science, Business management, or medical science? My mother tells me to become a doctor, my father is in favor of electronics, my elder brother likes MBA, and most of my friends are taking admission in computers, they are pressuring me to join them.” “What do you want, tell me sincerely?” I enquired. “Well, I never thought about it.” “So, close your eyes for two minutes, and ponder over it. Don’t think; try to feel what your heart says.” She closed her eyes, and two minutes later she, became very nervous, “I am indecisive,” she said. “Please, you decide for me. I am not mature enough to understand what is good or bad for my future.” “Indecision is also a decision. Don’t say that you have not decided yet. Better to say that you have decided to remain in this shaky state of indecisiveness. Human beings are not free to not to choose.” I smiled, “We are bound to be free. We are bound to take decisions and be responsible for them.” “We are bound to be free,” she laughed and became less nervous, “This sounds funny! But why can’t you give your opinion? Whatever you say, I will do that.” “I already gave you my opinion–listen to your own heart. You are trying to escape from responsibility of the results and consequences of the decision.” “Yes” she finally got the point, “I am avoiding the responsibility of consequences of the decision. If someone else decides for me, and anything goes wrong, then I can always throw the burden of responsibility on him.” “Now you are becoming clear,” I explained, “Suppose, if I tell you to become an engineer, and ten years later you realize that it would have been better to do MBA, who would be responsible for your misery?” “Of course, you would be responsible, because you decided, I simply followed.” “No, not at all; it was your decision to follow my advice. You were completely free to follow your mother’s, or father’s, or brother’s advice, or none of them. When finally you can’t escape responsibility, isn’t it better to decide consciously?” She understood the impossibility of not taking a decision. She gathered courage, took the decision to marry and become a housewife. She did not like to study further. I met her after a few years, and I was glad to hear from her that she was enjoying her life immensely.

We are always on a crossroads and every time we have to choose the path and are committed to walk on that path. Each path leads to another crossroad, and that’s how life is! We live with our spouse, family, community, society. This requires commitment of caring for others. Lack of commitment gives rise to ego. The best way to drop our ego is to live in a community, sharing their joys and sorrows, eating, drinking, celebrating, dancing, and enjoying together. We can develop the quality of commitment and fulfill it by taking following steps:        

Be free from the past and devoid of all thoughts of the past. Commit now. Declare your commitment. Share your commitment with others. Enlist the support of other people. Take action to fulfill your commitment. Stand by your commitment against all odds. New possibilities will emerge and the commitment shall be fulfilled.

Let us understand this by the flesh-and-blood example of Mahatma Gandhi as to how he committed himself to free India from British rule and fulfilled his commitment. He was not good in studies. He did not have a good personality. He was not a good scholar. He did not succeed as a lawyer. Looking at his past it was impossible for him to lead such a great freedom struggle. But he followed the science of commitment. First he became free from the past. He did not count his failures of the past. He did not bother for his abilities. He wiped his slate completely, just as a farmer clears his farm from all the grass and bushes before sowing seeds. Then he took other steps. He made a commitment to free India from British rule. He declared his commitment by announcing it in a mammoth public meeting. He shared his commitment with his countrymen by taking extensive tours to distant villages and towns of India. He enlisted support of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr Rajendra Prasad, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan and many other learned men and women of his time. He initiated different types of movements. He faced many odds, went to jail many times. But he stood by his commitment. Finally new possibilities emerged and India was freed by the British. ---------Osho Shailendra ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Right Effort Work with all sincerity, but accept the result with gratitude. Work with joy to achieve the goal, but do not expect that result will always be as per your desire. This is Sam Vyayam or Right Effort or Right Acceptance, one of the constituents of the Eight Fold Path of Lord Buddha. Right effort is a subtle balancing between two extremes- lethargy and straining. Neither be too lazy, nor too hard a worker. Then it becomes an effortless effort. It becomes a joy, as children playing with their friends, as a painter creating a painting, a poet writing poetry, a singer singing out of inner urge, a dancer dancing out of joy. Then work becomes worship. I learned this art of joyful effort and thankful acceptance of result in my early childhood. Living in a big joint family helped me a lot. In a small family it is possible to fulfill the desires of a single child, but in a combined family it is not feasible. One child wants one kind of food, another likes something different. It is not practicable for parents to provide everything which they demand. My father was a cloth merchant. He would call the tailor and give him the fabric of his choice, for preparing the clothes for all the children-same design, same color, same pattern for each one of us. The tailor never took measurements. He said, “There is no need. I shall make shirts and pants of different sizes- small, medium, large, extra large; later on you can select which one fits whom.” We also did not bother about finer details. We accepted whatever the tailor had made. My father often told us, “What we wear is less important, how gracefully and thankfully we put our garments on, is more important. What we eat is less significant, how sensitively we enjoy our meal is more significant. We may not be always able to control the food we get, but we can always be the master of our mood.” I still have the same habit, that whatsoever food, dress or anything else is provided to me by my wife, Osho Priya, I enjoy it. Surprisingly everything is so beautiful, ordinary meals are so delicious, small jobs are so satisfying, and our whole life is so much full of contentment at each moment that I really wonder why people keep on complaining? Every small thing just taking tea is a celebration. I do my work with great pleasure. Work itself is so rewarding, who cares about the result? Of course results do come on their own accord. When we are sowing the seeds and taking care of plants with joy, love, sincerity, and playfulness; is it necessary to become serious, anxious, and worried about the fruits? Is our miserable mind anyway helpful in bringing the fruits early? Zen Masters say in a haiku:

Sitting silently, Doing nothing, The spring comes, And the Grass Grows by itself. This is exactly Niskam Karma Yoga of Lord Krishna, who says in Bhagwad-gita: Karmanyewadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana Ma Karmaphalheturbhu Ma Sangostav Karmani. That means: You have right to carry out the work as you wish, but you do not have right to get the furtive results of your choice. So do not insist for getting the results right now as per your objective. However, you have to continue your work further to get your objective and commitment fulfilled. The statement of Lord Krishna has unfortunately not been properly understood by the masses. It is better that we discuss this a little more. Every action has three aspects: The objective of the action, which is always in the future, Duty or Karmanya is to be done in the present, and The result of the action is always in the past. Lord Krishna says to remember the objective of the action, begin with the end in mind. But whenever result comes, immediately it becomes a matter of the past. So learn a lesson from it and be free from the past. We have the right to mould the present only by discharging our duty efficiently and playfully. We have no control or right to past or future. That’s why Krishna’s life story is called Leela, a non serious play, or transcendental pastimes. He further exalts that we should accept results as a gift of God, rather than our own possession. This will facilitate us in living with acceptance. Living with Acceptance: Right effort leads to Tathata or living in suchness, acceptance, and gratitude to the Existence. It means no complaint, no condemnation. It has three stages: The first stage is that I am the doer of the action. I have got some objective in my mind. But I know that the results may be according to my objective or may be just opposite to it. But I will accept it, since it is not dependent upon me only. There are multiple factors which influence the outcome of our efforts.

The second stage is that of course I am the doer. I also have some objective in my mind. But I do not know what is good for me. So, whatever happens is best for me. The result may be as per desired objective or contrary to it, it is always good for me; it is a gift from the Existence, from God. I shall receive it with gratitude. Osho puts it in such sweet words: “…Therefore, I leave myself entirely to your pleasure. I cannot choose for myself for I am ignorant and stand in darkness… I have no means to test the authenticity of my path. What shall I do? I surrender myself at thy feet – thy will be done… I sit at Your command, I stand at Your command; whatever I do is Your command… What pleases You, is best for me. The path You choose, is the path for me. In Your will lies my salvation. I shall not care to choose, lead me where You please. If it is Your will that I should wander, then that is the path for me. If it is Your will to leave me in darkness then I shall take it to be the light for me. (The True Name, Vol-1,Chapter 8) The third stage is that I do not choose even my actions. Whatever comes to me, it comes through you. Not only result, but also the actions come from you. Not only for the results, but also for the duties assigned to me, I remain always grateful to you. This is the highest of Tathata or suchness in Buddhist terminology, Samarpan or surrender in Hindu terminology, and in Christian parlance- “Thy will be done”… the last words of Christ on the cross! Surrender to God’s will is the greatest decision one can take. One of my nephews, Maitreya, is suffering from a congenital heart disease, mental retardation, grandmal epilepsy, and the inability to speak. He gets irritated very easily and becomes violent many times in a day. He does not understand the rules of society, morality, manners, etiquette, etc. Although unable to speak the normal language, but all the time he keeps on talking loudly in his own meaningless gibberish and few symbolic sounds. Whatever he disers, he wants to get it immediately. If his need is not satisfied, he starts shouting, throwing things, hitting people. He is physically weak, but becomes very energetic during such tantrums; even four strong persons can’t control or hold him. He can not go to sleep and does not take meals till his desire is fulfilled. Such fits of temper occur almost daily. It’s quite difficult to live and adjust with a mentally ill person like Maitreya. Unexpectedly he may go crazy, he may destroy anything. He is five years younger to me. He often destroyed my school notes, text books, toys, paintings, pens, etc. Somehow, this proved to be a blessing in disguise. Gradually I learned to accept his mad behavior. Looking at his miserable life full of demands, anger, violence, all the family members felt pity for him. In my subconscious, desires

and misery became synonymous. More demands, more unhappiness, less wishes, less despair. I became very accommodating, accepting, cooperating, and learned patience, tolerance, serenity, tranquility and dropped expectations. I may have just finished a painting, and the next moment it may be thrown into the water. I learned to enjoy while painting, without thinking about the future, which was always uncertain. In fact, the future is always uncertain, Maitreya’s mad behavior made it clear to me. Even the greatest pieces of art were thrown into the water or garbage bins one day. Normally the process takes a long time, many years. My nephew did it quickly, that was the only difference. This was the great lesson for me- I am the master of enjoying the work while doing it, but I can not have control over results. I am thankful to Maitreya. By teaching this small lesson, he made my life full of fragrance of desirelessness and deep acceptance. Living in Osho’s Ashram in Pune, India, and in Oregon, America was also a great opportunity to strengthen the feeling of Acceptance. Osho created so many devices in his communes, to develop the art of suchness. They may look illogical to the outsiders. But life is such! It is beyond logic. It is beyond mind. Suchness is the stepping stone to take a quantum leap from mind to the state of NO MIND known as Samadhi. ----Osho Shailendra

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My Only Message Is Love Ordinarily love is animal, very rarely human, and very rarely divine – but love has the possibility of all these three dimensions. Love is animal when it is simply biological, sexual; when it is confined to the body, when it has no other depth; when it is only a momentary desire under the grip of biology. You are possessed by the biology; you are not free, you are a slave. Nature tries to use you to perpetuate the species you belong to. It is nature’s way of avoiding death. You are bound to die, but your children may live. Before they die nature will force them to produce more children. This is nature’s arrangement for immortality. Nature is not interested in individuals; it is interested in species. It has no concern with you or me; its whole concern is with humanity. But the animal love keeps you in a very ugly state. To be a slave is to be ugly, hence those who have never known anything beyond sex have not yet become human beings. When you start moving above the biology and the physiology, when your love starts taking a psychological dimension; when it is no more in the grip of nature, when it does not serve the purpose of nature; when sex is not only for reproduction but becomes a means of communication, becomes a way of sharing, becomes a joy in itself, becomes a sport, takes the form of fun and play... When your sex starts becoming music between two beings, a chorus, a harmony, when it has no biological purpose at all, it becomes human. Then it is not temporary, not on the spur of the moment; it starts becoming intimate. It creates longstanding friendships. But there is still a higher realm: the divine love. The human love still remains possessive, jealous, dominating; there is some power politics in it. The lovers try to manipulate each other, the lovers try to impose themselves on each other in subtle ways, even in loving ways, but now deep down hidden in the unconscious is the ego. And because of the ego, human love never attains its fulfillment; it always remains an incomplete circle. Conflict continues; lovers become intimate enemies. They fight, they quarrel, they nag, and what started as a beautiful phenomenon soon becomes boring, tiring. One feels fed up. It nourishes too, but it bores also. So you cannot leave it, because once you leave it you feel very lonely, you feel unnourished. And you cannot live it totally either, because the conflict, the quarreling, is too much. It is sickening: it drives you crazy. If one can rise above possessiveness, domination, power trips, then love becomes divine. Then it is the sheer joy of sharing for its own sake. It asks nothing in return; it simply gives because giving in itself is such bliss. It gives freedom to the other, because if you really love the other you would like the other to be absolutely free. All conflict ceases. In fact the duality of the lover and the beloved disappears: in divine love they be come one. It is no more an I-thou relationship. There is no I, no thou, hence

there is no relationship, because a relationship needs two, and divine love creates one. But to be one is to come full circle. It is fulfillment, it is contentment, and the person who attains to divine love attains to God. He becomes worthy, he has earned. This is the real process of transforming your love from the lowest to the highest. Such a person has no interest in unnecessary philosophical questions. His problem is existential, not philosophical. He does not ask, “What is love?” He lives it, enters into it, tries, falls many times, gets up again, and by experimenting, by trial and error, he learns. That’s the only way to learn. The great questions of life cannot be answered philosophically: you have to live those questions; you have to become a quest. I have heard a famous story. A young man was in search. For seven years he traveled from one country to another, from one Master to another, asking the same question, but his question was such that it could not be answered. Finally he reached the deepest caves of the Himalayas. He has heard of an old, wise man, the greatest wise man of the world. The journey was very arduous, risky, but he risked his life and finally reached the doorsteps of the great man. His joy, that he had made the journey, was great. He opened the door; the old man was drinking tea. The young man did not even wait for a single moment, he said “I have come to ask a question: What is life?” The old sage said “What!” He looked very surprised, as if the question was utterly absurd. The young man repeated it again; he asked again “What is life?” The old man smiled and said “Life is a cup of tea.” Now it was the turn of the young man; he said “What? Life is a cup of tea?” The old man laughed loudly and said “Do you mean to say that life is not a cup of tea? Then you can have it your own way, you can find your own answer, but at this moment, in this moment, to me life is just a cup of tea, because I am drinking tea.” It is not a joke – it is tremendously significant. The old man is saying: “Life has to be lived moment to moment, then only do you know the taste of it. In this moment I am sipping tea; this is the taste of life.” Never ask, “What is love?” Start loving! We all have the inherent, intrinsic quality to love. We are born with it; just as we breathe, we intuitively know what love is. Once you have known what love is, you have known the way to God. My only message is love. --------Osho, Darshan Diaries, Don’t Let Yourself Be Upset By the Sutra, Rather Upset the Sutra Yourself, Chapter #15

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Let Your Heart Be Divine By a divine heart, I mean a heart, which is unconditionally in love -- not with somebody in particular, but just in love with anything, any person, anybody whatsoever. Love becomes your climate; not a relationship. A relationship can grow in it, but you have to make it more a climate rather than a relationship. Ordinarily love is a relationship, and when love is a relationship you breathe only towards a certain person. You breathe him or her, but the passage is very narrow. The universe is so vast and love gives so much; why make it so narrow? Let it expand and be unconditional, because whenever there is a condition, love becomes ruined. When it is unconditional, it becomes divine. And love is never satisfied unless it becomes divine because that is the deepest urge in every human being: to be so full of love that whatsoever the condition, the love goes on showering. So from this moment, remember it. You will forget many times, but again remember. And don't move indifferently. You are passing through the garden; don't move indifferently. Touch a leaf, talk to a tree, mm? Just say hello; that will do. No need to utter it loudly. Indifference kills love more than hatred. Hatred is love inverted, but indifference is absolute negation. People move indifferently. They look at people but they don't look. They touch people but they don't touch. So let this be your basic sadhana. One day you have to come to the point where you can say to the whole existence 'Beloved of my heart'. The more you flow towards that, the more you will see that it becomes easier and easier and easier. A moment comes when you cannot believe how you lived otherwise. To live otherwise is simply foolish. It is unaccountably stupid. Nobody is barring the path. It is just that inside we are solid like rocks. We don't melt, we don't flow; we don't merge. We go on trying to define ourselves as separate. So try to define yourself as one. That means become more and more indefinable. When you are sitting by the side of a tree, don't define yourself as separate from the tree. Let there be a merger. In the beginning it will be subtle; only the psychic energy will be moving. Soon you will feel that it is not only subtle; it has become gross also. Touching a tree you will feel not only a subtle energy has moved; there has been a transfer between you and the tree, and on the gross level too. Your body is enriched... the tree is enriched.

We have passed through all these states. Once we were trees animals, birds, mountains. We have passed through all these states so a part of us still responds to them very deeply. The past does not simply disappear. It becomes part of the present. It is just as when a snake is crawling. It pulls its tail; the tail is not left. Again and again it is pulled back, pulled again and again towards the body. Time crawls in exactly the same way. The past, that you think is gone, is never gone; it becomes part of your present. Your present carries your whole past, your whole history. And your whole history means the whole history of the universe. Man is tremendously vast. Your present not only carries the past. Your present carries the future also. The past is vast but limited. The future is vast and unlimited. So this is going to be your basic work: to be more and more loving. It should not be that because somebody has done something for you, you feel love, or somebody is beautiful so you feel love. Those are charms, attractions; other things. Love should be your basic attitude so that whenever you approach anybody, even a thing, even a chair, you approach it with love. You treat even things as persons. Soon you will see by and by, a deep urge has started arising, to say silently to the whole universe 'Beloved of my heart'. It will throb, pulsate, and vibrate throughout your being. -----Osho, Beloved of My Heart, Chapter #23 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Love Yourself HOW CAN A MAN WITH LOVE IN HIS HEART BE SELFISH?

Love is the most selfish thing in the world. Love is basically love of oneself. If you love yourself, only then can you love somebody else. If you don’t love yourself, to love anybody else is almost impossible. The quality of love has to grow within you, only then can the fragrance reach to somebody else. If you don’t love yourself you can only pretend that you love others. Your love will be pseudo, false, a deception. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred this is what is happening – because humanity has been debarred, conditioned. Every child has been conditioned not to love himself but to love others. That is impossible. That cannot happen; that is not the way things are. Every child has been taught not to be selfish, and that’s the only way of being. If you are not selfish you will not be altruistic, remember. If you are not selfish you will not be unselfish, remember. Only a very deeply selfish person can be unselfish. But this has to be understood because it looks like a paradox. What is the meaning of being selfish? The first basic thing is to be self-centered. The second basic thing is always to look for one’s blissfulness. If you are selfcentered you will be selfish whatsoever you do. You may go and serve people, but you will do it only because you enjoy it, because you love doing it, you feel happy and blissful doing it. You feel yourself doing it. You are not doing any duty; you are not serving humanity. You are not a great martyr; you are not sacrificing. These are all nonsensical terms. You are simply being happy in your own way. It feels good to you: you go to the hospital and serve the ill people there, or you go to the poor and serve them. But you love it. It is how you grow. Deep down you feel blissful and silent, happy about yourself. A self-centered person is always seeking his happiness. And this is the beauty of it: that the more you seek your happiness, the more you will help others to be happy, because that is the only way to be happy in the world. If everybody else around you is unhappy, you cannot be happy, because man is not an island. He is part of the vast continent. If you want to be happy you will have to help others who surround you to be happy. Only then – and only then – can you be happy. You have to create the atmosphere of happiness around you. If everybody is miserable, how can you be happy? You will be affected. You are not a stone.

You are a very delicate being, very sensitive. If everybody is miserable around you, their misery will affect you. Misery is as infectious as any disease. Blissfulness is also infectious as any disease. If you help others to be happy, in the end you help yourself to be happy. A person who is deeply interested in his happiness is always interested in others’ happiness also. Deep down he is interested in himself, that’s why he helps. If in the world everybody is taught to be selfish, the whole world will be happy. There will be no possibility for misery. If you want to be healthy you cannot live amongst people who are ill. How can you be healthy? It will be impossible. It is against the law. You have to help others to be healthy. In health your health becomes possible. Teach everybody to be selfish; unselfishness grows out of it. Unselfishness is ultimately selfishness. It may look unselfish in the beginning, but finally it fulfills you. And then happiness can be multiplied: as many as are the people around you that are happy, that much happiness goes on falling on you. You can become superbly happy. But never forget about yourself – you have been taught.... Politicians, priests have been doing that, because that is the only way in the world for politicians and priests to be. If you are miserable, priests will be needed. If you are ill, unhappy, politicians will be needed. If you are unruly, only then rulers are needed. If you are ill, only then doctors are needed. Politicians want you to be disorderly; otherwise on whom will they impose the order? Through your disorder they become the rulers; and they teach you to be unselfish. They teach you to sacrifice yourself for the country, for the god, for the religion – Islam, Hinduism – for the Koran, the Geeta, for the Bible – any word will do – but sacrifice yourself. If you are sacrificed, the priest remains happy, the politician remains happy. Priests and politicians are in a deep conspiracy – maybe they are unconscious, not aware what they are doing, but they don’t want you to be happy. One thing, they don’t want you to be happy. Whenever they see that you are becoming happy, they become alert. Then you are a danger to them, their society, their established world – you are dangerous. A happy person is the most dangerous person in the world. He can prove to be subversive – because a happy person is a free person, and a happy person doesn’t bother about wars, Vietnams, Israel. For a happy person these things look neurotic, foolish. A happy person is so happy, he wants to be left alone to be happy. He wants his own privacy to be preserved. He wants to live with the flowers and the poetry and the music. Why should he bother to go to the wars, be killed and kill others? Why should he be murderous and suicidal? Only unselfish people can do that, because they have never known the bliss that is possible to them. They have never had any experience: what it is to be, what it is to celebrate. They have

never danced. They have never breathed life. They have not known any divine glimpse; all those glimpses come from deep happiness, from deep satiety, contentment. An unselfish person is uprooted, uncentered. He is in deep neurosis. He is against nature; he cannot be healthy and whole. He is fighting against the current of life, being, existence: he is trying to be unselfish. He cannot be unselfish – because only a selfish person can be unselfish. When you have happiness you can share it; when you don’t have, how can you share it? To share, in the first place one must have it. An unselfish person is always serious, deep down ill, in anguish. He has missed his own life. And remember, whenever you miss your life you become murderous, suicidal. Whenever a person lives in misery, he would like to destroy. Misery is destructive; happiness creative. There is only one creativity, and that is of blissfulness, cheerfulness, delight. When you are delighted you want to create something, maybe a toy for children, maybe a poem, maybe a painting – something. Whenever you are too delighted in life, how to express it? You create something – something or other. But when you are miserable you want to crush and destroy something. You would like to become a politician, you would like to become a soldier – you would like to create some situation in which you can be destructive. That’s why every now and then war erupts somewhere on the earth. It is a great disease. And all politicians go on talking about peace. They prepare for war; they talk for peace. In fact they say, “We are preparing for war to preserve peace.” Most irrational. If you are preparing for war, how can you preserve peace? To preserve peace one should prepare for peace. That’s why the new generation all over the world is a great danger to the establishment. They are interested only in being happy. They are interested in love, they are interested in meditation; they are interested in music, dance.... Politicians have become very alert all over the world. The new generation is not interested in politics – rightist or leftist. No, they are not interested at all. They are not communists; they don’t belong to any ism. A happy person belongs to himself. Why should he belong to any organization? That is the way of an unhappy person: to belong to some organization, to belong to some crowd. Because he has no roots within himself, he does not belong – and that gives him a very, very deep anxiety: he should belong. He creates a substitute belonging. He goes and becomes part of a political party, of a revolutionary party, or anything – a religion. Now he feels he belongs: a crowd is there in which he is rooted.

One should be rooted in oneself because the way from oneself moves deep down to God, to existence. If you belong to a crowd you belong to an impasse; from there no further growth is possible. There comes the end, a cul-de-sac. But politicians depend on your sacrifice. They don’t want you to be happy; they don’t want your smiles, your laughter. They want you to be miserable, so miserable that you become destructive, angry, in a rage. Then you can be used; for their ends you can be used. They teach you to be unselfish, they teach you to be martyrs, they teach you, “Sacrifice your life for others” – and they are teaching the same thing to others also. It seems a big, foolish, game. I don’t teach you to be unselfish because I know if you are selfish you will be unselfish automatically, spontaneously. If you are not selfish you have missed yourself; now you cannot be in contact with anybody else – the basic contact is missing. The first step has been missed. Forget about the world and the society and the utopias and Karl Marx. Forget about all this. You are just here for a few years to be. Enjoy, delight, be happy, dance, and love; and out of your love and dancing, out of your deep selfishness will start an overflowing of energy. You will be able to share with others. Love, I say, is one of the most selfish things. If you want a still deeper selfish thing then comes meditation, prayer. If you want a still more selfish thing then comes God. You cannot be related to God through somebody else; there is no via media. With God you have to be face-to-face, immediate, without any media. You alone in your superb aloneness will encounter that supreme experience. I teach selfishness, but if you understand my selfishness you will understand all that is beautiful, all that is unselfish. -------Osho, Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Volume 6, Chapter #4, Q1 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why My Disciples are Vegetarian? BELOVED OSHO, WHY ARE ALL YOUR DISCIPLES VEGETARIAN?

My disciples are vegetarian not as a cult, not as a creed. They are vegetarians because their meditations make them more human, more of the heart, and they can see the whole stupidity of people killing living beings for their food. It is their sensitivity, their aesthetic awareness that makes them vegetarians. I don’t teach vegetarianism; it is a by-product of meditation. Wherever meditation has happened, people have become vegetarian, always, for thousands of years. The oldest religion in the world is Jainism. It is a small religion, that’s why not much is known to the outside world; it exists only in India. Jainism has no God; hence, there is no possibility of prayer. When God and prayer are discarded, then what is left for a religion? God is somewhere outside; your prayer is addressed to someone outside. Discarding God and prayer you are really saying, “I would like now to go inward.” And meditation is a way of going inward. For thousands of years Jainas have been vegetarians. You have to know this fact that all their twenty-four teachers – they call them Tirthankaras, their messiahs – came from the warrior caste. They were all meat-eaters. They were professional warriors. What happened to these people? Meditation transformed their whole vision. Not only did their swords fall from their hands, their warrior hood disappeared, but a new phenomenon started happening: a tremendous feeling of love towards existence. They became absolutely one with the whole. Vegetarianism is just a small part of that great revolution. The same happened in Buddhism. Buddha did not believe in God, did not believe in prayer. I want you to understand it: the moment God and prayer are discarded; the only thing that is left is to go in. Buddha also was from the warrior caste, son of a king, trained to kill. He was not a vegetarian. But when meditation started blossoming in him, just as a byproduct the vegetarian idea came into his being: you cannot kill animals for eating, you cannot destroy life. While every kind of delicious food is available, what is the need to kill living beings?

This is nothing to do with religion. This is simply to do with your sensitiveness, your aesthetic understanding. Jainism and Buddhism are the only religions without God and without prayer, and both automatically became vegetarian. The same is happening to sannyasins. Christianity is not vegetarian, Mohammedanism is not vegetarian, Judaism is not vegetarian – for the simple reason that these religions never came across the revolution that meditation brings. They never became aware of meditation. They went on praying to a fictitious God – which brings no transformation in life, because he does not exist. Your prayers are just addressed to the empty sky. They never reach anywhere, they are never heard by anyone, and they are never going to be answered. There is nobody to answer them. All the religions that have remained hooked with the idea of God have remained meat-eaters. So this is a simple phenomenon to understand. Why are my sannyasins vegetarians? We don’t enforce vegetarianism; we are not concerned with it. My sannyasins are not like George Bernard Shaw and his Fabian Society, where vegetarianism was a religion. Neither George Bernard Shaw knows anything about meditation, nor does his Fabian Society. They are just eccentric people who want to do something different from everybody else so they look better, they look higher, and they look holier. Vegetarianism is their philosophy. It is not my philosophy, it is simply a by-product. I don’t insist upon it. I insist upon meditation. Be more alert, more silent, more joyful, more ecstatic, and find your innermost center. Many things will follow of their own accord; and when they come of their own accord, there is no repression; there is no fight, no hardship, and no torture. But if you live vegetarianism as a religion or a philosophy, you will be continually hankering for meat, continually thinking, dreaming of meat, and your vegetarianism will be just a decoration for your ego. With me, meditation is the only essential religion. And everything that follows it is virtue, because it comes of its own accord. You don’t have to drag it; you don’t have to discipline yourself for it. I have nothing to do with vegetarianism, but I know that if you meditate you are going to grow new perceptivity, new sensitivity, and you cannot kill animals. Have you observed one fact? – That the vegetarian societies have the most delicious kinds of foods. The Buddhists, the Jainas – they have the best dishes in the world, for the simple reason that through their meditations they had to drop meat-eating. They became more inquiring into delicious food so they didn’t miss meat, on which they had been brought up from their childhood – it had become almost their second nature.

There are millions of people who have never thought of vegetarianism. From the very childhood they have been killing living animals. It is not different from cannibalism. And since Charles Darwin it is absolutely a scientific fact that man has come, evolved, from the animals – so you are killing your own forefathers and eating them joyously. Don’t do such a nasty thing! And the earth is capable; man is capable of creating enough vegetarian food – vegetables, fruits, new fruits which have never existed before. Just crossbreeding is needed, and we can have the best kind of food available for everybody. Your sensitivity and perceptivity, your aesthetic understanding is immediately understood by the animals. Here you can find so many deer – they have come because this is the only place in the whole of America where they are absolutely safe. Nobody is going to hunt them. In Oregon, for ten days per year, the government allows people to hunt deer. The deer are such beautiful animals, so agile, so lovely.... We stopped hunting on our own ground, so from other ranches deer have moved to our place. And now they must be the best-fed deer in the whole world, because we are taking care of them. We are growing grass that they like, especially for them. They would never have thought that people would be so considerate. They like a certain grass called alfalfa, and I have told my people, “Grow as much alfalfa as possible, so all the deer of the whole of Oregon by and by start moving to our commune. And they will be respected as members of the commune.” And they already understand it. They stand on the road – you go on honking your horn, they don’t care; they are meditating in the middle of the road. And they understand one thing: that you are not going to do harm, so there is no need to be in a hurry. In my garden I have three hundred peacocks. The moment they see my car, they all start moving in front of it. They know that they cannot be hurt, that nobody is going to run over them. They will not move; sometimes Vivek has to get out and push them. They are enjoying! There are a few really crazy ones – the moment they see my car they come running from far away, just to stand in front of my car. I will move slowly, and they will move slowly backwards, but they will not move away from the road. They understand something, their hearts have felt something, that “these people are not enemies; these people are part of us, friends.” And the whole animal kingdom is part of us, even the trees. Now the scientists have come to an established conclusion that trees are living beings. Not only that, they have a very fine sensitivity, far more sensitive than you have. They have placed machines around trees, plugged wires into the trees – machines like a cardiograph which shows your heartbeat. It shows the heartbeat

of the tree, and if somebody is coming to chop the tree, immediately the graph on the cardiogram goes crazy. The tree is feeling really afraid and trembling. Not only that, other trees around also go crazy, although they are not going to be cut. But someone, some friend is going to be cut and they have a great feeling for it. And the strangest thing that has come to the knowledge of the scientists is that if the person who is coming with an axe is just pretending – he is not really going to cut the tree – the graph remains harmonious. This is something unbelievable, that the tree knows whether the man intends to cut it or is just pretending. They are more sensitive than you. You will not be able to figure it out: if somebody comes with a sword at you, you will not be able to figure out whether he is really going to hit you or is just pretending, acting. You will not be able to find out through your sensitivity. The reason is, man has lived for millions of years so insensitively that he has lost one of the greatest qualities of his being. Meditation slowly gives you back your sensitivity; and a man who has reached to the ultimate ecstasy of meditation is as sensitive as any tree, any animal, anything in the whole existence. This sensitivity makes my people vegetarians. And it is a gain, not a loss. It will make you simultaneously more loving, more compassionate, more feeling, and more understanding of beauty. It will make you aware of great music, even the music that happens when the wind blows through the pine trees, or the sound of the running water-even the music that happens, that is happening, in this gap, in this silence. Silence is the highest music. It is soundless, but it can be felt. Can’t you feel the silence here? Can’t you feel that the people who are here are all one, pulsating in the same rhythm, their hearts beating in the same rhythm? Vegetarianism is a small thing. We have to create a world of really sensitive people, who can understand music, poetry, paintings, who can understand nature, who can understand human beauty, who can understand the world that surrounds them: the stars, the moon, the sun. Just a bird on the wing can fill you with immense rejoicing. The freedom of the small bird, the song of the small bird, may make you dance, sing. Humanity has lost its heart, and we have to give it back to everyone who is willing. That’s the meaning of my sannyas. ---------Osho, From Death to Deathlessness, Chapter #32, Q3 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Choice Is Between Lesser and Greater Evil KRISHNA WAS ESSENTIALLY A SPIRITUAL MAN, BUT HE FREELY TOOK PART IN POLITICS. AND AS A POLITICIAN HE DID NOT SHRINK FROM USING THE TRICKS OF THE TRADE. IN THE BATTLE OF THE MAHABHARAT HE GOT BISHMA KILLED BY DECEIT – A NAKED WOMAN WAS MADE TO STAND BEFORE THAT VENERATED OLD SAGE, WHO WAS A VOWED CELIBATE. IN THE SAME WAY, DECEPTION WAS USED TO KILL DRONACHARYA, KARNA, AND DURYODHANA. THE QUESTION ARISES: SHOULD A SPIRITUAL MAN TAKE PART IN POLITICS, AND IF SO, SHOULD HE BEHAVE AS ORDINARY POLITICIANS DO? AND, WAS MAHATMA GANDHI WRONG IN LAYING STRESS ON THE PURITY OF ENDS AND MEANS? IS NOT PURITY OF MEANS IMPORTANT TO POLITICS?

Let us first understand the difference between religion and spiritualism; they are not the same thing. Religion is one avenue of life, like politics, art and science. Religion does not contain the whole of life; spiritualism does. Spiritualism is the whole of life. Spiritualism is not an avenue of life; it encompasses the whole of it. It is life. A religious person may be afraid of taking part in politics, but a spiritual person is not afraid. A spiritual person can take part in politics without any fear. Politics is difficult for a religious person because he is tethered to certain ideas and ideals which come into conflict with politics. But a spiritual person is not bound by any ideas or concepts. He accepts life totally; he accepts life as it is. So he can easily participate in politics. Krishna is a spiritual man, he is not religious. Mahavira is a religious man in this sense, and so is Buddha; they have opted for one particular avenue of life, which is religion. And for the sake of religion they have denied all other avenues of life. They have sacrificed the rest of life on the altar of a part. Krishna is a spiritual man; he accepts life in its totality. That is why he is not afraid of politics, he does not shrink from going headlong into it. For him, politics is part of life. It is important to understand that people who have kept away from politics in the name of religion have only helped to make politics more irreligious; their noncooperation has not made it any better. I repeat: Krishna accepts life with all its flowers and thorns, its light and shade, sweet and sour. He accepts life choicelessly, unconditionally. He accepts life as it is. It is not that Krishna chooses only the flowers of life and shuns its thorns; he accepts both together, because he knows thorns are as necessary to life as the

flowers. Ordinarily we think thorns are inimical to flowers. It is not true. Thorns are there for the protection of flowers; they are deeply connected with each other. They are united – members of each other. They share common roots, and they live for a common purpose. Many people would like to destroy the thorn and save the flower, but that is not possible. They are parts of each other, and both have to be saved. So Krishna not only accepts politics, he lives in the thick of politics without the least difficulty. The other part of your question is also significant. You say that in politics Krishna uses means that cannot be said to be right. To achieve his ends, he uses lies, deception and fraud – which cannot be justified in any way. In this connection one has to understand the realities of life. In life there is no choice between good and bad, except in theory. The choice between good and evil is all a matter of doctrine. In reality, one always has to choose between the greater evil and the lesser evil. Every choice in life is relative. It is not a question of whether what Krishna did was good or bad. The question is whether it would have resulted in good or bad had he not done what he did. The question would be much easier if it was a simple choice between good and bad, but this is not the case in reality. The realities of life are that it is always the choice between greater evils and lesser evils. I have heard an anecdote: A priest is passing a street when he hears a voice crying, “Save me, save me! I am dying!” It is dark and the street is narrow. The priest rushes to the place and finds that a big strong man has overpowered another man, who seems to be very poor and weak. The priest demands that the strong man release the poor man, but he refuses. The priest physically intervenes in the struggle and succeeds in releasing the victim from the strong man’s grip, and the poor man takes to his heels. The strong man says, “Do you know what you have done? That man had picked my pocket and you have helped him to run away with my purse.” The priest said, “Why didn’t you say it before? I thought you were unnecessarily torturing a poor man. I am sorry; I made a mistake. I had thought I was doing something good, but it turned out to be evil.” But the man had already disappeared with the purse. Before we set out to do good, it is necessary to consider if it will result in evil. It is equally necessary to know that a bad action may ultimately result in good. The choice before Krishna is between lesser evil and greater evil. It is not a simple choice between good and evil. The fighting tactics which Krishna uses are

nothing compared to those used in the war of Mahabharat by the other side, who are capable of doing anything. The Kauravas are no ordinary evil-doers – they are extraordinarily evil. Gandhi would be no match for them; they could crush him in moments. Ordinary good cannot defeat an evil that is colossal. Gandhi would know what it is to fight with a colossus of evil if he had fought against a government run by Adolph Hitler. Fortunately for him, India was ruled by a very liberal community – the British – not by Hitler. Even among the British – if Churchill had been in power and Gandhi had to deal with him, it would have been very difficult to win India’s independence. The coming of Atlee into power in Britain after the war made a big difference. The question of right means, which Gandhi talks about so much, deserves careful consideration. It is fine to say that right ends cannot be achieved without right means. However, in this world, there is nothing like an absolutely right end or absolutely right means. It is not a question of right versus wrong; it is always a question of greater wrong versus lesser wrong. There is no one who is completely healthy or completely sick; it is always a matter of being more sick or less sick. Life does not consist of two distinct colors – white and black, life is just gray, a mixture of white and black. In this context men like Gandhi are just utopians. dreamers, idealists who are completely divorced from reality. Krishna is in direct contact with life; he is not a utopian. For him life’s work begins with accepting it as it is. What Gandhi calls “pure means” are not re ally pure, cannot be. Maybe pure ends and pure means are available in what the Hindus call moksha, or the space of freedom. But in this mundane world every, thing is alloyed with dirt. Not even gold is unalloyed. What we call diamond is nothing but old, aged coal. Gandhi’s purity of ends and means is sheer imagination. For example, Gandhi thinks fasting is a kind of right means to a right end. And he resorts to fasting – fast unto death every now and then. But I can never accept fasting as a right means, nor will Krishna agree with Gandhi. If a threat to kill another person is wrong, how can a threat to kill oneself be right? If it is wrong of me to make you accept what I say by pointing a gun at you, how can it become right if I make you accept the same thing by turning the gun to point it at myself? A wrong does not cease to be a wrong just by turning the point of a gun. In a sense it would be a greater wrong on my part if I ask you to accept my views with the threat that if you don’t I am going to kill myself. If I threaten to kill you, you have an option, a moral opportunity to die and refuse to yield to my pressure. But if I threaten to kill myself, I make you very helpless, because you may not like to take the responsibility of my death on yourself.

Gandhi once undertook such a fast unto death to put pressure on Ambedkar, leader of the millions of India’s untouchables. And Ambedkar had to yield, not because he agreed that the cause for which Gandhi fasted was right, but because he did not want to let Gandhi die for it. Ambedkar was not ready to do even this much violence to Gandhi. Ambedkar said later that Gandhi would be wrong to think that he had changed his heart. He still believed he was right and Gandhi was wrong, but he was not prepared to take the responsibility for the violence that Gandhi was insisting on doing to himself. In this context it is necessary to ask if Ambedkar used the right means, or Gandhi? Of the two, who is really non-violent? In my view Gandhi’s way was utterly violent, and Ambedkar proved to he non-violent. Gandhi was determined till the last moment to pressure Ambedkar with his threat to kill himself. It makes no difference whether I threaten to kill you or to kill myself to make you accept my view. In either case, I am using pressure and violence. In fact, when I threaten to kill you I give you a choice to die with dignity, to tell me you would rather die than yield to my view, which is wrong. But when I threaten you with my own death, then I deprive you of the option to die with dignity; I put you in a real dilemma. Either you have to yield and accept that you are in the wrong, or you take the responsibility of my death on you. You are going to suffer guilt in every way. In spite of his insistence on right means for right ends, the means that Gandhi himself uses are never right. And I am bold enough to say that whatever Krishna did was right. In a relative sense, taking his opponents into consideration, Krishna could not have done otherwise. --------Osho, Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy, Chapter # 10 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Friendship Is Higher Than Love Friendship has a higher quality than love. The next step of love is friendship. Not that it is lower, as it is understood ordinarily; it is not. In love there is passion, lust; love is more rooted in the physical. Friendship is purer, not rooted in the sexual at all. Friendship is between two beings: it is asexual and transcendental to the physical. Friendship has a coolness in it. Love has heat, hence it goes high, low; sometimes everything is beautiful and sometimes everything is ugly. Love changes. Friendship has a more eternal quality to it; it doesn’t change. Love has moods and climates, it can move to the opposite: it can become hate. And something of the hatred is always involved in love: you love the person and you hate the person too, so a constant conflict is part of it. Friendship is more unearthly. You simply rejoice in somebody’s being, you celebrate somebody’s being for no reason at all; it is very irrational. Love has a rational quality to it but friendship is very irrational. I have given you the name ‘Prem Maitri’; it means to pass through love, to go beyond and arrive at friendship. Let love be the first step and friendship the climax. Friendship is more meditative. It has no passion but it has tremendous compassion. Love is very jealous: it is very difficult to love two persons; there is bound to be trouble. But friendship is non-jealous: you can be friendly to as many people as possible. You can be friendly to the whole existence. There is no jealousy involved, so friendship is higher and more spiritual. But we have to move through love because we are rooted in the body, in the gross, and we have to refine our being slowly, step by step, inch by inch. So even if you are in love with some person, try to make it more of a friendship, then it will have more permanency. It will have more joy, it will have more communication and more communion. It is almost impossible to see a husband and wife as friends. They may be lovers and they may be enemies, both are possible and both are possible together too, but to think of a wife and husband as friends is difficult. And that is very ugly, because you love a person, you live with a person, and the friendship is not growing.

My feeling and my observation is that love is just like the starter in a motor car: you cannot run the car on the starter. It starts the car, that’s its function; then the car has to take over, the motor has to run. Love should function as a starter to friendship but it cannot run the whole show; that’s why love fails. Unless friendship grows love is bound to fail. So while love is there make sure that friendship is growing, because sooner or later the romance of love will disappear and if the friendship has not grown by that time then the whole thing falls flat. That’s what is happening in the West every day.... People move into love with such great enthusiasm, with such great hope and fantasy. With high hopes they enter into love and within days it is gone! In fact the honeymoon is not over and the love has gone. What is happening? And then the whole thing becomes a drag – dragging, ugly, and one somehow manages, pretends... a hypocrisy. My feeling is that love is just a starter; don’t depend on it. It is good, it is needed to start with, but when the car has started don’t depend on the starter: its work is done! Now the car has to run on its own; that’s what friendship is. So before the romance wears out make sure that friendship has arrived, then love has done its work, has served beautifully, has made the possibility for friendship to descend. Now its function is over. If it does not happen that way and the friendship has not arrived and the function of love is over, then all is over! Then there is nothing left behind, only frustration. And next time even love will become more difficult because now you will know that it all fails. Once love has failed once, twice, thrice, one starts feeling hopeless, one starts feeling that it is all nonsense, just a dream. It doesn’t happen, it is not real, it is not true -- an hallucination or an auto – hypnosis but nothing more. Love is not an hallucination, it is a moment of high passion, but one cannot remain on the high moment forever. One has to cool down, come back to earth, move on the plains; that’s where life exists. You can fly high in the sky for a few moments but then you have to come back to earth. Before you come back to the earth create friendship because that will last. So love, love as much as possible, but always remember that love has to give space to friendship. Use love as a stepping-stone towards friendship. That is the meaning of your name.... -----------Osho, Darshan Diary, The Zero Experience, Chapter # 15

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------CHAPTER 3

DIVINE AWARENESS ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What is Meditation? My introduction with religious studies started when I was just a child. I remember my father practiced meditation techniques as taught by Swami Manukrishna, who in turn had learned them from Osho. My father used to take me along to the burning place, hills and on the riversides and would ask me to listen to all that existence has to offer and watch my breathing pattern. From now onwards watching my breathing pattern and listening became the way of my living. I would observe the following technique while going and coming from my school. My school was around two miles away from my home. In those days, I use to walk my way down, to and from, my house to the school. The entire travel became a meditation as I would be watching every incoming and outgoing breath. This technique to watch the breathing is popularly known as Vipassana. Now when I look back and after knowing the experience of many sadhaks I conclude that Vipassana makes one absentminded as one is involved in watching the process of breathing and the entire exercise makes one forget oneself. This forgetfulness was an interesting endowment of Vipassana I lived with for a long time. My husband was really tired with this habit of mine as he was accustomed with near perfection and seeing everything in order. My mother in law was another extreme to me, i.e., she was fussy about all her belongings and work. Even at such an old age her memory was razor-sharp. It would take no time for her to find the things she had kept. She was so sick of my habit that she kept my name ‘Khabar-bhullu’ (one who forgets all the news). The moment she would address me with this name it would abate my confidence and upset me. Words from her were never in vain for me. I fail to understand how I would get free from this habit of mine. One day an inspiration came from within from where the right beginning of my understanding and practice of meditation started. Whenever I would keep some important belonging I would stop and wait for a while. I used to look at the place where I had kept the thing, then I would look at the thing, then look at myself with total awareness, I started commanding myself, “Now dear, don’t you forget this time”. A miracle happened, my memory improved. Now everything seemed in such a perfect order. This automatically became a part of my meditation in my life. Before this I was just doing my work forgetting about myself that was taking me away from self-remembrance.

