Posts from Life is a dream. Auto-translated

Life is a dream. Especially when you have a million.

War exists not because different groups of people in the external world fight each other; at its root, war exists because man is in conflict. The root of war is within man; externally, you only see the branches and leaves. Every ten years, humanity needs a world war. In ten years, man accumulates so much anger, madness, and insanity within himself that he needs an eruption.

Until we transform the human script itself, until we give man a completely new program for life and existence, we can continue to talk about peace, but continue to prepare for war. This is what we have been doing for thousands of years: talking about peace and creating war. And the absurdity is that even in the name of peace, we fight: the greatest wars have been fought in the name of peace. The past has been utterly destructive. With the same energy, humanity could have created paradise on earth, but all we have done is create hell instead. But the question is not about changing political ideologies in the world, the question is not about teaching people brotherhood, because all this has already been done, and it has all failed.

Something deeper is wrong. Man is split; the very people who talk about peace are the cause of this split. They have divided man into good and bad, lower and higher, earthly and divine, material and spiritual. They have created a crack in the human soul, and there is a constant war within. All people are fighting with themselves, and when they get tired of it, they start fighting with someone else.

That is why, during times of war, people seem more cheerful. Their faces shine with enthusiasm, their gait becomes dancing. They tremble because, for at least a few days, they don't have to fight with themselves; they have found a scapegoat—outside. It can be a fascist, it can be a communist, it can be a Muslim, it can be a Christian—it doesn't matter, but someone outside. This is an escape from inner conflict; and in a very unhealthy sense, it is relaxing. But one cannot continue war constantly; sooner or later, man is forced to return inside.

My vision is of an integrated soul. The body is respected, not denied; it is loved, valued, and appreciated. Matter is not denied; it is enjoyed, and it is part of spiritual growth. There is no duality: there is a dialectic of growth. This is how we walk on two legs. This is how a bird has two wings. Matter and spirit, body and soul, lower and higher—these are two wings...
Osho

1. Why do I always daydream about the future?
Everyone does this. The human mind as such is the capacity to daydream. Until you move beyond the mind, you will continue to daydream. The mind cannot exist in the present — it can exist either in the past or in the future. For the mind, there is no way to exist in the present. To be in the present means to be outside the mind.
Try this. If a silent moment occurs when no thought crosses your being, your consciousness — when the screen of consciousness is absolutely free from clouds — and suddenly you are present... This moment, this real moment — a moment of reality, a moment of truth. But there is no past, and there is no future.

Usually, time is divided into three times: past, present, future. This division is essentially wrong, unscientific, because the present is not part of time. Only the past and the future are parts of time. The present is beyond time. The present is eternity.

The past and the future are parts of time. The past is that which no longer exists, and the future is that which does not yet exist. Both are non-existential. The present is that which is. The essential cannot be part of the inessential. They never meet; their paths can never cross.
And time is the mind; the accumulated past — that is exactly what your mind is. What is your mind? Analyze it, look into it. What is it? — merely a heap, an accumulation of your past experiences. Your mind is only a collective term, like an umbrella under which all your past is held, nothing more. If little by little you start taking the past out of the bag, the bag will disappear.

If the past remains the only reality for the mind, what can the mind do? One possibility: to continue chewing and re-chewing the past over and over again. This is exactly what you call memories, reminiscence, nostalgia. You can return to the past again and again; again and again — to past moments, beautiful moments, moments of happiness. They are rare and scattered among many others, but you cling to them. You avoid the ugly moments, the unhappy moments.

But this cannot go on forever, because it is futile; this activity seems meaningless. Therefore, the mind creates a "meaningful" activity — this is exactly what daydreaming about the future is.
The mind says: "Yes, the past was good, but the past is over; nothing can be done with it. But something can be done with the future, because it is yet to come." Thus, you choose from your past experiences those that you wish to repeat again, and you discard the experiences that were very unhappy, painful, which you do not want to repeat in the future. Your daydreams about the future are nothing other than a modification of the past: better arranged, more decorated, more acceptable, less painful, more pleasant. This is what your mind continuously does, and thus you continue to miss reality.
Meditation simply means a few moments when you are not in the mind, a few moments that you slip out of the mind.
You slip into reality, into that which is. These existential moments are so immeasurably ecstatic that once you have tasted them, you will stop daydreaming.
Daydreaming will continue until you begin to taste meditation. Until you start receiving nourishment from meditation, you will continue to suffer from hunger and thirst for some food in the future. And you know that the future will not bring it, because today was the future once before. Yesterday, today was the future, and you daydreamed about it. Now it has arrived. What happens? Are you happy? Yesterday was also once the future. All the past was once part of the future, and it slipped away — and this future will slip away too. With daydreams, you fool yourself.

Become a little more aware and try to bring consciousness more and more toward the factuality of existence.
See this flower, do not think about that flower. Listen to this word I am speaking, not the word I am going to speak. Look right now. If you delay even for a fraction of a second, you will miss it, and then it will become a habit, and the habit will embed itself deeply within you. Tomorrow you will also miss it, and the day after — because you yourself will remain the same. And moreover — the habit of daydreaming will become stronger.
The other day I read a wonderful Japanese story. Such stories exist in all the folklores of the world; their features are similar. It is a beautiful story. Listen to it.

Once there lived a man who carved stones from a cliff. His labor was very hard, and he worked much, but the pay was low, and he was dissatisfied.

Who is satisfied? Even emperors are not satisfied, what to say of a stonecutter? His work, undoubtedly, was very hard, and the pay negligible.

He sighed because his labor was so hard, and exclaimed:
— Ah, if only I were rich, I could rest on a sofa with silk covers.
And an angel descended from heaven, and he said:
— You have become what you said.

And this actually happens — not only in parables and stories; it happens in real life. Everything you think about yourself happens. You create your world with your own thought, create your world with your own desires. Everything you insist upon begins to happen. Reality constantly cooperates with you. It awaits that moment, that day when you begin to cooperate with it. Until then, it continuously cooperates with you.

And the angel said:
— You have become what you said.
And he was rich, and rested on a sofa with silk covers.
The king of this country passed by among his riders, who rode in front of his chariot and behind it, and over the king's head they held a golden sun umbrella. When the rich man saw this, doubts were born within him: no one held a golden umbrella over his head, and he was dissatisfied. He sighed and exclaimed:
— I wish I were the king. Again the angel descended and said:
— You have become what you said.
And he was the king, and many riders galloped before his chariot, and riders galloped behind his chariot, and over his head they held a golden sun umbrella, and the sun shone with hot rays, scorching the earth, and the shoots of grass withered. And the king complained that the sun burned his face, and that it surpassed all in power, and he was dissatisfied. He sighed and exclaimed:

— I wish I were the sun. And the angel came, and he said:
— You have become what you said.
And he was the sun, and directed his rays up and down, right and left, everywhere, and scorched the shoots of grass on the earth, and disturbed the peace of earthly kings. And then a cloud passed between the sun and the earth, and the sun's rays reflected off it, and the sun grew angry that the cloud resisted its power. It complained that the cloud surpassed it in power, and it was dissatisfied. It wished to be a cloud possessing such power, and the angel appeared and said:
— You have become what you said.

And he became a cloud and passed between the sun and the earth, and caught the sun's rays so that the grass became green again. The cloud poured great drops of rain upon the earth, causing rivers to swell, and floods began, and houses were washed away by water, and the water destroyed fields because there was too much of it. Water fell on a cliff that stood firm, watering it with stormy torrents, but the cliff did not yield, and the cloud flew into a rage because the cliff did not submit to its power, and the power of its torrents was futile, and it was dissatisfied.
Understanding the Roots of Suffering
It exclaimed:
— This cliff is given so much power, and its power surpasses mine. I want to be the cliff.
And the angel appeared, and the cloud became a cliff, and the cliff did not move from its place, whether the sun shone or heavy rain fell. But then came a man with a pickaxe, a chisel, and a heavy hammer, and he began to carve stones from the cliff, and the cliff said:
— How can it be that this man's power surpasses mine and he carves stones from my body? — And he was dissatisfied.
He exclaimed:
— I am weaker than him. I want to be this man. And the angel appeared from heaven with the words:
— You have become what you said.
And he became a stonecutter again. With great effort, he carved stones from the cliff and worked to exhaustion for a meager pay — and he was satisfied.

