QUESTION: OSHO, I THINK THAT I AM ALMOST ENLIGHTENED.

I AM REALLY SURPRISED that in a single sentence almost all the words are wrong. How did you manage?! It starts with ’I’ – ’I’ never becomes enlightened; ’I’ is the barrier. It is ’I’ that is preventing.When you become enlightened you are not; there is nobody to claim. The Upanishads say – and Zarathustra and Lao Tzu and Jesus all say the same thing again and again in different ways.... The Upanishads are very clear; they say: If somebody says, ”I am enlightened,” then know well he is not. Enlightenment is something that cannot be claimed, because the claimer has to disappear before enlightenment happens. One is enlightened only when one is not. And you start the sentence: I... I THINK.... And the second word is ’think’. What does thinking have to do with enlightenment? Thinking is always far far away from enlightenment. It is the constant process of thought in you that keeps you drowned in your own mud; it is the constant process of thought in you that keeps you blindfolded, that keeps you blind, that does not allow your eyes to reflect that which is, because those thoughts go on distorting everything. Thought is a mechanism of distortion. But we have become accustomed.... People come to me and they say, ”I think, Osho, I have fallen in love” – as if love is part of thinking. They cannot even say, ”I feel I am in love.” They say, ”I think I am in love.” Even love has to be a thought in them. And how can love be a thought? Love can only be a feeling.These are three layers: first is thought, second is feeling, and third is being – thinking, feeling, being. You can think about the world, you can think about objects of the world; you cannot think of love – love is higher than thinking, beyond the grasp of thought. You can feel love: you cannot think it.

And you cannot even feel enlightenment – it is beyond feeling. Just as love is beyond thinking, enlightenment is beyond feeling. You can only BE enlightened – you cannot think, you cannot feel. It is there! And when it is there, it is there. And you say: I THINK THAT I AM ALMOST ENLIGHTENED. What do you mean by ’almost’? It has never been heard before. Either one is enlightened or not! Almost? It is like saying that this is almost a circle – almost a circle? A circle has to be a perfect circle, otherwise it is not a circle. It may be some other shape – you cannot say ’almost a circle’. You cannot say, ”I am almost in love.” That very word ’almost’ says you are not.  

There was a young man from the coast, 

Who began making love with a ghost. 

At the height of orgasm

The she-ectoplasm

Said, ”I think I can feel it – almost.”

You must be dreaming – making love to a ghost.

Hence the word ’almost’. Drop all such nonsense. And if you can drop it, you need not become enlightened – you are. Nobody needs to become enlightened. Enlightenment is not something that is going to happen to you – it is already the case! It has happened. It is your very nature. Just drop all kinds of rubbish that you have gathered around it.

Osho, Philosophia Perennis, Vol 1

The whole world lives in psychological slavery. 

And the third dimension is the ultimate of freedom--which is knowing that you are not the body, knowing that you are not the mind, knowing that you are only pure consciousness. That knowledge comes through meditation. It separates you from the body, it separates you from the mind, and ultimately only you are there as pure consciousness, as pure awareness. That is spiritual freedom. These are the three basic dimensions of freedom for the individual. 

The collective has no soul, the collective has no mind. The collective has no body even; it is only a name. It is just a word. For the collective, there is no need for freedom. When all the individuals are free, the collective will be free. But we are very impressed by words, so much so that we forget that words don't have any substance. The collective, the society, the community, the religion, the church--they are all words. There is nothing real behind them.

Nobody can teach you love. Love you have to find yourself, within your being, by raising your consciousness to higher levels. And when love comes, there is no question of responsibility. You do things because you enjoy doing them for the person you love. You are not obliging the person, you are not even wanting anything in return, not even gratitude. On the contrary, you are grateful that the person has allowed you to do something for him. It was your joy, sheer joy. Love knows nothing of responsibility. It does many things, it is very creative; it shares all that it has, but it is not a responsibility, remember. Responsibility is an ugly word in comparison to love. Love is natural. Responsibility is created by the cunning priests, politicians who want to dominate you in the name of God, in the name of the nation, in the name of family, in the name of religion -- any fiction will do. But they don't talk about love. On the contrary, they are all against love, because love is unable to be controlled by them. A man of love acts out of his own heart, not according to any moral code. A man of love will not join the army because it is his responsibility to fight for his nation. A man of love will say there are no nations, and there is no question of any fight.