I started becoming more and more aware of my surroundings with practice of self-remembrance. Meditation became a journey from worldly awareness to inner awareness. I would like to share with my readers what I perceive of meditation now. Generally our mind is occupied with objects of the world. We are not aware of our inner self. This is the non-meditative state. Meditation starts with Objective Awareness. We become aware of our doings, sensuality, breathing, feeling, thinking, visualizing, etc .We can call this watching the circumference. This is the state of Objective Awareness. This is first state of meditation. The second stage is watching our center as well as the circumference, watching our being as well as the happenings. This is the state of Total Awareness. For example, we can be aware of our doings as well as the watcher’s self, the being. The third stage is remembering the being or undisturbed consciousness. This is the state of Subjective Awareness. Generally we live outside our Inner Self or The Circle of Consciousness. We do not remain even at our circumference of consciousness. We are not aware of our doings, sensualism, breathing, feeling, thinking, visualizing, etc. Meditation gives us a breakthrough. Meditation takes us to no-man’s land between objective and subjective awareness, between circumference and the core. The following one hourly meditation techniques have been devised by Sadguru Trivir: Sanjeevani Mantra Sanjeevani Dhyan Leela Urja Indradhanush Kirtan Sandhya Rebirth Brahmanaad Shiv Netra Vipassana They are helping thousands of seekers for going deep in meditation and Samadhi. --Osho Priya

Meditation is falling in Self Love Meditation and love are the two most important things in life. If one can learn these two things, life can take you to the ultimate peaks of joy. These two things can make your life an orgasmic experience; not a momentary experience, but an eternal, ongoing orgasmic flow, a continuum of joys, more joys. The peak goes on becoming higher and higher and higher. Love means the art of being with others. Meditation means the art of being with yourself. Both are two aspects of the same coin. A person who does not know how to be with himself cannot truly relate with others, his relationship will be awkward, graceless, ugly, haphazard, accidental. One moment everything is going well and another moment everything is gone. It will always be going up and down; it will not gain depth. It will be very noisy. Certainly it will give you an occupation, but it will not have any melody to it, and it cannot take you to the heights of existence or depths of being, and vice versa: the person who is not capable of being with others, of relating, will find it very difficult to relate with himself, because the art of relating is the same: whether you relate with others or you relate with yourself does not make much difference, it is the same art. Both these arts have to be learned together, simultaneously; they are inseparable. Be with people, and not unconsciously, but very consciously. Relate with people as if you are singing a song, as if you are playing on a flute; each person has to be thought as a musical instrument. Respect love, worship, because each person is a hidden face of God. So be very careful, very attentive. Remember what you are saying; remember what you are doing. Just small things destroy relationships, and small things make relationships so beautiful. Sometimes just a smile, and the other’s heart is open to you; sometimes just a wrong look in your eyes, and the other is closed – it is a delicate phenomenon. Think of it as an art: just as the painter is very watchful of what he is doing to the canvas, each single stroke is going to make a lot of difference. A real painter can change the whole painting just by a single stroke. A small boy was talking to another boy and he was saying, “My father is a great painter, he is such an artist. Just the other day he was painting and he painted a very sad face, and I asked him ‘Change it.’ And just a single stroke of his brush and the painting was totally changed; then the sad face started laughing.” The other boy said, “That’s nothing. My mother can do that very simply – just a hit and a laughing face starts crying!” Life has to be learned as an art: very cautiously, very deliberately... So relationship with others has to become a mirror: see what you are doing, how you

are doing it and what is happening. What is happening to the other? Are you making their life more miserable? Are you giving them pain? Are you creating a hell for them? Then withdraw. Change your ways. Beautify life around yourself. Let every person feel that the meeting with you is a gift: just being with you something starts flowing, growing, some songs start arising in the heart, some flowers start opening. And when you are alone then sit utterly silent, absolutely in silence, and watch yourself: watch your breathing, watch your thoughts, watch your memories, watch yourself in your totality without interfering – simple watching. And slowly watching one’s breathing, one’s thoughts, one’s memories, slowly, great awareness explodes. One becomes full of light within. That is the art of meditation. And remember both: just as the bird has two wings, let love and meditation be your two wings. Create a synchronicity between them, so they are not in any way in conflict with each other, but nursing each other, nurturing each other, helping each other. This is going to be your path: the synthesis between love and meditation. -------------Osho, The Rainbow Bridge, Chapter #24 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tantra: A Group Method of Awakening TANTRA IS AN EFFORT TO MAKE YOU MORE CONSCIOUS. The very word ‘Tantra’ means expansion of awareness. It comes from a Sanskrit root ‘tan’:’tan’ means expansion. Tantra means expansion of consciousness – and the basic fact, and the most fundamental fact to be understood is that you are fast asleep, you have to be awakened. Tantra believes in school methods – that has to be understood also. In that sense Gurdjieff is one of the greatest tantriks of this age. For example: if one is asleep, there is very little possibility that one can become awake alone. Look at it in this way: on the new year day you think, as you have always thought, and many new year days have passed, and always you have taken a vow that never again will you smoke – and again the new year has come and you start thinking this time it is going to happen. You take a vow that you will never smoke, but you don’t go and tell it to others; you are afraid to. To say it to others is dangerous because you know yourself: many times you have broken your vows – then it is very humiliating. So you keep it to yourself. Now there is only one possibility out of a hundred that the vow will be kept; ninety-nine possibilities are that it will be broken sooner or later. You are an unconscious being; your vow does not mean much. But if you go and you tell everybody in the town – friends, colleagues, children, and wife – you go and tell everybody “I have taken a vow that I am not going to smoke,” there are more possibilities, at least ten percent that you will not smoke. First there was only one possibility, now there are ten possibilities. Ninety percent the possibility is that you will smoke; but non-smoking has more ground, more solidity. From one percent it has gone to ten percent. But if you join a group of non-smokers, if you join a society of nonsmokers, then the possibility is even more: ninety-nine percent is the possibility that you will not smoke. What happens? When you are alone you don’t have any support from outside – you are alone; you can fall asleep easily. And nobody knows, so you are not worried either. When all know, their knowing will function to keep you more alert. Now your ego is at stake, your respect and honor are at stake. But if you join a society of nonsmokers, then the possibility is even more – because you live through habits! Somebody takes his cigarette-box out of his pocket, and suddenly you start looking in your pocket. You are just mechanical: somebody is smoking and you start thinking how beautiful it was to smoke. Nobody smokes, and you are in the society of non-smokers, then nobody will remind you; and the habit by and by will disappear – out of no use. If a habit is not used, by and by it disappears; it tends to become dead, it loses its grip on you. Tantra says man can become awake only through group methods, through schools. That’s why I insist so much for sannyas. Alone, you don’t stand a chance. Together, much more possibility. It is as if ten persons are lost in a desert, and it is very dangerous in the night: the enemies can kill them, the wild animals can kill them, the robbers can come, the murderers can come – it is very difficult. Now they decide on a group method. They say: “Each one will be awake for one hour.” To think that each one

will be capable of remaining awake for eight hours in the night is to ask too much from an unconscious man; but each one will remain awake for one hour. And before he starts falling asleep, he should make somebody else awake; then there is more possibility that at least one from the group will be awake the whole night. Or, as Gurdjieff used to say: You are in a prison and you want to come out of the prison. Alone, there is not much chance, but if all the prisoners become a group, then there is much more chance – they can throw the guard, they can kill the guard, they can break the wall. If all the prisoners are together, then there is much more chance that they can come out into freedom. But the chances will increase even more if they are in contact with a few people who are outside the prison, who are already free. That is the whole meaning of finding a Master: finding somebody who is already outside the prison. He can be of tremendous help – for many reasons. He can supply necessary things, which will be needed for you to come out of the prison. He can send instruments, files, so that you can break out of the prison. He can watch from the outside and he can inform you when the guards change – in that interval there is a possibility to get out. He can inform you when the guards fall asleep in the night. He can make arrangements so that the guards are drunk on one particular night. He can invite the jailor to his house for a party. He can do a thousand and one things, which you cannot do from the inside. He can find support for you from the outside. He can create an atmosphere so that when you are released from the jail you will be accepted by the people, you will be sheltered, taken into houses. If the society is not ready to accept you from the outside, you may come out of the jail but the society will deliver you back to the prison authorities. To be in contact with someone who is already awake is a must. And to be together with those people who are all thinking to become awake is also a must. This is the meaning of a school method, a group method. Tantra is a group method. It says: Be together. Find out all the possibilities; so many people can be together and they can pool their energies. Somebody is very intelligent, and somebody is very loving. Both are half, but together they become more of a unity, more wholeness. Man is half; woman is half. Except for Tantra, all the seekers have tried to do without the other. Man has tried alone; women have tried alone. Tantra says: Why not be together – join hands together? The woman is half, the man is half – together they are a greater energy, a more whole energy, a healthier energy. Join together! Let yin and yang function together. There will be more possibility of getting out of it. Other methods use fight and conflict. Man starts fighting with women, starts escaping from women rather than using the possibility of the help, he starts thinking of the woman as the enemy. Tantra says this is sheer foolishness; you are wasting your energy unnecessarily fighting with the woman – because there are greater things to be fought about! It is better to keep company with the Woman; let her help you, and you help her. Go together as one unit and you have more chances to stand against the unconscious nature. Use all possibilities; then only is there SOME chance that you can evolve into a conscious being, you can become a Buddha. ----------Osho, The Tantra Vision, Volume 1, Chapter #5

Watch Your Mind with Deep Love I HAVE BEEN THINKING ALL DAY OF A WAY TO ASK THE QUESTION: HOW TO STOP THINKING?

THINKING cannot be stopped. Not that it does not stop, but it cannot be stopped. It stops of its own accord. This distinction has to be understood, otherwise you can go mad chasing your mind. No-mind does not arise by stopping thinking. When the thinking is no more, nomind is. The very effort to stop will create more anxiety, it will create conflict, it will make you split. You will be in a constant turmoil within. This is not going to help. And even if you succeed in stopping it forcibly for a few moments, it is not an achievement at all – because those few moments will be almost dead, they will not be alive. You may feel a sort of stillness, but not silence, because a forced stillness is not silence. Underneath it, deep in the unconscious, the repressed mind goes on working. So, there is no way to stop the mind. But the mind stops – that is certain. It stops of its own accord. So what to do? – your question is relevant. Watch – don’t try to stop. There is no need to do any action against the mind. In the first place, who will do it? It will be mind fighting mind itself. You will divide your mind into two; one that is trying to boss over – the top-dog – trying to kill the other part of itself, which is absurd. It is a foolish game. It can drive you crazy. Don’t try to stop the mind or the thinking – just watch it, allow it. Allow it total freedom. Let it run as fast as it wants. You don’t try in any way to control it. You just be a witness. It is beautiful! Mind is one of the most beautiful mechanisms. Science has not yet been able to create anything parallel to mind. Mind still remains the masterpiece – so complicated, so tremendously powerful, with so many potentialities. Watch it! Enjoy it! And don’t watch like an enemy, because if you look at the mind like an enemy, you cannot watch. You are already prejudiced; you are already against. You have already decided that something is wrong with the mind – you have already concluded. And whenever you look at somebody as an enemy you never look deep, you never look into the eyes. You avoid!

Watching the mind means: look at it with deep love, with deep respect, reverence – it is God’s gift to you! Nothing is wrong in mind itself. Nothing is wrong in thinking itself. It is a beautiful process as other processes are. Clouds moving in the sky are beautiful – why not thoughts moving into the inner sky? Flowers coming to the trees are beautiful – why not thoughts flowering into your being. The river running to the ocean is beautiful – why not this stream of thoughts running somewhere to an unknown destiny? Is it not beautiful? Look with deep reverence. Don’t be a fighter – be a lover. Watch! – the subtle nuances of the mind; the sudden turns, the beautiful turns; the sudden jumps and leaps; the games that mind goes on playing; the dreams that it weaves – the imagination, the memory; the thousand and one projections that it creates. Watch! Standing there, aloof, distant, not involved, by and by you will start feeling... The deeper your watchfulness becomes, the deeper your awareness becomes, and gaps start arising, intervals. One thought goes and another has not come, and there is a gap. One cloud has passed, another is coming and there is a gap. In those gaps, for the first time you will have glimpses of no-mind, you will have the taste of no-mind. Call it taste of Zen, or Tao, or Yoga. In those small intervals, suddenly the sky is clear and the sun is shining. Suddenly the world is full of mystery because all barriers are dropped. The screen on your eyes is no more there. You see clearly, you see penetratingly. The whole existence becomes transparent. In the beginning, these will be just rare moments, few and far in between. But they will give you glimpses of what samadhi is. Small pools of silence – they will come and they will disappear. But now you know that you are on the right track – you start watching again. When a thought passes, you watch it; when an interval passes, you watch it. Clouds are also beautiful; sunshine also is beautiful. Now you are not a chooser. Now you don’t have a fixed mind: you don’t say, “I would like only the intervals.” That is stupid – because once you become attached to wanting only the intervals, you have decided again against thinking. And then those intervals will disappear. They happen only when you are very distant, aloof. They happen, they cannot be brought. They happen, you cannot force them to happen. They are spontaneous happenings. Go on watching. Let thoughts come and go – wherever they want to go. Nothing is wrong! Don’t try to manipulate and don’t try to direct. Let thoughts move in total freedom. And then bigger intervals will be coming. You will be blessed with small satoris. Sometimes minutes will pass and no thought will be there; there will be no traffic – a total silence, undisturbed.

When the bigger gaps come, you will not only have clarity to see into the world – with the bigger gaps you will have a new clarity arising – you will be able to see into the inner world. With the first gaps you will see into the world: trees will be more green than they look right now. You will be surrounded by an infinite music – the music of the spheres. You will be suddenly in the presence of God – ineffable, mysterious. Touching you although you can not grasp it. Within your reach and yet beyond. With the bigger gaps, the same will happen inside. God will not only be outside, you will be suddenly surprised – He is inside also. He is not only in the seen; He is in the seer also – within and without. By and by... But don’t get attached to that either. Attachment is the food for the mind to continue. Non-attached witnessing is the way to stop it without any effort to stop it. And when you start enjoying those blissful moments, your capacity to retain them for longer periods arises. Finally, eventually, one day, you become master. Then when you want to think, you think; if thought is needed, you use it; if thought is not needed, you allow it to rest. Not that mind is simply no more there: mind is there, but you can use it or not use it. Now it is your decision. Just like legs: if you want to run you use them; if you don’t want to run you simply rest – legs are there. In the same way, mind is always there. When I am talking to you I am using the mind – there is no other way to talk. When I am answering your question I am using the mind – there is no other way. I have to respond and relate, and mind is a beautiful mechanism. When I am not talking to you and I am alone, there is no mind – because it is a medium to relate through. Sitting alone it is not needed…. Mind is making almost no noise; goes on working silently. And such a servant! – for seventy, eighty years. And then, too, when you are dying your body may be old but your mind remains young. Its capacity remains yet the same. Sometimes, if you have used it rightly, it even increases with your age! – because the more you know, the more you understand, the more you have experienced and lived, the more capable your mind becomes. When you die, everything in your body is ready to die – except the mind. That’s why in the East we say mind leaves the body and enters another womb, because it is not yet ready to die. The rebirth is of the mind. Once you have attained the state of samadhi, no-mind, then there will be no rebirth. Then you will simply die. And with your dying, everything will be dissolved – your body, your mind... only your witnessing soul will remain. That is beyond time and space. Then you become one with existence; then you are no more separate from it. The separation comes from the mind.

But there is no way to stop it forcibly – don’t be violent. Move lovingly, with a deep reverence – and it will start happening of its own accord. You just watch. And don’t be in a hurry….. Meditation is not an effort against the mind. It is a way of understanding the mind. It is a very loving way of witnessing the mind – but, of course, one has to be very patient. This mind that you are carrying in your head has arisen over centuries, millennia. Your small mind carries the whole experience of humanity – and not only of humanity: of animals, of birds, of plants, of rocks. You have passed through all those experiences. All that has happened up to now has happened in you also. In a very small nutshell, you carry the whole experience of existence. That’s what your mind is. In fact, to say it is yours is not right: it is collective; it belongs to us all. Modern psychology has been approaching it, particularly Jungian analysis has been approaching it, and they have started feeling something like a collective unconscious. Your mind is not yours – it belongs to us all. Our bodies are very separate; our minds are not so separate. Our bodies are clear-cutly separate; our minds overlap – and our souls are one. Bodies separate, minds overlapping, and souls are one. I don’t have a different soul and you don’t have a different soul. At the very center of existence we meet and are one. That’s what God is: the meeting-point of all. Between the God and the world – ‘the world’ means the bodies – is mind. Mind is a bridge: a bridge between the body and the soul, between the world and God. Don’t try to destroy it! Many have tried to destroy it through Yoga. That is a misuse of Yoga. Many have tried to destroy it through body posture, breathing – that too brings subtle chemical changes inside. For example: if you stand on your head in shirshasan – in the headstand – you can destroy the mind very easily. Because when the blood rushes too much, like a flood, into the head – when you stand on your head that’s what you are trying to do.... The mind mechanism is very delicate; you are flooding it with blood. The delicate tissues will die. That’s why you never come across a very intelligent yogi – no. Yogis are, more or less, stupid. Their bodies are healthy – that’s true – strong, but their minds are just dead. You will not see the glimmer of intelligence. You will see a very robust body, animallike, but somehow the human has disappeared. Standing on your head, you are forcing your blood into the head through gravitation. The head needs blood, but in a very, very small quantity; and very slowly, not floodlike. Against gravitation, very little blood reaches to the head. And that, too, in a very silent way. If too much blood is reaching into the head it is destructive. Yoga has been used to kill the mind; breathing can be used to kill the mind. There are rhythms of breath, subtle vibrations of breath, which can be very, very

drastic to the delicate mind. The mind can be destroyed through them. These are old tricks. Now the latest tricks are supplied by science: LSD, marijuana, and others. More and more sophisticated drugs will be available sooner or later. I am not in favor of stopping the mind. I am in favor of watching it. It stops of its own accord – and then it is beautiful When something happens without any violence it has a beauty of its own, it has a natural growth. You can force a flower and open it by force; you can pull the petals of a bud and open it by force – but you have destroyed the beauty of the flower. Now it is almost dead. It cannot stand your violence. The petals will be hanging loose, limp, dying. When the bud opens by its own energy, when it opens of its own accord, then those petals are alive. The mind is your flowering – don’t force it in any way. I am against all force and against all violence, and particularly violence that is directed towards yourself. Just watch – in deep prayer, love, reverence. And see what happens! Miracles happen of their own accord. There is no need to pull and push. You ask: How to stop thinking? I say: Just watch, be alert. And drop this idea of stopping, otherwise it will stop the natural transformation of the mind. Drop this idea of stopping! Who are you to stop? At the most, enjoy. And nothing is wrong – even if immoral thoughts, so-called immoral thoughts, pass through your mind, let them pass; nothing is wrong. You remain detached. No harm is being done. It is just fiction; you are seeing an inner movie. Allow it its own way and it will lead you, by and by, to the state of no-mind. Watching ultimately culminates in no-mind. No-mind is not against mind: no-mind is beyond mind. No-mind does not come by killing and destroying the mind: no-mind comes when you have understood the mind so totally that thinking is no longer needed – your understanding has replaced it. ----------Osho, A Sudden Clash of Thunder, Chapter # 2 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Karma Yoga –The Path of Action Sloth, or laziness, considered as one of the deadly sins in Christianity, was a prominent feature of my personality. Since my early days I loved to escape everything that needed any effort. I would be dependent on everyone, other than myself, to take care of the work needed to be done to make things easy and comfortable in the house and for myself, totally unexpected from a daughter in an Indian family. My mother was dong all the needful work for me such as washing and arranging my clothes, taking care of my school accessories etc. Seeing my way of living anyone would say that I was a pampered child and a spoiled brat. Not knowing anything about household work I got married and started living with my in-laws. The kind of habits I was living with, was one of the toughest period of not only my life but also for my new family i.e. my husband and in-laws. As mentioned in the previous chapter, my- mother in law and my husband fitted in the entirely other category of working habits, as compared to my art of work. They were almost perfectionist. I knew that to come even close to there expectations would be like climbing Mount Everest for me. Learning each moment the science of work was the beginning of my new sadhana. My mother-in-law, whom I used to call Ma, now became my new guide. I started learning to do household work by working with her and helping her with the cleaning, cooking and organising everything in the house. In the beginning, it was hard to surrender and it was easy to acquiesce to everything asked for. But gradually I picked up Ma's way of working and got attuned to the new demands of life. Working for my family had slowly become more or less worship for me. Gradually, I picked up her way of working. Now she just liked my work, the way it was meant to be done in the house. In Pune we had a separate family kitchen. I was assigned to prepare food for Ma, Daddaji (my father-in-law) and Shailendra ji. Not even a single day passed by when Ma would not point out my mistake, which was too often. I used to feel really hurt, being pointed out and not being as efficient as Ma. There were two options before me, either I change everyone or I change myself, which I knew would make all my loved ones happy, and make me feel more contended. Well, I declined in favor of the latter as it is just a little easier than the former and more gratifying too. One more reason to cajole myself and push myself to work was that at least I was learning something that would groom me and make my husband pleased and proud. More importantly, I always had immense love and respect for Ma as she was not only the mother of my husband but also the mother of my Master, Osho. It was hurting me more to see her in pain, whenever I became laidback.

I recollect a few incidents that were like everyday affairs i.e. me being not up to the mark like, for example, if I would cook something and leave the food open, Ma would immediately point out and say, "You have not covered the dish." I had the same answer, I was about to cover it in a minute. Ma would reply, "Mosquito's and flies don't know that you will cover it in a minute, and they should not get close to the dish." Another common incident was generally when I would spread the sheet on the bed. If the bed cover were put in a slightly uneven and unruly manner, she would ask me to put it on properly. For me, it was more important that at least the bed is covered, properly or improperly was irrelevant. One of the most significant moments of my life was the day Ma left her body. It's hard for me to forget the morning of 17th May 1995. Ma was a tough Master. That morning she had asked me to come to her room at 5 a.m., the hardest thing for me to do in those days, as I was not an early riser. I had set my alarm for 5a.m. but got up much before and got ready to go and see Ma, as asked. She was standing outside the room, waiting for me. She was surprised to see me and gave me a warm welcome. Now the usual exercise started i.e. her asking me to do job after job and me acceding to everything she wished from me. Well, now began my examination, yes, I would call it an examination as working with her was like assessment of my awareness. Ma asked me to clean the bench that was kept in the courtyard. I found it quite strange to have been asked to brush the bench that was covered only a few flowers, but I did sweep it nevertheless, despite my little reluctance. She sat on the bench. Not even a minute after, she immediately was ready with the list of things to do. Ma then asked me to make some tea for her. Then she was ready with a new order, i.e. to prepare rabadi (Indian sweet dish made of condensed milk). I wondered why she wanted rabadi in the morning, although I did prepare rabadi to her taste. After that she asked me to clean her closet, which was already well organised. She said, "I know it's hard for you to organize it properly, but I want you only to arrange the things in my closet." When she saw the closet se was really pleased with my work and she said, "At last you did it so perfectly". I was overjoyed to see Ma delighted and contended with my work, one of my dreams coming true to get appreciation from her for my work. Although, by now she just liked the way I would do things for her, but still to get applause from her was always the best reward I could ever think of in life. Next thing on the agenda was to cook food for MA. I brought the vegetables of her choice and prepared lunch for her. I was on seventh heaven to hear her say to someone, "You know my Priya makes the most delicious food." This was her last lunch in this body.

Analyzing her life I was always filled with awe. Being a mother of eleven children is no joke. Taking care of everyone and everything needs lot of hard work and awareness. Ma's everyday work started from 4 o'clock in the morning. Her day use to begin with grinding flour with her own hands, then she use to paint the house with cow dung, as customary in the villages of India even today, then she would prepare food for everyone, send all her children to school. As the family was really big, one or the other sibling was always sick, so she was taking care of the sick person in the family also. Her day would end around mid night. Despite of being overburdened with work, she never looked exhausted. Regardless of the multiple aspects of things to do for the family she was fully responsive of everyone in the family, she was attentive towards her work and was equally aware of her presence. She was my role model in the science of work. Ma would tell me, "My entire life has gone in working and work became my worship. My actions and work became my way to know the Divine." Rajneeshpuram was another place where I had learnt the skills of work. There the roster of each person would change after a while; the reason was that it's easy to do the regular job as it becomes mechanical and dose not requires much awareness. For example, in the beginning it's hard to drive the car and to make the balance between the accelerator, breaks and the clutch along with the steering and gears, with just a pair of hands, legs, and eyes. It's quite a berserk thing to imagine and make the balance between all the parts of the body involved, especially for those who don’t know how to drive or are still not accustomed to it. Over a period of time, one gets so habitual to driving that now many things can be done along with driving, like singing, listening to music, talking on the mobile phone etc. In Rajneeshpuram, I was working in the kitchen, named Magdalena, cutting vegetables for around 10,000 sannyasins. The coordinator of the kitchen was an adherent perfectionist German lady. She wanted each and every piece of vegetable to be cut beautifully and evenly. Sometimes I was given to cut around 10 kilograms of onions. This was the most killing thing for me to do as by the end of the worship, i.e. cutting the onions, the prize was a bucketful of tears. Please note that these tears were definitely not in gratitude. Occasionally I was asked to clean big utensils. It was hard to judge who is cleaning whom as the utensils were gigantic. The best part was making bread in the bakery, but this also came along with the small package of trouble as to make bread for the breakfast I had to wake up at 4 a.m. In the end, I can say that for me work remained work for as long as selfremembrance was not there, but the moment I was filled with selfremembrance along with my actions, work became worship for me. Now I

can understand what Ma meant when she said, "My actions and work became my way to know Divine." My association with Ma in the house and working with the German lady in Rajneeshpuram paved my way to understand Karma Yoga. Karmayoga is related to Mooladhar or basal Chakra. It is the path of action awareness. It is being in action without being a doer. It is doing the things while being in total awareness, being in action plus meditation. Karma Yoga is the effort to go directly from doing to self awareness. Meditation is the process and awareness is the goal. A Karma Yogi is one who adds meditation to doing. The path of action is hard, difficult, arduous, challenging and uphill. Something has to be done to climb the highest peak of consciousness. But there are people who love it. Moses, Mohammed, Rama, Patanjali, Gurdjieff, Tilak, Gandhi, Vinoba, Mother Teresa – these people belong to the path of action. Action is generally objective oriented. This creates a desire to get the result as per the objective. As such actions take us away from us. Karma Yoga recommends that we can do the things while remembering the doer, remembering the self, being in total awareness of the doings as well as the doer. This will take us inward. This will finally establish us in our core, in our center, in our being. The actions generally take us away from our being, but Karma Yoga, the path of action, takes us towards our self. The direction is opposite. The poison becomes the medicine. The action, which is normally desire oriented, if done with self- remembering, total awareness, will take us to desirelessness, to nothingness, to emptiness, to peace. A stage comes when we no longer remain a doer. While watching the action and the doer, we start feeling that things are just happening. Nobody is the doer. That is the climax of Karmayoga. We reach the center of our being, center of inaction. ---Osho Priya -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tantra Yoga – The Path of Sensual Awareness I grew up in the rich atmosphere of music. My father was a renowned singer in the town. Many artists use to come to my house to share their art with my father and my house looked more like an atelier. I had strong inclination towards music as music always filled me with deep relaxation and the musical notes touched my being very deeply. Music made me feel close to myself and filled me with bliss and exuberance. My aunt tells me that when I was just three years old, she loved to take me along to the neighborhood and visit my friends and relatives. The reason was that I was fluent in singing Ramayan Chaupaies. The Ramayan is the great Indian epic and chaupaies are like couplets. She felt proud and popular. When I was still very young a strong desire came from within to play the harmonium. I sat down to play the instrument and in no time I was able to play the right notes of a song perfectly. My father and my entire family were amazed to hear me play the harmonium with such perfection, almost like a professional musician. Each day my interest in music started intensifying. I felt as if music is my life and I couldn't do without taking proper training for the same. I told my father that I wished to take appropriate education for vocal music. My father was supportive of the idea and got me enrolled in a music school where I learned vocal music for two years. For me singing has always been a method to experience awareness. Usually, an artist tries to entice the listeners. Whenever I sing, I watch myself singing, I became a spectator to my own creation. Even amounts the audience, singing is the one thing that always filled me with complete self-remembrance. My father was really happy with my training and my vocals. Now he wanted me to take further education for singing. He appointed a private music teacher for me, who used to come once a week. My new master was Pandit Madhukar Rao. He gave me training for classical singing. His method of training was atypical, as he never let me write notes for the new raga and wanted me to learn the raga just by listening to it. Whenever he began to teach a new raga he expected me to sing along with him, as if I had the expertise. To memorize by listening to a fresh classical raga for just 20 minutes was a tough task, a challenge in itself. I had a whole week to practice the raga on my own. Every time he left after the class he would say, "Next time when I come, you will start the raga that I have taught you, all by yourself. I will just support you in the middle whenever required. Mainly you have to sing."

People who have taken training for classical singing can understand how difficult it is to learn classical raga just by listening to a raga for 20 minutes. But I feel blessed when I look back and recollect that to learn new ragas by listening to it was like a child's play for me as my total awareness was involved and committed in listening and memorizing the new raga. This gave me a chance to experience total awareness. My teacher strongly believed that when we learn something just by listening to it, it penetrates the innermost core of our being, our very soul. Even after 20 years if we have to sing a song in a particular raga, we can sing it, as the notes get stored somewhere in our being. But when we write it we tend to forget it. Now this sounds traditional, but it is factual. When we learn something just by listening, our awareness is at its zenith. If we miss out even a fraction of what is being said, we miss it forever. It's like a love affair. It dose not touch our heart but also our soul. We can experience total awareness whenever anything gives a glimpse of sensual pleasure; it can be a melodious music, a beautiful sight, a fragrance, a touch of a person, or a taste, then the remembrance of that experience stays in our memory forever. But when we write it down, we develop lackluster attitude as we have a backup, so we can relax a little and our awareness is generally at its bare minimum. We can not afford to break our journey towards enlightenment. This art of listening was the most beautiful practice I was trained in by my music master. I have still not forgotten the ragas taught by Pandit Madhukar Rao, and there is no raga I remember fully that I learnt in my college. My above examples can help in understanding Tantra Yoga. It is the path of sensual experiences with total awareness. In other words it is sensual indulgence while remembering the inner Being. It is related to Swadhishthan or second Chakra. In Tantra the innermost core is spirituality and the outermost core is sensuality. Tantra is synthesis of sensuality and spirituality. It does not reject anything, rather it transforms every thing. Tantra is all inclusive – neither obsession with the world, nor withdrawal from it. Tantra is truly represented by Nataraj – Shiva the Cosmic Dancer. Buddha has gone very deep, but he lives only in the inner shrine of consciousness. He is not interested what is happening around. Shiva contains all, contains all contradictions. He lives in the innermost core of the shrine and also enjoys the dance outside. Unless the sage can dance and celebrate, something is incomplete, something is missing.

Tantra teaches to love, befriend , revere , respect and take care of our body and senses as God’s gift. It is strange that most of the religions are against the senses. They try to dull the senses and sensitivity. Tantra says that senses are doors of perception. They need not be dulled. Rather they should be made more sensitive to experience the Divinity all around. Depending upon type of senses, Tantra Yoga may be divided in six main groups: Darshan Yoga –Enjoying beautiful sights while remembering the inner self. Shrawan Yoga –Enjoying music while remembering the inner self. Gandh Yoga –Enjoying a fragrance while remembering the inner self. Swad Yoga –Enjoying a taste while remembering the inner self. Sparsh Yoga –Enjoying a touch or sex while remembering the inner self. Madir Yoga –Watching imbalances while remembering the inner self. Tantriks practice this while using hard drinks. Aghore Yoga- Witnessing feelings by living in peculiar environments, such as at cremation place. Vibhuti Yoga- Acquiring freedom from fear and acquiring spiritual powers through the practice of Mantra. ---Osho Priya ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hatha Yoga – The Path of Breathing I am suffering from hyperthyroid. This ailment leads to a package full of other disorders. To live with so many physical problems is dragging rather than living a life. One day Mrs.Toor (Ma Om Surinder), one of the participant of the program's, sought an appointment with me. She saw me limping, so she asked, "what is the matter? You don't seem physically fir. Is everything all right with your legs? Are you having pain anywhere in your body?" I said, "There is a beautiful Hindi song that says- 'people who have smiles on their face has flays in their feet.' Don't ask me where the pain is. The list of my physical problems is endless. I will be more comfortable to point out the places where there is no pain. If you still wish to know a little, then I would say that my knees are jammed, my back pains and my legs are swollen." Mrs. Toor said, "I was also suffering from similar problems." "You must be joking. You look so fit and fine," I said. "Yes I am fit now. But a few years back I was so much in pain that it was very difficult for me to even walk. But then I started doing yoga and slowly my pains were nowhere to be found," she said. I was impressed by her story. I felt like experimenting with yogic techniques. Besides, I had nothing left to lose. I started doing yoga, exercises, daily, without fail. Results were phenomenal. Words like miracle, mammoth, incredible sounds perfect to explain the relief I got from Yoga. Now I can sit with folded legs, in Vajrasan, the way Muslims sit while offering their prayers. Life, that was slowly becoming a drag because of ailments, has now become a sanctuary. Watching the breathing pattern had always been very natural with my way of living. The alchemical practice of Asana, Pranayama, Mudra, Bandha, Khatkarmas and being aware of breathing has incredible impact on our body and mind. Hatha yoga is related to Manipur or the Third Chakra. It is the path of being aware of breathing while remembering the inner self. It has following segments:

Asanas- These are body postures which help in balancing body, breathing and mind. There are 84 Asanas; prominent among them are Padmasan, Shawasan, Halasan, Sarvang Asan, Shirsasan, Bhujangasan, etc. Pranayams – These are breathing patterns which help in balancing breathing and mind. Bhastrika, Nadi Shodhan, Sheetali, Sheetkari, Bhramari, Kumbhak are prominent Pranayams. Mudra – These are hand postures which help in balancing breathing and mind. There are 25 Mudras, prominent ones being Gyan Mudra, Chinmudra, Shambhvi Mudra, Nasikagra Dristi, Manduki Mudra etc. Bundh – This is contraction of a body organ while holding the breath. This helps in balancing breathing and mind and activates the chakras. Mool Bandh, Jalandhar Bandh, Uddiyaman Bandh, Jalandhar Bandh are prominent Bundhs. Kshatkarma – Techniques used for purification of body are known as Khatkarmas. There are six main Kashatkarmas: Neti, Dhauti, Nauli, Basti, Kapal Bhati and Tratak. For details of Hath Yoga other books may be consulted. ------Osho Priya -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bhakti Yoga – The Path of Devotion The path of spirituality would be like a desert without an oasis, if the element of love were missing in it. My first experience of love was when I had entered my adolescence. I was besotted by Shailendra ji when I first saw him at Osho Ashram at Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India. I had gone there to celebrate Osho's birthday, with my family. That time I was studying in 9th standard. I liked his face so much that I wanted to see him again and again. But much to my disappointment, constrains were such that I was blessed with this opportunity only once every year and that was on Osho's birthday celebration. His face left a strong imprint in my mind. When I was undertaking my education for Bachelor's Degree, I made friendship with an Osho sannyasin, who was studying with me in my college. She was the daughter of Osho's childhood friend and shared family relations with Osho's family. I opened my heart to her and told her about my fondness for Shailendra ji. I said to her that I find his face so divine that I could experience meditation just by gazing at his divine face. She shared good friendly relations with Shailendra ji. One day she conveyed my feelings for him. Much to my surprise, this time when I went for Osho's birthday celebration, Shailendra ji responded to me with so much warmth. I was tongue-tied and almost stammering when he first started the conversation. Soon he started coming to my house. Now I can say that love reverberates and it always dose get a response. Soon the cycle of our love life started rolling. I experienced cadence of emotions in my love for Shailendra ji. My relations with him have shown me almost all the colors of other centered love and emotions. Gradually the intensity of my love and feelings grew and we decided to get married. After marriage we started living in Pune Ashram. After a few years Osho left for Rajneeshpuram, Oregoan, USA. Shailendra ji also went along. But life had planned something else for me. The toughest phase of my life started as I was left behind for around 10 months due to some visa problem. This was the phase of longing and suffering. Since my love was other centered, my entire energy was moving out towards Shailendra ji. The feeling of insecurity, missing, self-forgetfulness had put me in immense despair, so much so that I fell sick and attenuated. Due to numerous reasons I was unable to keep a regular communication with Shailendra ji. Without Shailendra ji I felt as if I were living in hell. I felt empty and incomplete as if he has taken away my entire bliss, my happiness, my pleasure, my ecstasy along with him. I looked cadaverous. I was living each day in a hope, maybe today, I will get some news of my husband. But with every passing day I was beset with even more pain. The moment came when I reached the climax of my misery without him.

One day while working in the garden of Osho Ashram in Pune, I was looking at the flowers with totality, as if I was seeing the glimpse of my beloved in them. In those moments someone, who was going to Rajneeshpuram, approached me. I gave the letter for Shailendra ji and also kept some flowers along. This gesture became such an intense moment of my love that I was filled with the presence of my beloved. I felt Shailendra ji so close to me as if the distance of time and space disappeared. My love for him gave me the first glimpse of self-centered love. The feeling of uncertainty and the fear of losing something were nowhere left in me. For the first ime I came back on myself. I started doing things that gave me pleasure. I started listening to music, singing, cooking food of my choice, gardening, and being with the nature. Slowly, I found that I was filled with my own presence, self-remembrance along with remembrance of the love of Shailendra ji. My morning started becoming more joyful. This self-remembrance was happening on its own. This was the beginning of my self-centered love. Soon I got the chance to go to Rajneeshpurum. I stayed there for four years and we returned to India together. My husband got a job in Amlai, Madhya Pradesh, India, and we stayed there for 12 years. We were enjoying a happy married life over there. Our life was devoted to spiritual pursuits. Meditation remained the foremost precedence for us. Osho left his body in 1990 and there was a profound frustration, as we felt that now there would be no one to guide us to experience Divinity. We lost all hopes, as we were not proficient enough to experience enlightenment on our own. Although, our life was going on smoothly but our spiritual path reached a dead end. Just around the same time Osho Siddhartha ji came to visit us and invited us to attend Samadhi Pragya Program. My husband and I were in the first batch of 21 people to attend the Samadhi Pragya Program under his guidance. Gradually, while undertaking the program, a deep love and trust grew for him. We developed confidence that we would be able to experience what Osho, Nanak, Kabir, Buddha, Mahavir and many other saints had experienced. The presence of Osho Siddhartha ji (Bare Swami ji) brought hope along with festivity in our life. Our journey of spirituality became piece of cake under his guidelines and blessings. Swami ji now wanted us to work with him. He wanted us to take programs with him and trained us for the same. We came to Chitwan, Nepal for the first time in 1998 and started living there since 1999. On occasions, Swami ji had to go back to his family and attend his job. His absence was really unpleasant and bothered me. I could not see him away from me even for a single day. He was my Living Master and the centre of my life. Without his physical presence I would feel lost and everything would go hay why. On one occasion I was again left alone in Nepal for some time, as Swami ji had gone to Bilaspur, Madhya Pradesh and Shailendra ji had gone to Japan to conduct Anand Pragya Program. An inspiration came from within to use this aloneness to go back to myself. Swami ji had given me the secrets of samadhi and the knowledge of Omkar.

Since I had hardly any work and was free of all the responsibilities, I started going into samadhi for 8 to 10 hours daily. I had deep experiences of samadhi. By now the love for my Living Master had also transformed into pure trust and selfremembrance. I could feel his grace, love, and compassion surrounding me all the time. I was so much filled with self-remembrance and at the same time the presence of the Living Master that distance of space and time seemed irrelevant. This time I was lucky enough to have been in regular touch with Swami ji as he was just a phone call away. Sharing my experience with him on the phone and getting further guidelines for my sadhna from him was always inspiring. This time when Swami ji returned to Nepal, looking at me he said, "Dawn has come, the petals of flowers are cracking, and anytime the flower of enlightenment will bloom." Swami ji told everyone that in few months we would celebrate the birth of a new born Buddha. I took a quantum leap in my sadhna when my devotion became self-centered. I have so much trust, love, and devotion towards Swami ji that whatever he says is ultimate for me. If there is anything equivalent to Divinity for me, then it is Swami ji. What I learnt and experienced as Bhakti Yoga in his guidance, now I would like to share. Bhakti Yoga is related to Anahat or Heart Chakra. It is the path of love, trust and devotion while remembering the Self. It has following steps: Being in love with someone and making him or her center of our life. This is the stage of other-centered love or impure love, since it invariably has element of hate and selfforgetfulness. Being in love with the Self. Feeling love waves from our beloved coming towards us. This is Self – Centered love or pure love. This is Meditation. This is the stage of Pure Love. It leads into Self-Remembering. Trusting someone as the Master, and making Him the center of our life. This is other centered or impure trust, since it always has element of doubt and self-forgetfulness. Feeling the grace of the Master coming towards us. This is pure trust. It again leads into Self – Remembering. Seeing the presence of the Divinity in the Master and gradually in whole of the Existence. This is impure devotion, since it has element of contemplation and selfforgetfulness. Realizing grace of the Divinity and feeling showering of Divine grace coming towards us all the time. This is pure devotion. It leads into self-remembering. ------Osho Priya

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Gyan Yoga- The Path of Wisdom The world that we live in today is truly a world of intellectuals. Studying, thinking, contemplating, sharing, and improving our understanding through intellectual endeavors appear to be the natural path for men of our times. Therefore, I would like to discuss this path, Gyan Yoga or the Path of Wisdom in some detail. This path is connected with Vishuddha or fifth Chakra. It has five sub-paths: Dharna Yoga –The Path of Contemplation Swadhyay Yoga –The Path of Understanding Moun Yoga – The Path of Thought- Witnessing Sannyas Yoga –The Path of Renunciation Maitri Yoga –The Path of Friendship The Path of Contemplation: It is a journey from contemplation to realization, from intuition to individuality, from intellect to intelligence, from personality to individuality, from ego to pure consciousness. Contemplation means remaining concerned with one object, thinking about it , imagining about it. We forget the whole world except the object of our contemplation. It may be face of our beloved or the master. Sightism, mesmerism, hypnotism are also connected with this path. However, its main pillar is contemplation with self awareness. Most of the spiritual traditions teach contemplation of Master’s face in the inner sky for this purpose. Vigyan Bhairav Tantra teaches 112 methods of contemplation. Osho has talked on these methods in ‘The Book of Secrets.’ The Path of Self Study : Study of scriptures and study of our own book of life through the Eightfold path is included in this path. The Path of Thought- Witnessing : Our mind continuously goes on thinking. Watching our thoughts is a wonderful method to get rid of them. Through this process we are left with pure consciousness. The Path of Renunciation: There are six main obstacles in the spiritual path, which we are to drop for purification of our mind – desire, anger, greed, attachment, jealousy and hostility . They are described below: Desire is expectation of results as per our objective or expecting from others to act as per our choice. Such desire is rooted in the fiction that favorable results are good and unfavorable results are bad for us. If we drop our fiction, we can be free from desire. Anger is reaction against fulfillment of our desires (expectation). We can manage anger by dealing it in three parts:

Accumulated anger or Anger of the past Present Anger Future anger We can treat past accumulated anger through catharsis, present anger by remaining Sakshi or witness, and future anger by understanding of our ghost. Greed is wanting more and more of what we have already got. We can get rid of our greed by sharing a part of our possessions regularly. Attachment is clinging to our possessions. Love of the self can make us free from attachments. Jealousy is a heart-consuming when we find some one in a comparatively better position. Self respect and respect to the people involved in this game can make us free from jealousy. Hostility is thinking ill of others. Forgiveness, breakthrough and putting our energy in creativity can take us out of hostility. The Path of Friendship : Maslow gives belongingness an important place in the hierarchy of human needs. Because of this need man is considered to be a social animal. Unless there is something to call our own, life loses its charm. It may be our spouse, parents, children, family, pets, home, village, town, state, country, continent or the planet. It may be our lover, beloved, friend or a Master. It may be a commune of the Master, or the Divine Existence. We always look for someone, with whom we like to relate and share. There may be so many factors for belongingness. It may be love, marriage friendship, team, relationship, business, birth, birth place, proximity of living, neighborhood, cast, creed, religion, language, ethnicity, alma mater, organization, common hobby, cotravelling or anything. That is why belongingness has much higher scope than love. Love is included in belongingness, but the latter is not included in the former. Belongingness is our root. As plants cannot exist without roots, we can not exist without belongingness. However, it requires great wisdom to turn our belongingness into friendship and realize the True Self through this path. Gyan Yoga is basically a path of friendship. It has five stages:  Worldly Friendship  Self – Friendship  Spiritual Friendship  Seeker’s Friendship  Divine Friendship Worldly Friendship happens when our worldly relationships go very deep and take the form of friendship. There are three types of relationships:  Intellectual, such as relationship between a teacher and a student.

