Astrall
Auto-translated
The pyramid consists only of people living in the mind, so don't let that upset you. You can jump out of the pyramid; no one is forcing you to stay in it. Whether you stay in it or not is your decision. You can become an observer. You can stand outside the pyramid and watch the whole silly game that unfolds before you.
I am not part of this pyramid. That is why I can talk about the pyramid, describe it in all its details, from all sides – because I am an observer. I can move around the pyramid; I can see all its facets. It is visible to me in depth, to its very bottom; it is visible to me in height, to its very top – because I am not in it.
If you are in it, it is impossible to observe it in its entirety; you have to be outside of it. And throughout the ages, there have been such people – very few, but that doesn't matter: if even one person can escape from the pyramid, that is enough to prove such a possibility. And many have escaped from it.
Only a small effort on your part, a little vigilance, and you can slip out of the mind – because the pyramid is not made of something solid; its bricks are woven from thoughts. You are surrounded by a wall of thoughts. To get out of it is so easy. You don't even need to dig a hole in the wall, you don't even need to open a door. You just need to stand in silence and see whether the wall actually exists, or only seems to exist.
In the East, this was called a mirage; it is only an apparent reality. The closer you get to it, the better you look at it, the more it begins to disappear. Thoughts are the most intangible things in the world; there is nothing material in them.
Your thoughts are just like ghosts. You simply continue to believe in them, never trying to confront them, never turning to them face to face and looking at them directly. You will simply be surprised that any thought, if you look at it intently, simply melts and disappears. It cannot withstand your observation.
There is a third alternative. You don't have to be either Ayatollah Khomeini or Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein is a good man, but good and bad are two sides of the same coin. A saint and a sinner are two sides of the same coin; heaven and hell, God and the devil – these are two sides of the same coin. None of this can exist without the other.
But there is a third alternative – you don't have to be either one or the other – and that is what it means to be yourself.
To be outside the pyramid of the mind means to enter the temple of your being.
The pyramid is for the dead. In fact, pyramids were built as tombs for Egyptian kings and queens. These are cemeteries; and when I call the mind a pyramid, I do so deliberately. The mind is also a cemetery of dead things, past memories, experiences, shadows… all of these are shadows. But little by little, they become so dense that they create a dark veil around you.
If you want to escape from your shadow, what do you think you should do? Run away? The shadow will follow you wherever you go; it will remain with you; it is your shadow. And the shadow is not existential; it is a ghost.
The only way to get rid of it is to turn around, look at it, and try to determine whether there is anything substantial in it. There is nothing in it! – it is pure negativity. And simply because you are standing in the path of the sun's rays, the sun cannot enter; the absence of the sun creates a shadow.
The situation with your thoughts is exactly the same. Because you are not observing, because you are not in silence, because you are not seeing things clearly, without any distortion, thoughts remain substitutes for awareness. Until you become aware, thoughts will continue.
The mind is not you. It is someone else: you are only the observer. And even a few glimpses of observation will prepare you to get out of the pyramid without any struggle, without any confrontation, without any practice. You simply get up and walk out.
People continue to believe in anything that brings comfort. Their ghosts, their gods, their heaven and hell – all of this is just comfort. Their saints, prophets, sages – all of this is comfort. A person who seeks truth needs a backbone to get out of all this rotten mess. And the only way to get out of it is to become a witness to one's own thought process. And this is easy; it is the easiest thing in the world. You only need to do it once; but you never even try to do it even once, and you continue to think that it is the most difficult thing in the world.
I used to think that it was very difficult, because that is what everyone told me, that is what I read in every book – that it is such a great, difficult phenomenon; that it takes many lifetimes to come to a state of no-mind. When everyone says this, and there is not a single exception, it is very natural that a person begins to believe it.
But I am a little eccentric. My logic does not follow the usual direction; it moves in a zigzag. As soon as it became clear that everyone says that it is difficult, that every scripture says that it is difficult… my mind works differently. The first idea that came to me was that, perhaps, no one has tried; otherwise, there would be different opinions. Someone would say that it is not so difficult. The only possibility was that no one had tried – but no one wants to admit their ignorance. The best course of action is to agree with the collective consensus: that it is difficult, very difficult; that it takes many lifetimes.
I discarded this idea. I said: "It must happen in this life; otherwise, I will not allow it to happen in any other life; I will fight it. Either in this life, or never." "Now or never" became my unwavering approach, and on the day I decided: "Now or never," it happened. Since then, I am simply amazed that people remain deceived.
The simplest thing has turned into the most impossible – and the simplest thing opens the doors to the third alternative.