Osho

There is no need to run towards the ocean. Just slowly enjoy the trees, and the birds, and the people, having a trust in your heart that every river has always reached the ocean. And you cannot be the exception. Existence doesn't allow any exceptions. You will also reach the ocean.

Osho

painting credit: Mariko Irie

OSHO DOES WITNESSING ALWAYS BRING JOY? THE MOMENTS THAT I CALL WITNESSING SOMETIMES FEEL DISTANT -- ALMOST COLD IN THEIR NEUTRALITY. OTHER TIMES IT IS LIKE SPROUTING WINGS AND SOARING IN JOY OVER THE OPEN SEA.

Deva Abhiyana,

THE STATE OF WITNESSING IS NEITHER COLD NOR HOT. It is neither happiness nor unhappiness. It is neither dark nor light. It is neither life nor death. The Upanishads say NETI NETI -- neither this nor that. If you feel joy you have already become identified; witnessing is gone. If you feel sad you are no more a witness; you have forgotten witnessing, you have become involved. You are colored by your psychology of the moment. Joy, sadness, all these qualities, are part of your psychology. And witnessing is a transcendence; it is not psychological. The whole art of meditation consists in witnessing. Then what does it bring? At the most we can say it brings total peace; it simply brings eternal silence. You cannot define it as joy. The moment you define it as joy you have fallen into the world of duality again. Then you have become part of what is passing, you have started clinging to it.

The state of witnessing remains indefinable. That's why Buddha has not used the word 'bliss' at all, because it can give you a wrong idea -- because in your mind bliss will mean happiness. That's how you are going to translate it, to interpret it. Buddha has not used the word 'bliss', he has not used the word 'God'. The word that he has used is 'absolute void' -- SHUNYAM. There will be nothing left,just absolute silence, absolute emptiness -- but not emptiness in the English meaning of the word. SHUNYAM has a totally different connotation; it has been translated and can only be translated as emptiness. But emptiness is negative, emptiness means something is missing, emptiness means loneliness. Emptiness is not a life quality but a death quality. SHUNYAM IS not negative; it is not even positive, how can it be negative? It simply means you are alone -- not lonely, but alone. You are not missing anything. You are spacious, there is great space in you, but it is not empty of something. On the contrary, it is utter plenitude. It is full of emptiness -- if you allow me the expression It is FULL of emptiness, but one is fulfilled. SHUNYAM IS blossoming in you. There is great peace but not joy, because joy becomes positive; but not sadness, because sadness becomes Negative. Peace is exactly the middle, neither cold nor hot. It is not neutrality, it is not indifference. It is not a state where you turn your back towards something, you are no more interested. No, there is no question of disinterest, indifference or neutrality. You are utterly there, absolutely there,totally there, but like a mirror, just reflecting whatsoever is the case. Joy passes by and the mirror reflects it, but the mirror does not become joy itself; it never becomes identified. And sadness comes like a cloud, a dark cloud, and passes by, and the mirror reflects it. The mirror has no prejudice against it. The mirror is not favorable to joy and unfavorable to sadness. The mirror has no liking, no disliking; it simply reflects whatsoever is the case. It is not neutral, otherwise it will not reflect; it does not turn its back towards things. It is not indifferent, because indifference again means you are already prejudiced; you have a certain conclusion. It is not disinterested and you cannot say it is interested -either. It is a transcendence. Abhiyana, don't get identified with the joy that comes -- watch it. Remain a watcher on the hills, a mirror. Reflect it but don't cling to it. A bird on the wing...and the lake reflects it. The Zen people say this is the state of Buddha-hood. The bird has no mind to be reflected in the lake and the lake has no mind to reflect the bird, but the bird on the wing...and the lake reflects it. You see the point: the bird has no mind to be reflected and the lake has no mind to reflect the bird, but the bird IS reflected. It simply happens that the lake is there and the bird is on the wing...the reflection is bound to happen -- it is natural! The bird is gone; the lake does not miss the bird, it does not hanker for it, it does not long for it, it does not hope that it will come again. It does not go into the past, into the memories, or into the future projections. The bird has flown; it never thinks of the lake again, it never desires to be there again. One day it may be there again, and again it will be reflected, but no relationship is created. The HAPPENING IS there but no relationship is there. This is what I call relating, not relationship. It is a fluid phenomenon. This is witnessing.