 

Loving, such as between mother and child, between brothers, between husband and wife. Friendly, such as between co-disciples.

Intellectual relationship is superficial. Love is deeper, but tends to be binding and possessive. Friendship gives freedom. One person can have thousands of friends. That is why friendship ultimately becomes the greatest way to take us towards the divine. Friendship is higher than so-called love. Our so-called love is sex oriented. Friendliness is freedom from sex, freedom from biology.There is nothing more valuable than friendship. It is the purest kind of love. It has a higher quality than love. Love has passion, friendship compassion. Love has sympathy, friedship has empathy. Love is jealous, friendship is non-jealous. We can be friendly to as many people as we wish. We can be friendly to the whole existence. Friendship is higher and more spiritual. Unless friendship grows, love is bound to fail. Sooner or later the romance of love will disappear and if the friendship has not grown by that time then the relationship is destined to fail. Let friendship be the climax of love and all our relationships. Self Friendship is the next step. Once we start being friendly to others, we can become friendly to ourselves. Once we start respecting others, we can start respecting ourselves. Spiritual Friendship is being disciple of a Master. Once we become friendly to ourselves, we start thinking how we can be happy , how can we grow. Our exploration ultimately leads to our Master, our spiritual guide. We become his disciple. We start feeling a deep respect, a deep gratitude, a spiritual friendship towards him. We start feeling his blessings, his compassion. This takes us a great leap forward towards the divinity. Seeker’s Friendship is the next step. It means friendship of two companions, two seekers, who are in search of the divine, search for truth. Such a friendship is possible only around a Master, because he will function as the center of the commune of spiritual friends. The path of divine is arduous, hazardous. There is every possibility of getting lost. It is easier if people move with friends. Such a commune of friends gathers only around a Living Master, whose light, whose wisdom, permeates into the being of his disciples too. Divine Friendship is being friendly to the whole existence. Then the existence starts revealing its secrets. But one can feel this only when one falls into a deep intimacy with existence. That intimacy is divine friendship. Then a gratitude is felt coming from all directions. We start feeling compassion and friendship of the whole existence. -------Osho Priya

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Dhyan Yoga- The Path of Choice less Awareness My introduction with religious studies started when I was just a child. I remember my father practiced meditation techniques as taught by Swami Manukrishna, who in turn had learned them from Osho. My father used to take me along to the burning place, hills and on the riversides and would ask me to listen to all that existence has to offer and watch my breathing pattern. From now onwards watching my breathing pattern and listening became the way of my living. I would observe the following technique while going and coming from my school. My school was around two miles away from my home. In those days, I use to walk my way down, to and from, my house to the school. The entire travel became a meditation as I would be watching every incoming and outgoing breath. This technique to watch the breathing is popularly known as Vipassana. Now when I look back and after knowing the experience of many sadhaks I conclude that Vipassana makes one absentminded as one is involved in watching the process of breathing and the entire exercise makes one forget oneself. This forgetfulness was an interesting endowment of Vipassana I lived with for a long time. My husband was really tired with this habit of mine as he was accustomed with near perfection and seeing everything in order. My mother in law was another extreme to me, i.e., she was fussy about all her belongings and work. Even at such an old age her memory was razor-sharp. It would take no time for her to find the things she had kept. She was so sick of my habit that she kept my name ‘Khabar-bhullu’ (one who forgets all the news). The moment she would address me with this name it would abate my confidence and upset me. Words from her were never in vain for me. I fail to understand how I would get free from this habit of mine. One day an inspiration came from within from where the right beginning of my understanding and practice of meditation started. Whenever I would keep some important belonging I would stop and wait for a while. I used to look at the place where I had kept the thing, then I would look at the thing, then look at myself with total awareness, I started commanding myself, “Now dear, don’t you forget this time”. A miracle happened, my memory improved. Now everything seemed in such a perfect order. This automatically became a part of my meditation in my life.

Before this I was just doing my work forgetting about myself that was taking me away from self-remembrance. I started becoming more and more aware of my surroundings with practice of self-remembrance. Meditation became a journey from worldly awareness to inner awareness. I would like to share with my readers what I perceive of meditation now. Generally our mind is occupied with objects of the world. We are not aware of our inner self. This is the non-meditative state. We are viewer and the objects are view. Before understanding meditation we must understand Outer Space, Outer World, Inner World and Inner Space. Outer Space includes all the forms and the surrounding space perceived through our senses. Outer World includes all the forms we relate with. Inner World is the effect of outer world and happenings in our body and mind. Inner Space is formless being, which is the core of our consciousness. Meditation starts with Objective Awareness or being Observer or DRASTA. We become aware of our doings, sensuality, breathing, feeling, thinking, visualizing, etc .We can call this watching the circumference. This is the state of Objective Awareness. In other words Observer is being aware of our inner world. This is first state of meditation. The second stage is watching our center as well as the circumference, watching our being as well as the happenings. This is the state of Total Awareness, SAKSHI or Witnessing. For example, we can be aware of our doings as well as the watcher's self, the being. In other words, Total Awareness is being aware of outer world, outer space, inner world and Inner space. The Third stage is remembering the undisturbed consciousness, no mind or the no-man’s land between inner world and the inner space. This is Meditative Awareness or Meditation. Meditation is a state of no-mind. It is neither concentration nor contemplation. In concentration, mind concentrates. In contemplation, the mind contemplates. In meditation, the mind simply disappears. Meditation is the process of coming to our self: leaving the body, mind, and heart, everything coming out to a point where there is nothing to be eliminated. In meditation everything is dropped, but we remain in an intense state of awareness. The fourth stage is Subjective Awareness, Such ness or TATHATA, which is being aware of the inner space.

The fifth stage is Just Awareness, which is being grounded in the bottom of the Inner Space. This is the stage of Samadhi. Thus Yoga has two parts. The first part is Meditation or DHYAN, which is a journey from Objective Awareness to No Man’s land between Objective and Subjective Awareness. The second part is Samadhi, which is being grounded in the bottom of the inner space. Generally we live outside our Inner Self or The Circle of Consciousness. We do not remain even at our circumference of consciousness. We are not aware of our doings, sensuality, breathing, feeling, thinking, visualizing, etc. Meditation gives us a breakthrough. It brings us within circle of our consciousness. It takes us to the circumference, then towards the center. In Rajneeshpurum, Osho loved to go out driving. On his driveway we sannyasins waited for hours together to greet our beloved Master by standing on both sides in line. There was a small choir of musicians who would be palying different instruments and often singing songs of love and gratitude for our most beautiful Master. During those days I was playing drums for the choir. One of the most precious and cherished moments of my life is when on one occasion Osho stopped his car right on front of me. Ah! It was real bliss. Just a look of his eyes melted me. He raised both his hands in a gesture that asked me to play faster, faster, faster and faster. I am not a professional drummer, but that day the sticks were rolling on the drums so fast as if horses were flying in the race. In that moment I felt myself as pure and total witness to my actions. I became a choice less observer to every single stroke on the drums. In this process I learnt the essence of Dhyan Yoga. Dhyan Yoga or the Raj Yoga is the path of Total Awareness or Choice less awareness. It is related to AJNA CHAKRA. Many techniques are used to activate the AJNA CHAKRA. Tratak, Shivnetra, Mandal, Gourishankar are some of the main meditation techniques. Dhyan yoga consists of Dhyan, Zen or Meditation. It means going beyond the mind and entering into silence, where nothing disturbs, where we are left with only a pure emptiness. Dhyan Yoga means living in a state of choice less awareness. That is why it is called Raj Yoga – the royal path. The king is not supposed to do anything. Servants do. The king is not supposed to do anything. He simply sits on his throne and things happen. There are so many people to do it. That’s why it is called Raja yoga – the path of the king. In that relaxation it happens. ------Osho Priya

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Sankhya Yoga—The Path of Subjective Awareness One of the greatest challenges of singing, I have ever faced in my life, was singing Mahageeta, a great composition of Swami ji. I was in my satori those days and my energy was always at the crown centre. I was grounded in pure awareness. Therefore, the moment I started singing, I fell in samadhi. Our sound recordist was at a loss as to what to do. Swami ji understood the problem and very paitently helped the recordist to complete the job. Mahageeta is a conversation between Ashtavakra, a great Master, and king Janak, a great disciple on the subject of Sankhya Yoga. Now let me tell you what it is. Sankhya Yoga is related with Sahasrar or Crown Chakra. It says that neither there is any path nor any journey. You are already there. Just be aware. Just break your false identities with body, mind, desires and ego. Just feel that you are pure awareness, the essence. The tradition of sankhya says that nothing is to be done. Only knowing is enough; only awareness is enough. All other paths of Yoga have awareness as the common factor. For example, a Karma Yogi is one who adds meditation to the world of action, a Gyan Yogi is one who adds meditation to thought, and a Bhakti Yogi adds meditation to emotion and feeling. Through these paths one can approach the witness. But, the fundamental thing is awareness. It is just like taking medicine with honey, milk or water. But the medicine is the same. Only the medium is different – honey, milk or water. It doesn’t make much difference. A Sankhya Yoga says that take the medicine straight. And that medicine is subjective awareness. Sankhya Yoga says that all identities with body, mind, heart are false. We have to know our true identity as pure awareness. In pure awareness the mind cannot drag us in anger, hatred, jealousy. Our whole being is in a profound silence, where there is no ripple of thought, where time and space disappear. And just a pure consciousness remains. Everything leads to this pure awareness.It is just the empty sky. It is just awareness, the essence. Awareness has no object to it. It is pure subjectivity. It is a grounding in our being. It is a centering in our being. It is relaxing, forgetting the body, forgetting the mind,just remembering that we are pure consciousness, just an awareness. And without going anywhere we arrive home. We come to our innermost center where there is only pure awareness with no identity, with no personality, with no ego. We have to detach ourselves and be a witness. Let our mind do whatsoever it is doing, but let us not get identified with it. We are pure awareness. We are just awareness. -----Osho Priya

The Eight Limbs of Yoga THE EIGHT STEPS OF YOGA ARE: YAM, SELF-RESTRAINT; NIYAM, FIXED OBSERVANCE; ASAN, POSTURE; PRANAYAM, BREATH REGULATION; PRATYAHAR, ABSTRACTION; DHARANA, CONCENTRATION; DHYAN, CONTEMPLATION; SAMADHI, TRANCE.

The eight steps of yoga. This is the whole science of yoga in one sentence, in one seed. Many things are implied. First, let me tell you the exact meaning of each step. And remember, Patanjali calls them steps and limbs, both. They are both. Steps they are because one has to be followed by another, there is a sequence of growth. But they are not only steps: they are limbs of the body of yoga. They have an internal unity, an organic unity also, that is the meaning of limbs. For example, my hands, my feet, my heart -- they don't function separately. They are not separate; they are an organic unity. If the heart stops, the hand will not move then. Everything is joined together. They are not just like steps on a ladder, because every rung on the ladder is separate. If one rung is broken the whole ladder is not broken. So Patanjali says they are steps, because they have a certain, sequential growth -- but they are also angas. Limbs of a body, organic. You cannot drop any of them. Steps can be dropped; limbs cannot be dropped. You can jump two steps in one jump, you can drop one step, but limbs cannot be dropped; they are not mechanical parts. You cannot remove them. They make you. They belong to the whole; they are not separate. The whole functions through them as a harmonious unit. So these eight limbs of yoga are both steps, steps in the sense that each follows the other, and they are in a deep relationship. The second cannot come before the first -- the first has to be first and the second has to be second. And the eighth will come to be the eighth -- it cannot be the fourth, it cannot be the first. So they are steps and they are an organic unity also. Yam means self-restraint. In English the word becomes a little different. Not a little different, really, the whole meaning of yam is lost -- because in English selfrestraint looks like suppressing, repressing. And these two words, suppression and repression, after Freud, have become four-letter words, ugly. Self-restraint is not repression. In the days when Patanjali used the word yam it had a totally different meaning. Words go on changing. Even now, in India also, samyam, which comes from yam, means control, repression. The meaning is lost. You may have heard an anecdote. It is said about King George I of England that he went to see St. John's Cathedral when it was built. It was a masterpiece of art. The builder, the architect, the artist, was present there; his name was

Christopher Wren. The king looked at him and complimented him. He said three words: he said, "It is amusing. It is awful. It is artificial." Christopher Wren was so delighted with the compliments... but you will be simply surprised. Those words don't have the same meaning anymore. In those days, three hundred years before, amusing used to mean amazing, awful used to mean awe-inspiring, and artificial used to mean artistic. Each word has a biography, and it changes many times. As life changes, everything changes: the words take new colors. And, in fact, the words which have the capacity to change, only they remain alive; otherwise they go dead. Orthodox words, reluctant to change, they die. Alive words, who have the capacity to collect a new meaning around them, only they live; and they live in many, many meanings, for centuries. Yam was a beautiful word in Patanjali's days, one of the beautiful.... After Freud, the word has become ugly -- not only the meaning has changed, but the whole flavor, the whole taste of the word. To Patanjali self-restraint does not mean to repress oneself. It simply means to direct one's life -- not to repress the energies, but to direct, to give them a direction. Because you can live such a life, which goes on moving in opposite directions, in many directions -- then you will never reach anywhere. It is just like a car: the driver goes a few miles to the north, then changes the mind; goes a few miles to the south, then changes the mind; then goes a few miles to the west, then changes the mind; and goes on this way. He will die where he was born. He will never reach anywhere. He will never have the feeling of fulfillment. You can go on moving in many ways, but unless you have a direction you are moving uselessly. You will feel more and more frustrated and nothing else. To create a self-restraint means, first, to give a direction to your life energy. Life energy is limited. If you go on using it in absurd. undirected ways, you will not reach anywhere. You will be emptied of the energy sooner or later -- and that emptiness will not be the emptiness of a Buddha; it will be simply a negative emptiness. nothing inside, an empty container. You will be dead before you are dead. But these limited energies that have been given to you by nature, existence, God, or whatsoever you like to call it; these limited energies can be used in such a way that they can become the door for the unlimited. If you move rightly, if you move consciously, if you move alert, gathering all your energies and moving in one direction, if you are not a crowd but become an individual -- that is the meaning of yam…. If you are not an individual, a unitary being, wherever you are, you will always be missing. You will never be at home anywhere You will always be going somewhere or other and never arriving anywhere. You will become mad. The life which is against yam will become mad. It is not surprising that in the West more mad people exist than in the East. The East -- knowingly, unknowingly -- still follows a life of a little self-restraint. In the West to think about self-restraint looks like becoming a slave; to be against self-restraint looks like you are free, independent. But unless you are an individual you cannot be free. Your freedom

will be a deception; it will be nothing but suicide. You will kill yourself, destroy your possibilities, your energies; and one day you will feel that the whole life you tried so much but nothing has been gained, no growth has come out of it. Self-restraint means, the first meaning: to give a direction to life. Self-restraint means to become a little more centered. How can you become a little more centered? Once you give a direction to your life, immediately a center starts happening within you. Direction creates the center; then the center gives direction. And they are mutually fulfilling. Unless you are self-restrained, the second is not possible -- that s why Patanjali calls them steps. The second is Niyam, fixed observance: a life which bas a discipline, a life which has a regularity about it, a life which is lived in a very disciplined way, not hectic. Regularity... but that too will sound to you like slavery. All beautiful words of Patanjali's time have become ugly now.... Unless you have a regularity in your life, a discipline, you will be a slave of your instincts -- and you may think this is freedom, but you will be a slave of all the vagrant thoughts. That is not freedom. You may not have any visible master, but you will have many invisible masters within you; and they will go on dominating you. Only a man who has a regularity about him can become the master someday. That too is far away still, because the real master happens only when the eighth step is achieved -- that is the goal. Then a man becomes a jina, a conqueror. Then a man becomes a Buddha, one who is awakened. Then a man becomes a Christ, a savior, because if you are saved, suddenly, you become a savior for others. Not that you try to save them: just your presence is a saving influence. The second is niyam, fixed observance. The third is Posture. And every step comes out of the first, the preceding one: when you have regularity in life, only then can you attain to posture, asan. Try asan sometimes; just try to sit silently. You cannot sit -- the body tries to revolt against you. Suddenly you start feeling pain here and there. The legs are going dead. Suddenly you feel, on many spots of the body, a restlessness. You had never felt it. Why is it that just sitting silently so many problems arise? You feel ants are crawling up. Look, and you will see there are no ants; the body is deceiving you. The body is not ready to be disciplined. The body is spoiled. The body does not want to listen to you. It has become its own master. And you have always followed it. Now, even to sit silently for a few minutes has become almost impossible. People pass through such hell if you tell them to just sit silently. If I say this to somebody he says, "Just to sit silently, not doing anything?" -- as if "doing" is an obsession. He says, "At least give me a mantra so I can go on chanting inside." He needs some occupation. Just sitting silently seems to be difficult. And that is

the most beautiful possibility that can happen to a man: just sitting silently doing nothing. Asan means a relaxed posture. You are so relaxed in it, you are so restful in it, that there is no need to move the body at all. In that moment, suddenly, you transcend body. The body is trying to bring you down when the body says, "Now look, many ants are crawling on," or you suddenly feel an urge to scratch, itching. The body is saying, "Don't go so far away. Come back. Where are you going?" -- because the consciousness is moving upwards, going far away from the bodily existence. Hmm?... the body starts revolting. You have never done such a thing. The body creates problems for you because once the problem is there, you will have to come back. The body is asking for your attention: "Give your attention." It will create pain. It will create itching; you will feel like scratching. Suddenly the body is no longer ordinary; the body is in revolt. It is a body politics. You are being called back: "Don't go so far away, be occupied. Remain here" -- remain tethered to the body and to the earth. You are moving towards the sky, and the body feels afraid. Asan comes only to a person who lives a life of restraint, fixed observance, regularity; then posture is possible. Then you can simply sit because the body knows that you are a disciplined man. If you want to sit, you will sit -- nothing can be done against you. The body can go on saying things... by and by it stops. Nobody is there to listen. It is not suppression; you are not suppressing the body. On the contrary, the body is trying to suppress you. It is not suppression. You are not saying anything for the body to do; you are simply resting. But the body does not know any rest because you have never given rest to it. You have always been restless. The very word asan means rest, to be in deep rest; and if you can do that, many things will become possible to you. If the body can be in rest, then you can regulate your breathing You are moving deeper, because breath is the bridge from the body to the soul, from the body to the mind. If you can regulate breathing -- that is pranayam -- you have power over your mind. Have you ever watched that whenever the mind changes, the rhythm of the breath immediately changes? If you do the opposite -- if you change that rhythm of the breath -- the mind has to change immediately. When you are angry you cannot breathe silently; otherwise the anger will disappear. Try. When you are feeling angry your breath goes chaotic, it becomes irregular, loses all rhythm, becomes noisy, restless. It is no longer a harmony. A discord starts being there; the accord is lost. Try one thing: whenever you are getting angry just relax and let the breath be in rhythm. Suddenly you will feel the anger has disappeared. The anger cannot exist without a particular type of breathing in your body.

When you are making love the breath changes, becomes very violent. When you are very much filled with sexuality, the breath changes, becomes very violent. Sex has a little violence in it. Lovers are known to bite each other and sometimes harm each other. And if you see two persons making love, you will see that some sort Or fighting is going on. There is a little violence in it. And both are breathing chaotically; their breathings are not in rhythm, not in unison. In tantra, where much has been done about sex and the transformation of sex, they have worked very much on the rhythm of the breath. If two lovers, while making love, can remain in a rhythmic breathing, in unison, that both have the same rhythm, there will be no ejaculation. They can make love for hours, because ejaculation is possible only when the breath is not in rhythm; only then can the body throw the energy. If the breath is in rhythm, the body absorbs the energy; it never throws it out. Tantra developed many techniques of changing the rhythm of breath. Then you can make love for hours and you don't lose energy. Rather on the contrary you gain, because if a woman loves a man and a man loves a woman, they help each other to be recharged -- because they are opposite energies. When opposite energies meet and spark, they charge each other; otherwise energy is lost and, after the lovemaking, you feel a little cheated, deceived -- so much promise and nothing comes in hand, the hands remain empty. After asan comes breath regulation, pranayam. Watch for a few days and just take notes: when you become angry what is the rhythm of your breathing -whether exhalation is long or inhalation is long or they are the same, or inhalation is very small and exhalation very long, or exhalation very small, inhalation very long. Just watch the proportion of inhalation and exhalation. When you are sexually aroused, watch, take a note. When sometimes sitting silently and looking at the sky in the night, everything is quiet around you. just take note of how your breath is going. When you are feeling filled with compassion, watch, note down. When you are in a fighting mood, watch, note down. Just make a chart of your own breathing. and then you know much. And pranayam is not something which can be taught to you. You have to discover it because everybody has a different rhythm to his breathing. Everybody's breathing and its rhythm is as much different as thumbprints. Breathing is an individual phenomenon, that's why I never teach it. You have to discover your own rhythm. Your rhythm may not be a rhythm for somebody else, or may be harmful for somebody else. Your rhythm -- you have to find. And that is not difficult. There is no need to ask any expert. Just keep a chart for one month of all your moods and states. Then you know which is the rhythm where you feel most restful, relaxed, in a deep let-go; which is the rhythm where you feel quiet, calm, collected, cool; which is the rhythm when, suddenly, you feel

blissful. filled with something unknown, overflowing -- you have so much in that moment, you can give to the whole world and it will not be exhausted. Feel and watch the moment when you feel that you are one with the universe, when you feel the separateness is there no more, a bridge. When you feel one with the trees and the birds. and the rivers and the rocks, and the ocean and the sand -watch You will find that there are many rhythms of your breath, a great spectrum: from the most violent, ugly, miserable hell-type, to the most silent heaven-type. And then when you have discovered your rhythm, practice it -- make it a part of your life. By and by it becomes unconscious; then you only breathe in that rhythm. And with that rhythm your life will be a life bf a yogi: you will not be angry, you will not feel so sexual, you will not feel so filled with hatred. Suddenly you will feel a transmutation is happening to you. Pranayam is one of the greatest discoveries that has even happened to human consciousness. Compared to pranayam, going to the moon is nothing. It looks very exciting, but it is nothing, because even if you reach to the moon, what will you do there? Even if you reach to the moon you will remain the same. You will do the same nonsense that you are doing here. Pranayam is an inner journey. And pranayam is the fourth -- and there are only eight steps. Half the journey is completed on pranayam. A man who has learned pranayam, not by a teacher -- because that is a false thing, I don't approve of it -- but by his own discovery and alertness, a man who has learned his rhythm of being, has achieved half the goal already. Pranayam is one of the most significant discoveries. And after pranayam, breath regulation, is Pratyahar, abstraction. Pratyahar is the same as I was talking to you about yesterday. The "repent" of Christians is, in fact, in Hebrew "return" -- not repent but return, going back. The toba of Mohammedans is nothing; it is not "repenting." That too has become colored with the meaning of repentance; toba is also returning back. And pratyahar is also returning back, coming back -- coming in, turning in, returning home. After pranayam that is possible -- pratyahar -- because pranayam will give you the rhythm. Now you know the whole spectrum: you know in what rhythm you are nearest to home and in what rhythm you are farthest from yourself. Violent, sexual, angry, jealous, possessive, you will find you are far away from yourself; in compassion, in love, in prayer, in gratitude, you will find yourself nearer home. After pranayam, pratyahar, return, is possible. Now you know the way -- then you already know how to step backwards. Then comes Dharana. After pratyahar, when you have started coming back nearer home, coming nearer your innermost core, you are just at the gate of your own being. pratyahar brings you near the gate; pranayam is the bridge from the out to the in. Pratyahar, returning, is the gate, and then is the possibility of dharana, concentration. Now you can become capable of bringing your mind to

one object. First, you gave direction to your body; first, you gave direction to your life energy -- now you give direction to your consciousness. Now the consciousness cannot be allowed to go anywhere and everywhere. Now it has to be brought to a goal. This goal is concentration, dharana: you fix your consciousness on one point. When consciousness is fixed on one point thoughts cease, because thoughts are possible only when your consciousness goes on wavering -- from here to there, from there to somewhere else. When your consciousness is continuously jumping like a monkey, then there are many thoughts and your whole mind is just filled with crowds -- a marketplace. Now there is a possibility -- after pratyahar, pranayam, there is a possibility -- you can concentrate on one point. If you can concentrate on one point, then the possibility of dhyan. In concentration you bring your mind to one point. In dhyan you drop that point also. Now you are totally centered, nowhere-going -- because if you are going anywhere it is always going out. Even a single thought in concentration is something outside you -- object exists; you are not alone, there are two. Even in concentration there are two: the object and you. After concentration the object has to be dropped. All the temples lead you only up to concentration. They cannot lead you beyond because all the temples have an object in them: the image of God is an object to concentrate on. All the temples lead you only up to dharana, concentration. That's why the higher a religion goes, the temple and the image disappear. They have to disappear. The temple should be absolutely empty, so that only you are there -- nobody, nobody else, no object: pure subjectivity. Dhyan is pure subjectivity, contemplation -- not contemplating "something," because if you are contemplating something it is concentration. In English there are no better words. Concentration means something is there to concentrate upon. Dhyan is meditation: nothing is there, everything dropped, but you are in an intense state of awareness. The object has dropped, but the subject has not fallen into sleep. Deeply concentrated, without any object, centered -- but still the feeling of "I" will persist. It will hover. The object has fallen, but the subject is still there. You still feel you are. This is not ego. In Sanskrit we have two words, ahankar and asmita. Ahankar means "I am." And asmita means 'am.' Just "amness" -- no ego exists, just the shadow is left. You still feel, somehow, you are. It is not a thought, because if it is a thought. that "I am," it is an ego. In meditation the ego has disappeared completely; but an amness, a shadowlike phenomenon, just a feeling, hovers around you -- just a mist-like thing, that just in the morning hovers around you. In meditation it is morning. the sun has not risen yet, it is misty: asmita, amness, is still there.

You can still fall back. A slight disturbance -- somebody talking and you listen -meditation has disappeared; you have come back to concentration. If you not only listen but you have started thinking about it, even concentration has disappeared; you have come back to pratyahar. And if not only are you thinking but you have become identified with the thinking, pratyahar has disappeared; you have fallen to pranayam. And if the thought has taken so much possession of you that your breathing rhythm is lost, pranayam has disappeared: you have fallen to asan. But if the thought and the breathing are so much disturbed that the body starts shaking or becomes restless. Asan has disappeared. They are related. One can fall from meditation. Meditation is the most dangerous point in the world, because that is the highest point from where you can fall, and you can fall badly. In India we have a word, yogabhrasta: one who has fallen from yoga. This word is very, very strange. It appreciates and condemns together. When we say somebody is a yogi, it is a great appreciation. When we say somebody is yogabhrasta, it is also a condemnation: fallen from the yoga. This man had attained up to meditation somewhere in his past life and then fell down. From meditation the possibility of going back to the world is still there -- because of asmita, because of amness. The seed is still alive. It can sprout any moment; so the journey is not over. When asmita also disappears, when you no longer know that you are -- of course, you are but there is no reflection upon it, that "I am," or even amness -- then happens samadhi, trance, ecstasy. Samadhi is going beyond; then one never comes back. Samadhi is a point of no return. From there nobody falls. A man in samadhi is a god: we call Buddha a god, Mahavir a god. A man in samadhi is no longer of this world. He may be in this world, but he is no longer of this world. He doesn't belong to it. He is an outsider. He may be here, but his home is somewhere else. He may walk on this earth, but he no longer walks on the earth. It is said about the man of Samadhi he lives in the world but the world does not live in him. These are the eight steps and eight limbs together. Limbs because they are so interrelated and so organically related; steps because you have to pass one by one -- you cannot start from just anywhere: you have to start from yam. Now a few more things, because this is such a central phenomenon for Patanjali you have to understand a few things more. Yam is a bridge between you and others; self-restraint means restraining your behavior. Yam is a phenomenon between you and others, you and the society. It is a more conscious behavior: you don't react unconsciously, you don't react like a mechanism, like a robot. You become more conscious; you become more alert. You react only when there is absolute necessity; then too you try so that that reaction should be a response and not a reaction.

A response is different from a reaction. The first difference is: a reaction is automatic; a response is conscious. Somebody insults you: immediately you react -- you insult him. There has not been a single moment's gap to understand: it is reaction. A man of self-restraint will wait, listen to his insult, will think about it. Gurdjieff used to say that his whole life changed because when his grandfather was dying, Gurdjieff was just nine years of age, he called him and told him, "I am a poor man and I have nothing to give to you, but I would like to give something. The only thing that I have been carrying like a treasure is this, this was given to me by my own father.... You are very young, but remember it. Someday you will understand -- just you remember it. Someday you will understand. Right now I don't hope you can understand, but if you don't forget, someday you will understand." And this is the thing he told to Gurdjieff "If somebody insults you, answer him after twenty-four hours have elapsed." It became a transformation, because how can you react after twenty-four hours? Reaction needs immediacy. Gurdjieff says, "Somebody will insult me or somebody will say something wrong, and I will have to say, 'I will come tomorrow. Only after twenty-four hours am I allowed to answer -- and I have given a promise to my grandfather and he is dead, and the promise cannot be taken back. But I will come.'" That man should be taken aback. He will not be able to understand what is the matter. And Gurdjieff will think about it. The more he will think, the more useless it will look. Sometimes it will be felt that the man is right, whatsoever he has said is true. Then Gurdjieff will go and thank the man, "You brought to light something of which I was unaware." Sometimes he will come to know that the man is absolutely wrong. And when the man is absolutely wrong, why bother? Nobody bothers about lies. When you feel hurt, there must be some truth in it; otherwise you don't feel hurt. Then too there is no point in going. And he said, "It came to pass that many times I tried my grandfather's formula, and by and by anger disappeared" -- and not only anger -- by and by he became aware that the same technique can be used for other emotions: and everything disappeared. Gurdjieff was one of the highest peaks that has been attained in this age, a Buddha. And the whole journey started with a very small step, the promise given to an old man dying. It changed his whole life. Yam is the bridge between you and others -- live consciously; relate with people consciously. Then the second two, niyam and asan -- they are concerned with your body. Third, pranayam is again a bridge. As the first, yam, is a bridge between you and others, the second two are a preparation for another bridge -your body is made ready through niyam and asan -- then pranayam is the bridge between the body and the mind. Then pratyahar and dharana are the preparation of the mind. Dhyan again, is a bridge between the mind and the soul. And samadhi is the attainment. They are interlinked, a chain; and this is your whole life.

Your relation with others has to be changed. How you relate has to be transformed. If you continue to relate with others in the same way as you have always been doing, there is no possibility to change. You have to change your relationship. Watch how you behave with your wife or with your friend or with your children. Change it. There are a thousand and one things to be changed in your relationship. That is yam, a control -- but control, not suppression. Through understanding comes control. Through ignorance one goes on forcing and suppressing. Always do everything with understanding and you never harm yourself or anybody else. Yam is to create a congenial environment around yourself. If you are inimical to everybody -- fighting, hateful, angry -- how can you move inwards? All these things will not allow you to move. You will be so much disturbed on the surface that that inner journey will not be possible. To create a congenial, a friendly, atmosphere around you is yam. When you relate with others beautifully, consciously, they don't create trouble for you in your inner journey. They become helps; they don't hinder you. If you love your child, then when you are meditating he will not disturb you. He will say to others, "Keep quiet. Pop is meditating." But if you don't love your child, you are simply angry, then when you are meditating he will create all sorts of nuisances. He wants to take revenge -- unconsciously. If you love your wife deeply, she will be helpful; otherwise she won't allow you to pray, she won't allow you to meditate -you are going beyond her control. This I see every day: The husband takes sannyas. The wife comes crying -"What have you done to our family? You have destroyed." I know the husband has not loved the wife; otherwise she would have been happy. She would have celebrated that her husband has become meditative. But he has not loved her. Now, not even has he not loved, he is moving inwards; so there will be no possibility in the future also of any love coming from him. If you love a person, the person is always helpful for your growth because he knows, or she knows, that the more you grow, the more you will be capable of love. She knows the taste of love. And all meditations will help you to love more, to be more beautiful in every way. But this happens every day. It happened to Sheela's sister. She was in a camp and she wanted to take sannyas, but the husband was not willing. The husband is a very, very educated man, hmm?... director of a research institute somewhere in America. Then she went home. There was constant fight. She wanted to take sannyas, she wanted to be initiated, but he wouldn't allow. Then he came to see me -- "Who is this man who has been disturbing our life?" And he took sannyas. Now the wife is creating trouble! Now the wife is absolutely against. And he is a very simple man, really beautiful. And he goes on writing to me: "What to do? -- because I love her, but she has completely changed since she has heard that I have taken sannyas." This is how things go. Everybody is making an effort to control the other.

A man of yam controls himself, not others. To others he gives freedom. You try to control the other and never yourself. A man of yam controls himself, gives freedom to others -- loves so much that he can give freedom, and he loves himself so much that he controls himself. This has to be understood: he loves himself so much that he cannot dissipate his energies; he has to give a direction. Then, niyam and asan are for the body. A regular life is very healthy for the body because the body is a mechanism. You confuse the body if you lead an irregular life. Today you have taken your food at one o'clock, tomorrow you take at eleven o'clock, day after tomorrow you take at ten o'clock -- you confuse the body. The body has an inner biological clock; it moves in a pattern. If you take your food every day at exactly the same time, the body is always in a situation where she understands what is happening. and she is ready for the happening -- the juices are flowing in the stomach at the right moment. Otherwise, whenever you want to take the food, you can take, but the juices will not be flowing. And if you take the food and the juices are not flowing, then the food becomes cold; then the digestion is difficult. The juices must be ready there to receive the food while it is hot, then immediately absorption starts. Food can be absorbed in six hours if the juices are ready, waiting. If the juices are not waiting, then it takes twelve hours to eighteen hours. Then you feel heavy, lethargic. Then the food gives you life, but does not give you pure life. It feels like a weight on your chest; you somehow carry, drag. And food can become such pure energy -- but then a regular life is needed. You go to sleep every day at ten o-clock: the body knows -- exactly at ten o'clock the body gives you an alarm. I'm not saying become obsessive -- that when your mother is dying then too you go at ten o'clock. I'm not saying that. Because people can become obsessive.... There are many stories about Immanuel Kant. He became obsessive about regularity; it became a madness. Don't create an obsession. He had a fixed routine, so fixed, second to second, that if somebody, a guest has come, he will look at the clock and he will not even say anything to the guest, because that saying will take time -- he will jump into the bed, cover himself with the blanket, and he has gone to sleep and the guest is sitting there. The servant will come and say, "Now you go, because that was his time." The servant became so atuned to Kant that there was no need to say, "Your food is ready," and no need to say. "Now you go to sleep." Only the time had to be said. The servant will come in the room and say, "lt is eleven o'clock, sir." So he will follow immediately because there was no need to say anything. He was so regular that the servant became the dictator -- because he will always threaten him, "I will leave. Raise my pay." immediately, the pay has to be raised because another servant, a new man, will disturb. Once they tried also: a new man came, but it was not possible, because Kant was living second to second. He would go to the university; he was a great teacher and a great philosopher. One day the road was muddy and it was raining, and one of his shoes got stuck

in the mud -- so he left it there. Otherwise he will be late. So he went with one shoe on. It was said in the university area of Konigsberg that people looking at him would fix their watches, because everything was absolutely clock wise. A new neighbor purchased the house adjacent to Kant's house and he started planting new trees. Every day at exactly five o'clock in the evening, Kant used to come to that side of the house and sit near the window and look at the sky. Now the trees covered the window and he could not look at the sky. He fell sick. He fell so sick... and the doctors could not find anything wrong with him, because he was such a regular man. He was really tremendously healthy. They could not find anything; they couldn't diagnose. Then the servant said, "You don't bother. I know the reason. Those trees are intruding on his regularity. Now he cannot go to the window and sit there and look at the sky. Looking at the sky is no longer possible." The neighbour had to be persuaded. The trees were cut, and he was okay; the illness disappeared. But this is obsession. No need to become obsessive; everything has to be done with understanding. Niyam and asan, regularity and posture: they are for the body. A controlled body is a beautiful phenomenon -- a controlled energy, glowing, and always more than is needed, and always alive, and never dull and dead. Then the body also becomes intelligent, body also becomes wise, body glows with a new awareness. Then, pranayam is a bridge: deep breathing is the bridge from mind to body. You can change the body through breathing; you can change the mind through breathing. Pratyahar and dharana, returning home and concentration, belong to the transformation of the mind. Then, dhyan is again a bridge from mind to the self, or to the no-self -- whatsoever you choose to call it, it is both. Dhyan is the bridge of samadhi. The society is there; from the society to you there is a bridge: yam. The body is there; for the body: regularity and posture. Again there is a bridge, because of the different dimension of mind from the body: pranayam. Then, the training of the mind: pratyahar and dharna, returning back home and concentration. Then again a bridge, this is the last bridge: dhyan. And then you reach the goal: samadhi. Samadhi is a beautiful word. It means now everything is solved. It means samadhan: everything is achieved. Now there is no desire; nothing is left to achieve. There is no beyond; you have come home. ------- Osho, Yoga:The Alfa and Omega, Vol 5, Chapter #5 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Secrets of Sadhana WHY DID PATANJALI WRITE AND YOU CHOOSE TO SPEAK ON THE YOGA SUTRAS WHEN NEITHER OF YOU WAS PREPARED TO SHARE WITH US THE ESSENTIAL KEYS OF THIS SADHANA?

The essential keys can be shared but cannot be talked about. Patanjali wrote these sutras so that he can share the essential keys with you, but those essential keys cannot be reduced to sutras. The sutras are just introductory, just a preface to the real thing. Let me tell you, the YOGA SUTRAS of Patanjali is just a preface to the real transmission he wants to do. It is just introductory. It just gives you an idea that something is possible. It makes you hopeful; it simply gives you a promise, a glimpse. Then you have to do much to come close to Patanjali. In deep intimacy the keys will be delivered to you. And that's why I have chosen to speak on these yoga sutras. It is just to allure you, to seduce you, so that you can come close to me. It is just to help some great thirst in you which you are carrying for lives together; but finding no way to satisfy it, finding no way how to quench it, you have forgotten about it. You have dropped it out of your consciousness. You have pushed it into the darkness of the unconscious because it is trouble. If you have a certain thirst and you cannot satisfy it, to allow it to remain in the conscious will be very, very burdensome, very troublesome. It will continuously go on knocking. It will not allow you to do other things, so you have pushed it into the unconscious. These discourses on the YOGA SUTRAS of Patanjali are just to bring that neglected thirst into the focus of your consciousness. This is not the real work; this is just introductory. The real work starts when you have recognized the thirst, accepted it, and you are ready to change, to mutate, to become new -- when you are ready to dare to go on this immense journey, the journey into the unknown and the unknowable. It is just to create a thirst, a hunger. The yoga sutras are just an appetizer. The real thing cannot be written, cannot be said; but something can be written and said which can bring you nearer, closer to the real thing. I am ready to deliver the keys, but you have to be brought to a certain level of consciousness, a certain level of understanding. Only then can those keys start being understood by you. ----Osho, Yoga: The Alfa and The Omega, Volume 8, Chapter #10 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Seven Characteristics of Samadhi There are seven characteristics of Samadhi. First is: oneness, at-one-ment. Duality disappears. The division between the known and the knower disappears. Fusion arises, confusion disappears. There are no longer two. But remember: the moment Buddha says there are no longer two, he is not saying there is one. He keeps utter silence about the one. He says to say only there are not two -- because the moment you say one, you bring the two again. One is meaningless without the two. Not two -- that's all. The runner and the running are not there. You and I are not there. The speaker and the listener are not there. Existence is an organic unity. There is no duality in it. It is all oneness….Buddha simply says God is neither light nor darkness. God is not two. Truth is not two. That is the first experience of samadhi, that by and by the twoness of life disappears. The second characteristic of samadhi is: 'orgasmicness' -- blissfulness, beatitude. Unless you come to this utter annihilation of all the egos, you will never be happy, you will never be blissful. Misery is a by-product of the ego… The mind is like the onion: one layer, the physical; another layer, the psychological; another layer, the spiritual. One who has thrown all those layers, one who has peeled his onion utterly, and has come to the innermost core.... And do you know what the innermost core is? It is empty. If you go on peeling the onion, finally you come to nothingness. Only nothingness is left in your hands. In the nothingness there is orgasmicness, there is bliss…. The third characteristic of samadhi is: illumination -- great inner transparency, light and clarity. When all these egos disappear, all curtains disappear from your eyes, look becomes pure, innocent, transparency is attained. Then you simply see! And truth is so obvious. It is not hidden. It is not hiding somewhere, it is not avoiding you. It is not on some other planet -- it is just in front of your nose. But your eyes are closed. When your eyes open and you have the transparency and the clarity to see... the obvious! Truth is the obvious. And the fourth characteristic of samadhi is: rest, relaxation.

How can you rest with this constant hankering to become something! How is rest possible? You will remain tense. Rest is possible only when all goal-orientation has been dropped; when the achieving mind functions no more in you, there is rest, there is relaxation. Thought is mind in motion. No-thought is mind at rest. Samadhi is witnessing of both -- transcendence. You have been running after things -- you have seen that and the misery of it. Then you stopped, and you have seen the beauty of it, the rest, the relaxation. You have seen both, and the one who has seen both suddenly transcends both. The fifth characteristic of samadhi is: awareness -- consciousness, seeing, knowing, witnessing; the fourth state the Hindus call TURIYA. This is what Ikkyu means when he says, "LOOK, LOOK, LOOK." And when he is asked, "What do you mean by 'LOOK'?" He says, "LOOK means LOOK." Have eyes open. Be alert, be mindful. See things as they are. Don't create fictions, don't project….In awareness, exactly this happens. When you become very very alert, you start looking very closely at reality, and distinctions start disappearing. Trees are no more trees and rivers are no more rivers and mountains are no more mountains. All starts melting into one. Then you become even more aware. And the more clearly you see into things... the screen comes even closer. Then there is only pure white light -- all the divisions have disappeared. That is what is called awareness. Then all the illusions of life are no more valid, there is only pure light -- the light of awareness. The sixth characteristic of samadhi is: deathlessness, timelessness, eternity. When you are not, how can you die? When there is no ego in you, how can you die? Many people used to ask Buddha in his lifetime, thousands of times the question has been asked: "What will happen to you, Sir, when you die?" And Buddha always smiles and he says, "There is nobody to die." But he makes it clear that "I am not saying that I am immortal. There is not nobody to be immortal either.” …And the seventh is: infinity. Space disappears. You are nowhere and yet everywhere. You are nobody and yet everybody. -------Osho, Zen: The Path of Paradox, Vol 3, Chapter #9

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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------CHAPTER 4

DIVINE SOUND ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What Is God? HAVE YOU HEARD THE MUSIC THAT NO FINGERS ENTER INTO? FAR INSIDE THE HOUSE ENTANGLED MUSIC -WHAT IS THE SENSE OF LEAVING YOUR HOUSE? WHAT IS GOD? THE MOMENT THE QUESTION IS ASKED, the idea of a person arises in the mind -- and God is not a person. Those who think of God as a person start, from the very beginning, moving in a wrong direction. They will never arrive. They will go round and round in circles, they will travel much, but they will never reach anywhere. If the first step is wrong then all else goes wrong. The first step has to be absolutely right, because the first step is half the journey already. In fact, as fact, as you are concerned, the first step is the whole of the journey -- because the other step is to be taken towards you by God. You take one step; he takes the other step... and the meeting. And the distance between you and God is only two steps. The initiative has to be from your side. God is not a person, but that's what you have been told down the ages. God is a presence. God is not substance but significance. Once God is understood as significance, your life starts changing. Then you don't argue about God, whether he exists or not; then you are no more interested in theology. The whole of theology becomes rubbish. Then you start moving in a totally different way, in an altogether different dimension. If God is significance, then you have to create a certain meaning in your life, because only meaning can meet the meaning. You have to create significance in your life, because only significance can meet the significance. You have to become more aware, more loving, more aesthetic, and more sensitive. If God were a person it would have been a totally different approach. God is not a person but only a fragrance. You will need great sensitivity to comprehend that significance, that fragrance, that music…. Kabir was absolutely illiterate, never went to any school, was not able to read or write; still, when it happened, he exploded in great poetry. When the experience arose in his being, when the doors opened and mysteries were revealed, he bloomed in thousands of flowers. No other poet can be compared with Kabir. There have been greater poets than Kabir, but they were mere poets -- talented, with great art, but Kabir has a personal experience of the divine, which is missing in other poets. They may be talking about God, but it is mere talk. With Kabir it is not just talking: it is his heartfelt experience -- it is existential. HAVE YOU HEARD THE MUSIC THAT NO FINGERS ENTER INTO ? The original is: SUNTA NAHIN DHUN KI KHABAR, ANAHAD KA BAJA BAJTA?