I disagree with the conclusion. This is the only thing in this story I disagree with; in everything else, it is beautiful. I disagree with the conclusion because I know people: they do not become satisfied so easily. The wheel has come full circle, and this story in a certain sense has come to a natural end, but real life stories do not come to any natural ends. The wheel of the story continues to move.........
Osho

Life is a dream. Eat, sleep, and poop. I completely agree with you.

.........That is why we in India call life a "wheel." It is constantly moving, constantly repeating. As far as I can see, until this stonemason became a Buddha, the story would repeat itself endlessly. He would again desire a wonderful sofa with silk covers, and the same thing would start all over again. If this stonemason were truly satisfied, then perhaps he has jumped out of the wheel of birth and death. Perhaps he has become a Buddha.
This is exactly what happens continuously with every mind — you long for something, it happens, but by the time it happens, you see that you are still dissatisfied. Now something else makes you unhappy.
This is something that requires understanding: if a desire is not fulfilled, you are disappointed; if it is fulfilled, you are then disappointed as well. This is precisely the suffering of desire. When a desire is realized, *you* are not realized. As soon as one is fulfilled, many new ones suddenly arise.
You never thought that when you became a king and riders galloped before and behind you, the sun would be so hot that it would burn your face.

You never thought of this. And then you dreamed of becoming the sun, and so you became the sun, but you never thought of the cloud. Now the cloud has come and proven your helplessness. And this goes on and on without end, like waves in the ocean, infinitely — until you understand and simply jump out of the wheel.
The mind continuously tells you: "Do this, become that. Get this and that... how can you be happy if you don't have this? You must have a palace, then you can be happy." If your happiness has a condition, you will remain unhappy. If you cannot be happy exactly as you are, remaining a stonemason...
I know the work is very hard, the pay is low, life remains a struggle, I know — but if you cannot be happy as you are now, despite everything, you will never be happy. Unless a person is happy, simply happy for no reason at all, unless a person is mad enough to be happy without any reason, that person will never be happy. You will always find something to destroy the happiness.

You will always lack something; something will be missing.
And this "absence" will again become daydreams.
And you will not be able to reach a state in which everything is available, absolutely everything. Even if it were possible, even then you would not be happy. Just look at the mechanism of the mind: if everything you wanted is available, you suddenly become bored. What now?
I have heard — and I think this is reliable — that people who have reached heaven become bored. This comes from very reliable sources, they can be trusted — these people sit under wish-fulfilling trees, and they are bored. Because as soon as you say something, an angel appears and immediately fulfills that desire. There is no gap between the desires and their fulfillment. They want a beautiful woman, Cleopatra, and she appears. And what now to do with such a Cleopatra? It is meaningless — and they are bored.

Happiness is your inner nature. It needs no external conditions; it simply is, happiness is you yourself. Bliss is your natural state; it is not an achievement...

In the Indian "Puranas," there are many stories of maidens who grew so tired in heaven that they began to long for earth. There they had everything. When they were on earth, they longed for heaven. Perhaps they were great ascetics, perhaps they renounced the world, relationships, everything in attempts to reach heaven. Now they have reached heaven, and now they long for the world.

I heard:
The pilot of a new jet plane was maneuvering over the Catskill Mountains. He pointed out a pleasant valley below to the co-pilot.
— See that corner? — he said. — When I was a barefoot boy, I used to sit right there in a flat-bottomed boat and fish. Every time a plane flew in the sky, I looked up and dreamed of being a pilot in it. Now I look down and dream of fishing.

This is exactly how it continues without end. If you are not famous, you want to be famous. It hurts so much that people do not know you. You walk down the street, and no one looks at you, no one recognizes you. You feel like a nobody. You work hard to become famous.

One day you become famous. Now you cannot walk the streets. Now a crowd gathers around to look at you. Now you have no freedom, and you stay home, as if locked up. You cannot go outside; it is as if you are in prison. Now you begin to think of those wonderful times when one could walk the streets and be free... as if no one were around. Now you long for those times. Ask famous people.
Voltaire writes in his memoirs that when he was not famous — and everyone once was not famous — he desired it more and more, worked with all his might, and so he became one of the most famous people in France. His fame grew to such an extent that it became dangerous for him to leave his room, because in those times superstitious people thought that if they could get a piece of clothing from some great man, it would become a protective talisman; it possesses enormous protecting powers. It wards off spirits, prevents accidents, and so on of that sort.

And if he came to the station to take a train, he had to call for police escort, otherwise people began to tear his clothes. And not only that — they tore his skin, and he returned home in bruises and scratches. He grew so tired of this fame — he could not even leave the house; people always lay in wait for him, like wolves, to pounce on him — and he began to pray to God: "Enough! I have learned this. I do not want it. I have become almost like a dead man." And then it happened. An angel appeared — probably an angel appeared — and said: "Alright." Little by little his fame dissipated.

People's opinions change very easily; there is no integrity in them. Everything changes, just like fashion. Today you are at the peak of fame, tomorrow people completely forget about you. One day you are president, the next day you are simply citizen Richard Nixon. No one cares about you.
It happened that people's minds changed, opinions, the climate changed, and people completely forgot about Voltaire. He would come to the station and hope that at least someone, just one person, would come to meet him. No one met him anymore, only his dog.

When he died, only four accompanied him on his final journey: three people and one dog. Perhaps he died unhappy, again longing for fame. What to do? This is how it all continues.

The mind will never allow you to be happy. Whatever the conditions may be, the mind will always find something to be unhappy about. Let me put it this way: the mind is a mechanism for creating unhappiness. Its entire function consists of creating unhappiness.

If you cast aside the mind, suddenly you become happy — completely without reason. Then happiness is natural, like breathing. To breathe, you don't even need to be aware of it. You just continue breathing. Happiness is exactly the same.

Happiness is your inner nature. It needs no external conditions; it simply is, happiness is you yourself. Bliss is your natural state; it is not an achievement. Simply by getting out of the mechanism of the mind, you begin to feel blissful.
That is why you will see that insane people are happier than so-called normal ones. What happens with insane people? They also get out of the mind — of course, not from the right side, but they still get out. An insane person is one who has fallen below the mind. He has lost his mind.
That is why you can see that many insane people are so happy that you almost feel envy. You might even begin to daydream: "When will this blessing happen to me?" The insane man is condemned, but he is happy.
What happened to the insane man? He no longer thinks of the future and does not think of the past. He has fallen out of time. He has begun to live in eternity.........

Just as it happens with a mystic, because he transcends the mind. I'm not saying you should go mad, but I am saying that there is a certain similarity between madness and mysticism. That's why all great mystics look a little mad, and all great madmen look a little like mystics.
Look into the eyes of a madman, and you will find that his eyes are very mystical... a glow, some otherworldly radiance, as if there is an inner door in him, from which he enters the very core of life. He is relaxed. He may have nothing, but he is simply happy. He has no desires, no ambitions. He is not going anywhere. He is just here... enjoying, rejoicing.
Yes, madmen and mystics have something in common. The similarity is that both of them have lost their minds. The madman has fallen below the mind, the mystic has gone beyond the mind. Moreover, the mystic is a madman with a method; there is a method in his madness. The madman has simply fallen down.

I am not saying that you should become mad. I am saying: become mystics. The mystic is as happy as the madman, and as normal as the normal man. The mystic has as much common sense—perhaps even more—as so-called rational people, and at the same time he is as happy as madmen. The mystic has the most beautiful synthesis. He is in harmony. He has everything that the rational man has. He has both. He is complete. He is whole.