It takes you out of the pyramid: you are no longer the mind. And only then do you know who you are. And to know this is to achieve everything that is worth achieving.
Osho
I am not part of this pyramid. That is why I can talk about the pyramid, describe it in all its details, from all sides – because I am an observer. I can move around the pyramid; I can see all its facets. It is visible to me in depth, to its very bottom; it is visible to me in height, to its very top – because I am not in it.
If you are in it, it is impossible to observe it in its entirety; you have to be outside of it. And throughout the ages, there have been such people – very few, but that doesn't matter: if even one person can escape from the pyramid, that is enough to prove such a possibility. And many have escaped from it.
Only a small effort on your part, a little vigilance, and you can slip out of the mind – because the pyramid is not made of something solid; its bricks are woven from thoughts. You are surrounded by a wall of thoughts. To get out of it is so easy. You don't even need to dig a hole in the wall, you don't even need to open a door. You just need to stand in silence and see whether the wall actually exists, or only seems to exist.
In the East, this was called a mirage; it is only an apparent reality. The closer you get to it, the better you look at it, the more it begins to disappear. Thoughts are the most intangible things in the world; there is nothing material in them.
Your thoughts are just like ghosts. You simply continue to believe in them, never trying to confront them, never turning to them face to face and looking at them directly. You will simply be surprised that any thought, if you look at it intently, simply melts and disappears. It cannot withstand your observation.
There is a third alternative. You don't have to be either Ayatollah Khomeini or Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein is a good man, but good and bad are two sides of the same coin. A saint and a sinner are two sides of the same coin; heaven and hell, God and the devil – these are two sides of the same coin. None of this can exist without the other.
But there is a third alternative – you don't have to be either one or the other – and that is what it means to be yourself.
To be outside the pyramid of the mind means to enter the temple of your being.
The pyramid is for the dead. In fact, pyramids were built as tombs for Egyptian kings and queens. These are cemeteries; and when I call the mind a pyramid, I do so deliberately. The mind is also a cemetery of dead things, past memories, experiences, shadows… all of these are shadows. But little by little, they become so dense that they create a dark veil around you.
If you want to escape from your shadow, what do you think you should do? Run away? The shadow will follow you wherever you go; it will remain with you; it is your shadow. And the shadow is not existential; it is a ghost.
The only way to get rid of it is to turn around, look at it, and try to determine whether there is anything substantial in it. There is nothing in it! – it is pure negativity. And simply because you are standing in the path of the sun's rays, the sun cannot enter; the absence of the sun creates a shadow.
The situation with your thoughts is exactly the same. Because you are not observing, because you are not in silence, because you are not seeing things clearly, without any distortion, thoughts remain substitutes for awareness. Until you become aware, thoughts will continue.
The mind is not you. It is someone else: you are only the observer. And even a few glimpses of observation will prepare you to get out of the pyramid without any struggle, without any confrontation, without any practice. You simply get up and walk out.
People continue to believe in anything that brings comfort. Their ghosts, their gods, their heaven and hell – all of this is just comfort. Their saints, prophets, sages – all of this is comfort. A person who seeks truth needs a backbone to get out of all this rotten mess. And the only way to get out of it is to become a witness to one's own thought process. And this is easy; it is the easiest thing in the world. You only need to do it once; but you never even try to do it even once, and you continue to think that it is the most difficult thing in the world.
I used to think that it was very difficult, because that is what everyone told me, that is what I read in every book – that it is such a great, difficult phenomenon; that it takes many lifetimes to come to a state of no-mind. When everyone says this, and there is not a single exception, it is very natural that a person begins to believe it.
But I am a little eccentric. My logic does not follow the usual direction; it moves in a zigzag. As soon as it became clear that everyone says that it is difficult, that every scripture says that it is difficult… my mind works differently. The first idea that came to me was that, perhaps, no one has tried; otherwise, there would be different opinions. Someone would say that it is not so difficult. The only possibility was that no one had tried – but no one wants to admit their ignorance. The best course of action is to agree with the collective consensus: that it is difficult, very difficult; that it takes many lifetimes.
I discarded this idea. I said: "It must happen in this life; otherwise, I will not allow it to happen in any other life; I will fight it. Either in this life, or never." "Now or never" became my unwavering approach, and on the day I decided: "Now or never," it happened. Since then, I am simply amazed that people remain deceived.
The simplest thing has turned into the most impossible – and the simplest thing opens the doors to the third alternative.
It takes you out of the pyramid: you are no longer the mind. And only then do you know who you are. And to know this is to achieve everything that is worth achieving.
Osho