Why are you not listening to the inner music, which is constantly arising? You are made of it! It is not something foreign to you. It does not come from the outside. It is the music of your very existence, of your being; it is the music of your inner harmony, it is the music of your inner rhythm… And this is a music that is not created by fingers on any musical instrument. There is no musical instrument within you, and there is nobody playing on the instrument. It is pure music. The Indian mystics use a special word for it: ANAHAD KA BAJA BAJTA -- ANAHAD -- it is boundless, and it is uncreated. It is the sound of one hand clapping. But the Indian mystics go a little deeper; they say there is not even one hand clapping -- there is neither hand nor instrument, but pure music, just music. The experience of the mystics is that life consists of the stuff called music. Just as physics says life consists of electrons, electricity, mystics say life consists of music. And in a way they are both right, because music is nothing but a certain vibration of electricity, and it may be true vice versa also: electricity may be nothing but a certain density of music, of sound… KABIR IS TALKING TO HIS DISCIPLES who have come to seek God. Somebody must have asked him about God, and he is talking about music. To talk about God is almost useless, but to talk about music is certainly of great significance. If you can hear your inner music, you will know God is. FAR INSIDE THE HOUSE ENTANGLED MUSIC -WHAT IS THE SENSE OF LEAVING YOUR HOUSE? And Kabir says: Where are you going to find God? People go to Kashi and to Kaaba, and people go to Jerusalem and to Tibet, and people go to all kinds of places in search of some significance. They are feeling that their life is meaningless; they are feeling that their life is empty; they are feeling that their life is nothing but a long tale told by an idiot. They know that their life is just noise, meaningless, gibberish. They know that deep down there is nothing but a kind of hollowness. And they search: there must be some source somewhere, which can quench their thirst. There must be some place somewhere where they can encounter God, where they can attain to some significance, where their life can have some meaning. But this search is futile. They will be frustrated again and again -- because the truth they are searching for is already within their being. What they are seeking is in the seeker himself; the sought is in the seeker. You need not go anywhere. You simply have to learn how not to go anywhere. The greatest art is just to be, without going anywhere. Not going to the past, not going to the future, not going into desires, into psychological spaces, into psychic travels -- not to go anywhere, just to be. And right now! if you are just here... immediately something is felt, something which is intangible. You cannot show it to anybody else; you cannot share your experience with somebody who has not known it. But your whole being starts feeling a kind of intoxication, a drunkenness. You become full of juice, you become full of aliveness, and a very indirect, subtle, delicate experience of the presence of something bigger than you -- that's what God is all about. FAR INSIDE THE HOUSE...

The original is: RAS MAND MANDIR BAJTA BAHAR SUNE TO KYA HUA? Kabir says: That music is already happening inside your own temple. Kabir calls you 'the temple' -- except for your body there is no other temple in the world. Your bodies are temples, sacred places, because the holiest of the holy resides in you. And look at what the priests have been telling you, what your so-called saints have been telling you. They have been teaching you life-negative attitudes, body-negative attitudes. They have been telling you that the body is the culprit, that the body is the source of sin. They have been telling you to torture the body, to destroy the body. They have been teaching you that unless you destroy your body totally you will not be able to know God. The truth is just the contrary: unless you love your body immensely, respect your body immensely; you will not be able to know God at all -- because the body is his outer expression. If the body is the temple, then God is the deity inside it. RAS MAND MANDIR BAJTA... Within the temple of your body the music is already happening -- just go in. And the word RAS has to be understood. RAS literally means juice. And you will be surprised to know that the mystics of this country have called God the ultimate juice: RASAO VAI SAHA -- he is the ultimate juice…. This quality is true religiousness. And this quality is possible only if you are in love with life, and to be in love with life creates RAS -- juice. Then you don't become dry, then you don't become a desert, and then you become an oasis The so-called religious people of this country are against me because I am teaching you the way of RAS -- the way of life, love, juice, music -- because I am teaching you to become an oasis, not a desert; because I would like you to be in a constant rejoicing; because I am not teaching you renunciation but rejoicing, all the people who have been carrying this nonsense idea of renouncing the world are bound to be against me. That is natural. It is expected. This has been happening always, and it seems, unfortunately, that man has not learnt anything at all down the ages. It is exactly the same today as it was in the days of Buddha, as it was in the days of Jesus, as it was in the days of Kabir…. Hence I say the journey is from sex to super consciousness. Sex is the beginning of the journey -- don't reject it. If you reject the beginning, you will never reach the end. But remember that it is only the beginning; don't get stuck there. You have to go farther and farther ahead; you have to transcend it. And as you go higher in meditation, the less and less sexual you are bound to become. This is happening every day to my sannyasins. The whole country thinks that here nothing but sex is happening, but the reality is just the opposite. This may be the only place where thousands of people are totally losing interest in sex -- because going through it is going beyond it. To go beyond one has to go through, because without knowing it there is no way to transcend it.

---------Osho, The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty, Chapter #10

Ek Omkar Satnam The whole philosophical system of Nanak is based on this one focal point, Ek Omkar Satnam -- that is all. Know these three words and you will know the whole Japuji; you will then understand Nanak in his fullness, because that is the essence of his verse. Akshara, according to Nanak, is Omkar -- there is one resonance that vibrates even without being expressed or written. And this resonance is beyond annihilation, it is the very music of existence; therefore there is no way of destroying it. When everything else is destroyed, it will still go on. It is said in the Bible, what is invariably repeated in all scriptures: IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD. What is referred to as the word, the logos in the West, is Omkar. In the beginning was the word; all the rest followed later, and when all else is no more the word will still resonate; everything will be absorbed in it. India has developed various methods of Shabad yoga, the yoga of the word. The practice consists only of the word. Its significance is to make oneself wordless so that the speaker is silenced, and then what is heard is the voice of God….. When Nanak was admitted into the school the first question he asked of his teacher was, "Will your teaching help me to know God?" The teacher was taken aback because he never expected such questions from children. He replied, "By learning you shall come to know a great deal, but this learning will not enable you to know God." "Then show me the method through which I can know God. What shall I do with knowing so many things? If I know the One I shall know all. Have you known this One, teacher?" The tutor must have been an honest person. He took Nanak back to his house and told his father, "Forgive me, but there is nothing I can teach this child. He already knows so much that he asks questions to which I have no answer. This boy is superhuman and is destined to be great. We cannot teach him anything. It would be better for us to learn something from him." How do we explain this? In India we have a specific philosophical explanation for just such occurrences: Nanak's body is that of a child, but the consciousness within the body is ancient. Through innumerable births his consciousness searched and struggled until he came to understand that He cannot be known by knowing. You cannot establish contact with Him through words. Only through

silence can you hope to communicate with Him. What the child Nanak says is the outcome of knowledge attained by his consciousness over infinite births. No child is completely a child, for no child is born with a blank slate. He brings along with him the impressions of all he has gathered through infinite births. So give the child his due respect. Who knows, he may know more than you! Your body may be older than his, but the age of his experiences can be greater than yours. Many times we find children asking questions that baffle us, and we have no answer; but because we are older and stronger, we think we should know, and therefore we smother their curiosity with a heavy hand. Nanak was fortunate that his tutor was an honest person, so they went back to Nanak's house, because it became absolutely clear to him that what the child said was true. He realized that if all the scriptures had not made him wise, what was the sense in teaching the same useless things to this child? It would only increase his burden. In knowing the One all burdens drop. To know everything is only to overload the mind; to say countless is only to load the mind. The word, the letter, is the name. The word is His name. Omkar is His name and that alone is His praise and the prayer. Say nothing -- just nothing. Just fill yourself with the resonance of Omkar and the prayer has begun! Do not say anything. Do not say: I am a sinner, I am lowly; You are the redeemer! There is also no sense in kneeling, falling to the ground, crying and wailing -- that is no sign of prayer. Man has devised such prayers for God, as he would use to praise and flatter an egotistic person. Go to a king, fall at his feet, join your hands and call him your redeemer, call him your savior and he is very pleased with you. So you have made up prayers for God accordingly. Nanak says: This is not prayer. God is no egotist. Then whom are you trying to flatter? Whom are you trying to deceive? You must be trying to get something out of Him by singing his praises, or else what reason lies behind all this praise? No, prayer does not mean praise. What value has praise? Therefore Nanak says again and again: What is one to say of creation or nature? How is one to express the wonder that is? There are no words to describe it. What else can be meant by prayer? The only meaning is to be filled with Omkar. There is no prayer, no worship besides the resonance of Omkar. Temples have been so designed that the cupola reechoes with the resonance of Om and throws the vibrations back to you. Special attention was given whenever a temple was built so that if you pronounce Om in the correct manner a single resonance bounds back to you a thousandfold. The West has recently introduced a new scientific technique, biofeedback, which may prove very useful in the future. It is a training method that can help calm the mind by showing it what is happening inside. When the mind is very busy and excited,

electrical currents are produced that reflect the level of activity. By means of small wires this current can be transmitted to a biofeedback machine, whose job is to show you how busy the mind is by measuring the current and turning it into a sound that you can hear. When the mind is filled with thoughts and the body is tense a high-pitched tone is repeated very rapidly. When the mind becomes quieter, the sound slows down and drops in pitch. Slowly, slowly, it helps you to become more and more aware of the changes that are happening within, until eventually you are able to control the sounds, and thereby you produce a state of total relaxation and quietness within. Finally, when the body is trained to hear itself you don't need the machine any more. This biofeedback technique can also be used for training in meditation. The East was well versed in biofeedback techniques for ages. The vault of the temple is one proof of it. It collects the resonance of Om and sends it back to the center of its origin. The sound is created by you and it showers on you. Then as the resonance of Omkar begins to approach nearer and nearer to the actual Omkar, the speed of the feedback will increase as well as its intensity. As you become more advanced, you will feel the resonance forming within you; then your Omkar will be more from the heart than the throat. Simultaneously there will be a change of tone of the echo resounding in the temple. You will find its quality to be more tranquil. As the resonance of Omkar sinks deeper into your heart you will feel more pleasure in the echo of the temple. When the sound comes only from the mouth it will seem like so much noise at first. When the utterance begins to come from the heart you will begin to sense the music in the resonance. When it becomes absolutely perfect you will find the resonance taking place by itself; you are no longer producing it. Then will every atom of the temple shower its bliss on you. The temple is like a small pool for you to practice. It is just like learning to swim in shallow waters. When you have completely mastered the art of uttering Omkar, step out into the vast ocean of space. The whole world becomes one big temple for you, with the cupola of the blue skies above. Wherever you stand and pronounce the Omkar, the vast vault of the skies will respond to your utterance and bliss will shower from all sides. Says Nanak: From the letter, from the word alone can He be praised. From akshara alone all knowledge is attained. From akshara is all writing and speaking. From akshara all destiny takes place. This is a very subtle point to understand. Nanak says through the letter alone are all events destined. As the word opens within you, your destiny changes. The key to changing your life lies within in the form of Omkar. The further away from Omkar you go, the deeper you plunge your life into misery. As your coalition with the sound, the word, the name develops, good fortune comes your way accordingly. To go farther from Omkar is to be in the hell; to come nearer to Omkar is to approach closer to heaven, and to be one with Omkar is to realize salvation. ----------------Osho, The True Name, Volume 1, Chapter # 8

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Real Religion Begins With Omkar 'Omkar' -- the sound of 'Om' -- began to shower on me from all sides. Every pore of my body was filled with joy. I found a deep silence within and a sense of well -being. I felt what Nanak rightly says: Ek Omkar Satnam, Om is the true name of godliness. All other names- Ram, Krishna, Allah, and God - are given by man. These are all symbols, created by man. There is only one name that is not given by man and that is Om, the Sound of Divine. It is not a man-made tune but the melody of existence. Omkar is the very being of existence. Whenever I meditate on it, whenever I reach the state of samadhi, I find Omkar resounding not only within me, but all around me. I find everything vibrating with it. I realized that unless we get connected with the divine sound, we are far from religion. When the resonance of Omkar first sounds, our relationship with religion begins. The day we are capable of hearing the soundless sound of 0m within us, we establish our connection with true religion. Only then we begin to appreciate the glory of existence. Only then we can go into real prayer. The path of Divine Sound has been proclaimed as the best path by most of the Masters. Once Gautam Buddha asked in the great assembly of all His great disciples— Bodhisattvas, Mahasattvas, Arhatas-- as to which path is best. Mahakashyap, Sariputra, Samantabhadra, Purna Metaluniputra, Maudgalyana, Maitreya, and Mahasthamaprapta advocated various paths they followed for Samadhi and Enlightenment. Avalokiteshara narrated his experience and said that he attained Diamond Samadhi by meditating on Transcedental Hearing. Then Manjushree rose from his seat and said: “All the Brothers in this Great Assembly, and you too, Anand, should reverse your outward perception of hearing and listen inwardly for the perfectly unified and intrinsic sound of your own Mind-Essence, for as soon as you have attained perfect accommodation, you will have attained to Supreme Enlightenment. This is the only way to Nirvana, and it has been followed by all the Tathagats of the past. Moreover, it is for all the Bodhisattva-Mahasattvas of the present and for all in the future if they are to hope for perfect Enlightenment. Not only did Avalokiteshvara attain perfect Enlightenment in long ages past by this Golden Way, but in the present, I also am one of them. My Lord enquired of us as to which expedient means each one of us had employed to follow this Noble Path to Nirvana. I bear testimony that the means employed by Avalokiteshvara is the most expedient means for all, since all other means must be supported and guided by the Lord Buddha’s Transcendental Powers. Though one forsake all his worldly engagements, yet he cannot always be practicing by these various means; they are especial means suitable for junior and senior disciples, but for laymen, this common method of concentrating the mind on the sense of hearing, turning it inward by this Door of Dharma to hear the Transcendental Sound of this Essential Mind, is most feasible and wise (Spiritual Experiences of Highest Bodhisattvas-Extracts taken from The Surangama Sutra-From “A Buddhist Bible” edited by Deight Goddard, E.P.Dutton & Co.).” --------Osho Siddhartha

The True Name It was a dark moonless night; the clouds were heavy with rain because it was the monsoon season. Suddenly thunder sounded and lightning flashed as a few rain drops started to fall. The village was asleep. Only Nanak was awake and the echo of his song filled the air. Nanak's mother was worried because the night was more than half over and the lamp in his room was still burning. She could hear his voice as he sang. She could restrain herself no longer and knocked at his door, "Go to sleep now, my son. Soon it will be dawn." Nanak became silent. From the darkness sounded the call of the sparrow hawk. "Piyu, piyu, piyu!" it called. "Listen, mother!" Nanak called out. "The sparrowhawk is calling to his beloved; how can I be silent, because I am competing with him? I will call my beloved as long as he calls his -- even longer, because his beloved is nearby, perhaps in the next tree! My beloved is so far away. I will have to sing for lives upon lives before my voice reaches him." Nanak resumed his song. Nanak attained God by singing to him; Nanak's quest is very unusual -- his path was decorated with songs. The first thing to be realized is that Nanak practiced no austerities or meditation or yoga; he only sang, and singing, he arrived. He sang with all his heart and soul, so much so that his singing became meditation; his singing became his purification and his yoga. Whenever a person performs any act with all his heart and soul, that act becomes the path. Endless meditation, if halfhearted, will take you nowhere; whereas just singing a simple song with all your being merged in it, or dance a dance with the same total absorption and you will reach God. The question is not what you do, but how much of yourself you involved in the act. Nanak's path to supreme realization, to godliness is scattered with song and flowers. Whatever he has said was said in verse. His path was full of melody and soft, filled with the flavor of ambrosia. Kabir says: "My enchanted mind was so intoxicated that it drained the filled cup without caring to measure the quantity." So it was with Nanak: he drank without caring how much he drank; then he sang, and sang, and sang. And his songs are not those of an ordinary singer. They have sprung from within one who had known. There is the ring of truth, the reflection of God within them.

Now another thing about the japuji. The moonless night described at the beginning was an incident from Nanak's life when he was about sixteen or seventeen years of age. When the Japuji was conceived, Nanak was thirty years, six months and fifteen days old. The first incident refers to the days when he was still a seeker in quest of the beloved. The call to the beloved, the refrain, "Piyu, Piyu, Piyu ..." was still the sparrowhawk calling; he had not yet met the beloved. The Japuji was his first proclamation after the union with the beloved. The sparrow hawk had found his beloved; the call of "Piyu, Piyu," was now over. The Japuji are the very first words uttered by Nanak after self-realization; therefore they hold a very special place in the sayings of Nanak. They are the latest news brought back from the kingdom of heaven. The incident preceding the birth of the Japuji needs to be understood also. Nanak sat on the bank of the river in total darkness with his friend and follower, Mardana. Suddenly, without saying a word, he removed his clothes and walked into the river. Mardana called after him, "Where are you going? The night is so dark and cold!" Nanak went further and further; he plunged into the depths of the river. Mardana waited, thinking he would be out soon, but Nanak did not return. Mardana waited for five minutes; when ten minutes had passed he became anxious. Where could he be? There was no sign of him. Mardana began to run along the shore calling to him, "Where are you? Answer me! Where are you?" He felt he heard a voice saying, "Be patient, be patient!" but there was no sign of Nanak. Mardana ran back to the village and woke up everyone. It was the middle of the night, but a crowd collected at the riverside because everyone in the village loved Nanak. They all had some sense, a glimpse, of what Nanak was going to be. They had felt the fragrance of his presence, just as the bud gives off its fragrance before the flower has opened. All the village wept. They ran back and forth the whole length of the river bank but to no avail. Three days passed. By now it was certain that Nanak had drowned. The people imagined that his body must have been carried away by the swift current and perhaps eaten by wild animals. The village was drowned in sorrow. Though everyone thought him dead, on the third night Nanak appeared from the river. The first words he spoke became the Japuji. So goes the story -- and a story means that which is true and yet not true. It is true because it gives the essential truth; it is false in the sense that it is only symbolic. And it is evident that the more profound the subject matter, the greater the need for symbols. When Nanak disappeared in the river, the story goes that he stood before the gate of God. He experienced God. There before his eyes stood the beloved he pined for, for whom he sang night and day. He who had become the thirst of his every heartbeat stood revealed before Nanak! All his desires were fulfilled. Then

God spoke to him, "Now go back and give unto others what I have given unto you." The Japuji is Nanak's first offering after he returned from God. Now, this is a story; what it symbolizes must be understood. First, unless you lose yourself completely, until you die, you cannot hope to meet God. Whether you lose yourself in a river or on a mountaintop is of little consequence; but you must die. Your annihilation becomes his being. As long as you are, he cannot be. You are the obstacle, the wall that separates you. This is the symbolic meaning of drowning in the river. You too will have to lose yourself; you too will have to drown. Death is only completed after three days, because the ego does not give up easily. The three days in Nanak's story represent the time required for his ego to dissolve completely. Since the people could only see the ego and not the soul, they thought Nanak was dead. Whenever a person becomes a sannyasin and sets out on the quest for God, the family members understand and give him up for dead. Now he is no longer the same person; the old links are broken, the past is no more, and the new has dawned. Between the old and the new is a vast gap; hence this symbol of three days before Nanak's reappearance. The one who is lost invariably returns, but he returns as new. He who treads the path most certainly returns. While he was on the path he was thirsty, but when he returns he is a benefactor; he has left a beggar, he returns a king. Whoever follows the path carries his begging bowl; when he comes back he possesses infinite treasures. The Japuji is the first gift from Nanak to the world. To appear before God, to attain the beloved, are purely symbolic terms and not to be taken literally. There is no God sitting somewhere on high before whom you appear. But to speak of it, how else can it be expressed? When the ego is eradicated, when you disappear, whatever is before your eyes, is God himself. God is not a person -- God is an energy beyond form. To stand before this formless energy means to see Him wherever you look, whatever you see. When the eyes open, everything is He. It only requires that you should cease to be and that your eyes be opened. Ego is like the mote in your eye; the minute it is removed, God stands revealed before you. And no sooner does God manifest, than you also become God, because there is nothing besides Him. Nanak returned, but the Nanak who returned was also God Himself. Then each word uttered became so invaluable as to be beyond price, each word equal to the words of the Vedas. Now let us try to understand the Japuji: EK OMKAR SATNAM

HE IS ONE. HE IS OMKAR, THE SUPREME TRUTH. HE IS THE CREATOR, BEYOND FEAR, BEYOND RANCOR. HIS IS THE TIMELESS FORM. NEVER BORN, SELF-CREATING. HE IS ATTAINED BY THE GURU'S GRACE. He is one: Ek Omkar Satnam. In order to be visible to us, things must have many levels, many forms. That's why whenever we see, we see multiplicity. At the seashore we see only the waves, we never see the ocean. The fact is, however, only the ocean is, the waves are only superficial. But we can see only the superficial because we have only external eyes. To see within requires internal eyes. As the eyes, so the sight. You cannot see deeper than your eyes. With your external eyes you see the waves and think you have seen the ocean. To know the ocean, you must leave the surface and dive below. So in the story Nanak did not remain on the surface, but dived deep into the river. Only then can you know. Waves alone are not the ocean, and the ocean is much more than a mere collection of waves. The basic fact is that the wave that is now, after a moment no longer will be; nor did it exist a moment ago. There was a Sufi fakir by the name of Junaid. His son, whom he loved dearly, was killed suddenly in an accident. Junaid went and buried him. His wife was astonished at his behavior. She expected him to go mad with grief at the death of the son he loved so dearly. And here was Junaid acting as if nothing had happened, as if the son had not died! When everyone had left, his wife asked him, "Aren't you sad at all? I was so worried you would break down, you loved him so much." Junaid replied, "For a moment I was shocked but then I remembered that before, when this son was not born, I already was and I was quite happy. Now when the son is not, what is the reason for sorrow? I became as I was before. In between, the son came and went. When I was not unhappy before his birth, why should I be unhappy now to be without a son? What is the difference? In between was only a dream that is no longer." What was formed and then destroyed, is now no more than a dream. Everything that comes and goes is a dream. Each wave is but a dream; the ocean is the reality. The waves are many, the ocean only one, but we see it as so many waves. Until we see the unity, the oneness of the ocean, we shall continue wandering. There is one reality, truth is only one: Ek Omkar Satnam. And, says Nanak, the name of this one, is Omkar. All other names are given by man: Ram, Krishna, Allah. These are all symbols, and all created by man. There is only one name that is not given by man and that is Omkar, and Omkar means the sound of Om.. Why Omkar? -- because when words are lost and the mind becomes void, when the individual is immersed in the ocean, even then the strain of Omkar remains audible within him. It is not a man-made tune but the melody of existence. Omkar is the very being of existence; therefore Om has no meaning. Om is not a word but a resonance that is unique, having no source, no creation by anyone. It is the resonance of the being of existence. It is like a waterfall: you sit beside a waterfall and you hear its song but the

sound is created by the water hitting against the rocks. Sit by a river and listen to its sound; it is caused by the river striking against the banks. We need to go deeper to understand things. Science tries to break down the whole of existence. What it first discovered was energy in the form of electricity, and then charged particles like the electron of which all of existence is made. Electricity is only a form of energy. If we ask a scientist what sound is made of, he will say that it is nothing but waves of electricity, waves of energy. So energy is at the root of everything. The sages say the same thing; they are in agreement with the scientists except for a slight difference of language. Sages have come to know that all existence is created out of sound, and sound is only an expression of energy. Existence, sound, energy -- all are one. The approach of science is to analyze and break things down, to reach the conclusion. The sage's approach is absolutely different: through synthesis they have discovered the indivisibility of the self. The wind rises creating a murmur in the branches of the tree, a collision of air against the leaves. When the musician plays a chord on an instrument, the sound is produced by a blow. All sound is produced by an impact, and an impact requires two -- the strings of the instrument and the fingers of the musician. Two are necessary to form any sound. But God's name is beyond all separateness. His name is the resonance that remains when all dualities have faded and cease to exist. Within this indivisible whole you come across this resonance. When a person reaches the state of samadhi, Omkar resounds within him. He hears it resounding inside him and all around him; all creation seems to be vibrating with it. He is struck with wonder when it first happens knowing that he is not creating the sound. He is doing nothing and yet this resonance is coming -- from where? Then he realizes that this sound is not created by any impact, any friction; it is the anahat nad, the frictionless sound, the unstruck sound. Nanak says: Omkar alone is God's name. Nanak refers to name a great deal. Whenever Nanak speaks of His name -- "His name is the path," or "He who remembers his name attains" -- he is referring to Omkar, because Omkar is the only name that is not given to Him by man, but is His very own. None of the names given by man can carry you very far. If they do go some distance towards Him, it is only because of some slight shadow of Omkar within them. For instance the word ram. When Ram is repeated over and over it begins to transport you a little, since the sound "m" in Ram is also the consonant in Om. Now if you keep repeating it for a long time, you will suddenly discover that the sound of Ram subtly changes into the resonance of Om, because as the repetition begins to quieten the mind, Omkar intrudes and penetrates Ram; Ram gradually fades and Om steps in. It is the experience of all the wise men that no matter with what name they started their journey, at the end it is always Om. As soon as you start to become quiet, Om steps in. Om is always there waiting; it only requires your becoming tranquil.

Says Nanak: "Ek Omkar Satnam." The word sat needs to be understood. In Sanskrit there are two words: "sat" means beingness, existence, and satya means truth, validity. There is a great difference between the two, though both contain the same original root. Let us see the difference between them. Satya is the quest of the philosopher. He seeks truth. What is the truth? It lies in the rules whereby two plus two always equals four, and never five or three. So satya is a mathematical formula, a man-made calculation, but it is not sat. It is logical truth but not existential reality. You dream in the night. Dreams exist. They are sat/reality, but not satya/truth. Dreams are -- or else how would you see them? Their being is there but you cannot say they are true, because in the morning you find they have evaporated into nothingness. So there are happenings in life which are true but not existential. Then there are other occurrences that are existent but are not logically true. All mathematics is true but not existential; it is satya but not sat. Dreams are; they are existential, but they are not true. God is both. He is sat as well as satya, existence as well as truth. Being both, He can neither be fully attained through science, which probes truth, nor through the arts, which explores existence. Both are incomplete in their search, because they are directed only towards one half of Him. The quest of religion is entirely different from all other quests. It combines both sat and satya: it is in quest of that which is more authentic and true than any mathematical formula. It is in quest of that which is more existential, more empirical, than any poetic imagery. What religion seeks is both. Looking from any one angle, you will fail; from both directions, then only shall you attain. So when Nanak says: "Ek Omkar Satnam," both sat and satya are contained in his expression. The name of that supreme existence is as true as a mathematical formula and as real as any work of art; it is as beautiful as a dream and as correct as a scientific formula; it contains the emotions of the heart, and the knowledge and experience of the mind. Where the mind and the heart meet, religion begins. If the mind overpowers the heart, science is born. If the heart overpowers the head, the realm of art is entered: poetry, music, song, painting, sculpture. But if head and heart are united, you enter into Omkar. A religious person stands above the greatest scientist; he looks down on the greatest artist, because his search contains the essentials of both. Science and art are dualities; religion is the synthesis. Nanak says: "Ek Omkar Satnam. He is one. He is Omkar, the supreme truth. He is the creator..." ----------Osho, The True Name, Vol1, Chapter# 1

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Aum: The Soundless Sound AUM, THE IMPERISHBLE SOUND, IS THE SEED OF ALL THAT EXISTS. THE PAST, THE PRESENT, THE FUTURE, -- ALL ARE BUT THE UNFOLDING OF AUM. AND WHATEVER TRANSCENDS THE THREE REALMS OF TIME, THAT INDEED IS THE FLOWING OF AUM. THIS WHOLE CREATION IS ULTIMATELY BRAHMAN. AND THE SELF, THIS ALSO IS BRAHMAN.

All the Upanishads begin with AUM; AUM means the primordial sound. The RIG VEDA says -- the most ancient scripture of the world -- "First the absolute, the Brahman, then WAAK, the sound, the vibrating energy which becomes the universe." The Bible also says the same thing, but has missed the point in translation. It says: In the beginning there was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word and the God were one. ‘The Word ' is not the right translation, it cannot be. I don't know what the original Hebrew or Aramaic word for ‘word' is, but one thing I know, it cannot be 'word', it can only be 'sound'; it can only be a musical sound. It will be something like AUM, because 'word' means sound with meaning and the moment meaning comes in it brings a limitation, it brings a definition. Sound is unlimited; it is simply vibration. Now scientists, physicists particularly, have discovered that existence consists only of vibrations. They call it 'vibrations of electricity'. It does not matter what name you give, what jargon you use, but vibration means sound. That is the meaning of AUM. AUM is the primordial sound of which the whole universe consists; we are made of music. Hence if we move into anything totally, only the music is left and everything else disappears because music is the stuff we are made of; all else is arbitrary, artificial, invented. Only the music hidden in our souls is not invented; it is part of God. God is the musician and we are his music. He is the dancer and we are his dance. He is the poet and we are his poetry. He is the singer and we are his song. This is the meaning of AUM. But the pundits, the scholars have been constantly missing the point. They think AUM is a mantra and just by repeating it you will attain to God. That is sheer nonsense! You can repeat it your whole life, it is not going to help you.

It is just like a thirsty person goes on repeating, "H20, H20, H20...." Of course what he is saying is right -- H20 means water -- he is not wrong. But H20 and its repetition is not going to quench his thirst. He misses the point. AUM is exactly the H20 of mysticism! And there are fools in this country... and now those fools are traveling all over the world and teaching people Transcendental Meditation. It is neither transcendental nor meditation. Just by repeating the sound AUM, nothing is going to be achieved. In fact, something totally different has to be done: you have to become so silent, so absolutely silent, that you can hear the sound within your innermost core. It has to be heard, not repeated. If you repeat it, it will be a head thing; it will only be your head playing a gramophone record. Let the head rest, let all noise from the head be gone, let the mind stop functioning, and then suddenly you will hear the sound. That is a totally different phenomenon; it has to be heard, not repeated. But the scholars are the most unconscious people, full of unnecessary philosophies, very complicated systems of thought, and ready to argue, to prove, to comment, but absolutely unconscious. They have not discovered the AUM within themselves. It is called ANAHAT NAD; ANAHAT NAD means unstruck sound. There are two kinds of sounds. When you play on a sitar it is a struck sound; duality is involved, your hands and the strings, and you have to strike, then the sound is created. It is a little bit violent -- you are being violent with the strings. You are not allowing them to rest. You are disturbing their sleep. And there is a conflict involved with your hands; there is a fight going on between the musician and his instrument. AUM is the unstruck sound; there is no instrument. When you become absolutely silent, suddenly it is there. Zen people have the right expression for it; they call it 'the sound of one hand clapping'. If two hands are there, of course, the clapping is easy, but one hand clapping and the sound of one hand clapping seems to be absurd -- but they are truly expressing the reality. When you go inside and you are absolutely silent you hear for the first time the inner music…. THE IMPERISHABLE SOUND, IS THE SEED OF ALL THAT EXISTS. AUM is the imperishable sound; it is the seed of all that exists. THE PAST, THE PRESENT, THE FUTURE -- ALL ARE BUT THE UNFOLDING OF AUM. AND WHATEVER TRANSCENDS THE THREE REALMS OF TIME, THAT INDEED IS THE FLOWERING OF AUM. THIS WHOLE CREATION IS ULTIMATELY BRAHMAN. AND THE SELF, THIS ALSO IS BRAHMAN. Simple words, direct, but you can make much dust around them, you can create many clouds around them. Thousands of commentaries exist on the Upanishads; in fact, no commentary is needed. I am not giving you a commentary on the Upanishad, I am simply expressing my own experience THROUGH the Upanishad. It is not a commentary on the Upanishad, I am just a witness to the Upanishad. I am saying that

what the Upanishad is saying is true, because I have also seen it the same way. It is the eternal truth. Whenever anybody comes to realize his own being suddenly he becomes a witness -- a witness to all that is true. Yes, the sound is heard, but you have to learn silence and that is the paradox. The (soundless) sound is heard only in silence; if you are full of sound you will not hear it. You have to drop all sound and then suddenly it is heard. You are so full of sound. If you just close your eyes and watch your mind for a few moments you will become aware: "What kind of mind is this? Am I insane or something?" Thousands of things are going on, and it is working twenty-four hours, day in, day out; from the cradle to the grave it goes on and on. It is a very tiring process, exhausting, but you don't know how to put it off. Meditation simply means the art of putting it off, and it is VERY simple. It is as simple as putting the light on and off…. AUM, THE IMPERISHABLE SOUND, IS THE SEED OF ALL THAT EXISTS. THE PAST, THE PRESENT, THE FUTURE, -- ALL ARE BUT THE UNFOLDING OF AUM. The unfolding of the music. The existence is music, like Heraclitus says: the hidden harmony. It is an orchestra. AND WHATEVER TRANSCENDS THE THREE REALMS OF TIME, THAT INDEED IS THE FLOWERING OF AUM. And the ultimate flowering comes when you have gone beyond time, and the moment you go beyond mind you have gone beyond time. It is mind which lives in the past, it is mind which projects the future, and because of the past and the future the present is created. When the mind is no more there, there is no time at all. Jesus was asked, "What will be the special thing in the kingdom of God, the MOST special?" And he said, "There shall be time no longer." Patanjali defines meditation as transcendence of time, because it is the same. Time and mind are two aspects of the same coin. The ultimate flowering happens when you have gone beyond mind, beyond time. THIS WHOLE CREATION THEN IS NOTHING BUT BRAHMAN. AND THE SELF, THIS ALSO IS BRAHMAN. --------------Osho, Philosophia Ultima (Mandukya Upnishad), Chapter 1

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What is Divine Sound? After being initiated into neo-Sannyas in 1980, I worked very hard on me. I lived a very austere life. I used to sleep on ground in my meditation room itself. Every morning I was doing Dynamic meditation. Every evening I used to do Kundalini meditation. In addition for whole of the day I used to remember my breath, which is a Buddhist meditation known as Anapan Sati Yoga. But nothing tangible was ever in sight. It was 13th January, 1997. I started getting frustrated. Under great duress I decided to discontinue all my spiritual pursuits. I cried and went to sleep after scolding all the masters of the past. In the middle of the night I was forced to wake up by some unknown force. I felt an urge to go to the adjacent room. I felt some divine presence in the room. Who it could be, I asked myself. Suddenly my attention went to the photograph of Guru Nanak. Some one prompted me –“He is none else than Guru Nanak Himself. Bow down to Him.” I became ecstatic. There was a continuous buzzing sound all around. I heard the divine appearance telling me-“This is Omkar, the Divine sound. It is not produced by any friction or beating. It is the sound of existence. The whole existence is filled with this sound, which has no beginning, no end. It is eternal sound. It is the sound of the very existence itself. It is sound of the silence. Whole universe is made up of this sound. Without it we cannot survive for a single moment. It nourishes us, it keeps us alive, and it is source of all life. This is the key you have been missing so far. This will open the door of your enlightenment.” I do not remember how much time passed by. When I woke up from this divine ecstasy, I thanked the invisible power for guiding me for the entire future journey. The soundless sound of Om is the first mystical experience of omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient divinity. I realized that it is not something theoretical or philosophical. It is existential. It can’t be created by us. Rather we are created by it. Hence for centuries, Om, the soundless sound has been represented not by alphabets, but by symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. This sound is certainly the most sacred, the most divine. In my childhood, in deep silent nights, many a times I heard the soundless sound, but I thought it was the sound of some insect. I never gave any importance to it. I realized that a Master is required to help in its identification, if not in hearing. That is why, probably Kabir says: “The Master and the Lord of Divinity both were standing before me. For some time I did not understand whom to bow down first. But, ultimately I decided to bow down to the Master first, because it was the Master who introduced me to the Lord (Kabir, Beejak).” Once I knew it, I felt I have known God. I was not the same person again. A totally new person, a divine person, a blessed one took birth in me. -------Osho Siddhartha

Sound of One Hand Clapping I came across a Zen koan wherein Zen masters used to ask their disciples to hear the sound of one hand clapping. The disciples tried their level best, but could not produce any sound with one hand. When they gave up, the master used to give them a technique described below. Be sensitive to all kinds of sounds. Just close your eyes, sit under a tree, and start listening. Be aware of all types of sounds around you-- the sounds of birds, insects, wind. Learn to distinguish between created and uncreated sounds. Go on finding out which sound is uncreated. Every sound will be created. One bird starts singing and then it stops. That which is created will cease to exist. Go on listening. Finally a moment will come when you will hear a continuous melodious sound. That is the sound of one hand clapping. This is the soundless sound -- uncreated. And only with this sound one can enter the temple of divine. But first we have to be sensitive to outer sounds- the wind passing through the trees, chirping of birds, the humming of bees, even the market noise, even the sounds that are created in the traffic, the aero plane, the train, all sounds have to be listened to attentively, silently and lovingly, as if we are listening to music. Tibetans have made a special type of metallic pot. When it is played, it creates a certain humming, which is somewhat closer to the Divine sound. In order to listen the Divine sound we have to go in silence and then suddenly soundless sound is heard within. That is a great experience. And once it has happened, we can always go on listening. We can always witness it. To attain it is the most important thing in life. ---------Osho Siddhartha -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Divine Sound-- What Other Masters Say Prophets and Founders of all the religions of the world -- Krishna, Mahavira, Zarthustra, Buddha, Laotsu, Jesus, Mohammad, Kabir, Nanak, Osho -- agree on the existence of divinity as the soundless sound. Indian sages have described the divine sound as Omkar, Om, Ram, Naam, Shabad, Pranav, Udgeeth or anahat nada. They define God as the divine melody. The Bible calls it ‘the word,’ ‘logos.’ Zen mystics call It 'the sound of one hand clapping'. In Islamic and Sufi scriptures it is described as Kalam-i-Ilahi (The Voice of God), Nida-i-Asmani (the Sound from Heaven), Ism-i-Azam (the Great Name), Saut-i-Sarmadi (the Intoxicating Sound), Saut-i-Nasira (the Sound Melodious), Kalam-i-Majid (the Great Commandment) and Kalm-i-Haq ( the Voice of Truth), which can be heard inside, and it was taught as Sultan-ul-Azkar or the King of all paths. I would now like to quote from various Masters on Divine Sound. Path of Divine Sound: Most of the Masters advocate the path of Divine Sound as the Royal Path for reaching highest peak of consciousness. Now I would like to quote other Masters on this subject. 

“Thus I reveal the Word which the Most Unfolded One has taught me.The Word is the best for mortals to listen. Whosoever shall render obedience and steadfast attention to me, will obtain for his own self the All-embracing Whole Being and Immortality; and through the service of the Holy Divine Spirit Will realize Mazda Ahur, or the Divine peak (Zoroaster, Gatha Ushtavaiti).”



“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of man. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehendeth it not (Christ, John 1: 1-5).”

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“Grow not skeptical, but attune yourself to the Sound coming down from the Heavens. (Jalaluddin Rummi, Masnavi ).”

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“Rise above from your mental horizon, O brave soul, and listen the Melodious Song coming from above (Jalaluddin Rummi, Masnavi).”

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“The prophet declared that he heard the Voice of God. It fell on his ears as clearly as any other sound. But God has sealed your ears, so you do not hear His Voice (Jalaluddin Rummi, Masnavi).”

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“The whole world is reverberating with Sound. To listen to It you must open your inner ears. Then you will hear an unending music, which will lead you beyond the confines of death (Shah Naiz).”

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“An unceasing Sound is floating down from the heaven. I wonder how you are engaged in fruitless pursuits (Khwaja Hafiz).”

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“None knows where my Beloved abides. But sure enough comes the sound of a bell there from (Khwaja Hafiz).”

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“Mere repetition of this or that name, without an actual touch with the named, is of no avail. If one were to become rich by calling for riches, then there would hardly be one who is not rich (Kabir, Beejak).”

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“Renouncing all, I listen to the Transcendental Music within (Kabir, Beejak).”

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“Close down your eyes, ears and mouth, and hear the unending melody of the Shabd (Kabir, Beejak).”

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“The Word is the only Truth, and can be known and experienced through a perfect Master (Guru Nanak,Adi Granth, Basant Rag M1).”

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“Anahad Shabad is very exhilarating, but one gets to it by the Master’s grace (Guru Nanak,Adi Granth, Sri Rag M1 ).”

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“Everyone wants happiness but gets what God ordains. All acts of devotion and charity counts for nothing when compared with Naam (Guru Nanak ,Adi Granth, Wadhans M1).”

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“I need no funeral ceremonies after my death. I depend wholly on Sat Naam, the maker of all, and pervading all, here and hereafter (Guru Nanak ,Adi Granth, Asa, M1).”

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“Thou manifested thyself as Naam and set up the creation. Out of the Formless proceeded forms in varying degrees (Guru Nanak , Adi Granth, Asa War, M1).”

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“The Naam reverberating as it is in all hearts, does not diminish or increase and is unchanging permanence. Without Naam all are just paupers, and this Truth comes only from a Master (Guru Nanak , Adi Granth, Sarang, M1).”



“Hearing the Naam one becomes the knower of the Self, and gets all that is good and noble. Hearing the Naam all sins drop off of themselves and one easily gets at the Truth. Hearing the Naam, one’s face shines with glory. A worthy disciple is ever in contact with the Naam (Guru Nanak , Adi Granth, Sarang War, M1).”

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“I live when I listen to Naam and I die when I forget it (Guru Nanak , Adi Granth, Asa, M1).”

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“At the early hour of the dawn, be in communion with the divine Word, And meditate on His glory (Guru Nanak , Adi Granth, Jap Ji 4).”

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“I possess the treasure of Naam. Whosoever gets it, is emancipated. It can neither be stolen nor destroyed. It is tax-free and is not affected by the ravages of time (Guru Nanak , Adi Granth,Maru, M1).”

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“Rare indeed is the devotion to Naam. We cannot do full justice to the greatness of Naam (Guru Amar Das, Adi Granth, Ramkali M3).”

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“Those who are devotees of the Naam are truly pure and beloved of the Lord. Except Naam all other worship goes in vain, and the people at large are deluded.



The worthy disciple knows himself by coming in contact with the allpervading Naam. The Immaculate Lord Himself becoming the guide contacts the soul with the Word. Those who worship with no proper guidance, remain wandering in the realm of duality. A worthy disciple alone knows the Path and bows before His Will (Guru Amar Das, Adi Granth, Ramkali M3).”

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“Naam is pure gift from God. He grants it only through a the Master. He alone is blessed with Word, who is so ordained (Guru Amar Das, Adi Granth, Asa, M3).”

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“All that is of life and all that is of matter, whether visible or invisible, is from the Naam. Without a Master one cannot have contact with the Naam (Guru Amar Das, Adi Granth, Suhi, M3).”

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“There is no treasure greater than Naam. It comes through the grace of God (Guru Amar Das, Adi Granth, Asa, M3).”

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“Only those get attached with Naam, who are so ordained by God, for they get peace and hear within them the unceasing Divine Melody (Guru Amar Das, Adi Granth,Ramkali, M3).”

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“Naam includes the merit of all Japas, Tapas and orderly living, for without Naam there cannot be purification of the mind. It takes time to establish Divine link with Naam and merge into it (Guru Amar Das, Adi Granth, Sri Rag, M3).”

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“In the present age, the Naam reigns supreme, and is surging in abundance in each individual. However, it becomes manifest in such hearts as take refuge at the lotus feet of a Master (Guru Amar Das, Adi Granth, Prabhati, M3).”

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“I got Naam through the compassion of a living Master. One can not experience it without the help of a living Master (Guru Amar Das, Adi Granth, Majh, M3).”

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“Rise early, and worship the Word day and night, and then you will have no grief and escape from all troubles (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth,Gauri, M4).”

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“It is with great fortune that one gets Naam (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth, Vadhans, M4).”

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“He alone engages in Naam who is so destined (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth, Asa, M4).”

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“The Word is the Power of God that has created the Universe. The same Power is sustaining all by its omnipresence in every form (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth, Sri Rag, M4).”

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“The greatness of Naam is known through the Master (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth, Asa, M4).”

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“Commune with Naam till the last breath of life. This brings proximity to God and He saves us in the end (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth, Sri Rag, M4).”

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My Beloved, I do live when I contact the Naam. Without that there is no life. My Master has instilled this in me (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth, Sri Rag ,M4).”

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“By communion with the Naam one knows the value of the Naam. By communion with the Naam, one is cleansed of the sins and knows Truth.By communion with the Naam, one becomes luminous. But one gets this communion through the grace of a Master (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth, Sarang War, M4).”

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“Naam for excels Japa, Tapa, deeds of charity and the like. A contact with Naam gets all desires fulfilled (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth, Asa, M5).”

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“One cannot by the study of the scriptures cross the ocean of life. Naam far transcends all acts of piety and charity (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth, Asa, M5).”

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“The Vedas, the Smritis and all other sacred scriptures unanimously proclaim that except Naam there is no other path for spiritual development. Everything else is futile talk (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth, Suhi, M5).”

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“Word is the Creator and the Sustainer of the Universe. Word transcends all forms and names. Those who worship the Word, only they alone live (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth, Gauri, M5).”