You ask: "Why am I always daydreaming about the future?" You daydream about the future because you have not yet tasted the present. Begin to taste the present. Find a few moments when you simply rejoice. Looking at the trees, just look. Listening to the birds, just be a listening ear. Let them reach your deepest core. Let their song spread throughout your being. Sitting on the beach by the ocean, just listen to the wild roar of the waves, become one with it... because in the wild roar of the waves there is neither past nor future. If you can tune in to it, you too will become a wild roar. Embrace a tree and relax in it. Feel its green form flowing into your being. Lie on the sand, forget the world, become one with the sand, with its coolness; feel how the coolness saturates you. Come to the river, swim, and let the river flow within you. Raise splashes and become the splashes. Do whatever brings you a sense of enjoyment, and enjoy it totally. In these short moments, the past and the future will disappear, and you will be here and now.

The gospel is not in the Bible. The gospel is in the rivers and the wild roar of the ocean, in the silence of the stars. The good news is written everywhere. The whole universe contains a message. Decipher it. Learn its language. And its language is the language of here and now.
Your language is the language of the past and the future, and by continuing to speak the language of the mind, you will never be able to tune in to existence, to come into harmony with it. And if the taste of harmony has not been experienced, how can you break the daydream? — because that is all your life.

You are like a poor man who carries a full sack of stones and thinks they are wonderful diamonds, rubies, and if you tell him, "Throw them away. You are a fool. These are just ordinary stones," he will not be able to believe it. He will think he is being cheated. He will not let go of the sack because it is all he has.
I would not tell this man to renounce the sack. I would try to show him real rubies, emeralds, diamonds. Seeing them, even for a moment, he will throw away the sack himself. There will be no need to renounce—because there is nothing to renounce; these are just ordinary stones. One does not renounce ordinary stones.

He simply realizes that he has been living under the power of illusion. Now there are real diamonds. Suddenly, his own stones fade...—they disappear. He simply empties everything out of his sack, right there, and he doesn't even need to say anything, because now something else can be put in the sack. He throws away the stones because he needs space.
So, I am not saying that you should abandon your striving for the future, for the past. Rather, I would like to say: touch the present more and more.
Osho

Happy Birthday.

"There is pleasure.
There is bliss.
Abstain from the first to master the second..."(c)

Meditate on these sutras as deeply as possible, because they contain the most fundamental truths. These four words must be understood and reflected upon. The first is pleasure, the second is happiness, the third is joy, the fourth is bliss.
Pleasure belongs to the physical, the psychological. Pleasure is the most superficial thing in life; it is a tickle. The pleasure of sex, the pleasure of other senses, an obsession with food—all of this is rooted in the body. The body is your periphery; it is not your center. And to live on the periphery means to place yourself at the mercy of many random circumstances around you. A person who seeks pleasure is at the mercy of chance.
Just as waves in the ocean depend on the whims of the winds. When a strong wind blows, they exist; when there is no wind, neither do they. They have no independent existence; they are dependent, and everything that is dependent on another brings shackles.

Pleasure depends on another. If you love a woman, if this is your pleasure, then the woman will become your master. If you love a man, if this is your pleasure and you feel miserable, sad and fall into despair when he is gone, it means you have created slavery for yourself. You have created a prison; you no longer have freedom.
If you seek money and power, then you will depend on money and power. A person who continues to accumulate money, if for him pleasure is having more and more money, he will become more and more miserable—because the more he has, the more he wants, and the more he has, the more he fears losing it. It is a double-edged sword: the more he wants... that is the first edge of the sword. Therefore, he becomes increasingly miserable.

The more you demand, desire, the more you feel that something is missing, the more hollow and empty you seem to yourself. On the other hand—the other edge of the sword—the more you have, the more you fear it will be taken from you; it can be stolen. A bank can go bankrupt, the political situation in the country may change, the country may become communist. Your money depends on a thousand and one things. Money does not make you a master; it makes you a slave. Pleasure is peripheral; therefore, it necessarily depends on external circumstances. It is only a tickle.
If your pleasure is in food, what exactly brings you enjoyment? —simply the taste! For that moment when the food passes over the taste receptors of your tongue, you experience a sensation that you interpret as pleasure. This is your interpretation. Today it looks like pleasure, and tomorrow it may not look like pleasure. If you continue to eat the same food, the receptors on the tip of the tongue will lose sensitivity to it. Soon you will grow tired of it—this is exactly how people grow tired of everything.

One day you run after a woman or a man, and the next day you look for an excuse to get rid of him or her. The same person, nothing has changed! What happened in that time? You grew tired of the other because all the pleasure was in discovering something new. Now the other is no longer new; you have become acquainted with their territory. You are familiar with the other's body, the curves of the body, the sensation of the body. Now the mind craves something new.
The mind always craves something new. This is exactly how the mind always keeps you on the leash of the future. It makes you continue to hope, but never fulfills its promises—and cannot. It only knows how to create new hopes, new desires.

Just as leaves grow on a tree, desires and hopes grow in the mind. You wanted a new house, and you got it—but where is the pleasure? It arose for a moment when you reached the goal. Once you reached the goal, the mind is no longer interested in it;
it has already begun to weave the nets of a new desire. It has already begun to think of other houses that are larger. And so it is with everything.
Pleasure keeps you in a neurotic state, in eternal anxiety and disorder. So many desires—and each of them insatiable!—demand attention. You remain a victim of a crowd of mad desires—mad because they are unattainable—and they continue to pull you in different directions. You become a contradiction.
One desire pulls you left, another right, and simultaneously you feed both desires. Then you feel split, divided; you feel that you are being torn apart, you feel that you are falling to pieces. No one else is responsible for this. It is all because of this foolish pursuit of pleasure.

This is a complex phenomenon. You are not the only one seeking pleasure; millions like you seek the same pleasure. Hence so much struggle, Competitive spirit, violence, wars. Everyone becomes each other's enemy because they strive for the same goal and cannot achieve it; therefore, the struggle must be total. You must risk everything—for nothing, because when you achieve, you achieve nothing, and on this struggle you waste your entire life. A life that could have become a celebration becomes a long, contrived, meaningless struggle.
When you strive so much for pleasure, you cannot love, because a person who seeks pleasure uses another as a means. And to use another as a means is the most immoral action of all possible ones, because every being in itself is an end and cannot be used as a means. But in search of pleasure, you will have to use another as a means. You will become cunning because of this struggle. If you are not cunning, you will be deceived, and before others deceive you, you must deceive them.

Machiavelli advised seekers of pleasure: the best defense is offense. Never wait until another attacks you; by then it may be too late. But before he attacks you, attack him yourself! This is the best way of protection. And, whether knowing about Machiavelli or not, you follow this.

This is something very strange: people know about Christ, Buddha, Muhammad, Krishna, but no one follows them. People know little about Chanakya and Machiavelli, but they follow them—as if Chanakya and Machiavelli were very close to their hearts! You don't need to read them; you already follow them. Your entire society is built on the principles of Machiavelli; that is the whole political game. Before someone snatches something from you, snatch it from another. Always be on guard. Naturally, if you are always on guard, you will be tense, anxious, worried. Such is the struggle, and it continues constantly. You are one, and there are millions of enemies.
For example, if you want to become the Prime Minister of India, then all those millions of people who also want to be Prime Ministers are your enemies. Who doesn't want to be Prime Minister? A person may speak of it, or may not. Therefore, everyone is against you, and you are against everyone. This entire life seventy, eighty years long will be wasted in a futile effort. Pleasure is not the goal of life and cannot be the goal.

The second word that must be understood is happiness. Happiness is psychological; pleasure is physiological. Happiness is slightly better, slightly more refined, slightly higher, but differs little from pleasure. One could say that pleasure is a lower form of happiness, and happiness is a somewhat higher form of pleasure. They are two sides of the same coin. Pleasure is somewhat primitive, animalistic; happiness is somewhat more cultured, somewhat more human—but it is the same game, played in the world of the mind. You do not care as much about physiological sensations; you care far more about psychological sensations. But at their core they do not differ; therefore Buddha did not speak of four words, he spoke only of two.

The third word is joy; joy is spiritual. It differs, completely differs from pleasure and happiness. It has nothing in common with other people; it belongs to the inner. It does not depend on circumstances: it is your own. It is not a tickle created by other things; it is a state of peace, silence, a meditative state. It is spiritual.