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“All the religions are deeply rooted in the Naam. There is no religion higher than that of the Naam.The practice of the Naam is the noblest of all virtues (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth, Gauri, M5).”

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“Leaving aside all your learning and cunning, worship the Great formless transcendental Brahma. Except the Naam all others fall away (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth, Asa, M5).”

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“He alone gets to Naam, as God may so ordain (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth, Kanra, M5).”

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“Nothing comes up to Naam. Only a rare disciple gets this gift (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth, Gauri, M5).”

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“One who has access to a living Master, he alone is enabled to contact the eternal Music (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth, Asa, M5).”

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“By hearing the Sound, one becomes self-luminous, and all darkness departs. By hearing the Sound, one becomes the knower of the self and reaps the full benefit of Naam. By hearing the Sound, one is washed of all sins and meets pure Truth. By hearing the Sound, one glows with the Divine Light. Rare indeed is the disciple who comes in contact with the Naam. By hearing the Sound, the mind gets docile and one feels satiated. By hearing the Sound, one feels perfectly contended and is rid of all ills. By hearing the Sound, the Naam becomes fully manifested and one becomes Naam personified (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth, Sarang War, M5).”

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“Naam is the essence of all religions (Guru Teg Bahadur, Adi Granth, Gauri, M9).”

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“Excepting the True Naam, the rest is all trash. Four things alone are eternal and lasting : Naam , Disciple, Master and the Formless Lord (Guru Teg Bahadur, Adi Granth, Shalok M9).”

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“Nanak and Kabir both taught the science of the Naam. I have also manifested Naam within me. Dhru and Prahlad were intoxicated with the ecstasy of Naam. Lord Shiva too is ever engaged in meditating on Naam (Dulan Das).”

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“All space is filled with Saute Sarmad or the “Abstract Sound.” The vibrations of this Sound are too fine to be either audible or visible to the material ears or eyes, since it is even difficult for the eyes to see the form and colour of the ethereal vibrations on the external plane. It was the Saute Sarmad, the Sound of the abstract, which Mohammed heard in the cave, Ghar-e-Hira, when he became lost in his ideal. The Koran refers to this Sound in the words: “Be and all became” (Kun-feu-Kun). Moses heard this very Sound on Mount Sinai (Koh-i-Toor), when in communion with God. The same Word was audible to the Christ when he absorbed in his Heavenly Father in the wilderness. Shiva heard the same Anahad Naad during his Samadhi in the Himalayas. The flute of Krishna is symbolic of the same Sound allegorically explained. This Sound is the source of all revelation to the Master to whom it is revealed from within and it is, therefore, that they know and teach the one and the same Truth. The knower of the mystery of the Sound knows the mystery of the whole Universe. Whosoever has followed the strains of this Sound has forgotten all earthly distinctions and differences; and has reached the same goal of Truth in which all the Blessed Ones of God unite. Space is within the body as well as around it; in other words the body is in space and space in the body. This being the ease, the Sound of the Abstract is always going on within, around and about man. Man does not hear it as a rule, because his consciousness is entirely centered in his material existence. Man becomes so absorbed in his experiences in the external world through the medium of the physical body that space, with all its wonders of Light and Sound, appears to him blank…. The limited volume of earthly sound is so concrete, that it dims the effect of the Sound of the Abstract to the sense of hearing; although in comparison to It the sounds of the earth are like that of a whistle to a drum. When the Abstract Sound is audible, all other sounds become indistinct to the mystic. The Sound of the Abstract is called Anahad in the Vedas, meaning the unlimited sound. The Sufis name It Sarmad, which suggests the idea of intoxication. The word intoxication is here used to signify upliftment, the freedom of the soul from Its earthly bondage. Those who are able to hear the Saute Sarmad and meditate on It are relieved from all worries, anxieties, fears and diseases; and the soul is freed from captivity in the senses and in the physical body. The soul of the listener becomes All-pervading Consciousness; and his spirit becomes the battery which keeps the whole Universe in motion (Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Mysticism of Sound).” -----Osho Siddhartha

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Quality of Divine Sound Most of the Masters have described five types of Divine Sound. Some of them have talked about ten types. However, they agree on one point that finer and higher quality of sounds appear from the right side of the ear. 

“Let yogi sit in Siddhasan and while practicing the Vaisnavi Mudra, should hear the sound through his right ear. By communion with the Word, he will become deaf to the external sounds, and will attain the Turiya Pad or a state of equipoise within a fortnight. First the murmuring sounds resembling those of the waves of the ocean, the fall of rain and the running rivulets and the Bheri will be heard intermingled with the sounds of bell and conch(Naad Bindu Upanishad).”

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“First is the humming sound of the bees. The second is the sound of anklets. The third is that of the conch. The fourth is that of a gong. The fifth is a trumpet-blast. The sixth is that of a flute. The seventh is of a Bhir. The eighth is of an mridang (drum beat). The ninth is of a Shahnai (Naferi). The tenth resembles the roar of a lion. Such indeed is the Heavenly Orchestra. In these ten melodies a yogi gets absorbed (Amir Khusro, Tazkra-i-Ghousia).”

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“Listen the heavenly orchestra, with notes of dulcimer, flute, zither and guitar (Hafiz).”

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“Be attentive and listen to the five drum-beats, coming down from the high heaven (Hafiz).”

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“The wondrous Music of the five melodies, God Himself may make audible if He so wishes (Guru Nanak, Adi Granth, Maru, M1).”

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“It is the Grace of the Master that one devotes himself wholeheartedly to this practice of Naam hearing, and meets the All-Merciful, by listening to the five Sounds (Guru Nanak, Adi Granth, Bhairon, M3).”

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“In the temple of the body one hears the five Melodies and gets the highest glory (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth, Sarang, M4).”

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“The five sublime melodies become manifested through the grace of the Master. Only a rare soul gets attached to them (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth, Kanra War, M4).”

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“The five sounds become audible by following the instruction of the Master. A person with a great fortune can hear them (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth, Kanra War, M5).”

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“The Sound of the gong is heard everywhere (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth, Asa, M5).”

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“The worthy disciple can listen to the five sounded Music. The Divine Sound is characterized by five distinct strains (Bhai Gurdas, War 6).”

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“God himself dwells in the five Sounds, which give a clue of Him (Bhai Gurdas, War 7, Pauri 5).”

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“The first is like the nightingale’s sweet voice chanting a song of parting to its mate. The second comes as the sound of silver cymbals of the Dhyanis awakening the twinkling stars. The next is as the plaint melodies of the ocean spirit imprisoned in its shell. And this is followed by the chant of Vina. The fifth like sound of bamboo flute shrills in thine ear. It changes next into trumpet blast. The last vibrates like the dull rumbling of a thunder cloud (Madam Blavatsky, The Voice of the Silence).”

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“This Sound develops through ten different aspects because of Its manifestation through the different tubes of the body (Nadis); it sounds like thunder, the roaring of the sea, the jingling of bells, running water, the buzzing of bees, the twittering of sparrows, the Vina, the whistle, or the sound of Shankha (Conch) until it finally becomes Hu the most sacred of all sounds. This Sound Hu is the beginning and end of all sounds, be they from man, birds, beast, or things (Hazrat Inayat Khan,The Mysticism of Sound).”

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“Your hearing the Bell Sound in the middle of the top of the head is perfectly right. Actually, the Sound proceeds from the top of the head. In the beginning we try to hear it from the right ear because of our habit of hearing every sound through our ears. Lucky are those who hear the Bell Sound as you do, with a pulling sensation at the top of the head (Charan Singh, “Divine Light, Radha Soami Satsang Beas).”

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“Whatever sound you hear can be compared to about ten examples of sounds, not that there are exactly ten sounds. So, listen to whatever sound you hear. With the help of simran and concentration, other sounds will fade out, and the real Sound will become distinct and clear, and will start pulling you and catching your attention. Don’t try to differentiate one sound from another. Then you will be lost in deciding which sound you should hear and which you should not hear, and your mind will run away because it becomes difficult for you to discriminate one sound from another. It is always better and more practical just to give your attention to the sound, whatever sound you are hearing. With the help of simran, the real Sound will become more distinct and clear, and other sounds will fade out. Automatically you will be in touch with that real Sound (Charan Singh, Die to Live, Radha Soami Satsang Beas).” ---------Osho Siddhartha

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The Art of Divine Listening Divine sound is heard inside during meditation. It is listened deeply, lovingly without chattering mind. The art of listening and remembering Divine sound all the time is known as Surati. I have been to different mystics. They have different perceptions about the location of the divine sound. Sufis say that the heart center is the center from where the soundless sound arises. If we relax into the heart center, we shall hear the divine sound. Those who will enter the heart, they will hear a continuous chanting inside their being which sounds like Om. Some other mystics, such as Kabir, say that crown center is the location. Some others, such as Lao-tzu, perceive it at the hara center. I started listening the divine sound. I discovered that melody of divine sound is reverberating deep in my heart. It is showering on my head at the crown center too. It is happening in my hara center also. It is vibrating in my every cell of the body. I started enjoying listening to it. I felt that I can experience it at any point in my body. It is the existential song of my very being. It became my meditation. Soon I found a great silence arising out of the listening to sound. Just listening to sound I started falling into meditation. It is very simple because divine sound is always there. The greatest joy that I know, is listening divine sound. The greatest misery, that I can perceive, is living without it. The easiest path of enlightenment, that I know, is being one with it. There is hardly any other way to change our fortune. ------Osho Siddhartha ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mantra Yoga I told you before that I would say more about mantra, for I would like you to know how the right use of mantra can bring about a transformation in your life. The first thing is, as I said before, your personality contains a number of layers like an onion. You have to peel off each layer so that you can reach the center that is hidden within. The diamond is hidden. It is not lost; for you yourself are the diamond, and you can never lose it. It is only that the center is concealed under the various layers, but so is a diamond. A diamond lies concealed under layers of stone; it also looks almost like a stone, but that does not alter its intrinsic quality as a diamond. Perhaps you do not know why diamonds are so valuable. Behind its worth lies the search of man for the eternal. The diamond is the most stable object in the world. All things change, but a diamond dies not change. Thousands of years can pass and it will not deteriorate. In this ever-changing world the diamond is the symbol of changeless existence. Hence its value; otherwise, it is just a stone. Its value lies in its changelessness, its stability. You eternal nature is a diamond. All sadhana is designed to remove the layers of dust that are covering this diamond. Since the covering layers are dust, they are easily removed. It is the constantly-changing that covers the changeless, so it is not difficult to remove it. Mantra is a method for removing these layers…. The first layer is the body, so the mantra practice should begin on the body; you are in the body, so it is there that the cure must begin. If you skip this layer your illness will remain, and in due course you will find yourself with unripe fruit on your hands. Remember, you can only start from where you are; if you start somewhere else you are merely dreaming. Tight now you think you are the body, so you have to begin the mantra experience with the body. Understand the technique. First, you have to sit quietly for ten minutes, but before you sit you have to purge yourself off all your restlessness by being totally active for five minutes; dance, jump, skip and run, whatever is required to satisfy your restlessness. It must be cleansed from every pore, from every part of the body; only then can you sit in silence for ten minutes. This catharsis is necessary before you begin to sit in silence; it will require from five to ten minutes, depending on the extent of your restlessness. Let your body shake, totally, completely, in every possible way, so that for then minutes it will have no more desire to more to satisfy its craving for activity. Then sit down -- so still that there is not even a hint of movement. Keep the eyes half-closed. Do not attempt this practice in an open place. A closed room, preferable small and empty, is ideal. There should be nothing inside the room. A church or temple or mosque is ideal because of its emptiness. If this is not possible, clear out a corner of your room; let there be nothing in it. Remove all the pictures of gods and goddesses, for they too can create problems.

Only emptiness is God. All else is a play of the mind. And the mind is so crazy! Look for yourself at the shrines that people set up in their houses to worship in. You will find pictures of gods and goddesses hanging all over the walls. They may be cut out of the newspaper or they may be calendar pictures; it is the same thing. The walls are plastered with them. By looking at their walls you can tell what goes on in people's minds. When people worship their household gods they hurriedly enter the shrine room, sprinkle a little over the whole collection of deities, fold their hands and believe that they have satisfied every one of them. None of them has been worshipped. If you try to satisfy them all, you haven't paid homage to any of them; but if you truly pay homage to one, they are all satisfied. Achieve one and you have achieved all; and the one is within, not without! The emptier the site, the better it is; fir the search is for that very emptiness; the room will be the symbol for your internal emptiness. The room should be small; that helps the mantra. And it should also be empty; that also helps. Let the eyes be half-open; for when the eyes are fully opened you stand at the door with your back to the house and face towards the outer world. You cannot make a complete about-face, for a complete change is not easy. So keep the eyes half-open and half-closed; let them be half-closed to the world and half-opened to your inwardness. Begin here! Remember, there is no hurry. When the eyes are half-opened you experience a state of drowsiness. Keep looking at the tip of your nose; keep your eyes open only to that extent. You are not to concentrate. Observer the tip of your nose with a feeling of peace within. Then begin to say 'Om' loudly. You are using the body, you start from the body, because that is where you are right now. Repeat 'Om' loudly, so that the sound strikes the walls and rebounds and falls back on you. This is why an empty room is essential, for that resonance is only possible in an amply room, and the greater the resonance the better it is. Christian cathedrals were designed for mantra; whatever is spoken reverberates and echoes a thousandfold from all sides. The Hindu temple is also constructed for meditation; the dome serves the same purpose. No vibrations can escape from a circular place; the sound turns inward. Sit and repeat 'Om' as loudly as possible. Remember, you have to use the body. Your whole body should be bathed in the vibrations of 'Om'. You should feel that you have expended all your life-energy in that 'Om'. Hold nothing back; treat it as a matter of life and death. The mantra cannot be complete with anything less than this. If you repeat it softly, halfheartedly, then it is of no use. You have to say it with all your strength, and all your being, as if you very life depended on it; unless you say 'Om' with all you might you will die. Stake you all! Let 'Om' roar like a lion from within you. Eyes half-closed... halfopened... and a loud repetition of 'Om'. Remember, the vibrations are created like ripples in a pool when a stone is thrown. Similarly, your 'Om' will create ripples and vibrations everywhere; it will strike the walls and come back to you. Also, repeat the 'Om' quickly, so that each repetition overlaps the previous one. Leave no interval between this, no space. Exert all you strength, until you are bathed in perspiration. In a few days you will find that the whole room is filled with 'Om'. You will find that the room is assisting you; all the sound will be coming back to you. If you can find a circular room it will be very good; if you find one with a dome, even better! The room should be absolutely empty, so that the vibrations rain on you from all sides. You

whole body should be bathed in those vibrations. Then you will find a wonderful freshness that is unattainable even after bathing in water. Scientists are carrying out extensive research on vibrations. They have discovered the plants flower and bear fruit earlier when they have been exposed to music of a particular vibration. In Russia and in America music has been used in agriculture to promote richer and earlier harvests; the results have been quite successful. Ravi Shankar used his sitar in an experiment in Canada. He played the sitar when seeds of different plants were sown. When the plants come up the most astonishing thing was that they are all leaning towards the place where Ravi Shankar had played. When they grow taller they were still leaning in the same direction, just as a deaf person leans forward and brings his ear closer in order to hear better. All the plants have their ears to the sitar! And they grew twice as quickly! A plant is a gross body in which everything is asleep, unconscious; but even so, the body vibrates with sound an begins to sway. When 'Omkar' -- the sound of 'Om' -- begins to shower on you from all sides the vibrations will from a circle. You will find that every pore of your body is filled with joy, and all the bodily illnesses are draining away; you will find a peace, a profound sense of well -being. It will surprise you how many body illnesses will disappear on their own, for it is a profound cleansing that penetrates you deeply. The body is a concentration of vibrations, and there is no vibration more wonderful than 'Omkar', the repetition of 'Om'. Repeat 'Om' loud for ten minutes, using the medium of the body to its maximum. Then close your eyes. The tongue should touch the roof of the mouth, which should be completely closed. Now you have to use the tongue and lips no more. The next step is to repeat 'Om' inside, in your mind. Until now the room was outside, surrounding you on all four sides; now the body surrounds you on all four sides; now the body is the room. Let the mantra reverberate within the body for the next ten minutes. You are not to use the lips or tongue or throat at all. The mind should repeat 'Om... Om... Om...' but you must keep it the same rapid rate, the same speed. As you filled the room with omkar, so you fill the body, leaving it trembling with vibrations from head to toe. Allow no gap between two oms, so that the mind has no chance to intrude. The mind cannot think two thoughts at the same time. If your repetition is so fast and intense that there is no gap between two repetitions, no thoughts will come in between. If you relax your peace is the slightest, thoughts will creep in. So, repetition without any gaps! Do not worry about overlapping of the repetitions. Let them pile up on top of one another like railway cars in an accident. Remember, you are not to use the body any more; therefore now the eyes have to be closed. The body must now be very still. The 'Om' vibrations should hit the walls of the body from within and fall on the mind, just as in the beginning they hit the walls of the room and were then reflected back to the body, which purified the body, just as the internal vibrations cleanse the mind. As the vibrations deepen you will find that the mind is beginning to fade. You begin to experience a deep silence that you never before tasted. Keep this up for then minutes; then drop your head until the chin touches the chest. For a few days you might feel a strain in the neck, but pay no attention to it, and soon it will disappear. So in the third step you drop your chin on to your chest, as if the neck is cut off, lifeless. Now, no more repetitions -- not even in the mind. Now just listen, as if the

'Omkar' is reverberating within and you are only the listener, not the doer. You can only step completely out of the mind when you abandon all sense of the doer. Become only the witness. Put all your effort into this. Let you head hang down all the way to your chest, and try to listen to the 'Om' resonate within…. Now just try to listen. Until now you were repeating the mantra, first with the body, then with the mind. Now you try to become a witness to the mantra. You will be surprised; there is a very subtle sounding of the mantra going on within. It is exactly like 'Om' though is it not 'Om', for it is difficult to express it in any language. If you listen very silently you are bound to hear it. Now you are standing apart from the body. The first step severed your connection with the body; the second step severed your connection with the mind; now the third step is the witnessing attitude, the feeling that 'I am the witness'. No mantra is greater than 'Om'; no mantra is more wonderful. Ram, Krishna, Mahavir, Buddha are all beautiful sounds, but they cannot take you beyond the mind, for they have an image, a form; whereas 'Om' is formless. Besides, you have a relationship with Buddha, Krishna and Jesus; you have feelings of love, attachment, fondness, affection. These will not allow you to step out of your mind. 'Om' is absolutely meaningless. It is unique. It has no meaning, no form, no image -- not even an outline. And it is not a part of the alphabet. It is closest to the sound which is actually continuously resonating within you, which is the very nature of your existence. Just as the brook does not babble, but its very flow causes the babbling sound; just as when the wind passes through the branches and the leaves rustle in the same way, your being is such that 'Om' resounds within you. It is the sound of your being. Hence, 'Om' does not belong to any religion. It is neither Hindu nor Jaina nor Christian, nor Buddhist, nor Moslem. It is the non-sectarian mantra. You will be surprised to know that the Jainas, the Muslims, the Christians all make use of this mantra, though there are slight variations: the Muslims say amin, the Christians say amen. These are only altered forms of 'Om'. On the course of its journey from India to distant lands this mutation took place. 'Om' is not connected with any thought. Whoever was observed into the nothought state, heard it. For the first two steps you will pronounce the mantra, and in the third step you will just listen to it. You will be the listener, the witness. In the first two steps you are the doer, for the body and mind are parts of the doer; the third is the witness state. In it you listen, just listen. The body is cut off, so is the mind; the layers of the onion are peeled off, and only pure existence remains -- only you! And that is Shivahood…… FIRST STEP, BUT THE BODY: SAYING 'OM' -- TEN MINUTES SECOND STEP, BUT THE MIND: SILENT REPETITION OF 'OM' -- TEN MINUTES. THIRD STEP, LISTENING SILENTLY TO THE RESONANCE OF 'OMKAR' WITHIN -TEN MINUTES. ----------Osho, The Great Path(Shiv Sutra), Chapter #10 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Satyam Shivam Sundaram BELOVED OSHO, WAS RABINDRINATH'S LONGING, HIS CREATIVE ANGST, THE VERY THING THAT IN THE END BECAME AN OBSTACLE TO HIS ENLIGHTENMENT? AM I ALSO DESTINED TO DIE WITH TEARS IN MY EYES, AND A POCKET FULL OF SONGS? Milarepa, a poet is not in search of truth. His search is for beauty, and through the search for beauty nobody has ever become enlightened. One can become a great poet, a great painter, a great singer, a great dancer; but on the path of beauty, enlightenment is not possible. The seeker of truth, and only the seeker of truth, attains to enlightenment. And this is the miracle of enlightenment, that once you have discovered truth, then beauty, the good, and all that is valuable simply become available to you. Beauty cannot lead to enlightenment, but enlightenment opens your eyes to all dimensions and all directions. Rabindranath was very close to enlightenment, but his search was not for enlightenment -- he was searching for the beautiful. And the search for the beautiful, deep down, is the search for expressing beauty -- in words, in music, in dance, in any kind of creativity. The seeker of beauty is really seeking a vision, which he can reproduce in his poetry, in his song, in his painting. Always the search is inner, but the goal is somewhere outside. And that's the problem for all great creative people: they come to know, but then expression becomes difficult; they come to experience beauty, but how to share it? You may see a rose Flower, and be suddenly overwhelmed by its beauty, but how to share it? How to express it? The concern of the artist is expression; the concern of the seeker is experience. Neither of them is able to express, but because the seeker of truth is totally concerned with experiencing, he comes to enlightenment, and he can die with a smile on his face, with fulfillment, whether he has been able to say something about it or not -- that is not his concern, that is not his angst, his anxiety. The artist also comes to know what he is seeking, but his problem is that basically, his interest in seeking beauty is for expression -- and expression is almost impossible. At the most you can stutter a little bit -- all your songs are stutterings of great poets. They look beautiful to you, immensely meaningful and significant, but to the poet... he knows he has failed. All artists, either in the East or in the West, have felt an immense failure. They have tried their best, and they have produced great pieces of art -- for us they are great pieces of art, but for them they are faraway echoes of their experience. Hence, they die either mad.... Almost seventy percent of painters, dancers, poets have gone mad. They have made too much effort. They have put too much tension into their being, so that it brought a breakdown, a nervous breakdown. And many of the artists have even committed suicide. The wound of failure became unbearable: to live any longer and to carry the same

wound, and feeling again and again... became too difficult, and it was better to destroy oneself. And those who have not gone mad or committed suicide, they have also not died in a blissful way. In the East, we have defined the ultimate values as three: satyam, shivam, sundaram. Satyam means truth -- that is the highest. The seeker, the mystic follows that path. Then comes shivam: goodness, virtue. The moralist, the saint, the sage -- they follow that path. And sundaram means beauty. The poets, the singers, the musicians -they follow that path. Those who attain to truth automatically come to know what is good and what is beauty. Those who follow good, neither come to know what is true, nor do they come to know what is beauty. The followers of good -- the moralists, the puritans -- also never achieve enlightenment. All that they achieve is a repressed personality -- very beautiful on the surface, but deep inside very ugly. They have great reputation, honor, respect, but inside they are hollow. The people who follow sundaram, beauty, are inside fulfilled, utterly fulfilled, but their misery is that that is not their aim: just to be fulfilled. They want all that they have experienced to be brought into language, into paintings, into sculpture, into architecture. Hence, even though they have experienced beautiful spaces they remain anxiety-ridden. The people who follow beauty are most often not very respectable -- not in the same sense as the saints are. They are very natural people, very loving and very lovable, but they don't have any ego, any idea of holier-than-thou; they remain just simple and ordinary. These three values have been for centuries followed separately. So the people who have become enlightened have never painted, have never made beautiful statues, have never composed music; they have never danced. They have never followed the dictates of the society, they have never followed the conventions of the society; hence most of them have been crucified, poisoned, killed -- because people want you to be a puritan, a moralist. In people's eyes morality is a social value, truth is not. Beauty is for entertainment; they don't take it seriously. I have been trying in many ways to open new doors -- this is one of the most important doors. I want you to be a seeker of truth, but when you have attained to truth you should not be without songs and without dances. Beauty is a little lower value than truth, but the man of truth can express beauty more clearly than the poet, than the painter. For the higher, the lower is always understandable -- not vice versa. The man who has attained truth should also take care that his life radiates godliness, goodness. It may not be in tune with the morality of the society -- it cannot be, because that morality is created by blind, unconscious people, just as a convention. For the man of truth it is not convention, it is simply his life. In utter nudity, he should make his life available to existence, to people, so that the ordinary morality of convention slowly, slowly changes into a real and authentic morality of a man who knows the truth. The man of truth should not look at poetry and music and dance as just entertainment for ordinary people. He should make it a point, because he has risen to a height from where he can see beauty in its absolute glory. He can contribute many riches to

existence: Each of his words can be a poem in itself, each of his silences can become celestial music, each of his gestures can indicate towards the most beautiful phenomenon, grace. But this has not been so up to now -- they have all followed their paths separately. I want my people to seek the truth, because by seeking it the other two will become available on their own accord. But remember, when you have experienced truth don't forget that it is part of your compassion to give humanity new dreams of goodness, new visions of morality, ethics, which are not of the marketplace, which are not only conventions. And he should not forget that his truth is so deep inside him that the unconscious people will not be able to have a taste of it -- he should create beauty in all possible dimensions. Once in a while it has been done. For example, when the Taj Mahal was created... it was not the work of great architects, but it is the most beautiful architecture in existence. Shahjehan, the emperor who was creating it as a memorial grave for his beautiful wife, Mumtaz Mahal -- hence the name Taj Mahal -- searched for years for Sufi mystics, who have no concern for beauty. He asked the Sufi mystics, "Although it is something lower, and you are not interested in it -- and why should one be? -- just for my sake, you design the Taj Mahal. The architects will make it, but the design should come from those who have known beauty in its fullness, from a height." George Gurdjieff used to say that there are two kinds of art. One is subjective art -ninety-nine percent of art in the world is subjective: you are simply pouring your feelings, your desires, your longings, your dreams, into whatever you are making. But once in a while there is objective art -- only one percent. What he calls objective art is art created by those who were not artists, who were realized people. They created music to help meditation -- it was not for entertainment. They created poetry to convey that, which cannot be conveyed by prose. They sang, they danced, to give you just a glimpse of their ecstasy, of their inner dance, of their joy, their blissfulness. In India, there are many places, which have objective art. Even Gurdjieff had to mention them, although he was in the West; he was born in the Caucasus, but when he was talking about objective art, he had to fall upon India. Indian classical music is not just for entertainment. Listening to it, you start going deep into yourself. It is not for all, it is only for those who are ready for an inner pilgrimage. He mentioned the Taj Mahal, too. On the full moon night, when the moon comes just in the middle of the sky, the Taj Mahal becomes the greatest object of meditation that man has created. You just sit silently and look at it, and just looking at it your thoughts will subside. The beauty of it is so enormous that your mind simply feels at a loss. It cannot grasp it, so it becomes silent. The caves of Ajanta and Ellora, the temples of Khajuraho, Puri, and Konarak... all these he mentions as objective art -- objective because they are not an effort to express feelings or ideas, they are devices, so that for centuries to come people will be able to have the same taste, the same feeling, the same joy. The pyramids in Egypt are part of objective art. Just in the beginning of this century, when excavations were begun in the pyramids, a cat was found dead inside. The pyramid was three thousand years old -- perhaps when they were closing the pyramid,

the cat had remained inside and died. For three thousand years the cat had been there, dead, but its body had not deteriorated. That was a miracle: three thousand years, and the body of the cat was as if she had just died. The scientists were puzzled. Finally it was discovered that the shape of the pyramid is the cause. That particular shape of the pyramid is tremendously capable of preserving things as they are. Even if you put a dead body inside, it will be preserved. Nothing else is needed, because the shape of the pyramid changes the direction of the rays of the sun, and in that change of direction the miracle happens. Now there are small plastic pyramids, glass pyramids available in the market. And people who are very much health-oriented, they just sit inside that pyramid. A small pyramid, portable -- you can fold it, keep it in your suitcase -- and wherever you want you can fix the pyramid up like a tent, and just sit inside it for one hour. And you will feel as immense a well being as you have ever felt. The possibility is that if these pyramids are used widely, man's life can be prolonged. If it becomes a routine exercise for every child, in every home, in every school, in every college, life can be stretched up to three hundred years. Just one hour every day inside the pyramid, and you are not to do anything, just sit there. It is helpful in both ways: It will preserve your life, and that one hour of well-being will give you a deep feeling of meditation. The people who created the pyramids must have been mystics who had come to such a clarity, to see things which are not available to us. I want my people to be seekers of truth. But never forget that you have to bring a revelation into the moral codes of humanity, too. You should not feel satisfied that you have found the truth, and you have found what is good. You should make your good as much manifest and available to humanity as possible. The same is applicable to beauty. One feels a great loss... if Buddha had painted, or composed music, or sang songs, or once in a while danced with his disciples, the world would have been immensely enriched. I say to you, remember in those moments when you realize the truth that a great responsibility has fallen on your shoulders: you have to change the ordinary morality into a spiritual code, and you have to change subjective art into objective art. This will be the new expression of the contemporary mystic, and it will make a new breakthrough for the future. Milarepa, you are asking, "Am I also destined to die with tears in my eyes, and a pocket full of songs?" If you remain interested only in songs and music, you will die with tears in your eyes, and those tears will not be of joy. Let your search be for the truth, and only on the margin go on practicing your music, composing your songs; so when you reach to your enlightenment you are articulate enough to bring beauty to expression. Then you can go laughing, fulfilled, without any tears. ----------Osho, The Razor’s Edge, Chapter #10, Q1

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Sat Chit Anand BELOVED OSHO, SAT-CHIT-ANAND ... MEANING OR NO MEANING, JUST THE SOUND OF IT TOUCHES MY HEART DEEPLY.

Vimal, sat-chit-anand is included in those few words of all the languages of the world, which have descended from the highest peak of consciousness. They are pure music, they are absolute poetry, they are no ordinary words. And if they touch your heart without even knowing the exact meaning, the reason is that they are re-echoing the soundless sound of those who have entered into that space. Sanskrit can be proud that it has never been a living language used in the marketplace. Sanskrit lovers try to prove just the contrary. They try to prove that once it was a living language in which people talked, just like any other ordinary dialect. But I insist on my difference. I want to know why their insistence is for Sanskrit to be a living language used by ordinary people. They think, if a language is not used by ordinary people, then it loses something of importance, it is a dead language. Certainly it has never been used by the people, but it is not a dead language. It is a language of the mystics. It is the language of those who know. It is not worldly, that's true. It is something otherworldly, and this is not a criticism. In fact, this is the extraordinariness of the language, that it was only used by a very few people of tremendous understanding. Their each word has immense significance, because it is coming out of a deep experience of reality of their own being. The so-called living languages are mundane. They are for the marketplace, for day-to-day use: naturally, they cannot contain something of the beyond. Perhaps Sanskrit is the only language ... and it is also the mother language of all the civilized languages of the world. It is rare in the sense that the people who formulated it were not thinking of the material side of existence, but were more concerned that the words used would reflect something of consciousness, heights of consciousness, of love, of compassion, of ecstasy. Their words are mantras, sacred. They are coming from the very source of our life. It is possible. Vimal, you say, "sat-chit-anand ... Meaning or no meaning, just the sound of it touches my heart deeply." It is a soundless sound; or, in other words, the sound of silence, the sound of ultimate experience, the sound when you are no more -only the universe remains. Certainly you can avoid meaning. You can say "meaning or no meaning," because meaning is of the mind.

But Sat-Chit-Anand has a significance, which goes far higher than meaning. It is just a fragrance, which has left the flower. The flower is visible -- part of this world, part of matter -- but the fragrance, you cannot catch hold of it. You can feel it, it can touch you deeply. It can reach to your innermost core, but still you cannot figure out the meaning of it. You cannot figure it out, what it is in reality. The meaning is irrelevant here; significance becomes the relevance. Not that it has no meaning, but basically it has only significance. And the significance is that the very sound, Sat-Chit-Anand penetrates into the heart, breaking all the barriers and all the bars and all the defense measures. It resounds within your being, creating a subtle harmony, a deep peace, a strange feeling of fulfillment, of being at ease with the world, with the universe, with existence itself -- at ease not only with existence, but with yourself too. It is a pure silence, as if water can be condensed into ice, and the ice can be again melted into water. That is the reality of such beautiful sounds. They can be condensed into meaning, but their basic reality is to melt within you and to reach to each fiber of your being, to each cell, to give it a dance. These are the mystic sounds. They are very few. I have talked to you about satyam-shivam-sundram, sat-chit-anand, hari Om tat sat, om mani padme hum, om-shantih-shantih-shantih. These five I have chosen as the most significant, as the deepest going. I will try to give you the meaning also, because that meaning will help the significance to become deeper. That meaning will not only touch your heart, it will also touch your intelligence. And you have to be touched in your totality to be transformed. I will begin with the last one. That is the sound every Eastern scripture ends with ... om-shantih-shantih-shantih. It means "The soundless sound, or the sound of silence: peace ... peace ... peace ..." Just giving you the sense of the whole scripture in these few telegraphic words. Every scripture in the East ends with the same. It may be Hindu, it may be Buddhist, it may be Jaina -- it doesn't matter. They are all different in their philosophies. They are all different in their theologies. They are different religions continuously in controversy for at least ten thousand years. But strangely, they all end their scriptures with the sound of silence: peace ... peace ... peace ... It seems they are all different roots of this experience. They may differ about their roots, about the description of their roots. They may quarrel, they may contradict each other, but as far as the end is concerned, when they reach to the highest peak of consciousness, all that is found is the sound of silence and utter peace, so deep that they have to repeat it three times: peace ... peace ... peace ... The fourth is used by the Tibetans, although it takes almost all the words from Sanskrit: om mani padme hum. It is a very mystic statement. It says, "The

diamond in the lotus ... the sound of silence." You cannot conceive a more beautiful thing than a beautiful diamond in the most beautiful flower on the earth, the lotus. They are trying to convey to you the beyond in some way comprehensible to the mind: the sound of silence -- om -- the diamond in the lotus. I have loved it from my very childhood. Just the words, "the diamond in the lotus ..." They have managed in the most beautiful way to express the beyond. And the third is hari om tat sat: "the sound of silence ... this is the only truth." And the second is, sat-chit-anand: "truth, consciousness, bliss." And the first is, satyam-shivam-sundram: "truth, godliness, beauty." These five I can say to you belong to the universal religious consciousness, not to any organized religion, because they have come from individual mystics. They have poured their heart, they have poured their enlightenment, they have poured their awakening into these five mantras. There is no word in English to translate mantra. It means a sacred word, not of any use in the day-to-day life experiences, but only significant when you go beyond this visible world and enter into the invisible consciousness. A mantra is a secret key. It opens the door to the ultimate. But the meaning, Vimal, is also significant, because you are in the mind. The sound may have gone deeper into your heart, thrilled you, but still it is good not to leave the mind completely out of your experience; because it can become a disturbance, it can become very vengeful. Don't antagonize your mind. It can disturb everything. Have you watched how it disturbs your body? When you are in anger your whole body is disturbed: your stomach is disturbed, your blood pressure goes high, you start suddenly perspiring -- even in an air-conditioned place. There have been many cases of heart attack in intense anger. The heart suddenly stops. The mind can disturb the body on one hand: it can disturb the heart on another hand. Very few people know its disturbances in the heart because that is not a common experience. But if you don't know the meaning, if the mind is not satisfied, soon it will start creating suspicion, doubt, skepticism. Soon it will start saying to you that you are being irrational, and you will be affected. And the impact of Sat-Chit-Anand on your heart will start disappearing if the mind is not in cooperation. My whole effort is to transform your total being, not leaving anything outside, because nature does not intend it so. And when the mind can be persuaded to go along with you, there is no need to create an opposition. I am against creating any kind of unnecessary conflict and split in your being. It is better to create a bridge between mind, body and being. And the meaning is also tremendously beautiful. Sat means truth. And the longest search of man has been for that, because without knowing the truth, we

know nothing. Truth is the very meaning of our existence. Without knowing truth we are just accidental, we don't have any meaning. Perhaps something has gone wrong in nature and we are the product of it -freaks. Unless you know the meaning of yourself, you cannot have a deep relationship with the cosmos. The meaning is going to become a bridge with the cosmos. And unless you feel some meaning, some truth in your being, you are not yet aware of a deep communion with the whole. Truth is the experience of being in deep communion with the eternity of existence, and with the wholeness and the perfection and the grandeur and the magnificence of that which is. Truth simply means that which is. It is pure isness. And the revelation of this truth to you is only possible if your chit, your consciousness, rises to its ultimate flowering. It is consciousness that is going to discover the truth. Hence, meditation is emphasized. Meditation will not give you the truth, it will give you more and more consciousness, and finally, consciousness gives you two things: on one hand, truth, and on the other hand, a tremendous bliss. You become almost like a bird with two wings. Truth is your one wing, bliss is your other wing. And you are pure consciousness. In this experience you can fly like an eagle across the sun into the unknown. Then this whole universe belongs to you. Then wherever you are, you are at home. Then whatever you are, you are in utter peace. Then whatever happens is beautiful and brings tremendous gratitude to you. Prayer becomes your very heartbeat. You don't pray in synagogues and in churches and in temples and mosques. Those are for the irreligious. Those are for the hypocrites. Those are for the pretenders. The authentic religious man has prayer in his heartbeats. He is continuously feeling a tremendous gratitude to all that existence has made available to us – life, love, laughter. --------Osho, Sat Chit Anand, Chapter 7 Q #1 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hari Om Tat Sat BELOVED MASTER, I HAVE HEARD YOU SAY, HARI OM TAT SAT: THE DIVINE SOUND -- THAT IS THE TRUTH. WHEN YOU SPEAK I HEAR THE SOUND OF TRUTH RESONATING IN ME, YET I AM NOT ENLIGHTENED. HOW IS IT THAT I CAN RECOGNIZE THAT WHICH I HAVEN'T REALIZED?

Maneesha, Hari Om Tat Sat: the divine sound -- that is the truth... It is one of the mahavakyas, the great sayings, which have been embedded in the hearts of the mystics since eternity. It is not something theoretical, not something philosophical, it is something existential. Those who have gone within themselves have always heard a strange sound, which can only be called the sound of existence itself. It is difficult to reduce that sound into language. Hence for centuries, as far back as we can go, Om, the sound, has been represented not by any alphabetical word but by a symbol. That symbol is beyond any alphabet. It does not belong to any language. Hence the Tibetans can use it, the people who are writing in Sanskrit can use it; Mahavira can use it, who was using a language called Prakrit; Gautam Buddha can use it, who was speaking in a language called Pali. There is no other symbol in the whole world, which does not belong to any particular language, but is simply symbolic of a certain experience that can happen to anyone. And why have they not reduced it to some linguistic form? It is not without reason. The sound of Om is heard only when your mind is completely silent, when you have gone beyond all language, all thinking, when there is pure silence, not even a ripple. Suddenly you hear a music. There is no instrument playing it. It seems it is simply the very heartbeat of existence. That's why it doesn't matter whether someone is a Buddhist or a Hindu or a Jaina. It does not depend on your philosophy, on your religion. It depends on the depth of your reach towards your very inner center. There, suddenly, you are overwhelmed. It is not exactly Om, but Om comes the closest to expressing the sound. And the sound has been called the divine sound because it is not man-made. It is eternally here-now. Whoever wants to enter into the stream of eternal existence is bound to hear it. It says nothing, but it vibrates your being to such joy, to such celebration, to such dance that you have never dreamt of before. The word `hari' is used as one of the names of God. I don't want to bring God in; I want to avoid God completely because it brings all kinds of lies behind it.

Nobody has ever experienced any God. There is no evidence, no proof, no argument to support it. It is an absolutely useless hypothesis -- not only useless, but immensely harmful, because so much bloodshed has happened because of the name God. It is time that we forget the word and start using something else fresh. The word `hari' in itself has another meaning, which is far more beautiful than the word God. Hari in Sanskrit means the thief. And the sound of Om, once you come close to it, certainly proves to be the master thief because it simply steals your very heart forever. Then you are part of the existence and you are no longer a separate personality. You are not. Existence is. Certainly, this can be done only by a master thief; you are completely stolen, absorbed, not even a mark is left behind. Those who have used the words hari om would rather say that it is the divine sound. My own preference is to say that it is the master thief sound, which has stolen millions of hearts. But whatever you say, one thing is certain: Tat Sat. Tat means that, and sat means truth. This sound of Om is our very truth, is our very being. We are made of it. The whole existence vibrates, and through different vibrations of the same sound there are different things, but they are simply different vibrations. A certain vibration creates a tree, another vibration creates a bird, another vibration creates a man, but the whole existence, according to the mystics, is made of sound. This sound is certainly the most sacred, the most divine, because there is nothing more beautiful, nothing more ecstatic. Once you have heard it, even from far away... just a glimpse and you will never be the same person again. All that we are searching for in meditations is nothing but this master thief. We are searching in our being: what kind of dance, what kind of music goes on there in the living center of your life. Strangely enough all those who have entered in have found the same answer, without exception -- Hari Om Tat Sat. Maneesha, you are asking, "When you speak, I hear the sound of truth resonating in me, yet I am not enlightened. How is it that I can recognize that which I have not realized?" There are many things in this small portion of your question. When you hear me you are hearing existence itself, just the way you hear the wind passing through the pine trees or you hear the sound of running water. I have nothing to say to you, that's why I go on speaking continually, for years. If I had something to say I would have said it. Because I don't have anything to say, I can continue for eternity.

When you hear my sound and truth starts resonating in you it is simply a bridging between the master and the disciple. If what is coming from me originated in existence itself and you are in love, in trust, feeling one with me, you will start resonating with the same truth that is making me a vehicle. It does not need you to be anybody special, it just needs a loving heart, a trusting heart with open doors so the breeze that is coming is not obstructed, so the fragrance that is flowing can overwhelm you, can surround you, can open your heart like a rose opening its petals. But your problem is, "How is it possible, because I am not enlightened?" Who said that to you? I am saying every day you are enlightened, and you are so stubborn that sometimes I also start feeling it would be better I join you and become unenlightened. Why keep this separation? Either you become enlightened or I am going to become unenlightened. There is a limit to everything! I don't know who the person is who goes on spreading these rumors that you are not enlightened. What is the source of this knowledge? I know it, for thousands of years you have been told you are not enlightened. The people who were telling you that you are not enlightened were on an ego trip -- they were enlightened, you were not enlightened; they had arrived, your journey is going to be very long, perhaps many, many lives. Their whole effort was to create a great distance between you and themselves so they could be superior to you. They are divine, they are God's incarnation, they are enlightened, they are messengers, they are messiahs, and you... you are just an ignorant person moving from one life to another, carrying the same load of ignorance that goes on increasing with every life. These people have insulted the whole humanity. As far as I am concerned, I want to say not only are you enlightened, the trees and the rivers and the mountains and the stars, all are enlightened. Otherwise is not possible. I want to make it absolutely clear to you: to be alive is to be enlightened. Wherever there is life, wherever there is love, enlightenment is just hidden underneath. You may not recognize it. The whole effort is to help you to recognize it. All the meditations are nothing but an effort to feel your enlightenment -- which is already the case; whether you feel it or not, it does not matter. If you feel it you will rejoice, your life will become a dance, moment to moment, of tremendous glory and majesty, of grace and gratitude. If you don't recognize it you will remain miserable, asking all kinds of idiots, frauds, "How can I become enlightened?"