But Buddha did not speak of joy either, because there is one more thing beyond joy. He calls it bliss. Bliss is total. It is not physiological, not psychological and not spiritual. It knows no divisions; it is indivisible. It is total in one sense and transcendental in another. Buddha speaks only of two words. The first—pleasure; it includes happiness. The second—bliss; it includes joy.

Bliss means that you have reached the innermost core of your being. It belongs to the ultimate depth of your being, where there is no longer even an ego, where only silence reigns; you have disappeared. In joy there is a bit of you, but in bliss you are not there. The ego has dissolved; it is a state of non-being.
Buddha calls it nirvana. Nirvana means that you have ceased; you are simply an infinite emptiness, like the sky. And in that moment when you are this infinity, you are filled with stars, and a completely new life begins. You are born anew.

Pleasure is transient, it belongs to time; bliss is outside of time, timeless. Pleasure begins and ends; bliss remains forever. Pleasures come and go; bliss never comes, never goes—it is already there in the deepest core of your being. Pleasure must be torn from another; you become either a beggar or a thief. Bliss makes you a master. Bliss is not something that you invent, but something that you discover. Bliss is the holy of holies of your nature. It has been in it from the very beginning, only you did not look at it, you took it for granted. You do not look inside.
This is the only misfortune of man: he continues to look outward in search and exploration. Outside you will not find this, because it is not there.
Osho

(part 1)

Osho on His Enlightenment

I had been seeking the gates of enlightenment for as long as I can remember — since earliest childhood. This dream must have stayed with me from past lives, because there was not a single day when I was not engaged in this search. Of course, everyone around me thought I was peculiar. I never played with other children. I did not even speak to my peers. They seemed dim-witted to me. And indeed, they occupied themselves with astonishing foolishness. I never wanted to play football, volleyball, or hockey. Naturally, everyone thought I was strange. As for me, I too came to that conclusion. Growing up, I realized that it was actually not I who was strange, but our entire world.
The last year of my life at home, when I turned twenty-one, was a period of mental breakdowns and spiritual breakthroughs. Of course, all those who loved me — my parents, friends, and teachers — partially understood what was happening to me. But why was I so different from other children? Why did I sit for hours with my eyes closed? Why did I sit on the riverbank at night and gaze at the starry sky? Naturally, those who do not understand such things — and I do not particularly need them to understand — considered me insane.
I was hardly even noticed at home. Gradually, they stopped asking me anything. Everyone acted as if I were not there. And I liked that — thus I turned into nothing, into emptiness, into a complete absence of anything.

That year was remarkable. I enveloped myself in emptiness. I lost all connection with the outside world. If I was reminded that it was time to bathe, I went to bathe and sat in the water for hours. They had to knock on the door and shout, "Hey, come out! You've been sitting in there long enough for a month!" I ate when I was told it was time to eat. If no one reminded me, I could go several days without eating. No, I was not fasting; I did not even think about observing fasts or penances. I wanted only one thing: to go as deep within myself as possible. The gates were pulling me like a magnet, this force was irresistible. I was being sucked in, like into a "black hole."
Scientists say there are "black holes" in the universe. If a star comes near, the "hole" will pull it in. The gravitational force is such that it cannot be overcome, and the star perishes, completely disappearing into the "black hole." No one knows what happens on the other side. I think — and some physicist seems to have already found confirmation — that on the other side there is a "white hole." A hole cannot have just one end; it is always a passageway. I experienced this myself. Perhaps the entire universe is structured this way. A star dies. When it falls into a "black hole," we see the star disappear. But at the same time, new stars are born in the cosmos. Where do they come from? In what wombs do they mature? Simple arithmetic is enough to understand: these wombs are "black holes" — in them the old perishes and the new is born.
And I myself experienced this, though I am not a physicist. That year, an incredible force pulled me away, further and further from people. I became so detached from the world that I sometimes did not recognize my own father and mother. At times, I even forgot my own name. I tried with all my might to remember my name, but nothing came of it. Naturally, that year everyone became fully convinced that I had gone mad. But for me, this madness was meditation, and at the very peak of insanity, the gates finally opened... * * *
I was taken to a vaidya, an Ayurvedic doctor. Actually, I was taken to all sorts of doctors and healers, but only that vaidya said to my father: "He is not ill at all. You are wasting your time." Of course, I was still dragged from one specialist to another. They prescribed me various medicines, and I said to my father: "Why are you so worried? Nothing hurts me." But no one believed me; they said: "Be quiet. Just take the medicine; it won't do any harm, will it?" And I took it — what did I care?

Only that vaidya was perceptive, and his name was Pandit Bhagirath Prasad. The old man is dead now, but he was a remarkably perceptive person. He simply looked at me and immediately said: "The boy is not ill at all." And then he cried and confessed: "I myself have been striving for such a state for a long time. The boy is amazingly lucky. I will not achieve it in this life. There is no need to drag him to doctors. He has almost reached..." The old man's tears were tears of joy for me.
He was a seeker. In his quest, he had traveled the entire length and breadth of the country. His whole life was a series of searches and discoveries. He had a fairly good idea of what he was looking for. He became my patron; he protected me from other doctors. He told my father: "Leave him with me; I will take care of everything." He gave me no medicine, and when my father objected, he prescribed harmless sugar pills. He told me about it himself: "This is just sugar. Take them to calm your parents. They will do no harm. No good either, for that matter. No medicine can help here." * * *

When you first enter the world beyond the mind, it truly seems like madness: the "dark night of the soul," the insane darkness of the soul. This has been noted by all religions. For that same reason, all religions insist that before entering the world beyond the mind, one must find a Master — he will be there, he will help and support you. Your world will begin to fall apart, but the Master will encourage you and restore hope. He will help you understand the new. That is why a Master is needed — he helps you understand what cannot be understood by the intellect. He helps you express what cannot be said in words, to show the invisible. He is always there; he finds the means that will allow you to continue your path, otherwise you might get scared and stray from the road.

But remember, there is nowhere to run. If you stray from the path and rush into the thicket, you will be seized by a true obsession. The Sufis call such people *masta*, and in India they are known as mad *paramahamsas*. You cannot go back, because there is nothing there anymore. Going forward is also impossible; there is darkness all around. You are lost. That is why Buddha said: "Blessed is he who has found a Master."
I myself had no Master. I searched, but could not find one. It is not that I did not try — believe me, I searched for a very long time, but I did not find one. Finding a Master is difficult. It is very difficult to find a being who has ceased to exist. It is difficult to feel the presence of one who is almost absent. Seekers rarely find one who is merely a door to the Divine — an open door through which it is easy to pass. This is very, very difficult.
The Sikhs call their temples *gurdwara*, "the door of the Master." That is what a Master is — a door. Jesus often repeated: "I am the gate, I am the way, I am the truth. Follow me, pass through me. If you do not pass through me, you will attain nothing."

Yes, it sometimes happens that a person does not find a Master. If there is no Master, one must work without one, but such a journey is much more dangerous.
For an entire year I was in such a state that no one could have predicted how it would turn out. For an entire year I lived in such a way that I could barely sustain my life. Even such simple things were extremely difficult, because I had completely lost my appetite. Days passed, and I had no desire to eat at all. Days passed, and I even forgot to drink water. I forced myself to eat and drink. My body became so insensitive that I pinched myself to make sure I was still there. I hit my head against the wall, trying to understand if I still had a head. Only pain could briefly return the sensation of my body.
In the mornings and evenings, I ran. I would run five to eight miles at a stretch. Everyone thought I had gone crazy. Why run so much? Sixteen miles a day! But I did it only to feel myself, to feel that I still existed, so as not to lose connection with myself — I was simply waiting for my eyes to adjust to the newness that was being born within me.
I had to try very hard. I did not speak to anyone: my thoughts had become so incoherent that it was incredibly difficult for me even to construct a sentence. I could fall silent mid-word because I forgot what I was talking about. I could freeze in the middle of the road because I forgot where I was going. I could sit with a book, read fifty pages, and then suddenly ask myself: "What was I reading? I don't remember anything." My state was very strange...

There is a story. A patient bursts into a psychiatrist's office and screams: "Doctor, help me! I'm going crazy! I forget everything! I don't remember what happened a year ago or even yesterday. I'm going crazy!"
"Hmm," said the psychiatrist, "and when did you first notice this?"
"Notice what?" the patient asked, puzzled.
It was the same with me! It was hard for me even to finish a sentence. I sat locked in my room. I was silent, not uttering a single word, because saying anything would have meant admitting my madness. A whole year passed like this. I simply lay on the floor, stared at the ceiling, and counted first to a hundred, and then in reverse order, from a hundred to one. At least something remained — for instance, this ability to count in sequence. Everything else I had forgotten. It took me a whole year to come back to myself, to find some point of reference.
But it happened. It was a real miracle. However, it cost me great effort. No one helped me, no one told me where to go or what was happening to me. Moreover, they hindered me; everyone was against me — teachers, friends, and other well-wishers. Everyone was against me. But they could do nothing, except shame me or ask what it was I was doing.

The thing is, I was doing nothing! It was stronger than me. It was simply happening. Of course, I did do something: without knowing it myself, I knocked on the door — and it opened. I meditated for many years, simply sitting silently and doing nothing. And step by step, I transported myself into that space where you simply are, but do nothing. You simply are — pure presence, an inactive witness.
No, I did nothing. I simply lay, sat, walked — but there, in the depths, there was no one who does anything. I lost all ambitious dreams. I lost the desire to strive for anything, to achieve anything. I simply sank into myself. This was emptiness, and emptiness drives you mad. And yet it is the only path to God. Only he who is ready to go mad reaches God.......

The endlessness of the dark universe... Extremely low temperatures, the absence of light and oxygen – and all of this stretches for hundreds, thousands, billions of kilometers, or even more. Who knows what monsters and creatures lurk there, in the impenetrable depths. You are so small, so insignificant... Perhaps you could be crushed at any moment.

And they were planning to fly to Mars... This was when I was in graduate school, and our old professor boasted that we would soon gather a group and go. But that plan never materialized. And I don't think we'll see any major changes in that regard in the next 200-300 years.

And in general, no one knows who killed Laura Palmer.

(continuation)

I am often asked: what did I feel when enlightenment occurred?
I laughed. I laughed from the bottom of my heart, because I realized the complete meaninglessness of the thirst for enlightenment. It is truly funny, because we are all born enlightened, and to desire that which already exists is completely pointless. If you have something, it can no longer be acquired. You can only acquire what you do not have or what is not within you. But enlightenment is in our nature.

I fought for it over many lifetimes, because this goal cannot be achieved in a single life. During that time, I did everything humanly possible, but invariably failed. I was doomed to fail, because enlightenment cannot be achieved. How can one acquire it if it is already in your nature? You cannot create with an ambitious dream that which you already possess.
The mind is ambitious; it reaches for money, power, and prestige. But one fine day, when it has had its fill of external activity, it begins to be lured by enlightenment, liberation, nirvana, God. But this is still the same ambition; only the goal has changed. Before, the goal was outside; now it is inside. But your attitude, your very approach does not change in the least—you remain the same person with the same habits.
The words "the day I achieved enlightenment" mean only one thing: on that day, I understood that there was nothing to achieve, nowhere to go, and no need to do anything. We are already divine, we are already perfect—that is all. No own improvement is necessary. God creates us all perfect. Even if we encounter imperfect people, it is easy to notice how perfect their imperfection is. God never creates something imperfect.
I heard a story about a Zen teacher named Bokuju. He was explaining to his students that everything in our world is perfect, and then one man stood up, an old hunchback. "What about me?" he asked. "I am a hunchback! Is this perfection?" And Bokuju replied: "To be honest, I have never before seen such a perfect hump."
When I speak of the day I achieved enlightenment, I speak incorrectly, because no other words can be found in our language, for this language was invented by man. It contains words such as "achievement," "acquisition," "goal," "improvement," "development," "progress." Language was not invented by the enlightened. To be honest, they would not have been able to invent any language even if they wanted to, because enlightenment comes in silence. How can you express silence with words? No matter how you try, any words inevitably violate the stillness.
Lao Tzu says: "The truth that can be spoken is a lie." Truth cannot be expressed in words. But we must speak some language; there is no other way. And therefore, we always emphasize one condition: language cannot accurately reflect experiences. That is why I say: "on the day I achieved enlightenment." But it was not an achievement, and that was not me.

On that day, I laughed at my own foolish, ridiculous attempts to acquire enlightenment. I laughed at myself and at humanity, because all people strive to achieve something, to acquire something, to improve something.
It all happened in a state of complete relaxation. That is how it always happens. I had tried everything possible, and then, seeing the futility of any effort, I gave up my attempts. I forgot about my dream. For an entire week, I lived a completely ordinary life.
The people I was staying with were very surprised because for the first time, I began to lead a normal way of life. Before that, my entire life had been subject to severe discipline.
I lived in that family for two years, and they knew that I woke up at three in the morning, then took a four-to-five mile walk or run, then went to bathe in the river. Such was my regime. A cold or other ailment—none of it mattered; I followed my daily routine regardless.

They knew that I spent long hours in meditation. Up until that day, there were many things I did not eat. I drank neither tea nor coffee. I had strict rules about what I could and could not eat. And suddenly, for a whole week, I abandoned all of it. One morning, I slept until nine o'clock, and then drank a cup of tea. The hosts of the house were puzzled. They asked: "What happened? Are you sick?" They had always considered me a great yogi.
Here is one detail that shows how it was. For all occasions, I had one single piece of cloth. During the day, I walked wrapped in it, and at night, I covered myself with it like a blanket. I slept on a bamboo mat. Those were all my comforts—a blanket and a bamboo mat. I had nothing else, no possessions. That morning, when I woke up at nine, the hosts were very surprised. They said: "Something is wrong here. You must be very sick?"
"No, I am not sick," I replied. "I was sick all those years, and now, on the contrary, I have recovered. From now on, I will wake up when I want to, and go to sleep when I start feeling sleepy. I have ceased to be a slave to time. And also, I will eat and drink whatever my body desires. I've had enough." During that week, I completely forgot about my dream of enlightenment. I forgot it forever.
And on the seventh day, it happened. By itself, without any reason. I burst out laughing, and the gardener heard this laughter. He had previously thought that I was a bit unstable, but he had never heard such laughter before. He ran to me and asked: "What happened?"
"Don't worry," I replied. "You know I have always been slightly touched, and now I have simply finally gone mad. I am laughing at myself. Do not be offended or angry. You may go back to sleep peacefully." * * *
I labored over many lifetimes—worked on myself, struggled, did everything that could possibly be done, but all in vain. Now I understand why nothing worked. The efforts themselves became the barrier; the ladder itself prevented the ascent; the very desire to achieve was an obstacle. This does not mean that it can be achieved without searching—no, searching is necessary, but sooner or later a moment comes when it should be stopped. To cross a river, you need a boat, but sooner or later the time comes to get out of the boat, forget about the river, and leave it behind. Effort is needed; without effort, nothing will happen at all. But efforts alone bear no fruit.

Just before March 21, 1953, literally a week before that day, I stopped working on myself. The moment arrived when you clearly see the complete futility of your efforts. You have already done everything possible, but nothing has brought success. You have done everything within human power. What else remains? In this total hopelessness, you abandon all attempts. And on the day I ceased my search, when I stopped striving for something and stopped hoping for anything at all—on that very day, it began. A new energy came from nowhere. It had no source. It came from nowhere and spread everywhere. It was in the trees, stones, sky, sun, and air—everywhere. I searched for so long; I thought the goal was somewhere far away—but it was all so close, right here! I directed my gaze into the distance, beyond the horizon, and my eyes stopped noticing what was near.....

continuation. (part 3)

When the efforts vanished, I myself vanished, for a human being cannot exist without effort, without desire, without striving. The ego, the personality, the "I" – this is not a stable phenomenon, but a process. It is not some internal substance, because we are forced to recreate it anew every single moment. It is like riding a bicycle: you move as long as you press the pedals. If you stop pressing the pedals, the bicycle stops. Of course, it may still coast a little by inertia, but as soon as you stop pressing the pedals, the bicycle begins to slow down. It is deprived of energy, of the force pushing it forward. And then it simply falls over.