There have been masters like Bodhidharma. You ask him how to become enlightened and you will get such a good slap on your face that you will wake up immediately, saying, "I am sorry, I had just fallen asleep. I am enlightened." Those days were beautiful, when it was perfectly accepted that a master can slap the disciple. Now people have completely forgotten those beautiful moments and those beautiful days and those beautiful people. It is said about Chuang Tzu that when for the first time he entered the hut where Lao Tzu, his would-be master, was living, Lao Tzu looked at Chuang Tzu and said, "Remember one thing, never ask me how to become enlightened." The poor fellow had come for that very purpose. But Lao Tzu made it clear, "Only on this condition will I accept you as my disciple." There was a moment of silence. Chuang Tzu thought, "It is strange. I have come to become enlightened, that is the very purpose of becoming a disciple. And this old fellow, so beautiful and so graceful, is asking such an absurd thing: if you want to be my disciple, promise me that you will never ask about how to become enlightened." But it was already too late. He had fallen in love with the old man. He touched his feet and he said, "I promise I will never ask how to become enlightened, but accept me as your disciple." Immediately came a hard slap, "You idiot! If you are not going to become enlightened, then for what purpose are you becoming a disciple? I was asking this promise because I could see in you such beautiful intelligence that you might have immediately realized the point of my asking. You are enlightened; there is no way to become enlightened. There is no need. In fact even if you want to become unenlightened, there is no way." Then why has this whole humanity become unenlightened? How have they managed? Just by forgetting, just by being too involved in other things. The world is vast, and the mind goes on taking you into new desires, new longings, new achievements, new greed. Slowly, slowly a curtain falls between you and your mind, and the mind completely forgets your being. It forgets completely that there is an inner world also, not only an outer existence. The outer is very poor in comparison to the inner. But once you get involved with the outer, it is so vast that there is a possibility you may wander around in the universe for millions of lives. And you may not realize that you are wasting your time, that it is time to look in. Maneesha, promise me to never ask again, "I am not enlightened, how to become enlightened?" I have my own ways of slapping, far more sophisticated. I don't use my hand because I am a lazy man; moreover I don't want to hurt my

hand. But I have my own ways, and I go on slapping people -- and you know it well! And the last part of your question is, "How is it that I can recognize that which I have not realized?" If you can recognize it, that is an absolute guarantee that you must have realized it in some unconscious way. Perhaps you have forgotten your realization. Each child is born with the realization. I have condemned Gautam Buddha's story many times, but this time I am going to appreciate it, just to put things in balance. The story is: Gautam Buddha is born while his mother is standing under a saal tree, and he is born standing. And the first thing he does is to take seven steps in front of his mother and declare to the universe, "I am the most enlightened person ever." I have condemned it for different reasons; now I want to appreciate it for different reasons. In fact, every newborn child, if he could, would say the same thing, "I am enlightened." If every newborn child could walk, he would take seven steps and declare to the whole world, "I am the most enlightened person, unique." Perhaps the story is simply a symbolic way of recognizing each child's innocence as his enlightenment, as his ultimate experience. But he will be lost in the world. Perhaps once in a while somebody comes back to his childhood again. My effort is to bring you back to your innocent childhood again. What you have not done in your first birth you can do in your second. After I have gone from here tonight, everybody has to take seven steps and declare to the whole world, "I am the most enlightened person!" Try it, and you will really rejoice. And you will never fall back again into the old ignorance and start looking for how to become enlightened. Finish it tonight! And you are asking how one can recognize if one has not realized. It is a question like if you are given a rotten egg in a restaurant and you say, "This is rotten." And the manager comes and says, "Are you a hen? Have you ever produced an egg? If you have never produced an egg, on what authority are you saying that this is rotten?" There is no need. You can recognize things, which you may not have consciously realized, but which must be an undercurrent of realization within you. Except that there is no other way. How do you realize when you fall in love that it is love? Certainly somewhere deep inside you there must be a hidden corner that already knows what love is. How do you recognize when you see a rose flower and say it is beautiful? Have you ever seen beauty? Have you ever realized what beauty is? But certainly you recognize that the rose is beautiful. I am simply saying that there must be a certain realization in your being about beauty, about truth, about the ultimate sound of existence. That's what makes you recognize.

You are much more than you think you are. You are not what all the religions have made you -- sinners, condemned, just sitting in the waiting room for the train to take you to hell. And the waiting room itself is giving you enough experience of hell! The word `sin' is used by all the religions without paying attention to the root meaning of the word. The root meaning of the word is to forget. It has nothing to do with morality, it has nothing to do with your good actions or bad actions; it has something to do with forgetting who you are. And if you have forgotten, you can remember. Gautam Buddha continually says to his disciples, "It is not a question of realization, it is only a question of remembering. What you have forgotten you have with you"... just a little search in all your pockets -- also in the pockets, which you are keeping secret even to yourself…. Most of us are searching for things exactly where we know they are not. Now, people are searching for God in churches, in temples, in stone statues, and nobody ever thinks, "Is God going to be met there?" The statues are man-made, the temples are man-made and nobody is looking into himself… It is simply a question of remembering. But you, whether you remember or not, are by nature part of the whole. The experience that "I am part of the whole" is enlightenment. If you recognize it you start dancing. If you don't recognize it you go on crying unnecessarily. Things, which are very simple, have been made unnecessarily complicated… The Italian consul from Calcutta was here. Before he came here to be slapped by me he had gone to Satya Sai Baba. He seems to think himself a seeker of truth. And what happened in Satya Sai Baba's place? There they have an arrangement that in the office you fill in a form with your name, your country, your job, and what your essential question is, what you have come to ask. And then the Italian consul was taken in. Many other people were sitting waiting for Satya Sai Baba. He was given a special place. Satya Sai Baba came in and directly pointed to him, saying, "You live in Calcutta. You are Italian. You work in the consulate." A great miracle! And all the information he had filled in. And these idiots like Satya Sai Baba are surrounded by other idiots, not only of this country; they come from far away in search of truth. And he was immensely impressed: "This is your question. You want to know this; this is your enquiry. You are a great seeker of truth."

Now, naturally he is going to write a book. I will wait for his book. Here he also got special treatment, but I don't think he will have the guts to even refer to it. He was so afraid that he had an appointment with one of our sannyasins, Azima, to go with him to a dinner, but he simply escaped. He never reached the hotel where Azima was waiting for him for the dinner, afraid that Azima was bound to ask, "What do you think about Shree Rajneesh?" And it is not that he will not think about me. He will think about me day in and day out! He will see me in his dreams, because he avoided seeing me here. When I pointed at him, he was holding his hand over his face. I could not believe that such cowards... When I passed by the side I was looking from the window of my car; he had changed the position of his hand. Now he was keeping his hand over the side of his face. These are the people who are your diplomats, your politicians, your priests. If religiousness means anything, it means fearlessness. It means taking a risk, putting at stake all that you have, all that is familiar, for the unknown; leaving the known and moving into the unknown. That simple step makes you religious. No other discipline is needed. I have continually to postpone those funny and strange questions... their time never comes. One is so great that I think tomorrow morning I will begin with it. Now a few things to contemplate seriously.... Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan are the guests of the king of Saudi Arabia, who has a magic swimming pool. The magic is that if you name a liquid while jumping into the empty pool, it will immediately be filled with that liquid. Gorbachev goes first, and ripping off his clothes, he shouts, "Vodka!" and leaps into the pool, which is miraculously full of the finest Russian vodka. Thatcher goes next, and bouncing along in her bra and panties, she yells, "Whiskey!" She lands with a splash in a pool filled with the finest, twelve-year-old scotch. Not to be out-done, Reagan races towards the pool in his jockey shorts, stubs his toes on the edge of the pool and falling headlong, he screams, "Oh, shit!" ----------Osho, Hari Om Tat Sat, Chapter #1,Q1 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Om Mani Padme Hum BELOVED MASTER, WOULD YOU LIKE TO SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE FAMOUS TIBETAN MANTRA "OM MANI PADME HUM"?

Maneesha, the only country in the world, which has devoted all its genius to the inner exploration, is Tibet. Its findings are of tremendous value. Om Mani Padme Hum is one of the most beautiful expressions for the ultimate experience. It’s meaning is "the sound of silence, the diamond in the lotus." Silence also has its sound, its music... although the outer ears cannot hear it, just as the outer eyes cannot see it. We have six outer senses. In the past man knew only that we have five outer senses; the sixth is a new discovery. It is inside your ears; hence people failed to recognize it. It is the sense of balance. When you feel giddy or when you see a drunkard walking, it is the sense of balance that is affected. Just as these six senses are used to experience the outer, exactly the same six senses exist to experience the inner -- to see it, to hear it, to feel its utter balance, its beauty. It is invisible to the outer eyes but not to the inner. You cannot touch it with your outer senses, but the inner senses are absolutely immersed in it. OM is the sound when everything else disappears from your being -- no thought, no dream, no projections, no expectations, not even a single ripple -- your whole lake of consciousness is simply silent; it has become just a mirror. In those rare moments you hear the sound of silence. It is the most valuable experience because it not only shows a quality of the inner music -- it also shows that the inner is full of harmony, joy, blissfulness. All that is implied in the music of OM. You are not to say it. If you say it you will miss the real thing. You have to hear it, you have to be utterly calm and quiet and suddenly it is all around you, a very subtle dance. And the moment you are able to hear it, you have entered into the very secrets of existence. You have become so subtle that now you deserve that all the mysteries be exposed to you. Existence waits till you are ready. In the East all the religions without exception agree on this point, that the sound, which is heard in the final, highest peak of silence is something similar to OM. The word OM is not written alphabetically in any language of the East, because it is not part of language. It is written as a symbol; hence the same symbol is used in Sanskrit, in Pali, in Prakrit, in Tibetan -- everywhere the same symbol, because

all the mystics of all the ages have reached to the same experience, that it is not part of our mundane world; hence it should not be written in letters. It should have its own symbol, which is beyond language. It does not mean anything as far as mind is concerned, but it means tremendously much as far as your spiritual growth is concerned. All music, particularly the classical music, has been trying to catch the sound of silence so that even people who have not entered into their beings can experience something similar. But the similar is not the same; it is a very faraway echo. Even the greatest musician has to use sounds, but howsoever beautifully he arranges them, he cannot be absolutely silent. He gives gaps of silence in between; the whole play is between sound and silence. Those who don't understand hear the sounds, and those who understand hear the silence, the gaps between two sounds. The real music is in the gaps. It is not created by the musician. The musician is creating the sounds and leaving the gaps as a contrast, so that you can experience something of what happens to the mystic in his inner world. OM is one of the great achievements of the seekers of truth. There have been cases, which are absolutely unbelievable, but they are historical.... When Marpa, a Tibetan mystic, died, his closest disciples were sitting all around him ... because the death of a mystic is as tremendously valuable as his life, perhaps more. If you can be close to the mystic when he is dying, you can experience many things, because his whole consciousness is leaving the body -and if you are alert and conscious, you can feel a new fragrance; you can see a new light, you can hear a new music. When Marpa died he was living in a temple. And all his disciples became suddenly surprised -- they looked all around -- from where is the sound of OM coming? Then finally they realized that it was not coming from anywhere -- it was coming from Marpa! They heard it by putting their ears to his feet, to his hands, and they could not believe it -- inside his whole body there was a vibration creating the sound of OM. He had been hearing that sound for his whole life since he became enlightened. Because of his constant inner experience of the sound, the sound had entered even into his physical cells. Every fiber of his body had learned a certain synchronicity, the same wavelength. But it has been experienced with other mystics also. The inner starts radiating, particularly at the moment of death when everything comes to a crescendo. But man is so blind and so utterly unintelligent: knowing that the mystics experience the music of silence within them and they name it OM, people started repeating OM as a mantra, thinking that by repeating it they will also be able to hear it. By repeating it you will never be able to hear it. Your mind is functioning when you are repeating it. But perhaps I am the first person to tell it to you; otherwise

for centuries people have been teaching: Repeat OM. That creates a false experience, and you can be lost in the false and you will never discover the real. I say to you not to repeat it but simply be silent and listen to it. As your mind becomes calm and quiet, suddenly you will become aware: like a whisper, the OM is arising within your being. When it arises on its own, it has a totally different quality. It transforms you. Modern physics says that everything in the world is constituted of electrical energy. According to modern physics even sounds are nothing but electric waves. The physicists have been working from the outside. The mystics say just the opposite, but I don't see that they are contradictory. They say the whole existence is made up of the soundless sound OM. And even electricity or fire is nothing but a certain condensed form of the sound. In the East it has been known: there have been musicians who could create by their music a flame on an unlit candle. As the music falls over the unlit candle suddenly the flame arises. It was a test in the ancient days, that unless a musician could create light, fire, flame, with his music he was still amateur. He was not recognized as a master. The explanations of physics and the mystics look different, but perhaps there is some deeper source, which can withdraw the contradiction and opposition. Perhaps it is only a different interpretation, because the mystic is coming from the inside and the physicist is looking at the outside. What the physicist feels as electricity, the mystic feels as the music of the whole existence. They are both saying the same thing in different languages. And if there is a choice, I would choose the mystic, because he is experiencing it in his very center. His experience is not just an experiment on objects; his experience is an experiment on his own consciousness. And consciousness is the very cream of existence. This mantra has many secrets in it. The first wordless word is OM, and the last is HUM. The first is the flowering and the last is the seed. The Sufis don't use the whole name of Allah -- that is the Mohammedan name for God. They use Allah hoo, and slowly, slowly they change Allah hoo into simply hoo, hoo. They have found that the sound of hoo strikes exactly at the life source just below the navel. You were connected with your life, with your mother, from the navel. Just below the navel is the source of your own life. Just try: when you say hoo the hit is below the navel. That's what we are using in our Dynamic Meditation. It is a Sufi discovery, but it can also be done in the Tibetan way. Rather than hoo -- hoo seems to be a little harsh -- hum seems to be a little softer. But the softer will take a longer time to wake up your energies. It is possible that in the particular climate of Tibet, the softer was perfectly good. They did not need such a harsh sound in order to hit the life source. But in the harsh desert of Arabia where Sufi mystics started using hoo....

I had a choice when I was working on the Dynamic Meditation, whether to use hum or to choose hoo. I tried both and I found that perhaps in India, hoo is better than in the colder heights of Tibet where things are bound to be different. Just hum is perfectly right for them. Hum is the hit to create OM in you. If you hit the seed of your life it starts disappearing in the soil and green leaves, sprouts start growing. Between the two -- OM and hum -- is Mani padme. I don't think anybody has been able to express the ultimate experience, the ultimate beatitude, better than Mani padme. You have to visualize it. The lotus flower in the East is the most beautiful, the biggest flower. And if you put diamonds on the lotus flower in the early morning sun, you will have a tremendously beautiful experience... the lotus flower with diamonds. It is very difficult to say anything about the ultimate experience, but Tibetan mystics have tried the best. Many things have been said about it, but "diamond in the lotus" seems to be the best expression -- because it is the greatest, most beautiful experience, and they have chosen two of the most beautiful things of the ordinary world, the lotus and the diamond. It is just a visual expression of the beauty that you come to see within yourself. This mantra om mani padme hum has a whole philosophy within it. Start with hum, the last word, and the first will arise on its own accord. And when your inner being is filled with the sound of silence, you will also have the beautiful experience of seeing a lotus with a diamond in the early morning sun. The diamond is radiating. The lotus is so soft, so feminine, so delicate -- it has no comparison in any other flower. It became so important to the mystics... you must have seen Gautam Buddha's statues sitting on a lotus. They are showing symbolically that he has reached the ultimate; his own inner lotus has flowered. And not only the lotus has flowered, the diamond hidden behind it, inside it... as it opens its petals, you find a Kohinoor. The diamond has a quality -- that's why it has been chosen. It is symbolic of eternity. The diamond is for ever, it knows no death; it is immortal. The experience is beautiful and eternal. But unfortunately, Tibet has fallen into darkness. Its monasteries have been closed; its seekers of truth have been forced to work in labor camps. The only country in the world, which was working -- a one-pointed genius, all its intelligence in the search for one's own interiority and its treasures -- has been stopped by the communist invasion of Tibet. And it is such an ugly world that nobody has objected to it. On the contrary, because China is big and powerful, even countries, which are more powerful than China can ever be, like America, have accepted that Tibet belongs to China. That is sheer nonsense -- just because China is powerful and everybody wants

China to be on his or her side. Neither the Soviets nor America have challenged the claim of China. Leave America and the Soviets aside -- even India has not objected. It was such a beautiful experiment, and Tibet had no weapons to fight with, they had no army to fight; they had never thought about it. Their whole thing was an introverted pilgrimage. Nowhere has such concentrated effort been made to discover man's being. Every family in Tibet used to give their eldest son to some monastery where he was to meditate and grow closer to awakening. It was a joy to every family that at least one of them was wholeheartedly, twenty-four hours a day, working on the inner being. They were also working but they could not give all their time; they had to create food and clothes and shelter, and in Tibet it is a difficult matter. The climate is not very helpful; to live in Tibet is a tremendous struggle. But still every family used to give their first-born child to the monastery. There were hundreds of monasteries... and these monasteries should not be compared with any Catholic monasteries. These monasteries had no comparison in the whole world. These monasteries were concerned with only one thing: to make you aware of yourself. Thousands of devices have been created down the centuries so that your lotus can blossom and you can find your ultimate treasure, the diamond. These are just symbolic words, but the destruction of Tibet should be known in history, particularly when man becomes a little more aware and humanity a little more humane.... This is the greatest calamity of the twentieth century that Tibet has fallen into the hands of materialists who don't believe that you have anything inside you. They believe that you are only matter and your consciousness is only a by-product of matter. And all this is simply without any experience of the inner -- just logical, rational philosophizing. Not a single communist in the world has meditated, but it is strange -- they all deny the inner. Nobody thinks about how the outer can exist if there is no inner. They exist together; they are inseparable. The outer is only a protection for the inner, because the inner is very delicate and soft. But the outer is accepted and the inner is denied. And even if sometimes it is accepted, such dirty politicians dominate the world that they use even the inner experiences for ugly ends. Just the other day, I came to know that America is now training its soldiers in meditation so that they can fight without any nervous breakdown, without going mad, without feeling any fear -- so they can lie down in their ditches silently, calm and cool and collected. No meditator may have ever thought that meditation can also be used for fighting wars, but in the hands of politicians everything becomes ugly -- even meditation. Now the army camps in America are teaching meditation so that their soldiers can be more calm and quiet while killing people.

But I want to warn America: you are playing with fire. You don't understand exactly what meditation will do. Your soldiers will become so calm and quiet that they will throw away their weapons and they will simply refuse to kill. A meditator cannot kill; a meditator cannot be destructive. So they are going to be surprised one day that their soldiers are no longer interested in fighting. War, violence, murder, and massacre of millions of people -- this is not possible if a man knows something of meditation. Then he also knows not only himself, he knows the other whom he is killing. He is his brother. They all belong to the same oceanic existence. In the Soviet Union, also, they are interested in meditation. But the purpose is the same -- not realization of yourself, but making you stronger so that you can kill and bomb and use nuclear weapons and missiles to kill whole nations. But they are both going on a dangerous path, unknowingly. It is good, they should be helped. Once meditation spreads among their soldiers, those soldiers will become sannyasins! So I am immensely happy that their idea is different, and they don't know anything about meditation. They have only heard that it makes people calm and cool so they can fight without any fear, without looking back. Meditation gives them a feeling of immortality; hence their fear will disappear. But meditation not only gives them the experience of their own immortality -- it also gives them the experience that everybody is immortal. Death is a fiction. Why unnecessarily harass people? They will be living, you cannot kill them. Not even your nuclear weapons are going to kill them. Krishna, in the Gita, has a beautiful statement: Nainam chhindanti shastrani; naham dahati pavakahr. "Neither can any weapon destroy me nor can any fire burn me." Yes the body will be burned, but I am not the body.... Meditation gives you the feel, for the first time, of your authentic reality. If humanity were a little more aware, Tibet should be made free because it is the only country, which has devoted almost two thousand years to doing nothing but going deeper into meditation. And it can teach the whole world something, which is immensely needed. But Communist China is trying to destroy everything that has been created in two thousand years. All their devices, all their methods of meditation, their whole spiritual climate, is being polluted, poisoned. And they are simple people; they cannot defend themselves. They don't have anything to defend themselves with - no tanks, no bombs, no airplanes, no army. An innocent race, which has lived without any war for two thousand years... It disturbs nobody; it is so far away from everybody -- even to reach there is a difficult task. They live on the very roof of the world. The highest mountains, eternal snows, are their home. Leave them

alone! China will not lose anything, but the whole world will be benefited by their experience. And the world will need their experience. The world is getting fed up with money, power, and prestige, all that scientific technology has created -- people are getting fed up. They are finished with it. People in the advanced countries are no longer interested in sex, are no longer interested in drugs. Things are falling away, and a strange despair like a dark cloud is descending on the advanced countries -- of deep frustration, meaninglessness, and anguish. They will all need a different climate of meditation to dispel all these clouds and bring again a new day into their lives, a new dawn, a new experience of themselves, a discovery of their original being. Tibet should be left as an experimental lab for man's inner search. But not a single nation in the world has raised its voice against this ugly attack on Tibet. And China has not only attacked it, they have amalgamated it into their map. Now, on the modern Chinese map, Tibet is their territory. And we think the world is civilized, where innocent people who are not doing any harm to anybody are simply destroyed. And with them, something of great importance to all humanity is also destroyed. If there were something civilized in man, every nation would have stood against the invasion of Tibet by China. It is the invasion of matter against consciousness; it is the invasion of materialism against spiritual heights. Maneesha, the word mantra is untranslatable in English, in any Western language, but it’s meaning, its significance, can be explained to you. A mantra is not just something to chant. It is not chanting. A mantra is something to let sink deep in your being, just as roots go deep into the earth. The deeper the roots go into the earth, the higher the tree will go into the sky. A mantra is something like a seed to be allowed to go deep into your being so that it can send its roots to the sources of your life and finally to the universal life. Then its branches, its foliage will go high into the sky, and when the right time comes, when the spring comes, it will be filled with thousands of flowers. Unless a tree blossoms, it knows no blissfulness. It goes on feeling something is missing. You may have all the pleasures and comforts and luxuries of the world, but unless you know yourself, unless your inner lotus opens, you will go on missing something. You may not be certain what you are missing but a feeling... that something is being missed, that "I am not complete," that "I am not whole," that "I am not what existence wanted me to be." This "missing" feeling goes on nagging everybody. Only the expansion of your consciousness will help you to get rid of this feeling, of this nagging, of this anguish, this angst. Even people like Jaspers, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Marcel, Jean-Paul Sartre, the highest geniuses of the West, are agreed on a few things: that life is nothing but boredom, that life is nothing but anxiety, anguish, that life is accidental, it has no

significance... that it is absolutely futile to search for any blissful space; there exists none. And when great philosophers like these agree on such points, the ordinary masses simply follow them. Whatever they are saying is absolutely wrong, because none of them has ever meditated; none of them has entered into his own subjectivity. They are just in their heads. They have not even moved to their hearts, what to say about their beings? What to say about their disappearing into the universal? Unless you disappear into the universal ocean just like a dewdrop, you will not find significance. You will not find your real dignity. You will not find that existence showers so much joy and so much celebration on you that you cannot contain it; you have to share it. You become a rain cloud, which is so much burdened with rain that it has to shower. A man of deep insight, a man of intuition, a man who has reached to his being becomes a rain cloud. He is not just a blessing to himself; he becomes a blessing to the whole world. This Tibetan mantra om mani padme hum is a condensed form of the whole inner pilgrimage. It says how to start, what will happen when the flower opens, what will be your ultimate experience of your inner treasures. Eastern languages are very rich in the sense that they have made very condensed statements, which can be unfolded into big scriptures. The reason was that when these mantras were created there was no writing. People had to remember them. When people have to remember them, you have to be very telegraphic, as condensed as possible. Once writing came into existence, that condensedness disappeared. Now you can explain with page after page of writing. But have you ever thought that when you receive a long letter... the longer the letter, the less is the meaning. But when you receive a telegram, naturally... just eight or ten words, but the meaning is immense and the impact is immense. These are telegrams. They can easily be remembered, they can be passed from one generation to another generation without any fear that they will be distorted. You have not to repeat the mantra; you have to understand its meaning and let that meaning sink into you. Sitting silently, be utterly quiet, unmoving. Watch your mind. A few thoughts will be there, but as you become silent those thoughts will disappear, and suddenly you hear a humming sound all around you. You do not make that humming sound. It is at the very center of existence. It is the sound of the skies. It is the sound of space. It is the sound of the universe; it is its indication of aliveness. It is vibrating with dance and music. This OM is perhaps the greatest symbol in the whole world. -------Osho, Om Mani Padme Hum, Chapter #1, Q1

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih BELOVED MASTER, I AM ALWAYS INTRIGUED BY EASTERN SCRIPTURES THAT BEGIN WITH OM SHANTIH SHANTIH SHANTIH AND END WITH OM SHANTIH SHANTIH SHANTIH. WOULD YOU PLEASE TALK ABOUT THIS?

Maneesha, the East has approached reality in an almost diametrically opposite way to the West. First, the simple meaning of the word should be understood, and then all the implications. All Eastern scriptures begin with OM, Shantih Shantih Shantih and they also end with the same. OM is the symbol of the universal heartbeat; it is not a word. And as you come closer and closer to the universal heartbeat, the by-product is a deepening silence. Shantih means silence and it is always repeated three times because by the time you reach to the fourth, you are no more -- just the silence has remained. You have disappeared as an entity separate from the universe. The West has not been able to begin even a single scripture with this intention. It is understandable. They never went into the deeper communion between your heart and the bigger heart of the universe. They have taken a wrong route, that of fighting, that of conquering, that of being victorious. They have chosen to be extroverts. Their world is true, but they don't know anything about themselves. The outside is true and the inside has not been explored. THE BIBLE says, "In the beginning was the word." Now this can be said only by somebody, who is absolutely ignorant, because the word means a sound with a meaning. These sounds made by the words are just sounds; you cannot call them words. The moment you say, "In the beginning was the word," unknowingly you have accepted that there is someone who gives meaning to it, but then the word is not in the beginning. In the beginning is one who gives meaning to the word. And THE BIBLE says, "God was with the word." Anyone who wrote it must have felt uneasy that the world should begin only with a word. Immediately he needed someone to give meaning to it; hence the second statement that God was with the word. If you look into things very impartially, deeply, you will be amazed how much they can reveal. Then he must have become aware to ask, "Who is first? God or the word?" The third sentence then tries to make a compromise. It says, "God and the word were one." Nobody in the whole Eastern search will agree with it. The East has

not experienced the beginning because naturally you cannot see the beginning: you are already there, the beginning has happened. In your being you have preceded the beginning, so there is no possibility of any witness of the beginning. But there is a possibility to be a witness of the end. The Eastern meditators found as they entered into their inner being, they are first surrounded with a tremendously beautiful and musical sound. It is not the sound of any music being played; it is simply the heartbeat of the universe. And once they come in tune with the heartbeat of the universe, silence descends. They would like to dance and declare to the world about silence, but they can only say three times, "silence, silence, silence" -- and they are melting and merging. Rather than their declaration of silence becoming louder, it is becoming more and more like a whisper and finally, they are not -- but they have witnessed the end. Now, it is a logical conclusion that the end and the beginning cannot be different. The seed grows into a tree, blossoms, brings fruits and again seeds. In existence everything moves in a circle, the earth, the moon, the sun, the faraway millions of stars... all move in a circle that meets at a point. The end and the beginning are the same. That's why the Eastern scriptures begin with the declaration, Om -- the sound of the soundless, the very music of the heart of the universe. And as they go deeper, silence becomes the only reality. They want to declare silence to the world, but nobody has been able to go beyond the third because each time they say silence, it becomes more of a whisper. I am reminded... I had one doctor friend who was perhaps the most famous doctor in those parts. I told him, "I would like to experience something for which there is no reason. You can help me. I want to go slowly and deeply into the unconscious." He said, "This is against medical practice. You don't have any reason, and I cannot use something without reason and make you unconscious." But I persuaded him. I said, "Find any reason, and I am not going to tell anybody. Although, I have told it to the whole world." He put me on his table, sent all the servants and nurses away because he was doing something against the medical code. While he was covering my head so that I could not breathe anything else, he said to me, "Do one thing. While you are going into the unconscious, go on saying one, two, three, four, five... as long as you can." Strangely, I could not go beyond three. I tried hard. I was aware of the fact that I had only come up to three, and the four would not come. Later on I told him, "This was my reason to be put into the unconscious state. I wanted to see why every scripture stops at three."

I asked him to tell me how I was saying one, two, three. He said, "One was clear, two was not so clear, three was almost a whisper, and beyond that you never uttered anything." This was my way through a scientific experiment to see why all the scriptures stop with three. They begin with the same and they end with the same. The beginning we cannot know: we are already here; the beginning has happened. But the end we can know -- the disappearance into absolute silence. But if we know the end, we can conclude with absolute certainty that this is how the beginning must have started: from silence, not from words. Silence is the beginning and silence is the end, and if you are a meditator, silence is the middle. Silence is the whole fabric of existence. Maneesha, this is not a hypothesis, nor is it a philosophical idea. It is the experience of thousands of mystics who have entered into their own being. First they have heard Om, and as the Om becomes overwhelming, silence follows. We are made of sound and silence. Sound is our mind; silence is our being. Sound is our trouble; silence is our liberation. It has been discovered by some unknown explorer of the inner, it has been followed by thousands of people -- but you are not to repeat it. That's where the masses have got lost. They think that by repeating Om shantih shantih shantih they are doing some spiritual meditative act. In each temple in the East you will find a metal disc, and everybody who enters into the temple hits the disc with a steel rod. The whole temple becomes full of sound and then slowly, slowly the sound also disappears. In Tibet, they have even made a very special thing, a small pot of metal with a rod -- with great calculation it has been made. When I first saw it, I could not believe that it was possible, but the thing was in front of me. One of my friends in Patna was a great collector of all kinds of things. He was continually telling me whenever I was in Patna, "Come to my museum." Even the prime minister and the president and everybody had visited. He was a very rich man and had gathered things from other lands -- strange things. But when he said to me that he had recently received a metal pot which repeated Om, shantih shantih shantih, I could not resist.... Patna is a strange city. It is not spread in all directions, it has only one main street running by the Ganges -- because the Ganges is so beautiful everybody wants to be around it. So Patna is a very long city, perhaps twenty miles. And he used to live thirteen miles away from my place -- but I went to see the pot. It was really a great experience.

The pot is made of many metals, and you move the rod in the pot round and round for a certain number of times... then you stop. And suddenly, the sound comes from the pot, Om, shantih shantih shantih. These things may be beautiful, creative, but they are not in any way religious. Every Hindu temple is resounding with the sound, everybody is praying, but they have misunderstood the whole thing. It is not your repeating Om that is going to lead you to the reality; it is your becoming utterly quiet, and from your very being arises the sound Om. You are just a witness; you are not a doer. And as the sound settles, you feel silence, silence, silence.... Then everything disappears; there remains only a universal reality of which you are just a part. Just as a dewdrop disappears in the ocean, you disappear in the ocean of existence. The East has found this to be the only spiritual experience, not God, not your holy scriptures, not your prophets; they are all creating fictions. Not even your prayers because they are nothing but your desires. The only thing that is really significant is to be quiet, centered, grounded, in the very life source, in your very being. This sutra of Om shantih shantih shantih is heard when you are at your very center. It is not by your repeating it that you will reach to it. It is not exactly the same either. We have invented it... approximately, just to communicate what has happened: something similar, but far deeper; something similar, but far more delicate; something similar, but not the same. The mystics' writings start exactly the way the universe has started, and they end exactly as the universe finally goes to rest. There is a statement relevant to this sutra by Gautam Buddha. It is very significant. He says that it is absolutely foolish to think the way all the theologians of the world think about the beginning -- how the world began. I can see the significance of a statement that you can never come to a conclusion about how the world began -- because you were not there. How can you be before the world began? -- you are part of the world. So all that you say about the beginning is just imagination, hypothesis, guesswork. Buddha says that the mystic is not interested in how the world began, his interest is in how it ends, because in that very ending you will find the beginning too. But without finding the ending, you can only guess and argue and fight about the beginning -- and it is all futile. The philosopher's work is absolute nonsense. The mystic is very earthbound, very pragmatic, and very realistic. Buddha says, "First find how it ends" -- and it is to be found within you. You cannot wait for the whole world to end. That way it never ends. It is always there -- beginningless, endless. But within you how did the world begin? And within you how does the world end?

Those who remain clinging with the world are the materialists. Others start looking inside and try to find how everything ends, and still you are -- but just a pure consciousness, just a pure awareness. The flower disappears. Only fragrance remains. I agree with Gautam Buddha that if you have found the fragrance within you, you know the whole secret of existence, because every individual is a miniature universe. What is happening on a vast scale in the universe is happening on a very small scale within you. If you have tasted a simple dewdrop, you have tasted all the rivers and all the oceans and all possibilities of water anywhere. And you are the dewdrop.... Rather than running here and there, just taste yourself. The East has approached reality in a very different way. And certainly because it has reached in a different way, it has produced a different kind of enlightened people….. Enlightenment is an inner opening of the rose. Those who are in search of the truth of their being, will immediately be pulled towards the man of enlightenment…. There have been Hindu mystics, there have been Buddhist mystics, there have been Jaina mystics... but as far as this sutra is concerned they have never quarreled about it, they have never argued. This is simply accepted, because it is the experience, it is not theoretical guesswork. It is not philosophy. It is philosia; it is darshan. They have seen it within, in their own being and there is no way not to agree with others who have also seen it. But by repeating it one is simply being stupid. One has to come to an inner space where it explodes on its own and you are just a witness. Then it transforms your being, gives it beauty and grace, gives it sincerity and truth. ---------Osho, Om Shantih Shantih Shantih, Chapter #1

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------CHAPTER 5

DIVINE LIGHT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What is Divine Light? I started my spiritual search as a seeking for eternal bliss, but I came across many other dimensions of divinity in the path. One of them is Divine light. I had heard many things about it. Some talked about it as very bright light like thousands of sun shine. Some others talked of it as moon, stars, or burning lamp with flame. I had read about blue pearl, golden flower, thousand petal lotuses. For the first time when I was told by Swamiji (Osho Siddhartha) about it, I started just closing my eyes and searching for the inner light. One day I stumbled upon it, and that day was a day of great discovery for me; no other discovery is comparable to it. That day I became an immortal. I felt that real Sannyas is an initiation into light. After seeing the beauty and aliveness of inner world of colors, all colors of rainbows and outside world looked pale in comparison to that. I realized how important it is to search for this light inside, which is there in every one of us. It is the innermost core and the very source of our life. To find the inner light is to find godliness. Once I discovered it, it became my meditation. It became my companion. It became a part of my thinking, a part of my contemplation. I started watching a star appearing or disappearing in the sky, the sun rising in the east or setting in the west, the moon showering its elixir on Earth, or flame of a candle dancing in the room. The outer sky looked just a replica of the inner sky. I saw one expanse outside and one expanse within. As the outer sky is sometimes covered with clouds, I noticed that the inner sky is also sometimes covered with clouds of thoughts, desires, and passions. Removing these inner clouds and seeing into the inner blue sky became my meditation. I could see God by closing my eyes as much as I could see world with open eyes. I realized that for seeing the form, I have to use my external eyes, and for knowing the formless, I have to use my inner eyes. I started appreciating two Sandhyas --one before sunrise and the other after sunset—and why Hindus have made that period the time of worship and prayer. It appeared to me merely a symbol of inner sandhya, which is neither complete darkness nor clear light. It is a kind of diffused light, known as alok. It Once I knew the light within, then coming out of it, even outside, I could see it. In fact all distinction between within and without disappeared. Since then there is no darkness at all; it is all divine brightness. God is radiating from each stone, each flower, and each person. I feel, as if the sleep of a thousand years has been broken. There is light, and light alone. ---- Osho Shailendra

Looking At the Darkness You can do it in a dark room. Open your eyes, look at the darkness, then close them and feel the darkness. Again open your eyes, feel the darkness; close your eyes, feel it inside. Darkness is deeply relaxing. Darkness is outside and inside you; everything is dead -- dark and dead. Both are related. That is why we paint death as black, dark. All over the world death is painted as black, and people fear darkness. While doing this method, feel darkness, love darkness, and feel inside that you are going to die. Darkness is all around, and you are dying. The eyes will stop. You will feel that they cannot move: they will have stopped. In that stopping, suddenly the energy will go up and start hammering the third eye. When it starts hammering, you will hear it, you will feel it. A warmth will come, a fire will flow -- a liquid fire trying to find a new path. Do not be afraid. Help it, cooperate with it, let it move, become it. And when the third eye opens for the first time, the darkness will disappear and there will be light -- light without a source. You have seen light, but always with a source. Either it comes from the sun or from the stars or from the moon or from the lamp, but some source is there. When your energy moves through the third eye, you will come to know a light without source. It is not coming from any source, it is simply there, not coming from anywhere. That is why the Upanishads say that God is not like the sun or like a flame. He is sourceless light. There is no source anywhere, simply light is there, just as if it is morning. The sun has not arisen, but the night has disappeared. In between there is the dawn -- the pre-dawn. Or in the evening, the sun has set and the night has not yet come. Just in between there is the margin. That is why Hindus have chosen SANDHYA as a proper time for meditation. SANDHYA is the in between time -neither night nor day, just the line that divides. Why? Just as a symbol. The light is there, but without a source. The same will happen inside, light will be there without a source. Wait for it; do not imagine it. The last thing to be remembered: you can imagine anything, so it is dangerous to tell you many things. You can imagine them. You will close the eyes and you will feel and imagine that now the third eye has opened or is opening, and you can imagine light also. Do not imagine; resist imagination. Close your eyes. Wait! Whatsoever comes, feel it, cooperate with it, but wait. Do not jump ahead; otherwise nothing will happen. You will be having a dream -- a beautiful, spiritual dream, but nothing else.

People go on coming to me and they say, "We have seen this and we have seen that." But they have imagined it -- because if really they had seen, they would be transformed. But they are not transformed. They are the same persons, only now a spiritual pride is added. They have some dreams -- beautiful, spiritual dreams: someone is seeing Krishna playing on his flute, someone is seeing light, someone is seeing kundalini rising. They go on seeing things, and they remain the same -- mediocre, stupid, dull. Nothing has happened to them; they go on relating that this is happening, that is happening, but they remain the same -angry, sad, childish, stupid. Nothing has changed. If you really see the light which is there waiting for you, to be seen through the third eye, you will be a different person. And then you need not tell anyone. People will come to know you are a different person. You cannot even hide it; it will be felt. Wherever you will move, others will feel that "Something has happened to this man."So do not imagine; wait, and let things take their own course. You do the technique, and then wait. Do not jump ahead.You can do it in a dark room. Open your eyes, look at the darkness, then close them and feel the darkness. Again open your eyes, feel the darkness; close your eyes, feel it inside. Darkness is deeply relaxing. Darkness is outside and inside you; everything is dead -- dark and dead. Both are related. That is why we paint death as black, dark. All over the world death is painted as black, and people fear darkness. While doing this method, feel darkness, love darkness, and feel inside that you are going to die. Darkness is all around, and you are dying. The eyes will stop. You will feel that they cannot move: they will have stopped. In that stopping, suddenly the energy will go up and start hammering the third eye. When it starts hammering, you will hear it, you will feel it. A warmth will come, a fire will flow -- a liquid fire trying to find a new path. Do not be afraid. Help it, cooperate with it, let it move, become it. And when the third eye opens for the first time, the darkness will disappear and there will be light -- light without a source. You have seen light, but always with a source. Either it comes from the sun or from the stars or from the moon or from the lamp, but some source is there. When your energy moves through the third eye, you will come to know a light without source. It is not coming from any source, it is simply there, not coming from anywhere. That is why the Upanishads say that God is not like the sun or like a flame. He is sourceless light. There is no source anywhere, simply light is there, just as if it is morning. The sun has not arisen, but the night has disappeared. In between there is the dawn -- the pre-dawn. Or in the evening, the sun has set and the night has not yet come. Just in between there is the margin. That is why Hindus have chosen SANDHYA as a proper time for meditation. SANDHYA is the in between time --

neither night nor day, just the line that divides. Why? Just as a symbol. The light is there, but without a source. The same will happen inside, light will be there without a source. Wait for it; do not imagine it. The last thing to be remembered: you can imagine anything, so it is dangerous to tell you many things. You can imagine them. You will close the eyes and you will feel and imagine that now the third eye has opened or is opening, and you can imagine light also. Do not imagine; resist imagination. Close your eyes. Wait! Whatsoever comes, feel it, cooperate with it, but wait. Do not jump ahead; otherwise nothing will happen. You will be having a dream -- a beautiful, spiritual dream, but nothing else. People go on coming to me and they say, "We have seen this and we have seen that." But they have imagined it -- because if really they had seen, they would be transformed. But they are not transformed. They are the same persons, only now a spiritual pride is added. They have some dreams -- beautiful, spiritual dreams: someone is seeing Krishna playing on his flute, someone is seeing light, someone is seeing kundalini rising. They go on seeing things, and they remain the same -- mediocre, stupid, dull. Nothing has happened to them; they go on relating that this is happening, that is happening, but they remain the same -angry, sad, childish, stupid. Nothing has changed. If you really see the light which is there waiting for you, to be seen through the third eye, you will be a different person. And then you need not tell anyone. People will come to know you are a different person. You cannot even hide it; it will be felt. Wherever you will move, others will feel that "Something has happened to this man."So do not imagine; wait, and let things take their own course. You do the technique, and then wait. Do not jump ahead. As I told you, both objects and the source of light disappear when you turn inwards and only light remains. Once that light, and the darkness too, pass away and only Alok remains, then both the knower and the thing to be known also disappear. The seer and the thing seen are both lost. Then it is not that the sage is standing there looking at truth, no; then the sage himself becomes the truth. Then the truth become the sage. Then there is neither the knower nor the known -- both disappear. In alok, darkness and light and the knower and the known are no more. There is neither the experiencer nor the experience, there is only experiencing. Where there is an experience, the experience is and the thing experienced is. No, here there is neither the experiencer nor the thing experienced. Only experiencing remains. The experiencing sage is no more, God is no more. Differences, distinctions disappear. The lover and the object of love are no more. It is the moment of supreme liberation. --- Osho, Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, Chapter #22 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Divine Light--What Other Masters Say Like Divine Sound, Divine Light also finds an important place in scriptures and teachings of the Masters. I would like to quote their key statements. 

“To be centered constantly in the inner illumination and in the infinite inner nectar is the preparatory bath for the worship (Atma Pooja Upnishad).”

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“God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all (Jesus, John 1:5).”

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“God is the Light of the heavens and the earth (Hazrat Mohammad, Koran).”

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“Catch hold of the Music that lasts through eternity. Search for the sun that never sets (Maulana Rumi, Masnavi).”

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“In every house there is a lamp burning, but an animal cannot see it (Gorakh Nath, Gorakh Vaani).”

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“In the inner sky the melodious Light exists at crown chakra. To know this Light, one has to befriend the Divine (Gorakh Nath, Gorakh Vaani).”

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“In every house the lamp is burning, but the blind man cannot see it. But if one goes on looking inside, death will disappear for him (Kabir Sahib, Beejak).” “The color of the Divine is red. I experience Divinity everywhere, inside as well as outside. While being in love with the Divine I have become one with it (Kabir Sahib, Beejak).”

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“First, Allah created the Light; then, by His Creative Power, He made all mortal beings. From One Light, the entire universe welled up. When I saw the Naam inside, my mind got convinced. Now no other color can overwrite the color of the Naam (Kabir Sahib, Beejak).”

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“Divine is eternally present in the form of Divine Sound and Divine Light. To have a glimpse of it makes one fall in love with the Divine (Guru Nanak Dev, Adi Granth).”

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“I do not know where from your red color is manifested (Guru Nanak Dev, Adi Granth).”

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“The Naam makes manifest the inner light and grants glory. The Naam brings in beatitude and leads to godliness (Guru Amar Das, Adi Granth, Asa, M3).”

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“We wish for nothing else but the Divine Light, which permeates in all hearts (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth, Gauri, M5).”

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“When one can see continuous light inside, it will be possible to develop trust and love towards the Divine (Dadu Dayal).”

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“God resides where there is eternal presence of Divine Sound and Divine Light, which can be experienced only by a devotee (Dadu Dayal).”

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“Such a sunrise has taken place inside that all around the horizons are glowing with light. Since the appearance of the Naam inside my body my all confusions have disappeared (Dariya Das).”

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“There is an awesome illumination in the Sound. Blessed are those seekers who fall in love with it (Dariya Das).”

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“The sound is illumined as if there is a spell of rain thundering with brilliant Light, fulfilling all my desires (Dariya Das).”

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“Where there is Divine Light, there is neither mind nor illusion (Garib Das).”

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“In the inverted well of the head there burns a lamp without any wick or oil. Through six seasons and twelve months it burns night and day. But none may himself see the Light, except with the Master’s grace. A Sound springs forth from within the lamp’s flame. In Samadhi one may hear the Sound. Blessed is the one that hears this Sound (Paltu Sahib).”

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“There is mysterious moonlight in the inner sky but the secret of it can be revealed only by a Master (Tulsi Sahib).”

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“In the tinny seed resides the limitless Divinity. The way to reach it goes through the third eye (Tulsi Sahib).”

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“The Divine Sound is coming from the abode of Lord and the Divine Light is celebrating in the inner sky (Maluk Das).”

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“Imperceptible Lord abides where there is bizarre play of Divine Sound, just like shrill drum beats. Here one can hear the thundering clouds, and day and night, the lamp is lit (Dharni Das).”

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“In the palace of inner sky, light of Divine Sound is illumined all over. This luminosity is filled with sweet melody. It feels as if the ocean of Divine Sound and Divine Light is reverberating in the entire consciousness (Paltu Sahib).”

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“Oh Lord! I have seen your place of abode. I have seen your palace. It is of red color. The tomb of your palace is also red, and the doors, the cot, the bed sheet and all the decorations in your palace are red. You are red and your chariot is also red. I thank my master who has shown me your grandeur (Dharam Das).”

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“If the Nirat (Capacity to see the Divine Light)is not developed, no real progress can be made, even if you go on hearing the Sound all your life (Sawan Singh, Spiritual Gems).”

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“Thou art the doer and the witness, the radiator and the radiation, light in the sound and the sound in the light (H.P.Blavatasky, The Voice of Silence).”

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“That light which no wind can extinguish, that light which burns without a wick or fuel (H.P.Blavatasky, The Voice of Silence).”

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“Vision of light, accompanying the inner illumination is not merely a subjective visual image or symbolic phenomenon. Light is primarily a spiritual manifestation of the inner Reality, illuminative and creative (Maharshi Arvind, The Life Divine, New York).”