The ego exists because we continue to press the pedals of desire, continue to strive for something, try to jump higher than our own heads. Herein lies the very essence of the ego – in the desire to leap above oneself, to burst into the future, to vault into tomorrow. The ego arises during a leap into that which does not yet exist. It is born from that which is not, and therefore it is like a mirage. In it there is only desire – and nothing more. In it there is only an impulse, a striving.
The ego lives not in the present, but in the future. When you live in the future, the ego seems like something quite tangible. But if you linger in the present, it remains a mirage and begins to gradually dissolve.

On the day I stopped striving... That is also an unsuccessful expression; it would be more correct to say: "on the day when striving vanished." This would be much more accurate, because the words "I stopped striving" imply that an "I" still remained. It means that I directed my efforts toward the desire to stop – and, consequently, some refined desire still persisted.

But desire cannot be stopped; it can only be realized. The very realization of desire signifies its disappearance. Remember, no one is capable of ceasing to desire, and true reality manifests only after desire vanishes.
Such a dilemma... What then is to be done? Desires exist, and the Buddhas continue to repeat that one must rid oneself of desires – and immediately afterward declare that it is impossible to stop desiring. What is to be done? A person faces a dilemma. He constantly wants something. And first he is told that this must stop, and then – that it is impossible to stop. What, exactly, should be done?
Desire must be realized. And it can be realized; for this, it is enough to understand its futility. Direct perception is needed, an immediate penetration into the essence of things.

On the day when desires vanished, I felt helpless and hopeless. Hope disappeared because the future disappeared. There was nothing left to hope for, for it was already clear that all hopes are futile, they do not come true. You run in a circle. The dream lures you along, remaining beyond reach. It creates ever-new mirages and tempts: "Come on, run faster – and you will reach it." But no matter how much you run, the dream remains just as distant; it recedes like the horizon line. The horizon is visible, but it can never be reached. As soon as you take a step forward, it recedes by exactly one step. The faster you run, the faster it disappears into the distance. If you slow your pace, it also slows down. One thing is obvious – the distance between it and you always remains the same. It does not shorten by even a meter.
We are unable to shorten the distance between ourselves and the dream. Hope is the horizon. We try to reach the horizon, to hope, to a desire cast into the future. Desire is a bridge, but an imaginary bridge, because the horizon itself is also a mirage. One cannot stretch a real bridge there; it can only be imagined. A person cannot touch that which does not exist.

On the day when desires vanished, when I looked into their essence and understood that they are always futile, I felt helpless and devoid of hope. But in that same instant, something began to happen. The very thing began toward which I had striven throughout many lives and which I could never achieve. The only hope is in the feeling of hopelessness; the only fulfillment of desires is in the absence of desires. And when you feel an unfathomably deep helplessness, the whole world suddenly begins to help you.
The Universe waits. It sees that you are working on yourself, and until a certain point it does not interfere in anything, it simply waits. It can wait infinitely long, because it does not tolerate fuss. This is Eternity itself. But at the moment when you abandon your attempts and vanish, the entire Universe rushes toward you, fills you. That is exactly when everything begins.
For seven days I remained in complete hopelessness, but despite the helplessness, I felt that something was happening. Speaking of hopelessness, I use this word not in the sense familiar to you. I simply mean that I had no hopes. This did not cause sadness. On the contrary, I was happy – I was calm, I was quiet, collected and attentive. The absence of all hope, but in a completely new sense. For me, the very concept of hope ceased to exist – and consequently, so did its absence. Both vanished.
The absence of hope was complete. Hope disappeared, and along with it – its opposite, hopelessness. This was a completely new sensation – life without any hopes. There was nothing wrong in it. I simply have to use familiar words, but there was nothing unpleasant in this state. On the contrary, it was joyful. It was a feeling not of loss, but of the appearance of something new. I was overwhelmed and enveloped by something unfamiliar.
And when I speak of helplessness, this word should also be understood not in the ordinary sense. It simply means that I had lost myself. I simply acknowledged that I do not exist and, therefore, I can no longer rely on my own strength, exist independently. The ground vanished from beneath my feet; an abyss opened below me... a bottomless chasm. But there was no fear, for I had nothing to protect. There was no fear – there was no one to be afraid.
During that week, an incredible and complete transformation occurred. And on the last day, the sensation of the presence of a completely new energy, a new light and a new joy became very powerful, almost unbearable – as if I were about to explode, go mad from bliss. Western youth call this "getting a high" or "going crazy with happiness."

It was impossible to understand the meaning of what was happening. I had entered a world beyond meaning – it is hard to grasp, hard to break into parts, hard to explain with words, with language. Any sacred scriptures are powerless; all the words that could describe this experience seem pale, faded. These sensations were too vivid and bright; it was an inexhaustible tide of bliss.
That entire day turned out to be kind of strange, staggering, deafening. The past vanished as if I had never had one, as if I had simply read about it all somewhere. It became like a distant dream, like a story heard once about someone else's life. I was parting with the past, severing ties with my history. I was forgetting my autobiography, becoming something non-existent, which Buddha calls anatta. Boundaries vanished; all distinctions disappeared.
The mind itself vanished; it receded by thousands of miles. It was hard to collect one's thoughts; the mind drifted further and further away, but there was no need to cling to it. I simply had no interest in it. Everything was going as it should. There was no need to preserve memories. By evening, this became unbearably painful. I felt like a woman who is about to give birth. Labor pains began, and they caused sharp agony.
All week I went to bed at twelve o'clock at night, but on that day I simply could not hold out so long. My eyes were closing; I opened them with great difficulty. Something was approaching, something absolutely had to happen. It is hard to say what exactly – perhaps I was simply dying – but there was no fear. I was ready for anything. The past seven days had been so beautiful that I was ready even to die. I wanted nothing anymore. I spent a whole week in complete bliss. I was so happy that I would have gladly accepted even death.

Something was inevitably approaching – something comparable to demise, some decisive turn that could end in death or new birth, crucifixion or resurrection. Right around the corner, something incredibly important awaited me. But I could not force myself to open my eyes; I was as if drugged.
I fell asleep around eight o'clock, but it bore little resemblance to sleep. Now I understand what Patanjali means when he says that samadhi resembles sleep. The only difference is this: in samadhi you are simultaneously sleeping and awake, sleeping and not sleeping. The body is relaxed, every cell of the organism sleeps, but a spark of awareness burns within you... clear, without soot. You are alert, but relaxed; not tense, but in full consciousness. The body rests in deep sleep, while consciousness ascends to the peak of activity. Thus, the summit of consciousness and the hollow of bodily rest are joined.

I fell asleep. It was a strange dream: the body sleeps, but I am awake. It was so strange... It was as if you had been torn into two parts, stretched in two directions, dispersed across two dimensions, yet the two poles were so sharpened that it was as if I simultaneously became both... Positive and negative, sleep and wakefulness, life and death merged into one. This was the moment when the creator and the created merge.
The state was supernatural. For the first time, it shocks to the very depths of the soul. After this experience, you can never become what you were before. It brings completely new views on life; it makes you a totally different person........

Osho on his enlightenment

continuation. (part 4)

Around midnight, my eyes suddenly opened on their own... at least, I wasn't making any effort. Something disturbed my sleep. I felt someone's presence near me, in my room. My little room was very small, but I felt life pulsating everywhere around me, powerful vibrations. It was as if I had fallen into the eye of a typhoon and was drowning in a magnificent storm of light, joy, and bliss.
It was so real that everything else became unreal: the walls of the room, the whole house, even my own body. Everything became unreal, because only now, for the first time, did I see true reality.