-------Osho Siddhartha ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nature of Divine Light After going through the text of sages on Divine Light, should we not wonder why man lives in darkness, when capacity to live in light is there? It can be enkindled in everybody, but it is only a potential. It is like a seed. It has all the potential of a tree. But a seed has to fall in the soil to grow as a tree. Similarly, I feel, a seeker has to fall in love with the Master and disappear as ego. Only then great light arises, light that is eternal, deathless, and timeless. That Light is God. Once I knew that Light, I became blissful forever. I think, man's destiny is great, but he unnecessarily lives in misery. All the treasures of the world are within him, but he remains unaware and lives like a beggar. Seeing the inner light became a resurrection. Up to now I was dead. That's how millions of people are; walking around like corpses. They go on living only on the surface, ignorant of the depths and the heights, ignorant of all that they are meant to be. They have not lived because they have not known their self. Life starts only when we know our self, see the Light inside, see our own being, and we have seen our own center. Existence consists of Light. Our innermost core also consists of Light. The moment we know it, there is no death for us; there is no darkness for us. The mystics say that the outer sky is nothing compared to the inner, which is vaster, and far more beautiful. I am a witness to it. It is exactly so. However, this sky will open only when one reaches inwards, moves deeper into one's being. Like outer sky it is also appears blue with as many stars as outside, with as many suns and moons as outside. What is in the body, the same exists in the universe. One who has entered the inner sky has known what God is. For knowing it we have to get in tune with blue color by watching the sky; the river, the ocean. Wherever we find natural blue, we should watch it, meditate over it, and fall in tune with it. Then we can close our eyes and start seeing the sky inside too. Meditation is the way to go into that depth of our own interiority. When we become silent, we will feel a blueness vibrating inside us. If we go still deeper, and our silence becomes natural, we start seeing a kind of blue flame at the center of the third eye. Divine Light is cool light with no heat in it. It can only enlighten; it cannot burn. It is almost like moonlight but there is some difference. The moonlight is not original. It is reflected light. The sun has its own light, it is original. Divine Light is also original; it is not a reflected light. It is our own light, but it needs no fuel. But all other lights need fuel. Even sun needs fuel. This inner light is infinite and does not depend on any kind of fuel. It is inexhaustible and eternal. We may look at it or may not look at it, but it is always there. When we start turning inwards, we can experience it. The East has loved the early dawn, because it represents inner sky in the outer world. Hence the early dawn became the time for meditation. Just as the morning is tremendously beautiful, so is the inner morning, because the inner night ends and the Divine Light arises in our being. For the first time we are really born. Before that, it is only a physical life. Now it takes on a new color, a new flavor-- the flavor of eternity, the flavor of deathlessness.

Each person is surrounded by a divine aura, because our innermost core is made of pure light. It radiates, filters out of the gross body and creates an aura of light. As we become more awake, the aura becomes stronger. The deeper we go into our being, the aura starts becoming bigger around us. When one reaches to the very core of his being, one starts feeling that he is not made of a material body only, but made of pure light. One starts feeling that he is Light. That is what enlightenment is. Nobody becomes enlightened, rather one simply disappears in that light, and only light remains. But even from materialistic or unconscious persons, a few rays project out side body and create aura. Now scientifically also it is a proved phenomenon. Kirlian photography has been able to take photographs of auras. Not only do human beings have auras, but birds, animals, trees and even rocks do have auras. Each being and each thing has a certain aura, an energy-field, of its own. Of course, man has the most powerful energyfield, but we live totally unaware of it. Let every moment become a journey into the inner light. Let us feel that we are made of light. Let us walk as if we are made of light. Slowly we will start getting in tune with our inner light. We will become harmonious with it. When we are receptive, it starts showering more and more. One day our own experience of light becomes the experience of light in everybody else too. The deeper we look into our self, the deeper we are capable of looking into other people too. Then everybody becomes transparent. The whole existence looks as an ocean of light. That is the experience of godliness. That is why the Koran and all old scriptures say that God is light. But the first thing to know is 'I am Light.' We are born with Light. It is already there in the depths of our being. The darkness is only outside. The moment we turn and look within, all is light. We have always seen a light with a source. Either it comes from the sun or from the stars or from the moon or from the lamp, but some source is there. Divine light is light without a source. When our energy moves through the third eye, we see a light without source. It does not come from any source. It is simply there. It does not come from anywhere. That is why the Upanishads say that God is not like the sun or like a flame. He is source less light. There is no source anywhere, simply light is there. It is like a dawn in the inner sky. The Divine Light is eternal light. It needs no fuel. It is simply there. It is our very being. We are it. It is not that we see the light. There is neither seen nor seer. One feels oneself as light. That moment brings a great delight. Then no darkness can ever make us afraid. Then for us there is no death. Death happens only in darkness. Once the inner light is experienced, one has experienced immortality. This Divine Light is there in everyone. It is our very life. It is our innermost core. A small candle is burning there without any fuel or wick. We are alive and conscious because of it. We are because of it. That light connects us with God. We are small rays of God's sun. --------Osho Priya

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The Art of Looking Inside For many years of my spiritual seeking I missed the inner light. This happens to many because we go on looking outside. A time comes to look inward. The time comes to look with our closed eyes, so that the inner light can be experienced. And once the inner light is felt, all the treasures of the world are ours. Then God is ours. No one has ever found God in any other temple or other church. We are that temple; we are that church, where God can be experienced. God has to be found inside us. In fact we are not separate from God. Howsoever small, we are part of God. Once I got acquainted with the inner sky, I started meditating on it. I felt one with it. This became my meditation. I started getting lost in the inner sky. Very often I used to disappear, melt, and merge with it. I developed a knack of it. I almost became the sky. Since then life has a different flavor. There is no more misery, no more agony, no more death, and no more disease. Not that they do not visit me. They come, but nothing happens to me. They come and go just as clouds come in the sky and pass and nothing happens to the sky. This became my meditation. As I became more and more aware, I started looking inwards through my third eye. To see one self is the greatest experience. Once I saw the inner beauty, then all beauties of the outside world faded away. Once I saw the inner purity, everything outside appeared polluted. Even a beautiful sunrise, or a grand sunset, or a night sky full of stars, are nothing compared to the splendor of our being. After realizing this I felt that I am the highest peak of evolution, of light, of consciousness. I felt as if a new star is born and I became an eternal light. Since then even in the midnight there is bright sun available. There is no darkness for me. Wherever I go, my inner light moves with me. I move in it. I am it. Whenever I am in a kind of let-go, I feel a great light inside me. That happens automatically. I do not see any shape. I see only a silent light, a formless light. I feel a great light inside and a great delight outside. It happens naturally. I feel centered. I am in this world and yet beyond it. In the beginning the light looks almost like imagination. Only after some time, the light becomes genuine. First it is a diffused light. We just feel it slightly there. Sometimes it is there and sometimes it is not there. It is very dim and fragile. But slowly it becomes centered. It becomes a light-pole. Then one can also see the seed pearl in the center of the light pole. ---------------Osho Shailendra ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Seeing Into Inner Sky is Meditation “KNOWING ONESELF AS UNATTACHED AND INDIFFERENT AS THE SKY, A YOGI IS NOT ATTACHED AT ALL AFTER THAT TO ANY FUTURE ACTIONS.”

In this sutra some deep hints are given regarding the nature of consciousness…. We do not have any direct experience of consciousness, whatsoever we know about consciousness is from its reflections in the mind. First let this be properly understood. Then we shall go into the sutras… A friend has asked me that since when consciousness enters the experience of samadhi, mind is left far behind -- and since it is only mind that can remember -who recalls the experiences that have happened to the consciousness? It was consciousness that had entered the experience, but consciousness neither keeps any memory nor does it allow any trace of memory to be left over it; and the mind did not enter into the experience, it was left behind. Who then is remembering? Then who is looking at the experience in retrospect? Yes, though the mind had not entered into the experience and it was left just standing at the door, it is still able to catch glimpses from a doorway. It catches glimpses of events happening in the outer world as well as in the inner world. It observes on both sides whatever is within its periphery. It is not necessary for the mind to enter into the experience itself. If a camera is kept at a distance over there, it will go on catching all that is happening around here. Or if a tape recorder is kept at a distance over there, it will go on recording all that I am saying -- the song of the birds, the rustle of the wind passing through the trees, the sound of the dry falling leaves…. All the five senses are the doors of the mind. There is one more sense, and that is your inner sense. This sense catches whatsoever is happening within you. It is also a sense. Whatsoever is happening within you, for example in the state of samadhi, this inner sense goes on recording all that is happening. Peace? Silence? Bliss? Realization of God? Whatever is happening, it keeps track… Thus man has six senses -- five extrovert and one introvert -- and mind is the mechanism in between connected to all of them. Just this one branch goes within and catches all the inner experiences. Whatsoever is happening within is passed on by this inner sense to the mind. Mind need not go anywhere. Thus when a person returns from samadhi the mind

itself hands over all the records to him, that such and such a thing happened when you were not here….. So the inner sense records everything. But it is because of their allegiance to truth that seers have said it to be inference of the mind, because the mind was not present there and whatsoever it is now saying is information supplied to it by its inner sense. And mind is aware that there is a possibility of flaws in that information. Hence there is one more interesting point to be properly understood. When a Hindu returns from samadhi, or when a Mohammedan or a Christian or a Jaina returns from samadhi, their minds give a slightly different version of the information because there are differences in the make-up of the devices which are their minds. The experience of samadhi is the same, but the make-up of the minds is different. A person who is born in a Jaina family has a conscience developed in the manner of Jainism, and his being a Jaina has entered the mechanism of his mind. He has heard since his very childhood that there is no God, so it has become a built-in process in his mind that there is no God. His mind has also heard that the ultimate experience is that of the soul and not of God. This mind is manufactured and conditioned, so when samadhi happens it is this very mind which will record the event. Samadhi is the same to whomsoever it happens, but our minds are different -and it is the mind that will record the experience. A Jaina mind knows that there is no God, the ultimate experience is that of soul, there is no experience beyond it; or, this experience itself is God, there is no other God than this experience itself. Now such a mind will immediately record the samadhi experience as: "The ultimate experience of soul is happening." A Hindu has heard about the experience of God and has the information that what the experience is when the soul dissolves within is the experience of God. His mind will record: "This is seeing God." The happening is the same, but in this case it is God being experienced. The mind of a Buddhist who believes in neither the soul nor in God will record neither of the two. His mind will say: "Nirvana has happened, you have become a void, a nothingness." This is the reason scriptures differ, because scriptures are records of different minds, not of the actual experiences. This is why there will be differences between the Hindu scriptures, the Jaina scriptures and the Buddhist scriptures. Sometimes the differences will even look contradictory, because the mind is limited by the words available and they are a learned thing. Mind is knowledge, a learned thing, a manufactured thing.

Let us understand it this way, putting religion aside. Let us say you have learned Sanskrit, or Greek, or Arabic, so your mind has known one language. Now there is not even a question of any language during the happening of samadhi, but the mind will record the experience in the language it knows. The one who knows Arabic can never say that it was the happening of samadhi -- the very word samadhi is not known to that mind. So a Sufi will say fana -- he has remained no more. But the meaning is the same. You are aware that the grave of a sannyasin is called a samadhi -- for the same reason. Not everybody's grave is called a samadhi, only the grave of such a person who has annihilated himself. He has annihilated his ego while living; there is nothing left for death to annihilate when it comes, the person has annihilated himself on his own. So a Sufi will call it fana, a Hindu will call it samadhi, and a Buddhist will call it nirvana. These words are there in the mind. So whatever will happen within the mind, it will immediately translate it into its own language. We find it difficult to understand how a mechanism could translate. But this only says that you don't know much about mechanisms…. The human mind stores data from either side -- from the world as well as from samadhi. It is the mind that gives information about the world as well as about Brahma. Now we shall enter into the sutra. When one comes to experience that all reflections form only on the mind, and as one moves deeper within oneself to one's very center that there are no impressions, that all conditionings form only on the mind, not on the self -- only then will this sutra be understood. ““KNOWING ONESELF AS UNATTACHED AND INDIFFERENT AS THE SKY, A YOGI IS NOT ATTACHED AT ALL AFTER THAT TO ANY FUTURE ACTIONS.” There are many things to be understood here. Knowing oneself as unattached and indifferent as the sky.... We see the sky every day. A bird flies in the sky, but leaves no traces in the sky. When one walks on the ground, footprints are left behind. If the ground is wet the footprints are deeper. If the ground is rocky the footprints are very light, but if you try they can be made deeper there too. But in the sky, when a bird flies, no footprints are left behind. The sky remains the same as it was before the bird flew by. There is no way of knowing from the sky that a bird has flown across it. Clouds gather in the sky, they come and go; the sky remains as it was.

There is no way of contaminating the sky -- of making impressions on it, marks on it. We can draw lines on water, but no sooner are the lines made than they disappear; yet if lines are made on stone they last for thousands of years. Lines just cannot be drawn in the sky, so there is no question of their disappearing. Please understand this difference. Lines cannot be drawn in the sky -- I may move my finger across the sky, the finger passes but the line is not drawn and the question of the disappearance of the line simply does not arise. The day a person goes beyond the mind, when the consciousness transcends the mind, he experiences that, like the sky, so far no marks or lines have ever been drawn on the soul. It is eternally pure, eternally enlightened, no pollution has ever happened to it. “Unattached, Asanga, like the sky.... The word ASANGA is very valuable. Asanga means one is in the world but unattached, unaffected by anything. The sky is present all around; it is encompassing trees, it is encompassing you; it is encompassing the pious man as well as the impious man; it is present where a good deed is happening, it is present where an evil deed is happening. You sin or you earn virtue, you live or you die -- the sky is present, but unattached. It is present with you, but it is not your companion. It does not make any relationship with you. It is present but its presence is unattached. It is always present, but no friendship is created with you, no relationship is formed with you. Asanga means unrelated. It is there, but unrelated. If you disappear the sky does not even notice that you disappeared or that you ever were. How many earths appear and disappear again, how many people are born and die, how many palaces are built and collapse into dust again -- how much has happened under the sky, but the sky keeps no account. You inquire and the sky has kept no history; it is empty. The sky is as if nothing has ever happened. You may look back at millions of years -- it is said that our earth was born some four billion years ago. During these four billion years how much has happened on this small earth -- how many wars, how many love affairs, how many friendships, how many enmities, how many conquests, how many defeats and how many people -- but the sky has no account of any of it. It is as if nothing has ever happened; no traces of any happenings are left on the sky…. On entering into consciousness it is discovered that no line, no traces are drawn on the sky, but what is of the essence in you is left behind in the sky. Try to understand this properly. No traces are left behind in the sky but your essential fragrance is. And that happens because that essential fragrance is not in any way foreign to the sky; it is the sky within you. When you die it is the sky within you that is released into

the sky -- the rest of you gets lost. We call that outer sky the sky, but we call our innermost sky the soul. There is one expanse outside and there is one expanse within. In the outer sky too clouds gather and it becomes covered. In the rainy season, in the evenings of July and August, all is covered with clouds and one cannot even conceive that there was once a blue sky, conceive that one may be able to see that blue sky again. When dark clouds cover the sky the blue sky cannot be seen, only the clouds can be seen. Similarly, like the dark clouds covering the outer sky, the inner sky also gets covered by clouds. The clouds of the inner sky are called thoughts, choices, desires -- or whatsoever we want to call them. When such clouds cover the inner sky, there too one feels there exists no cloudless sky behind it. Removing these inner clouds and seeing into the inner blue sky is meditation. Seeing into this inner sky is the attainment, the ultimate fulfillment. This sutra says, KNOWING ONESELF AS UNATTACHED AND INDIFFERENT AS THE SKY.... The sky neither laughs with you nor weeps with you. When you die, the sky does not shed any tears; if you live and rejoice the sky does not tie anklets on its feet and dance for your joy. The sky is absolutely indifferent. It does not express any opinion about what is happening. Whether a dead body is being taken to the crematorium, or whether a great celebration is going on due to the birth of a new child, the sky remains indifferent. Whether a marriage ceremony is taking place and the houses are decorated with flowers and garlands, or whether a loved one has just died and living any longer is appearing meaningless to you, the sky remains indifferent. It has nothing to do with whatsoever is happening. Similarly, as one enters the inner sky he becomes indifferent. He does not have any relationship with whatsoever happens; he begins to see the world just as the sky sees it. When such an experience happens, know that you have become a jivanamukta, one liberated while living. This is when no traces form on your inner sky, when whatsoever happens outside remains just a drama to you, when everything happens only on the circumference and your center remains untouched. -----------Osho, Adhyatma Upnishad, Chapter #14 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Divine Aura Whenever we will close our eyes we will be all light inside, a source less light, coming from nowhere, very cool light, moonlight, but immensely enchanting, magical. Others, who love us and are close to us, will also start feeling it. Followers of Christ saw aura around Christ. Disciples of Buddha witnessed aura around Buddha. That's why we draw an aura around the pictures of saints. But everybody can not see it. Certainly the people who crucified Christ didn't see that aura. They could not see; they were blind, they were closed. When the inner radiance starts growing in us, the eyes become aflame, they look drunk. There is a fire in the eyes. A totally different quality comes to the eyes. The light of the eyes begin to blaze up. We will see that our eyes are becoming aflame. And with the eyes becoming aflame the whole existence takes a new color, a new dimension, the dimension of luminosity. Everything before us becomes bright, as if we are in a cloud of light. This cloud has been seen as the aura. Those who have eyes to see will see around the head of the saints, around their bodies, a light. A subtle aura surrounds them. Now even science is agreeing with it. Kirlian photography has come to very significant conclusions. One of them is that everything is surrounded by a subtle aura. We just need eyes to see it. In different states the aura changes. When we are ill, we have a different aura -- dull, sad, and lusterless. If we are going to die within six months our aura disappears. Then our body has no light around it. And if we are happy, joyous, fulfilled, contented, then the aura grows more and more, becomes bigger and bigger, brighter and brighter. Once we are capable of seeing the light, the gestalt changes. The body disappears. The matter disappears. We cannot see both together. The Hindu mystics have called the world illusory, because they have come to a point when they have seen that matter does not exist. All that exists is light, all that exists is God, and all that exists is consciousness. Either there is God or there is world. Both are never found together. Those who see the world never see God, and those who have seen God, for them the world has disappeared. There is no world, there is only God. The whole consists only of consciousness. Matter is a mistake of vision. ----------------Osho Siddhartha -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mysteries of Inner Illumination Light is the most mysterious thing in the universe, which is evident from following factors: 

It is the purest energy. Physics says that what we call matter is only condensed light or condensed energy. Existence in its purity is light. So if Existence begins, it has to begin with light.



Light can exist without life, but life cannot exist without light. So light is primary and life is secondary.



In this world everything is relative except light. Only light has a constant velocity. That's why physics takes light as the measurement of time. Everything is relative; only light is absolute. Light travels with a constant velocity. Nothing else is constant. So only light is absolute. There is no change in the velocity. Nothing can travel faster than light, because if anything takes the speed just equivalent to light, it will turn into light. The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. Anything traveling with that speed will become light.



Light travels without any medium. Everything else travels only through a medium. Light travels in nothingness.



Everything moving is moving with some energy derived from somewhere else. A tree is growing, a flower is flowering, we are breathing and living, but the energy is derived from somewhere in all these cases. But light does not derive any energy for its movement. It is neither pushed nor pulled, and it moves. That's the most mysterious thing possible. It is a miracle!



Since everything lives with borrowed energy except light, then ultimately the source of all energy must be light. So if the whole universe is dead, light will not be affected. The universe will still be filled with light. But if light goes off, then everything will die. Nothing can exist.



Outer light is not the only light. We have inner light also. Our life depends not only on outer light, but inner light as well. In fact this inner light is the core and our life is the outer layer. Our life is just a wave on the ocean of light.



First we will realize our inner light, then we realize a deep cleansing of our being, and, thirdly, we realize our deathlessness.



Light is never seen; only something lighted is seen. So light is an inference.



Though light moves very fast, but yet it takes time to move. It needs no borrowed energy, but it needs time. So light is still dependent on time.



The inner light moves without time. So there is no question of velocity. We cannot say how much it moves in one second. The movement is absolutely absolute. There is no time gap. So when one enters this illumination, one is pulled instantly. ----------Osho Priya

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Rainbow Experiences Light itself is colorless, whether it is outer light or inner light. When light is passed through a medium, a prism, then it is divided into colors. Consciousness works as an inner prism for the inner light. Like outer light, inner light is also manifested as seven colors of the rainbow— violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. When all the colors are present, white is created. When no color is there, then we experience black. All the colors are just divided light. Different spiritual traditions have given importance to different colors. Buddhism has given greatest importance to yellow or golden color. Hindus have chosen ochre, a shade of red, and prescribed it as the color for their sannyasins. Islam has green as the symbolic color; that is why Mohammed chose green as the color for his fakirs. Janis have chosen white, because they say only when white begins does spirituality really begin. There is a Sufi sect which uses black and prescribes black clothes for their fakirs. The consciousness shines with many colors as meditation deepens. All colors are meaningful, but their real significance is revealed by competent masters to their disciples only. This aspect is taught in detail In Nirati Samadhi group of Oshodhara. Ultimately everything disappears, and an inner space, like the sky, appears -empty, formless, without any quality. --------Osho Shailendra

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DIVINE NECTAR ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What is Divine Nectar? Osho, my Master, gave me ‘Amrit Priya’ as my new Sannyas name. Explaining the meaning of my name he said, ”Amrit means the Divine Nectar, and Priya means lover. The meaning of your name is Lover of Divine Nectar. Everybody is carrying that source of nectar within. Everybody is born with it, but has forgotten the way to this source. All that is needed is a kind of remembrance, a loving attitude towards it.” I started contemplating over my name, but could not understand the exact meaning till I experienced divine life myself during an incident narrated below. It is about the days when I was in Pune and Shailendraji was in Oregon, United States. Those days I was working in Bookshop in the Ashram. I was suffering from slip disc and was undertaking the treatment for the same. Being allergic to many medicines I was again unfortunate, as this time also the medication had its reaction. While still at work I had a giddy feeling. I immediately came out of the bookshop and sat down on the stairs. My entire body got red, as if rashes all over. Some sannyasin was passing by and saw me from the distance. He was shocked when he looked at my condition. He rushed towards me and took me to the hospital. Doctor said that if we had delayed even by half an hour it would have been hard for them to save me. It is hard for me to forget this near death experience during which deep inside I saw myself as life eternal and continued to feel that no matter whatever happens I will never die. There is no death of my consciousness. It was such a deep feeling that I was in a complete let go. This provided me an opportunity to know my divine nectar—my eternal being— which I consider a blessing in disguise. I realized that the life that we live in outer space is our physical life. It is related to outer space, the outer world. It is worldly life. The life that we can live in our inner space is our spiritual life. It is related to our inner space, the inner world. It is divine life. Amrit is an experience of our eternal and immortal existence. It is first experienced as our undisturbed consciousness, non-turbulence, a deep silence, a cool paradise, such ness, stability, and balance within. It gives a feeling of eternal being of the self. Amrit means a realization that there is no death at all. This will happen when we can experience deathlessness while living. One can get this experience in Dhyan, meditation or Samadhi. Many times there will be moments when suddenly we feel that we are being detached from our physical life. We

need not escape. If we allow it to happen, death has gone, death is no more there. In that moment we come across our inner flame, which has no beginning, no end. This beginning less, endless, flame of our being is Amrit. What we understand as death is no death and what everyone calls life is not life either. Amrit means the total realization that our eternal being has nothing to do with birth and death. A person of Amrit consciousness will neither be afraid of so called death, nor will be interested in another life with new body. It is the last wish of a dying person, which brings him in the next life. When we go to sleep our last thought becomes the first one when we get up next morning. Similarly, the last desire of a dying person will become his first desire after death. Our last thought before falling asleep will depend on how we have spent our day. Similarly, our last desire will depend upon how we have lived our life. One, who has not known Amrit, will immediately set out on the journey; his spirit running all over looking for a passage for an instant birth. At the time of death we gather the essence of our entire life. What we consider significant, we retain and what we consider worthless will automatically dropped. That will become the basis of our journey; it will instantly become our built-in program. Our future birth will take place according to this program. This happens as scientifically as anything else. So Amrit means that a person has come to know that in death his essence does not die nor in life affected in anyway. With this realization, there is no longer any built-in program left. He leaves nothing pending nor carries anything forward. He transcends both—life as well as death. A feeling of Eternity or Deathlessness is Amrit. Similarly, feeling of Liberation or Freedom from next birth is Nirvana. The Amrit is within us. This very moment we can enter it. The door is always open. The invitation is for everyone. But a deep longing is needed. An intense thirst is required. If we are ready merge with our inner space, we at once come to know that there is no death. I cannot die. My death is impossible. What dies is only the mechanism. I remain after death. I am beyond death. I am deathless. This feeling of immortality is Amrit, the divine nectar, or the elixir. For this elixir the alchemists all over the world, have been searching and searching. This elixir can be found within, when we come to the center of our being -- where death does not exist, where life is in abundance. First we have to taste this Amrit inside, and then it goes on spreading. It is all over the place. It is in the trees, in the mountains, in the rivers, in people; it is everywhere. Once we know Amrit inside, we can recognize it everywhere. Then life becomes a paradise. -------Osho Priya

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Divine Nectar—What Other Masters Say There are two ways to realize our Divine Nectar or Eternal Nature within. One is meditative way or ‘Die to live’, which is another expression for meditation. The second way is connecting us with the eternal Naam. Jesus prefers to call it ‘Drinking Water of Life’. Let us see what the other Masters have to say on both the above aspects. Die to Live: What happens in real death? We are detached from our physical body only. What happens in deep meditation or Samadhi? We are detached not only from our body, but from all our false identities—body, mind, ego—and live within with true identity as eternal being. In meditation we die within to our inner space. Most of the Masters prescribe this ‘deathless death’ to live a fearless divine life full of bliss and celebration. I am quoting statements of various Masters on this subject. 

“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it (Christ, Luke 9:23).”



“Learn how to die, so that you may begin to live (Thomas A Kempis).”



“Die before your death (Mohammad, Koran).”



“What a blessing it would be, if you were one night to bring your spirit out of the body, and leaving this tomb behind, ascend to the sky within. If your spirit were to vacate your body, you would be saved from the sword of death, and enter a garden that knows no autumn (Shms-i-Tabriz, Diwan).”



“Die before your death, O friend, if you desire to live (Maulana Rum, Masnavi).”



“If you wish to have everlasting life, learn how to die in the body, before death overtakes you (Maulana Rum, Masnavi).”



“Learn to die while alive, for in the end death overtakes all (Farid).”



“Die, O Seekers, Die. Death is very sweet. But die such a death which I have witnessed, which has made me realized the truth (Gorakh Nath, Gorakh Vaani).”



“Through the Word imparted by Guru, I have realized my true self, and while still living, I have learned to die; I have now no fear of death (Namdeo, Namdev Gatha)”.



“The whole world keeps dying after death, but no one dies the real death. Kabir has died a death, which has made him never die again (Kabir, Bijak).”



“The Home you wish to reach after death, attain it through dying while still living (Guru Nanak, Adi Granth, Sri Rag, M.1).”



“Drink the Water of Life, a pure gift from the Master. With an easy death, you will rise in eternal life (Guru Nanak, Adi Granth, Basant M1).”

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“If you die while living, you will know all, and experience the Lord’s grace within (Guru Nanak, Adi Granth, Ramkali, M.1).”

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“Through Master’s grace and practice of Word, one dies while living, and having thus died, becomes alive (Guru Amar Das , Adi Granth, Rag Malar, M.3).”



“When the Lord is merciful to someone, He brings him in contact with a perfect Master. Such a person, through the Master’s grace, dies while living, and never faces death again (Guru Amar Das , Adi Granth, Var of Rag Bihagara, M.3).”



“Die through the Word to live forever, and never face death again (Guru Amar Das , Adi Granth, Rag Sorath, M3).”



“Who dies while living, and from death comes to life again. Such a person attains salvation (Guru Amar Das, Adi Granth, Rag Ramkali, M.1).”



“One who has died to live, his coming here is fruitful (Guru Amar Das , Adi Granth, Var of Rag Ramkali, M 3).”



“One who knows how to die while living drinks Water of Life (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth, Asa M4).”



“Without exception the whole world dies, but only those escape, who know how to die while living and cross the ocean of this illusionary world with ease (Paltu Saheb).”

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“Die before your death. All have to die. Those who die before their death, they conquer death itself (Paltu Saheb).”



“In meditation, we withdraw our consciousness to the eye center in the same way that we all die when death comes. First the feet becomes numb, then the legs, and slowly and slowly the whole body becomes numb. When the soul withdraws from the nine apertures and comes to the eye centre, it leaves the body. To die daily means to practice the withdrawal of the consciousness to the eye center every day.….. Meditation is a daily rehearsal to die, so that we become perfect at how to die and when to die. Meditation is nothing but a preparation to die (Charan Singh, Die to Live, Radha Soami Satsang, Beas).”

Drinking Water of Life: The sages say that Divine Nectar is a manifestation of Naam or Word within which provides us a feeling of our deathlessness or eternal existence. This has been described in scriptures by various names. Indian sages call it Amrit. Jesus has called it ‘Water of Life.’ Sufi masters describe it as Aab-i-Hayat or Chasma-i-Kausar. From the teachings of the Masters, who laid great emphasis on communion with Him, it is clear that Amrit is nothing but Naam, Shabad or Word, and this Pool of Nectar lies within each one of us but becomes manifested only through a glance of grace from some true Saint who enables us to partake of It. The Water of Life abides in each heart in Its richness. He who tastes of It knows Its exhilarating influence. Communion with the Power of God is union with God, and one becomes fearless even of death, the last enemy of man. Not only do they achieve freedom but many another along with them gets freed. 

“Whosoever drinketh the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life (Christ, John 4:14).”



“I tell you most solemnly, whoever keeps my Word will never see death (Christ, John 8:51).”

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“Everyone is endowed with the Water of Life. None, but only fortunate one, can drink it (Kabir, Beejak).”

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“All praise to the Word. It is boundless indeed. Even the Angel of Death cannot reach where the limitless Word prevails (Guru Nanak, Adi Granth, Sri Rag M1).”

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“By practice of the Naam, one transcends death (Guru Nanak, Adi Granth, M1).”

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“I would like to offer myself at the feet of my Master, who unraveled the great mystery of Word to me. The world without the Water of Life is but a wasteland. The worldly-wise man does not know it (Guru Nanak, Adi Granth, Malar War M1).”



“Word is the only Nectar and nothing else. Drink within the elixir of life. This is pure gift of the Master. He alone takes the path of divine, who is destined from above (Guru Angad , Adi Granth, Sarang War M2).”



“See without eyes. Hear without ears. Walk without feet. Work without hands. Speak without tongue. Thus, while living, die, and realize the Word. Then only you will meet the beloved (Guru Angad , Adi Granth, Var of Rag Majh, M.2).”



“Amrit is the True Naam, but It can not be described in words. He who tastes it by attuning with the Word is accepted in His Court (Guru Amar Das , Adi Granth, Sri Rag M3).”



“The entire world is afraid of death. Through the Master’s grace, whoever dies while living, understands the Divine Order. One, who dies such a death, attains life everlasting (Guru Amar Das , Adi Granth, Var of Rag Bihagara, M.3).”



“The Naam is the elixir, and a gulp of It makes one contended. One who drinks it escapes all delusion (Guru Amar Das , Adi Granth, Malar War M3).”

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“The fountain of Amrit is bubbling over. One can have a taste of It through the Word of God (Guru Amar Das , Adi Granth, Wadhans M3).”

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“Just like the musk in the deer, the nectar is hidden within, and like the deer a mad search is being made outside (Guru Amar Das , Adi Granth, Sorath War M3).”

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“Without contact with the Word, the world remains in delusion and the human life goes in vain. Word is the Water of Life and a rare devotee of the Master gets to it (Guru Amar Das , Adi Granth, Parbhati M3).”



“Those who relish it become fearless by saturating themselves in the sweet elixir of Naam, which one gets through the grace of God, and transcends the realm of death (Guru Amar Das , Adi Granth, Maru War M3).”



“Lead a life acceptable to the Master. He shall lead you to the real home, and grant you Water of Life to quench your thirst. You will thus get all comforts and blessings (Guru Amar Das , Adi Granth, Sri Rag M3).”



“The gift of elixir depends on the sweet will of the Master, and through Him a rare soul gets it without much effort (Guru Amar Das , Adi Granth, Sri Rag M3).”

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“The Amrit showers from above, but only a rare devotee may drink it (Guru Amar Das , Adi Granth, Asa M3).”



“In the body lies the fountain of the Water of Life, but a sensual person cannot have a taste of It (Guru Amar Das , Adi Granth, Sorath War M3).”



“Amrit in Its fullness lies within. You may relish it by an actual contact. One who tastes the true elixir is not troubled by death (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth, Sri Rag M4).”



“Naam is the Amrit, and one gets access to it only through a Master (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth, Bihagra, M4).”



“Hari Naam alone is Amrit. Commune with it through the grace of a Master. A contact with it ends pain and sorrow (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth, Kanra War M4).”

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“Amrit becomes manifested by devotion to the Master. Word is the Water of Life. Only a rare devotee of the Master partakes of it (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth, Sorath War, M4).”



“The nine doors lead to nothing. Nectar may be sipped at the tenth (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth, Kalyan, M4).”

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“The Master manifests the Water of Life at the tenth gate. Listening to the Divine Sound, one is led to absolute silence (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth, Maru M4).”

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“Who so ever is attached with Naam, the messengers of death cannot come near him (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth, Bihagra, M4).”

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“The divine Amrit falls down in showers. A devotee gets it through the grace of the Existence (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth, Asa, M4).”

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“By listening to the Naam, one can get near the Truth and the messengers of death do not molest him (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth, Sarang War M4).”

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“By hearing the Sound , one knows the Truth and escapes the angel of death (Guru Ram Das, Adi Granth, M4).”

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“The treasure of the Word is the Water of Life. Drink it to your full satisfaction (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth, Gauri War, M5).”

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“A rare soul gets this elixir of life. Whosoever drinks it, escapes death (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth, Gauri, M5).”



“Word is the Water of Life. One gets it through His grace. Remember Him every moment, and make this your constant practice (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth, Malar, M5).”

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“Naam is Amrit, the supreme remedy. One gets it by the grace of the Master, and says goodbye to his ills (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth, Sorath M5).”

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“One gets the elixir of life from a Master, and thereafter he lives on the holy Word. A rare soul lives by this Amrit (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth, Majh M5).”

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“By drinking Amrit one lives forever (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth, Gujri M5).”

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“By drinking the Water of Life, the mind becomes silent and becomes fearless (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth,Gauri M5).”

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“The Word is the Nectar. Hearing it, I am elevated to the supreme heights (Guru Arjan Deo,Adi Granth,M5).”

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“No one dies. No one is capable of dying. The soul does not perish. It is imperishable (Guru Arjan Deo,Adi Granth,M5).”

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“The Word is the elixir of life and is a panacea for all the ills of the world; It is through the Grace of the Master that one finds a way to Salvation (Bhikha, Sorath Bhikha).” ---------Osho Siddhartha -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meditation—A Deathless Death Meditation is an art of dying in the inner space. It is an art of dying in awareness. It is a deathless death. We reach the same point, the core of our being, in death as well as meditation. But in death we become unconscious, where as in meditation we enter consciously, touch our center, and resurrect. Every meditation is a death and a resurrection. After experiencing death of my false identities in meditation, I am no more afraid of death. It has become a well-known path. I have traveled on it many times. I can go into it rejoicing, dancing, and singing, because I know that it is going to lead me into eternity, into the cosmos. It is my realization that only meditation can take us beyond the fear of death. To the meditator there is no death. There is only life, a life divine, and a life eternal. Meditation is like fire. It burns our thoughts, our desires, and our memories. It burns the past and the future. It burns our mind and the ego. It takes away all our false identities. It is a death and a rebirth, a crucifixion and a resurrection. We are born anew with a new vision of life. Meditation means becoming conscious of consciousness itself. The moment we know who is residing in the body, and who we are, in that very revelation we transcend death and the world of death. Meditation is total death, voluntary death, death less death. One dies into oneself. A mystic dies many times before actual death. He dies every day. Whenever he meditates he goes into death. Each moment he dies to the past and remains fresh, because the moment he dies to the past he becomes alive to the present. That is why a mystic looks always fresh. He dies continuously and remains as fresh as dewdrops. His freshness, his youth, his timelessness, depend on the art of dying. And then when actual death comes he has nothing to fear, because he has known this death thousands of times. He is thrilled, enchanted; he dances, he welcomes when death comes. He knows the secret of death. Knowing it, he has the master key that can unlock all the doors. He has the key that can open the door of Existence. Death is going to come sooner or later. Before death comes, let us learn how to die in meditation. Death takes everything away, but it cannot take our meditation. If we can become rooted in our being, alert, conscious, watchful, we will see that we are not the body, not the mind, not the heart. We are simply the witnessing soul, and that witnessing will go with us. Then we can witness even death. Meditation is an effort to encounter death voluntarily. That experience of encountering death makes us deathless. Suddenly we transcend death. Suddenly we know that the one, which is going to die, is not I. All that can die are not we. We are neither the body

nor the mind, nor the ego. We are simply pure space – which is never born and never dies. Meditation simply means to drop slowly all our desires. It is a preparation to celebrate death, because everything is complete. Nothing is pending. We are ready. In our meditative consciousness, death disappears just as darkness disappears with appearance of light. I consider life an ongoing match. Sometimes we score on others, some other times others score on us. It is only at the time of death that result of the match is decided. If we can celebrate our death, we have won the match. If we feel miserable at deathbed, we have lost the match, regardless of what wealth we have accumulated, what laurels we have received, and what awards we have won. Meditation teaches us how to celebrate death and win the ongoing match of life. Science and spiritualism, both agree on one point that everything moves in a cycle. Everything, which moves away from the source, returns to its original source. Life is a forgetfulness of the original source, and death is again a remembrance. Life is going away from the original source; death is coming back home. Death is not ugly; death is beautiful. But death is beautiful only for those who have lived their life beautifully, with love, laughter, dance, and celebration. Death becomes celebration if our life has been a celebration. In fact death is mirror of life. Whatsoever our life was, it is revealed in death. Death is a great revealer. If we have been miserable in life, death reveals misery. If we have been happy in our life, death reveals happiness. One, who lives unconsciously, also dies unconsciously, and is born again in unconsciousness. It is a vicious circle, which goes on and on for millions of lives. Unless we become alert and awake in life, we can’t be conscious in death. We need some acquaintance with death, before it actually comes. Meditation is meeting death before we actually die. For this we have to start loving the beauty of it, start falling in love with it. Death need not be treated as unwanted guest. It brings our greatest beloved, the divinity, closest to us. Death is a welcome guest. In fact we can know when it is coming and get prepared to receive it. There are two methods to know if somebody is going to die within six months or not. The day, we stop seeing the tip of our nose; that means only six months are left. Similarly, when we look at our wrist bringing closer to our eyes, it thins out. But six months before death, it is completely cut off. For great meditator death is a homecoming. Many times they have traveled on this path leaving their body, mind, heart far away. The same happens when we die. The death is not a new experience for them. In our meditation we have been dying and coming back to life every day. Such a person dies very consciously, because he knows what death is. And one who dies consciously knows that death is nothing but changing the house. And it is always for a better house because life always goes upwards; it is an evolutionary process.

Life is not the end. It is just a route to know our real home. But we are afraid, we are scared, at the very word death we start trembling. That means we have not yet known life. Life never dies. Life cannot die. Somewhere we have become identified with the body, with the mechanism. The mechanism will die. It can not be eternal. It is born some day. So it has to die some day. But awareness is never born, so it can never die. It has no roots. It can float like a cloud in the sky. The real life is eternal. It is never born, never dies. It is like an ocean. Waves come and go. But if we look deep down into the wave, there is an ocean. If we look deep down into our own being, we will find the ocean. This is the miracle of meditation. Death is the highest peak of life, the Everest. It is the most beautiful thing in existence. But we can know the beauty of death only if we know the beauty of life. The people who miss it have not lived at all. One, who knows life in such intensity, in such ecstasy, knows that there is no death. Ignorance of life creates death. Life full of joy and awareness prepares for joyful and conscious death. If one can dance, sing, and celebrate his life in full awareness, with no complaint, no grudge, but in immense gratitude towards Existence, he has fulfilled his mission in life. He has arrived in his real home, eternal home. The meditator dies voluntarily many times before the actual death. Each moment he dies to the past and remains fresh, because the moment he dies to the past, he becomes alive to the present. We are part of the Existence. We arise out of the ocean of the Existence as a wave and we disappear back into the ocean. As wave we can enjoy the sunlight and the wind for the moment, and then disappear. Like a wave, we can also appear beautifully, joyously, dancing, and disappear beautifully, joyously, dancing. We can live with immense joy and die with immense joy. A meditator knows the art of living as well as the art and ecstasy of dying. Only he knows that death is not death, but the beginning of an eternal pilgrimage. We have to learn the art of dying a death less death. We have to learn this through love, music, poetry, dance, meditation, and prayer. Then life becomes a continuous celebration. Then God lives in us. The body is like an electric bulb. The vital force is the electricity, the energy that keeps the body alive, lighted. In Samadhi the seeker himself meets death. He comes to know the truth that he is separate from his body. Once the separation between the body and the being is known, experience of divine nectar, divine life, eternal life, deathless life has begun. -----------------Osho Shailendra

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The Invisible Body The consciousness, the spirit within us, has two facets -- one is the invisible body, and the other is the outer physical body. Within the invisible body resides the soul, which is integral part of the whole, the Godliness. During death the invisible body leaves the physical body. The soul experiences neither birth nor death. It is never born and it never dies. It is this invisible body that is the cause of each death and resulting new birth. The invisible body bears the seed of all our thoughts, desires, and aspirations. It is this invisible body, which leads us on new travels, to fresh births. But the man whose thoughts, desires, emotions, and feelings have vanished has no reason to be reborn. The invisible body or the spirit enters in embryo formed after coitus in the mother's womb. It is not necessary that the invisible spirit should find an opportunity to take birth in a new body immediately after death of the old one. Generally, they seek to enter new bodies within thirteen days. The lower spirits have to wait longer because low embryos are difficult to find. These lower spirits are known as ghosts and demons. Very high spirits also have to wait because they do not often get the right opportunity to enter proper embryos. These high spirits are known as divine spirits. If the couples come together in a holy, inviting, loving, and prayerful attitude, only then a divine spirit chooses to enter the womb. --------------Osho Siddhartha ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Out of Body Experience When invisible body leaves the physical body, this experience is called ‘Out of body experience.’ It happens sometimes accidentally during illness, anesthesia or trauma. It may also happen in deep hypnosis. We can see that our body is lying down on the floor and we are floating above our body. In dreams many times we feel like flying. This is mostly out of body experience. This experiment of going out of body should be carried under the guidance of an expert Master, whom we can trust. If doubt arises in this moment, then death will happen. But if we do this experiment under the guidance of our Master, doubt cannot arise. When the Master calls us to come back, our astral body, the inner body, slowly comes down and enters into our physical body. It is a beautiful experience, but dangerous too. It should not be carried out alone. If somebody tries to wake up the physical body while invisible body is out, the person will think that it is dead and start preparing for the funeral. If the invisible body becomes afraid, it may forget how it came out; and it may not know how to get back? But generally it is pulled back into the physical body because of desires and attachment to the physical body. In Amrit Samadhi Group of Oshodhara one full session on all the nine days are devoted to this experience. Most of the participants go out of body and narrate their exciting tales after they come back in the body. At the end of each session when the music is played, the invisible body jumps back into the physical body. Under the guidance of the master it is absolutely safe to die and have out of body experience. Osho has narrated his out of body experience as follows: “My first experience out of the body was falling from a tree. I used to meditate just behind the university, where there was a beautiful hillock and three tall trees, very silent, and nobody used to go there. I used to sit in one of the trees and meditate. One day suddenly I saw that I was sitting in the tree and at the same time my body had fallen down and was lying on the ground. For a moment I could not find how to enter into it again. It was just a coincidence that a woman who used to bring milk to the university from the nearby village saw my body falling down, so she came close. She must have heard that in situations when the inner body becomes separated from the outer body, if you rub between the eyes, the third eye, which is the door, the spirit that has left will be able to enter. So she rubbed my third eye. I could see her rubbing my forehead, and the next moment I opened my eyes and thanked her and asked her how she knew to do that. She had simply heard about it. It was a primitive village, but she had heard the traditional idea that the third eye is the place from where one leaves and where one can come back (The Miracle, Chapter #3).” It is a very significant experience. After having this it is easier to be convinced that we are not this body, we are more than this, that we are astral, invisible. Within this body is hiding another body.