That's why it's so hard for us to understand when Buddha and Shankara say that the world is maya, an illusion. We only know this world of ours; we have nothing to compare it to. We only know one reality. What are these people talking about? Some maya, an illusion... There is only one reality. Their words cannot be understood until you realize true reality. Until then, their words remain theories, ingenious hypotheses. Maybe it's just some sophisticated philosophy: "The whole world is an illusion"?
That's how it was in the West. Berkeley declared that the world was unreal when he was walking with his friend, a very logical man. This friend was almost a skeptic. After these words, he silently picked up a stone and hit Berkeley hard on the head. Berkeley screamed, blood flowed from the scratch, and his skeptical friend said: "So, is the world still unreal? You said so yourself, didn't you? Why are you screaming? This stone is unreal. Why are you clutching your head and writhing in pain? Everything around you is unreal!"
These people are unable to understand what Buddha means when he says that the universe is a mirage. He is not saying that you can walk through walls. He is not saying that we can eat stones and there is no difference between eating bread or stones. No, it's not about that at all.
He is saying that there is another reality, and once you realize it, this so-called reality simply fades away, becomes unreal. Comparison is only possible after awakening to a higher reality, not before.

In a dream, the dream is real. Every night we dream, but every morning we say that they were unreal, but the next night, when we sleep, dreams again become reality. In a dream, it is very difficult to understand that it is a dream. But in the morning, it is very easy. What is the reason? You remain yourself. In a dream, there is only one reality. What can you compare it to? Who will claim what is real? Compared to what? Reality is only one. Everything else is just as unreal as everything else, and therefore comparison is impossible. In the morning, when you open your eyes, you are faced with another reality, and now you can say that the dream was unreal. The dream becomes unreal when compared to reality.

But there is also awakening... And compared to the reality of this awakening, the familiar reality becomes unreal.
That night, I first understood the meaning of the concept of maya. Of course, I knew this word before, but I didn't realize its meaning at all. I perceived it in the same way as you do now, but I never really understood it before. Can you understand without experiencing it?

That night, the doors to a new reality, an unfamiliar dimension, opened. And there it was – another reality, a special reality, a true reality, whatever you want to call it. Call it God, truth, dharma, Tao – whatever you want. It has no name. But it was there – transparent, but at the same time so tangible... It almost suffocated me. There was too much of it; I couldn't absorb it all yet...

I had a strong desire to jump out of the room, to run out into the open air. I was suffocating. There was too much! I was dying! It seemed to me that if I stayed here for even a second longer, this reality would suffocate me. And I jumped out of the house, ran into the yard. I just wanted to be under the open sky, to see the stars, the trees, and the earth... to be free. As soon as I went outside, the suffocation immediately passed. My little room was too small for such a magnificent event. Even the starry sky is too small a roof for such an event. It is bigger than the sky. Even the sky is not the limit. But it still made me feel better.
I headed to the nearest garden. Even my gait became different. I walked as if gravity had disappeared. Whether I was walking, running, or just floating is hard to say. There was no gravity; I weighed nothing; I was as if drawn by some force. I found myself in the embrace of some unknown energy.
Remember, from that day on, I was never truly in my body again. Only a very thin thread connects me to the body. And I am constantly surprised that the Whole somehow wants me to stay here – but I am no longer myself here, not of my own free will. The will of the Whole keeps me here; it allows me to stay on this shore for a little longer. Perhaps the Whole wants to share something with you through me.

From that day on, the world became unreal. Another world opened up before me. But when I call this world unreal, I don't mean that these trees are not real. They are perfectly real; it is unreal how you see them. They are real in themselves – they exist in God, they exist in absolute reality – but the way you see them... You don't see them as they really are. You see something else – a mirage.
You have surrounded yourself with your own dreams, and this dream will continue until you wake up.

The world is unreal because the world you know is the world of your dreams. And when you wake up, a new world appears before you, a real one.
You cannot say: there is God, and there is the world. God is the world, but you understand this only when your eyes are clear, not clouded by sleep, not obscured by the haze of dreams. When the gaze is clear, when sensitivity is heightened, it becomes obvious that there is only God.
Sometimes God is a green tree, sometimes a bright star, sometimes a cuckoo, and sometimes a flower. God is sometimes a child, sometimes a river, but everything that exists is God. As soon as you begin to truly see, all you see around you is God.
But now everything you see is not truth, but a lie. What is a mirage? A false projection. But as soon as you see... Even for a split second... you just have to allow yourself to! Everywhere before you appears an incredible blessing – in the clouds, in the sun, and on the earth.

The world is beautiful. But I am not talking about your world now; I am talking about my world. Your world is ugly; it is created by your "ego"; it is a world of projections. You use true reality as a screen on which your own ideas about the world are reflected.
When I say that the world is real, I mean an incredible, wonderful world – radiant with infinity, filled with light and joy. It is an eternal holiday – I am talking about my world. It can become yours too; you just need to wake up.

That night, I became empty, and then I was filled. I ceased to be and became being itself. That night, I died and was born again. But the one who was born had nothing in common with the one who died. There was no connection. Outwardly, I didn't change, but there was nothing in common between the old me and the new me. The dying one dies completely; nothing remains of him. I have experienced many deaths, but none of them compare to this one. All previous deaths were incomplete. Sometimes the body dies, sometimes part of the mind, sometimes part of the ego, but the personality remains. Repeatedly renewed, repeatedly repainted – something changes here, something there – but the personality itself remains, some continuity is preserved. But that night, death was complete and final. It was the day of my death and the day of my union with God...

The only thing that needs to be learned is observation. Observe! Observe every action you perform. Observe every thought passing through the mind. Observe every desire that grips you. Observe even the smallest gestures — how you walk, speak, eat, take a bath. Continue to observe, in everything, everywhere. Let everything become an opportunity to observe.

Do not eat mechanically, do not simply continue stuffing yourself with food — be very observant. Chew thoroughly and observantly... and you will be surprised at how much you have missed until now, because every morsel will bring immense satisfaction. If you eat observantly, the food will become tastier. Even ordinary food will become the tastiest if you are observant; but if you are not observant, you can eat the tastiest food, yet there will be no taste in it, because there is no one who can observe. You simply continue stuffing yourself with food. Eat slowly, observantly; every morsel must be chewed, felt.

Inhale the scent, feel the touch, feel the gust of wind and the rays of the sun. Look at the moon, and become simply a silent pool of observation, and the moon will be reflected in you in boundless beauty.
Move through life remaining fully observant. Again and again you will forget. Do not become unhappy because of this; it is natural. For millions of lives you never tried to observe, and it is so simple and natural that you continue to forget again and again. But the very moment you remember, observe again.

Remember one thing: when you remember that you forgot to observe, do not regret, do not repent; otherwise, you will waste time for nothing. Do not feel unhappy: "I missed it again." Do not start feeling: "I am a sinner." Do not begin to condemn yourself, because that is a complete waste of time. Never repent for the past! Live in this moment. If you forgot, so what? It is natural — it has become a habit, and habits die with difficulty. And this is not just a habit acquired in one life;
these habits were established over millions of lives. Therefore, if you can remain observant for even a few moments, be grateful. Even those few moments are more than can be expected. He observes. He is clear.
And when you observe, clarity arises. Why does clarity arise from observation? Because the more you are in observation, the more and more your haste slows down. You become more graceful. As you observe, the chatter becomes less and less, because the energy that became chatter begins to become observation — the very same energy! Now more and more energy will be transformed into observation, and the mind will not receive nourishment.

Thoughts will become thinner and thinner, they will begin to lose weight. Little by little, they will begin to die away. And when thoughts die, clarity arises. Now your mind turns into a mirror.
How happy he is! And when a person is clear, he is blissful. It is confusion that becomes the root cause of unhappiness; it is clarity that becomes the foundation of bliss. How happy he is! For he sees that wakefulness is life.
And now he knows that there is no death, because wakefulness can never be destroyed. When death comes, you will observe that too. You will die observing — the observation will not die. Your body will vanish, dust will return to dust, but the observation will remain; it will become part of the cosmic whole. It will become cosmic consciousness.
In these moments, the prophets of the Upanishads declare:

"Aham Brahmasmi — I am cosmic consciousness." In one such moment, Al-Hillaj Mansur declared:
".Anal Haq! — I am the truth!" These are the heights that belong to you by right. If you do not reach them, you are responsible for it and no one else.

How happy he is! For he sees that awakening
is life.
How happy he is, following the path of the awakened!
With great persistence he meditates
In search of freedom and happiness.
Listen to these words very carefully. With great persistence... Until you apply total effort to wake up, it will not happen. Partial efforts are useless. You cannot be half here, half there; you cannot be lukewarm. It will not help. Lukewarm water will not evaporate; lukewarm attempts to be vigilant are doomed to failure.

Transformation happens only if you invest all your energy into it totally. When you boil at one hundred degrees of heat, you evaporate, and an alchemical change occurs. Then you begin to rise upward. Have you not noticed? — water flows downward, but steam rises upward. Exactly the same thing happens here: unconsciousness flows downward, consciousness rises upward.
And one more thing: "upward" is synonymous with "inward," and "downward" with "outward." Consciousness moves inward, unconsciousness — outward. Unconsciousness keeps you in total darkness; your eyes remain constantly focused on others. This creates a kind of extroversion and keeps you outside. Consciousness creates internal space. It makes you introverts; it leads you inside, deeper and deeper.

Deeper and deeper also means higher and higher; depth and height grow simultaneously, exactly as a tree grows. You see only that it moves upward, but you do not see that the roots move downward. But first the roots must go down, and only then can the tree grow upward. If a tree wants to reach the sky, it will have to send its roots to the very bottom, into the deepest depths. The tree grows in both directions simultaneously. In exactly the same way, consciousness grows upward... downward, sending roots into the depth of your being.
Osho

Added: Wed Mar 23, 2022 10:20
...this experience becomes the key to liberation from all problems... We are completely unfamiliar with the state where thoughts stop. We always live with thoughts—this is a familiar, known state; we follow a well-trodden path. When you first stop thinking, the endless expanses of existence open their door. They are chaotic. More than anything in the world, a person fears losing the ability to think. When you cannot think, you cannot be, because without thinking, you disappear. René Descartes is considered the father of modern Western philosophy, and his entire philosophy is based on three words: "Cogito ergo sum": "I think, therefore I am." If this implies the mind—and it is the mind—then it means that when thoughts disappear, you are no longer there. It seems as if you have gone mad, found yourself in a world of insanity, because everything that happens is beyond your control. You cannot even think, although it was always so easy. In reality, it was difficult to stop thinking. But when you finally do stop thinking, fear grips you. The first time, this is inevitable. The next time will be easier. Do not try to do anything when it happens again. Just remain in it. Just be a witness. Do nothing with it, because everything you can do will never be deep. At best, it will be a temporary measure. Everything a person can do will be on the surface. Therefore, if a problem arises and you do something, it is resolved for a while, but soon it reappears in some other form. If indecision arises, you can patch it up by doing something, but the division will resurface somewhere else. And this will continue without end. The forms of the problem change, but the problem itself remains. The point is that the problem must dissolve completely, and this can only happen if you do nothing. By observing it, you create distance, and this distance becomes larger and larger. And one day it becomes so great that you realize the problem is not yours, as if it had never been yours. Distance is necessary, and it can only be created through observation. Everything else a person can do is, in a way, doomed to failure. For example, if you are tormented by some doubt or you hesitate, you try to make some decision. But can indecision give birth to a decision? You can only decide that yes, a solution has been found, but deep inside, the indecision continues to grow. A very thin layer of deception appears over it, and it can tear at any moment in any situation. In the East, this is one of the fundamental truths—no problem can be solved by action. Moreover, problems arise precisely because a person has become a "doer." If a person can simply be and do nothing, problems disappear. In an observing consciousness, there are no problems. Problems arise only in the consciousness of a doer. Therefore, all that needs to be done is to shift the center of gravity from doing to being. So, just observe. Be detached and watch the games that the mind constantly plays. And suddenly one day, when the necessary distance is formed—you cannot create it intentionally, it will appear on its own—and a vista opens up, you will find yourself very far from the problem. And there will be no bridge between you—the problem is there, and you are here. In fact, at that moment, you won't even understand what connected you before or why you were worried about it. It is somewhere in another world and belongs to someone else; it hasn't left even a scratch on you. This experience becomes the key to liberation from all problems. So, when a problem arises, just observe. This is difficult because all Western teaching is based on analysis. Observation is a completely different dimension. It is not analysis. Western teaching consists of needing to analyze, understand, find the cause—but this process is endless. You discover one cause of the problem, then you try to find the cause of that cause, and so it continues ad infinitum. Each cause, in turn, turns out to be an effect. This can go on forever—it's the same as peeling an onion, layer by layer. But an onion ends sooner or later, while the onion called the human mind never ends; it is infinite. It constantly recreates its layers. In the East, we never resorted to analysis, because one of the deepest insights was that analysis would never put an end to this. The most it can do is push the problem back, set it aside, but it will never end it. It will still continue to exist somewhere; repression does not help. In the West, you try to overcome the problem, reduce it to a cause. In the East, we try to return consciousness to its source; we don't touch the problem at all. You try to get rid of the problem, while we try to bring consciousness home. We do not touch the problem; on the contrary, we move away from it. For example, suppose that you are the problem. In the West, I am interested in you; I try to force you to leave my consciousness, and thus the subconscious is born. In the East, you are the problem, I am the consciousness. I leave you in your place and leave myself, and then no subconscious is formed, and there is no suppression. I simply leave; I do not touch the problem. My withdrawal into the core of myself creates the necessary distance. The West also tries to create distance—by expelling the problem—but in doing so, it creates even more problems, because it is impossible to expel it. The very effort, the very struggle with the problem, binds you to it. When you analyze a problem, it is analyzed by the same mind that created it. It's like trying to lift yourself up by your shoelaces. You can jump a little, but it won't help much. You will return to the ground again. It's the same as chasing your own tail. So, just observe, and gradually a deep indifference will arise. In this indifference, everything will dissolve. Nothing needs to be done. Just sit, enjoy, be, and observe. Gradually, when the problem realizes that you are not interested in it, it will leave. If a guest was not invited, no one called them, if the host pays them no attention and doesn't even say hello, how long can they keep knocking on the door? One day they will simply leave. Any thought, any problem is a guest. Do nothing with them, but remain the host—uninterested, indifferent, and centered. Let attraction come and go; do not worry about it. When it comes, just note it and that's all, and with complete indifference. In Buddhism, there is a special practice called "triple noting." If a problem arises—for example, if someone suddenly feels sexual desire or greed, or anger—it is necessary to note the presence of this feeling three times. If anger arises, the student should say to themselves three times: "Anger, anger, anger." You must give it all your attention so that it does not pass by consciousness, and that's it. And then the student continues doing what they were doing, understand? They do nothing with the anger; they simply note it three times. This is a wonderful practice. You immediately realize the anger, note it, and it disappears. It is unable to possess you, because this can only happen if you are unconscious. This triple naming makes you so aware inside that you separate yourself from the anger. You objectify it, because it is there, and you are here. Buddha told his students to do this with all manifestations. Try it, and there is no need to worry about anything. Attraction is inherent to humans; there is no reason to suffer from guilt. It is good that you know it arises—do not suppress it. Usually, all cultures and civilizations teach us to suppress problems so that we gradually stop being aware of them, to the extent that we forget about them and think they don't exist at all. The right thing to do is exactly the opposite. Be fully aware of them—when they become conscious, when they enter the center of attention, they melt. Try this, and do not miss a single moment. Repeat three times: "Again, again, again." You should repeat this to yourself, and if it seems more effective to you, you can repeat it aloud so that your husband also knows—"Again, again, again!" This attraction will pass, and when it happens, you will feel a huge relief. You already look better. When a person is not burdened by wandering desires and ideas, they feel more innocent and pure. This fragrance envelops them, and gradually life becomes a completely different song, a completely different dance. Osho