Osho has given direction for going out of body: “Just meditating, feel your body lying there. Feel that from your forehead your spirit is moving up, hovering in the air; but don't go too far. And always remember the forehead, the third eye, is the door through which you go out and come back in. This experience creates a conviction. Then it is no more faith. Then you know that you are immortal, that this body is just a bag, a cage. The body is just a vehicle. You are born in it, and you have never been out of it; that creates the problem. There are ways to be out of it. And once you are out of your body, then you will never be identified with it. One out-of-body experience will make you free of the identification that you are the body. Then you will know you are the driver. And this witnessing is the process of going out of the body. First, one has to destroy the identification; only then you can move out. You have to destroy the inner clinging with the body, and then you can move out. If you go on clinging with the body you cannot go out of it -- and it is not difficult to go out of it. The out-of-body experience is easy, and it is beautiful to have it. It is worth experiencing, because once you can feel yourself a little bit out, the body becomes different. Then you can never feel yourself as the body. Then you will feel in the body, but never as the body. Witnessing is the method (The Miracle, Chapter #3).” After going out, the invisible body is connected with the physical body through a cord, known as silver cord, since it shines like silver, though it is not a matter. It is connected at the Hara center, five centimeters below the navel. Osho has given another technique to have out-of-body experience, which we use in our Amrit Samadhi Group: “Lie down on a bed, flat on your back. Relax, and when you feel completely relaxed, then just start feeling that you are leaving the body, floating upwards toward the ceiling. In a few days you will be able to float above the body. But make sure that nobody disturbs you while you are in such a position, because if somebody disturbs you and the cord is broken, you are dead. So the best suggestion: ask Kaveesha (An Acharya of Oshodhara plays that role) to be present to help you to relax and suggest to you that your soul is leaving the body and floating in the air. And you will see, from the air, Kaveesha (Acharya) sitting in the room and that you are lying flat on the bed. Just keep a very dim light with candles, and burn incense. But anything that you do -- burning incense, candles - then the same thing should be repeated always so that it becomes associated. So you need not be dependent on Kaveesha forever. After two or three sessions, just when you light the incense and the candle and you lie down, immediately you will be able to float out. But keep alert that nobody disturbs you, that nobody comes into the room and wakes you suddenly. That can be fatal. If the cord is broken, then there is no way to rejoin it. So, first try it with Kaveesha. She can give you post-hypnotic suggestions that you will be able to float out of the body without any disturbance. And tell somebody to wait at the door so that nobody comes in for one hour and you are left alone. When you give the suggestion that your body will be left by the soul for fifteen minutes or thirty minutes, exactly after thirty minutes it will automatically come back to the body. Never forget that -- because entering into the body is difficult. And if it happens sometimes... then anybody who is watching the door has to remember: if it is a woman, then a man should touch the third eye, or if it is a man, then a woman should touch the third eye. And the soul will simply rush back to the body. Those opposite energies are needed to attract each other (The Transmission of the Lamp, Chapter #3, Q 4).”

Out of hundreds of Out of body experiences of our Amrit Samadhi participants, I would like to quote one from the Diary of Bharat Raja from Nagpur, India, just for illustration: “I was at Osho Gangotri Dham, Chitwan, Nepal participating in Amrit Samadhi program in the month of May, 2003. Our Acharyas were giving us an experience of Out of Body Experience by various methods. I was also very keen and curious about getting that experience. I would like to share my first Out of Body Experience here. For last three days, I was trying to get out of body under the able guidance of my Acharyas. During one of the sessions on the fourth day, I suddenly found myself out of my own body and was surprisingly looking at my original body lying comfortably on my seat in Buddha Hall. I walked out of the Buddha Hall in my invisible body and even today I can’t recollect how it happened. As I was walking outside the Buddha Hall, in the garden, I met an old Osho sannyasin. He was unknown to me and was in his invisible body too. He hugged me with warmth and gave his blessings to me. There after he quietly walked away. I wandered in the garden around the Buddha Hall for a while and then came back inside the Hall. I looked once again at my body lying there and entered into it. After having such an experience, I became free from fear of death. I feel gratitude to Oshodhara and Acharya Trivir for introducing Amrit and other Samadhi programs for growth of a meditator.” Out of body experience helps us to know that we are not just the physical body, we are the observer. For the first time the physical body looks like just clothing and we feel our deathlessness. A great realization dawns that bodily death is not our death. The body dies, and our invisible body moves on. We can come out of our body and look at it from lying dead. Once we experience this, we will never be the same person again. Now a new life starts--a life of deathlessness, a life of fearlessness. We drop identifying ourselves as the physical body. It is a valuable step towards spiritual growth. For out of body experience Agyan Chakra, the point lying between two eyebrows, is the most important center. The other important points are Sahasrar, lying at top of the head, and Hara Center, lying five centimeters below navel center. The invisible body can go out mainly through one of these centers, though there are many other centers as well. Another important question is, if invisible body has gone out, where should the physical body be touched so that the former can be brought back? If the invisible body has left the man's physical body it can return with the help and cooperation of a woman. In the same way, if it has left a woman's body, it can return with the assistance of a man. As soon as the bodies of a man and a woman come into contact a current is established, an electric circle is completed, and at that very instant the invisible body returns. It is better to touch the head rather than other points. There

are some other techniques, which are practiced by Acharyas of Oshodhara in Out of body sessions of Amrit Samadhi. It is dangerous to practice out of body experience without the help of a competent master. Osho narrates his experience in this regard as follows: “I experienced this phenomenon six times within the next six months. And during that eventful half year I felt my life span lessen by ten years. That is to say, if I had been supposed to live seventy years I would now, because of those experiences, live only sixty. And the experiences of these six months were extraordinary! The hair on my chest even turned white! Yet I failed to grasp the full meaning of what had happened. After much thought I finally realized that whatever connection or link there is between the physical body and the spiritual being had been interrupted, that the natural adjustment between them had been broken. And then I understood why Shankaracharya died at the age of thirty-three and Swami Vivekananda at thirty-six. Their deaths took on a different meaning for me. If there is a disruption between the two, between the visible body and the invisible spirit, it is difficult for the body to remain alive. I also understood Ramakrishna Paramahansa's being afflicted with so many diseases, and saw that Shree Ramana Maharshi's dying of cancer was not due to physical causes but this break in the adjustment between body and spirit (The Long, The Short, and The All, Chapter #5).” There is an internal arrangement by which the inner invisible body and the outer physical body retain their mutual contact. The chakras are the energy fields of these points of contact. Once we realize that the inner self is distinct and different from the outer body, death ceases to exist. The immortality of the soul is not just a theory, but real experience of some people. As soon as one gets this experience, only life exists, and there is no such thing as death at all. --------Osho Shailendra

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Art of Dying I would like to share an incidence with you when I had an acquaintance with death. Bacterial epidemic is a periodical occurrence in the Developing World. This is about the time when I was living in Sauraha, Nepal; the nation was hit by the bacterial plague. Despite of lot of care and protection I became Its victim. The symptoms of the disease are that I had several lose motions. Unfortunately Shailendraji was not there. Swamiji (Osho Siddhartha) tried all possible homeopathy medicines to contain the lose motions but they all proved ineffective. My condition was such that the moment I would come out of the toilet I had to go back again. In twenty four hours I must have gone for the motion around hundred times. Strangely, I had no soiled feeling. I was feeling fresh and fine inside although there was a lot going on at the periphery. There came a moment when my pulse was so low that it was hard to find them. Medication, drip and doctor nothing was left to experiment, nothing left that could be a death saver. Slowly and slowly I was moving close to death. My physical being was shrinking but my consciousness was still vast and blasé. Knowing that the consciousness has no beginning and no end and the death is only of the physical being, I was accepting everything that was happening to my physical body. This shrink of the body was causing no ripples and panic in the formless being. I was greeting my physical shrink and was accepting the end of this body. I was doing my last rituals i.e. looking at my beloved Masters photograph and expressing my gratitude to Osho. I said to Osho, “Osho, if this is how you want I welcome your decision. Please take care of Shailendra ji when I am gone.” I closed my eyes and was waiting for my death. After an hour when I opened my eyes I felt as if life is coming back to my body. I was ready to leave this form but existence had its own way of moving things with twist ‘n’ turn. We never know what is coming next in life; it’s such a beautiful mystery. The biggest lesson of life is to learn how to die, how to accept death with grace. In Tibet they call it Bardo of dying. Our all victories turn into defeat if we do not embrace death smilingly. Similarly we have won the battle of life, if we depart from this world with peace and bliss. We have to learn following lessons for peaceful death:

Die to the Past: Art of dying can start with letting the past die every day. But we always do the opposite. We go on reviving old memories of childhood. Most of us carry the desire to return to our childhood. It is better to learn from the past and forget it. Let dead be dead. Let the past be past. Once we die to the past, thoughts cease to come. It is a general complaint of meditator that thoughts keep coming. Thoughts don't come like that. We have nourished them. We have tied them to ourselves. We nourish thoughts of the past. We don't allow them to die. We keep them alive. Let our thoughts die. Once we are dead to the past, we can embrace death with peace and grace. Die with Acceptance: We must drop all fiction about death. . It is neither frightening, nor painful. It is not termination, but only preparation of a new life. It is only cessation of physical body. Only the outer shell perishes, the inner self continues the journey. Death is not an isolated event. The day we are born, death commences. In fact death is culmination of life. Always we have to be prepared for it. We have to practice acceptance in life, so that when death comes, we may welcome it. Die in Awareness: Death is a great opportunity. We should watch how our consciousness is withdrawing from the feet towards the head. We can find that the body is dying, but still we are there as watcher. We can realize our divine existence, our divine elixir, our divine nature. This is a great moment, a moment of natural samadhi. If we have meditated, this provides a rare opportunity to experience enlightenment. A Bardo expert can also give suggestion to a dying person to remain alert, watchful and witness the dying process. Those who have been blessed with experience of Divine Light and Divine Sound through the grace of their Master should embrace death while listening the Divine Sound and looking into the Divine Light. A special kind of music can be created around a person to make him stay conscious. Certain words, certain mantras, certain songs can be played which can help the person stay awake and enjoy dying. A special album ‘Amrit Varsha’, has been prepared by Oshodhara, which enables a dying person to embrace death in awareness and joy. Choice of Womb for the next Birth: If we have not attained Nirvana or Nirbeej Samadhi under the guidance of a perfect Master, it is imperative to come again in

the next birth. Then we can profit by our wisdom by giving suggestions to us as to what kind of womb will be good for the next birth. Millions of people are dying and roaming around, finding a couple who is making love. Most of the births are accidental, because most of the people die unconsciously, grope in the darkness, and whoever comes close by, enter into that womb immediately. A meditator may give suggestion that he or she may like to take birth at what time, through what type of couple, and in what environment. For example Guru Arjan Deo says: “During last life I prayed for company of a Perfect Master and His Commune (Guru Arjan Deo, Adi Granth,M5).” If one can not manage on his own, then it is better to call a person knowing Bardo, who will give the idea where to go, what kind of womb to find, what kind of parents to choose, what kind of atmosphere to look for. Bardo is a very intensive hypnosis, and it is possible to give directions for the future to the soul that is leaving the body. Watch Cremation of the Own Body: One more opportunity is available to a dying person to receive direction for a better journey ahead. A Bardo expert can give suggestion to the dying person to accompany the dead body when people take it for cremation, and give a good look when the body is burning. Once we see our physical body burning to ashes, our attachment for it disappears. -------------Osho Priya -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Helping a Dying Person Tibetan Buddhists have developed Bardo, the science and art of dying.

“The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying” by Sogyal Rinpoche is a wonderful treatise on this subject. This gives useful suggestions for helping a dying person. Osho has also touched this subject in his many discourses. Oshodhara has launched ‘Amrit Movement’ to help dying persons. Accordingly our Bardo experts are helping many people in peaceful dying. Helping a dying person can also help us in our own journey to growth and maturity. It makes us fearless and compassionate. We become responsible to our more rewarding death. Some guidelines for helping a dying person are being given below: When somebody is dying, it is better to make him aware that death has come. In the East, particularly in Tibet, when a person is dying, friends, relatives and acquaintances gather to help him in dying with complete relaxation. We should sit near a dying person calmly, quietly and happily. We should be at ease and relaxed. We should not show any hurry.      

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We should encourage the person warmly to express and share his or her thoughts, fears, and emotions freely. We should be normal to the dying person and punctuate our talk with humor. We should not preach any new thing. It is better to strengthen his conviction. However, if the dying person asks something, we can help him with an answer. We should not expect to do too much. After all death is a mirror of life and the dying person will get the quality of death according to quality of life he has lived. We should not present ourselves as experts before the dying person. We should be friendly to him. Persons dying due to serious ailment need special love and care. This can be done by holding their hands, gently massaging them, or holding them in our arms, looking in their eyes with love and affection, by synchronizing the rhythm of your breathing with their breathing pattern. If the dying person is calm and composed we must always appreciate his serenity. We should remember that the dying person has lot of potential to get enlightened during these last moments of his life. Thus, the dying person needs more help, support, guidance and respect from us. A study at St. Christopher’s Hospice in London has shown that given the right care, 98 percent of patients can have a peaceful death. Medicines can be administered to the dying person to give relief in pain, but one must not give anything that makes the dying person unconsciousness. Death is the ultimate experience of Samadhi and being

witness of death is the zenith of all the seeking in life. Swami Yogananda, in his famous book, ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’, recommends a dose of ‘Arsenic 10 M’ to reduce suffering of a dying person. 

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Request the dying person to ask for forgiveness from all those people whom they had given trouble, knowingly or unknowingly. Then ask the dying person to forgive all those who have made their life difficult during their lifetime. Ask the friends and relatives of the dying person to express their feelings in a way which will help the dying person to enter into death with more ease. They can say to the dying person, “We are here with you and we love you. You are dying, and that is completely natural; it happens to everyone. We wish you could stay here with us, but we don’t want you to suffer any more. We shall always cherish the time spent with you. But seeing your suffering we do not want you to hold onto life any longer. We give you our full and heartfelt permission to die. You have all our love.” Wherever possible, people should die at home, because it is at home that the majority of people are likely to feel most comfortable. And the peaceful death is easiest to obtain in familiar surroundings. But if someone has to die in hospital, there is a great deal that we, the loved ones, can do to make the death as easy and inspiring as possible. Bring in plants, flowers, pictures, photographs of loved ones and the gods he has faith in, drawings by children and grandchildren, or a cassette player with musical tapes, or if it is possible, home-cooked meals. We might even get permission for children to visit or for loved ones to stay overnight. I remember how my mother-in-law, the mother of Osho, asked Osho Shailendraji to remove all attachments during her last moments. Hospital attendants should not bother the dying person by taking his samples for medical tests. If it is certain that the ailing person will die then he should be put in the private room. All injections and all investigating procedures of any kind should be discontinued. Allow the dying person to die in silence and serenity. This will help the dying person in his journey after death. We can ask the dying person to contemplate divine light in the forehead. This will make the dying person calm and fearless. We can use Atisha’s meditation technique to help the dying person. This technique suggests contemplating that we are taking in all the miseries of the dying person with our incoming breath, transforming it into peace and bliss, and with our outgoing breath returning to the dying person. The Dying person should be reminded of his Buddha Nature and his achievements. All the negative thoughts and deeds should be avoided. Use any technique from the Amrit Yoga and guide the dying person to enter into the Divine Light. Assure him/her that Buddha, Nanak, Osho and all the sages of the past have gone from the same path. He/she should

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also go from the same path fearlessly where all the saints are waiting to welcome him/her. ‘Amrit Varsha’ music cassette, specially designed for this occasion, may be played to the dying person, if he likes. A dying person can be given right direction to choose parents in the next birth. For example a Bardo expert can say: Don't be in a hurry. You have been a meditator, and you have to find a mother, a father, who are themselves meditator, and will help you to meditate. So don't be in a hurry! Choose a right couple.”

Sogyal Rinpoche says: “It is crucial now that an enlightened vision of death and dying should be introduced throughout the world at all the levels of education. Children should not be protected from death, but introduced, while young, to the true nature of death and what they can learn from it. Why not introduce this vision, in its simplest forms, to all age groups? Knowledge about death, about how to help the dying, and about the spiritual nature of death and dying should be made available to all levels of society; it should be taught, in depth and with real imagination, in schools and colleges and universities of all kinds; and especially and most important, it should be available in teaching hospitals to nurses and doctors who will look after the dying and who have so much responsibility toward them(Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying).” ---------Osho Siddhartha -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Life after Death It is not only a matter of curiosity, but also necessary for our own growth that we should know what happens after death. Is there any life after death? In Tibet this state is known as Bardo after death. Osho has talked a lot about this state, which is summarized below: Perception of time and space is not the same in the Bardo after death as it is in the Bardo of life. In Bardo after death the spirit is neither stationary nor in movement. This is beyond our understanding, because we are familiar with objects, which are either stationary or in movement. Movement and non-movement are both qualities of the body. Beyond body, the words movement and non-movement have no meaning. During Bardo after death the experiences and impressions of all previous births remain with the spirit in seed form. As soon as the spirit acquires a body, they will become active. During Bardo after death there is a great chain of body-related experiences existing in seed form, which can become active at any time upon acquisition of a body. During Bardo after death the experiences will be like dreams. Those whose experiences have created misery for them will see nightmares and dreams of hell. Those whose experiences have brought them happiness will dream of heaven and will be happy in their dreams. But these are all dreamlike experiences. Occasionally, it may so happen that spirit which are neither stationary nor in movement will enter other bodies. The world of spirits is not different from ours. We are all residing in the same world. Every centimeter of space here is filled with spirits. The space right here, which appears empty to us is full with the spirits. There are two types of bodies, which are in a state of deep receptivity. One is of those that are in great fear. Those who are in great fear cause their souls to contract within their bodies -- so much so that they vacate some parts of the body completely. Some nearby spirits drift into these empty parts like water entering a ditch. At such times, these spirits experience things that only a living being can experience. A spirit can also enter a body when it is in a deep prayerful moment. In such prayerful moments also, the soul contracts. A fearful person is like a ditch: only downward moving spirits can enter. A prayerful person is like a peak: only upward moving souls can enter. A prayerful person becomes filled with so much inner fragrance and so much inner beauty that only the highest spirits take interest in him. And such higher spirits will enter only by what we call invocation, invitation or prayer. There is a complete science for invoking gods—good spirits. These gods do not descend from some heaven, nor do those whom we call evil spirits come from hell or some devil's world. They are all present right here, coexisting with us.

The space that we live in has multidimensional existence. For example, this room where we are sitting is full of air. If someone burns some incense, some aromatic substance, the room will become filled with fragrance. If someone sings a melodious song, sound waves will also fill the room. Similarly all the spirits are very much near us. Communication is possible only between the spirit entering and the soul existing in the body. That is why, so far on this earth, no spirit, evil or godly, has been able to communicate directly with us. Information that we have about heaven and hell is not something out of people's imaginations, but it has been communicated by such spirits through mediums. But mostly it is a good or bad dream of person leaving the body depending upon what type of person he was. The time between one death and another birth is used in dreaming. With proper attention it is possible to discern spirit communication. For example, the manner and style of speech will be different, the tone will differ, and the language will also differ. Those in whom the evil spirits enter will be very clear about the fact that someone had entered into them only after such evil spirits leave the body -- because they become so fearful that they faint and fall unconscious. But those in whom celestial spirits enter will be able to say at the very moment that what is being spoken is by someone else, not by him. Vedas were received by Rishis as such. Special conditions, conducive for such a phenomenon, can be evolved. For example, Mohammedans burn lobhan. This is a method of inviting good spirits by creating a specific fragrant atmosphere. Hindus also burn incense and light a flame made from ghee. They also chant a specific mantra which becomes an invocation. Before I close, I would like to quote Osho on life and death: “Nothing is ever born and nothing ever dies. Things only move between manifestation and non - manifestation. They become visible, they become invisible. To become invisible is a resting place. Just as after each day you need deep sleep in the night to rejuvenate you, to make you again young and fresh, in the same way after each life you need death. Death is a deeper sleep and nothing else. After each life your body is so tired, you need a new body, a new manifestation. The old wave disappears, but the water in that wave remains in the ocean; it will come again in a new wave. The old is continuously becoming new -- allow it. You simply allow life and go with it in deep trust (I am That, Chapter 16, Q1).” -----------Osho Priya

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DIVINE ENLIGHTENMENT ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enlightenment Is Your Birthright OFTEN YOU HAVE SPOKEN ABOUT YOUR REBELIOUS CHILDHOOD AND HOW IT GAVE YOU SUCH FREEDOM, HOW YOU INSISTED ON DISCOVERING YOUR OWN INDIVIDUALITY. HOW DID YOU KNOW THE NEED TO REBEL AT THIS EARLY AGE? WHAT ABOUT THOSE PEOPLE WHO DID’T HAVE COURAGE TO REBEL AND WHO HAD A HAMPERED CHILDHOOD? IS A REBELLIOUS CHILDHOOD NECESSARY FOR ENLIGHTENMENT?

No, not necessary. A man can become enlightened without having a rebellious childhood; but nobody can become enlightened without becoming rebellious beforehand. If one is fortunate enough to be rebellious in his childhood, enlightenment will be coming sooner. I became enlightened when I was twentyone. Gautam Buddha became enlightened when he was forty-two, because up to his twenty-ninth year he had never rebelled against his father's wishes. At the age of twenty-nine, he had to rebel. He could see that these twenty-nine years had gone just without any meaning. The astrologers had said to his father that he should not be allowed to see a dead body, a sick man, an old man, a sannyasin. He was the only son of his father, born in his very old age, so the whole kingdom belonged to Gautam Buddha. And the father was very much afraid because the astrologers had said, "If you don't manage rightly there is every possibility that he may renounce the world and become a seeker of truth. If he remains in the world and becomes the king, then there is a possibility that he may even become the king of the whole world, he has such great potential. Either he will become the great conqueror of the world -- in Sanskrit it is called chakravartin -- or he will become an enlightened one. It is between these two. "And we cannot say right now what will happen, but if you can manage to keep these few things from his knowledge, he will never renounce the world. Bring the most beautiful girls of the kingdom. Keep him surrounded with the girls, with music, with dance, with wine, with good food. Make beautiful palaces for him for different seasons in different locations. In summer he should be in a cold region, in winter he should be in a warmer place. So make three palaces." India has three very clear -- cut seasons: summer, winter, rains. And the father was so rich he managed three beautiful palaces. The gardeners were told that he should not see even a pale leaf or a dead leaf No idea should get into his mind that things get old or things die. For twenty-nine years he lived almost a prisoner in utter luxury.

The rebellion came because he was going to open the annual ceremony of the entire kingdom, some kind of Olympic games for youth. On the way in his golden chariot, he saw an old man for the first time in his life. He asked the charioteer, "What has happened to this man?" The charioteer said, "I cannot tell you a lie. What has happened to this man happens to everybody; he has become old." Immediately Gautam Buddha asked, "That means it is going to happen to me also?" He was at his prime of youth, a beautiful young man. The charioteer said, "I would like that it should not happen to you, but nature cannot be changed. It is just the law of nature. One who is born will become old, it cannot be prevented." And then came a dead man's body being carried to the crematorium. And Buddha said, "What is happening?" The charioteer said, "This happens after old age. This is the last stage. After this nothing happens. This man is dead." Buddha had not even heard the word death. And then he saw a sannyasin who was just following the dead man's body. And he said, "This man looks strange. Shaven head, orange clothes, with a begging bowl in his hand. I have never seen such a type. What is his profession?" The charioteer said, "He has renounced all professions. He is a sannyasin. He is a seeker of truth. Realizing that life one day becomes death, he wants to know, 'Is there something within us which does not die? Or does everything die?' He is on a immense journey, a search for himself, his eternity." Buddha said to him, "Return the chariot back to my palace. I am not going to open, inaugurate the function, because I have already become old. I am already feeling as if I am dying and suffocating. You just take me back home. I have been deceived." And this was the first time a great rebellion was born in his mind. That very night he escaped from the palace. But twenty-nine years were lost. He could have become enlightened long before. But one thing is certain: whether one is rebellious in his childhood or not, nobody becomes enlightened without a rebellious approach, because he will have to fight against the conditionings of the society. He will have to rebel against the beliefs of the society. He will have to rebel against his own ego, against his own ambitions. Rebellion is certainly a necessary part. It cuts you from the ordinary social world and makes you an individual. Rebellion is the fire, passing through which one gains freedom, individuality, integrity. And only after that can one relax and be oneself, be simple, be innocent. It is a new birth. And then enlightenment is not far away. Hindrances removed, enlightenment is always there. It is your birthright. ---------Osho, The Last Testament, Vol 3, Chapter #16

Discover Your Enlightenment Enlightenment is our birthright, but we have to discover it. It is a gateless gate, but we have to open it. It is our very being, but we have to approach it. It is never lost, but we have to find it. We have to go nowhere, but we need a living master to realize it. Divinity is a mystery, but it has to be experienced. It has never been separate, but it requires intelligence to feel that we are part of it. It is our very core, but we live at the periphery. That is why we are required to take up a journey to enlightenment. Sadguru Trivir, the trinity of living masters in live stream of Osho, have designed ten levels of Samadhi groups (each group runs into 9 days) and are regularly conducting them at Oshodhara Program Centers in India and abroad for making your journey to enlightenment easy, juicy and celebrative. Based on spiritual science unraveled by Osho, eleventen levels of Meditations and Samadhi groups (each group runs into 9 days) have been designed and are regularly being conducted at Oshodhara Program Centers in India and Nepal. The groups are conducted as GIMAS (Groups in Meditation and Samadhi). GIMAS Courses are described below: Dhyan / Bhakti Samadhi: It is the First Level Group . Dhyan Samdhi is based on Total Awareness and has thee parts---Anand Pragya, Yoga Pragya and Samadhi Pragya, which teach Right Living, Right Witnessing and Right Samadhi respectively. Bhakti Samadhi is based on Divine divotion and has three parts--Bhakti Pragya, Yoga Pragya and Samadhi Pragya, which teach Right Devotion, Right Witnessing and Right Samadhi respectively. During Dhyan/Bhakti Samadhi participants are given first initiation, known as Neo-Sanyayas Diksha. While talking on initiation Osho says: “The word `initiation' is very significant and profound. There are three initiations: first, when a student becomes a disciple; second, when a disciple becomes a devotee; and third, when the devotee disappears in the master (Osho, Beyond Enlightenment, Ch#2, Q1)”.

Disciples of Osho are accepted as first initiates, but are given first initiation again only on their request. Disciples of other non-living masters are given first initiation again. Osho says: "God is betrayed only when you betray an alive master -- never otherwise. When I am gone, let it be finished. Then go and find out living masters. Then don't think you will be betraying Rajneesh: when he is gone, he is gone. Then God has chosen some other place to manifest himself -- then don't allow me to hinder you, then don't let this idea become a barrier. You will not be betraying me. If you cling to me when I am gone, then you will be betraying me (Osho, The Divine Melody, Chapter #5)." Disciples of other living masters are given first initiation again. However they are allowed to continue their affiliation with their previous master as well. If someone leaves his/her living master on some pretext or other to become master/group leader/Acharya himself/herself, it is considered as betrayal. We do not accept betrayers as living masters. Surati Samadhi: It is the Second Level Group and is based on Divine Sound. It is open only to Dhyan Samadhi graduates, who have been initiated into Neo-Sannyas Deeksha. This group teaches how to live in harmony with the Divine Sound. It would be advisable that you come for 18 days and complete a Dhyan Samadhi or Bhakti Samadhi Group, followed by Surati Samadhi Group, that means First and Second level groups in one stretch. What you will get in 18 days, you may not possibly get even in 18 years of meditations. Nirati Samadhi: It is the Third Level Group and is based on Divine Light. Entry in this Group is granted three months after graduating from Surati Samadhi. Through this program a seeker learns to live in harmony with the Divine Light. Amrit Samadhi: It is the Fourth level Group and is based on Devine Elixir. This Group is available 3 months after attending Nirati Samadhi. This teaches how to die in Awareness and live at the center of our Amrit Consciousness. Persons above 60 years are allowed to attend Amrit Samadhi immediately after Nirati Samadhi. Chaitanya Samadhi: It is the Fifth level Group and is based on Divine Awareness. This Group is conducted in total silence. Entry in this group is granted three months after graduating from Amrit Samadhi. This teaches how to break identity with form and identify ourselves with Divine inner space. This is a new group and all the Samadhi Graduates are advised to complete this group before taking admission into higher groups.

Divya Samadhi: It is the Sixth Level Group and is based on Divine Taste, Fragrance, Ecstasy and Energy. Entry in this Group is granted three months after graduating from Chaitanya Samadhi. This teaches how to live in Divine Taste, Divine Fragrance, Divine Ecstasy and Divine Energy. Anand Samadhi: It is the Seventh Level Group based on Divine Bliss. It is available 3 months after attending Divya Samadhi program. This teaches how to live in Blissful Awareness. Prem Samadhi: It is the Eighth Level Group based on Divine Love. Entry in this Group is granted three months after graduating from Anand Samadhi. This group teaches how to live in Divine love. Second initiation is given to the participants any time after Dhyan/Bhakti Samadhi and before Gyan Samadhi by enrolling them as Members of Oshodhara Sangha. After this initiation they are supposed to be part and parcel of the Master and His commune. Gyan Samadhi: It is the Ninth Level Group and is based on Cosmic Experience of the Self as extension of the Whole Existence. This group provides key to Self-Realization. Entry in this group is granted only to Oshodhara Sangha Members three months after graduating from Prem Samadhi. All the Gyan Samadhi graduates are given third initiation by enrolling them as members of Oshodhara Sant Sangha (OSS) provided they are already members of Oshodhara Sangha. All OSS Members are given new names prefixing Osho. All OSS members automatically become Members of ‘Oshodhara Sansad’, which is the highest decision making body of Oshodhara. OSS Members are required to renew their Membership during March every year and maintain a very high standard of divine living to continue as member of the OSS. The list of blessed ones forming OSS can be seen in our website www.oshodhara.com. Kaivalya Samadhi: It is the Tenth Level Group and is based on Cosmic Experience of Whole Existence being extension of the Self.. This program is available only to Oshodhara Sant Sangha (OSS) members 6 months after graduating from Gyan Samadhi. This group takes the seekers into Cosmic Experience of ‘Aham Brahmasmi.’ Nirvana Samadhi: It is the Eleventh Level Group based on Experience of only Cosmic Existence and nothing else. This program is available only to Oshodhara Sant Sangha (OSS) members 6 months after graduating from Kaivalya Samadhi. This group provides a rare opportunity to the seekers for going into the Zero Experience or Nirvaan.

LIMASS Lessons in Meditation and Spiritual Science

Oshodhara, the Living Stream of Osho, brings for you an exciting opportunity to experience the essence of Spiritualism. It's for the first time in human history that subject of Spiritualism is being offered as an educational process, which means Spiritualism through E-Learning. Oshodhara welcomes you all to be a part of LIMASS (Lessons in Meditation and Spiritual Science). The whole world looks towards India for spiritual guidance. In modern times, Osho represented spiritual genius of India. Not only that He was a great master, but also He was a revolutionary thinker, a versatile orator and a great scholar. Naturally He attracted whole world and became a legend during His lifetime itself. Osho spoke on most of the masters of the past and highlighted the paths of divine realizations of all the traditions. Time and again he emphasized need of a living master as a must in any spiritual pursuit. But after His departure in January 1990, no competent living master could emerge for quite a number of years. This left a big gap in world of spiritualism. With emergence of Sadguru Trivir, the Trinity of masters in Oshodhara, Osho found a living expression. As such Oshodhara started flowing like Ganges inheriting the genius of Osho, which encompasses all spiritual traditions. The words of Osho became alive again through the Sadguru Trivir of Oshodhara. Oshodhara, like Ganges, emerges from Himalayas of Osho, and it is for all the seekers, it is of all the seekers, and it is by all the seekers of the world. Since 1997, Oshodhara has helped thousands of seekers in India and abroad to experience meditation, Samadhi and Enlightenment.

Present Scenario

The present scenario of life is full of mental and Social chaos, fights, disturbances, tensions, restlessness and many such life threatening hazards. Human race has fallen in the vicious circle, which seems to end no-where. If we move ahead in the same way of politics, criminal approach, we are soon approaching to a situation of World War -III and then it is not possible for any life to sustain. Complications have grown, and problems are rising. The commonly faced problems are –           

Mental Stress Depression Suppression Conflicts with the self and family Stuck in Duality Split in Personality Anger and Violence Pessimistic behavior Insecurity in life Fear Insomnia

The number of problems are unending and the result is descend of the entire world. These problems just make keep us stuck and don’t allow us to fly in the sky and know our own existential true self. What is the basic reason for this collapse? What is missing? We all are running in a haste not knowing what do we need? Osho Says: "Now we are again in a great chaos, and man's fate will depend on what we do. Either we will destroy ourselves like the civilization that destroyed itself in Atlantis – the whole world will become a Hiroshima; we will be drowned in our own knowledge; in our own science we will commit suicide, a collective suicide. A few, a Noah and a few of his followers, may be saved, or may not be.... Or, there is a possibility that we can take a quantum leap. Either man can commit suicide, or man can be reborn. Both doors are open. The ordinary masses live in such unconsciousness that they can't see even a few steps ahead. They are blind. And they are the majority! The coming twenty-five years are going to be of IMMENSE value. If we can create a great momentum in the world for meditation, for the inward journey, for tranquility, for stillness, for love, for God... if we can create a space in these coming twenty-five years for God to happen to many people, humanity will have a new birth, a resurrection. A new man will be born ( Philosphia Perennis, Vol. 1)."

LIMASS-An Answer to Present Crisis of Man So, we would like to invite you to Oshodhara’s LIMASS courses to explore your ways to eternal bliss, peace, silence, and beauty. These lessons offer simple but effective techniques, which eliminate toxins and stresses that accumulate in our systems over time. They are a unique way to harmonize and energize the Body, Breath, Mind, Emotions and Spirit. Come and know! In this situation too one can be firmly rooted in oneself, and a few such human beings can add a difference to whole world. Osho has given a solution for this. Do you want to live a life for yourself? Enjoy it, rejoice it, fill it with different shades of colors of celebration; then there is a possibility. Won't you like to be one of those blissful and loving individuals?

Want to Know How? "The only thing that can prevent the world war is that you start a totally new consciousness, that you start a new kind of humanity... a man who is capable of love, a man who is capable of meditation. Let love and meditation spread far and wide. Let meditation reach to as many people as possible. Except that, all your efforts at resistance are impotent (Osho, The Dhammapada: way of Buddha, Vol. 8, Chp 10, Q. 3)." "We need a new kind of human being who has both wings: the wings of knowledge, science, technology, and the wings of meditation, enlightenment, love, and freedom. When both wings are functioning in a deep synchronicity, in a deep togetherness, in accord and harmony, then only man is complete, total (Osho, The goose is out, Chp 2, Q.3)." The religiousness is disappearing from the entire globe. Only few people here and there from each country are ready to dive in the unknown. In today’s fast speeding era, where the science and technology has developed so much, if the spiritualism remains in the old style, it can't have a pace together with the common man. For the common man today it is simply not possible to leave all his worldly chorus and devote many years for sincere meditation. So there has to be something instant, fast, whose effects are visible in a short span of time and it must be easy and relaxing from his troubles. Oshodhara has brought for you simplified easy and latest version of Spiritualism.

Is it possible? Now spiritual exploration does not require leaving the world. It is possible while living in your own homes, doing your entire chorus and yet qualitative difference can happen. Till now, Spiritualism was confined to monasteries, Mathas, Peeths,

Ashrams, Forests or places like Gurukul. It seems like an illusion being in home and yet meditative. Yes, if it is possible for Christ, Mohammed, Krishna, Lao Tzu, Heraclites, Kabir, Nanak and Osho, then why not for you? Osho brought a revolution in spiritualism, by making it so simple and easily available to each of us. He wishes to have combination of worldly life and Sannyas (spiritual life) together. It is a birthright for every one of us to be utterly blissful. We have just forgotten the treasure within ourselves. We all were happy, innocent, rejoicing when we were kids. Spiritualism makes you reborn again and here is a chance for you. Divinity is knocking at your door, wake up, open your eyes and just feel it. Don’t miss this opportunity. Once missed, you don’t know how long you have to wait for it to come again. Osho narrates it beautifully: "I am all for science, I am not against science. And I am all for religion too, because I can see a possibility of a great synthesis arising in the future. It has to arise now. If it does not arise, then man is doomed and finished and man has no future, no hope. The world can be made rich outwardly with technology and science, and the inner world can be made rich by meditation, by prayer, by love, by joy. We can create a new human being, fulfilled both within and without (The Dhammapada: way of Buddha, Vol. 6, Chapter 5)."

Zorba The Buddha In His entire life He strived to bring a combination of East and the West; man and woman, science and spirituality, and matter and consciousness. He gives it a new name: Zorba The Buddha. Osho Says: "Buddha is not a personal name, it is a quality. It means the awakened one. Anyone who is awakened can be called the buddha. Gautam Buddha is only one of the millions of buddhas, who have happened and who will happen. And you cannot prevent Zorba becoming a buddha. In fact, you should help me to make zorbas into buddhas, because that is the only real revolution – that a materialist, a zorba, who knows nothing of higher consciousness, becomes a buddha. Zorba is a beautiful man – no fear of hell, no greed for heaven, living moment to moment, enjoying small things... food, drink, women. After the whole day's work, he will take his musical instrument and will dance on the beach for hours (Beyond enlightenment, Chp 7, Q.1)."

Oshodhara is working for making His dream come true and we would like to invite you to this program. Come and join and know the difference. You all are cordially invited! If we have to sum up the entire message for you, we would like to say it in Osho’s words: "It took twelve years for Gautam Buddha. It need not take even twelve minutes for you. It is simply an art, to relax into yourself... You can relax this very moment! And in that relaxation you will find the light, the awareness, the awakening… There is nothing ascetic in it, nothing life-negative– no need to renounce the world, no need to become a monk, no need to enter a monastery. You have to enter into yourself. That can be done anywhere (Osho, Zen Manifesto)."

LIMASS Courses Based on spiritual science unraveled by Osho, eleven levels of GIMAS (Groups in Meditations and Samadhi) Courses have been designed and are regularly being conducted at Oshodhara Program Centers in India and Nepal. All these eleven groups of GIMAS have now been made available to the registered students of LIMASS. Each course consists of 30 lessons. There shall be interactive sessions. It is not one-way program but we together move ahead on this journey. Questionnaire would be the basis of one’s consistency and sincerity for the course. Besides relevant literature for reading there shall be instructions for practicing meditation and improving understanding of life. LIMASS courses are described below:

1. LIMASS Group on Meditation: It is the First Level Group based on Total Awareness. It teaches Right Living, Right Witnessing and Right Meditation. In the first part comprising of 10 lessons, harmony will be established with periphery through understanding of Eight-fold path of Gautama the Buddha, enabling one to live a harmonious life. In the second part comprising of another group of 10 lessons harmony will be established with the Centre. It will teach seven types of Yoga related with respective chakras.

In the third part comprising of another group of 10 lessons we shall understand divinity in its purest form. These lessons will cover Eight-Fold path of Patanjali, the greatest exponent of yoga in entire human history. The student will also know Divine sound and its listening techniques. 2. LIMASS Group on Divine Sound: It is the Second Level Group and is based on Divine Sound. It is open only to the graduates of LIMASS Group of Meditation xxxxx. Through 30 lessons this group teaches how to live in harmony with the Divine Sound and go into ecstasy (Samadhi). 3. LIMASS Group on Divine Light: It is the Third Level Group and is based on Divine Light. It is open only to the graduates of LIMASS Group on Divine Sound xxxxx. Through 30 lessons this group teaches how to live in harmony with the Divine Light and go into ecstasy (Samadhi). Through this program a seeker learns to live in harmony with the Divine Light. 4. LIMASS Group on Divine Elixir: It is the Fourth level Group and is based on Devine Elixir. This Group is open only to the graduates of LIMASS Group on Divine Light xxxxx. Through 30 lessons this teaches out of body experience, art of dyeing and living at the center of our Amrit Consciousness. 5. LIMASS Group on Divine Consciousness: It is the Fifth level Group and is based on Divine Consciousness. This Group is open only to the graduates of LIMASS Group on Divine Elixir xxxxx. Through 30 lessons this teaches how to break identity with form and identify ourselves with Divine inner space. 6. LIMASS Group on Divine Energy: It is the Sixth Level Group and is based on Divine Taste, Divine Fragrance, Divine Ecstasy and Divine Energy. This Group is open only to the graduates of LIMASS Group on Divine Awareness xxxxx.

Through 30 lessons this teaches how to live in Divine Taste, Divine Fragrance, Divine Ecstasy and Divine Energy. 7. LIMASS Group on Divine Bliss: It is the Seventh Level Group based on Divine Bliss. This Group is open only to the graduates of LIMASS Group on Divine Energy xxxxx. Through 30 lessons this teaches how to live in Blissful Awareness. 8. LIMASS Group on Divine Love: It is the Eighth Level Group based on Divine Love. This Group is open only to the graduates of LIMASS Group on Divine Bliss xxxxx. Through 30 lessons this group teaches how to live in Divine love.

9. LIMASS Group on Enlightenment: It is the Ninth Level Group and is based on Cosmic Experience of the Self as extension of the Whole Existence. This is a 9-days residential group, which provides key to Self-Realization. This Group is open only to the graduates of LIMASS Group on Divine Love xxxxx. This group teaches how to live in oneness with the Divine. All the graduates of LIMASS Group on Enlightenment are given initiation by enrolling them as members of Oshodhara Sant Sangha (OSS). All OSS Members are given new names prefixing Osho. All OSS members automatically become Members of ‘Oshodhara Sansad’, which is the highest decision making body of Oshodhara. OSS Members are required to renew their Membership during March every year and maintain a very high standard of divine living to continue as member of the OSS. The list of blessed ones forming OSS can be seen in our website www.oshodhara.com.

10. LIMASS Group on Beyond Enlightenment: It is the Tenth Level Group and is based on Cosmic Experience of Whole Existence being extension of the Self. This is a 9-days residential group and is available only to Oshodhara Sant Sangha (OSS) members 6 months after graduating from LIMASS Group on Enlightenment xxxxx. This group takes the seekers into the Cosmic Experience of ‘Aham Brahmasmi.

11. LIMASS Group on Nirvana: It is the Eleventh Level Group based on Experience of only Cosmic Existence and nothing else. This is a 9-days residential group and is available only to Oshodhara Sant Sangha (OSS)

members 6 months after graduating from LIMASS Group on Beyond Enlightenment xxxxx. This group provides a rare opportunity to the seekers for going into the Cosmic Experience of Nirvana.

Through these groups a student is supposed to complete his/her journey from student to a devotee. Osho says: “The first step is that of a student, curious but still a spectator, far away, collecting information, knowledge. The second step is that of a disciple, no more a spectator but a participant, no more interested in knowledge but tremendously interested in knowing. And the third step is that of a devotee, utterly one with the Master, partaking of his being, drinking out of his inexhaustible source, drunk – drunk with the divine (Osho, Ah, This, Ch#3).”

Registration:   

You can register your name in LIMASS by paying $ 100 as registration fee. Each Group will cost $ 450. This can be paid in three equal installments. The first installment should also include the registration fee, if not already paid. For terms and conditions and mode of payment visit www.limass.net

For further details write to: [email protected]

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Third Cover Flap Real religion is never in the scriptures. And a real religious seeker does not go in search of scriptures; he goes in search of a Master – a living Master. Go and search for a living Master! If you can come in contact with a living Master then dead scriptures will become alive again. They become alive only via the living Master – there is no other way, because the living Master is the only scripture. When the living Master touches the Bhagavad Gita, it will become alive; when he touches the gospel, the gospel will become alive. When he recites the Koran, the Koran will again become alive. He will give his own life to these words; they will start throbbing. But directly you cannot find religion in the scriptures. ------------Osho, The Divine Melody, Chapter #1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fourth(Back) Cover

Oshodhara-A Live Stream of Osho Oshodhara indicates the live stream of Osho. It indicates presence and continuity of living masters in the tradition. Osho, the greatest mystic and visionary of our times, left his body on 19th January 1990. The movement that he initiated and piloted during his lifetime lost its track immediately thereafter. This situation by and large continues even today. With emergence of Osho SadguruTrivir, a group of Osho’s three enlightened disciples-Osho Siddhartha, Osho Shailendra and Osho Priya, it became possible to keep the tradition alive.

Osho Siddhartha

Osho Priya

Osho Shailendra

Based on Osho‘s spiritual vision and their own experiences, eleven levels of Samadhi Programs, each of 9 days duration, came into existence, through which they started guiding the seekers towards Samadhi, Enlightenment and beyond. These programs drew thousands of seekers and Osho lovers from all over the world. Slowly their work took the shape of a great movement. In due course of time a great need was felt to take this dynamic vision of Osho to Osho lovers and all the seekers, who are interested in discovering their inner bliss. ‘Oshodhara’ monthly journal published in Hindi and English, is designed to cater this need. Besides this, Osho Sadguru Trivir appear daily on Astha Channel in India at 7.40 PM. Osho vision is being constantly rejuvenated through fresh inputs. Recently LIMASS has been introduced to impart Lessons in Meditation and Spiritual Science to seekers who, for some reason or the other, are not in a position to visit our centers in India and Nepal for attending regular Samadhi Groups. Oshodhara is regarded as one of the greatest spiritual stream on Earth today.