Osho_Be Still and Know

Question: Why do you prefer to call meditation the art of dying rather than calling it the art of growing?

Osho: Because I know your ego will like it very much if I called it the art of growing. The art of dying comes like a shock.

Let me tell you an anecdote:

One day Mulla Nasrudin saw a crowd gathered around the town well. A Moslem priest with a huge turban on his head had fallen into the water, and was calling for help. People were leaning over and saying, 'Give me your hand, Reverend, give me your hand!' But

the priest didn't pay attention to their offer to rescue him. He kept wrestling with the water and shouting for help. Finally Mulla Nasrudin stepped forward: 'Let me handle this!' He stretched out his hand towards the priest and shouted at him, 'Take my hand!' The priest grabbed Mulla's hand and was hoisted out of the pond.

People were very surprised and asked Mulla for the secret of his strategy. 'It is very simple, ' he said. 'I know this miser would not give anything to anyone, not even his hand. I know this miser would not give anything to anyone, so instead of saying, "Give me your hand" I said, "Take my hand, your Reverence." And sure enough, he took it.' 

I know you would like it to be called the art of growing. Then your ego would feel perfectly good. 'So it is a question of growth; so I am going to remain and grow.' That's what the ego always wants.

I have knowingly called it the art of dying. Meditation is the art of dying. Then your ego will be shocked. And it is also truer to cal I it the art of dying, because you r ego is not going to grow, your ego is going to die in meditation. These are the only two possibilities: either your ego goes on growing more, it becomes stronger, or, it disappears. If your ego goes on growing and becomes more and more strong, you are getting more and more into the mud. You are getting more and more into fetters, you are getting more and more into the imprisonment of it. You will be suffocated. Your whole life will become a hell. The growth of the ego is a canceric growth. It is like cancer, it kills you. Meditation is not growth of the ego, it is death of the ego. 

Osho_The Art of Dying

The more fully we live, the more we find that we are going further and beyond. It is something like this: a person is drowning in a river. If he tries to save himself, perhaps he will be drowned. If he is sinking, then let him sink fully. If he does not try at all to swim, then after reaching the bottom he will find that he has begun to come back upwards. He who is ready to drown will be saved, and he who is afraid of drowning and who struggles will surely drown. The dead float on the water, and the living sink down. The skill of the dead body lies in the fact that it does not do anything, and that keeps it on the surface of the water.

Osho_Dimensions Beyond The Known

People come to me and they ask, “How to attain a peaceful mind?” I say to them, “There exists nothing like that: peaceful mind. Never heard of it.”

Mind is never peaceful; no-mind is peace. Mind itself can never be peaceful, silent. The very nature of the mind is to be tense, to be in confusion. Mind can never be clear, it cannot have clarity, because mind is by nature confusion, cloudiness. Clarity is possible without mind, peace is possible without mind; silence is possible without mind, so never try to attain a silent mind. If you do, from the very beginning you are moving in an impossible dimension.

Osho, Tantra: The Supreme Understanding, Talk #2

THE UPWARD FLOW OF THE MIND IS PADDYAM – THE WATER OF DIVINE WORSHIP.

THE MIND is the bridge between matter and consciousness, between without and within, between the gross and the subtle. When I say mind is the bridge, I mean many things.… Man comes to the world through mind; man comes to the body through mind; man comes to desires through mind. So wherever you reach, the reaching is always through the mind. If you create a hell for yourself, you create it through mind. If you create a heaven, that also is through mind. One of the Zen patriarchs, Hui-Hai, has said, ”Mind is heaven and mind is hell.” So whatsoever you are or whatsoever you can be, it will depend ultimately on how your mind works. This working can create something for you which is not; this working can reveal to you that which is. So a mind can create a very illusionary world around it: it is capable. It can dream, and it can dream so real that you cannot even detect that whatsoever is seen and perceived is not real. So mind has a projective force; it can project. That which is not, mind can create. And because mind can create that which is not, it can forget that which is. It can just be in such a state that the reality is never in any contact with it; and whatsoever happens, it depends only on the mind. So the mind has to be taken as the root of everything that one can experience. Even if one has to know the Divine, one has to go through mind. Of course, that going is difficult because that going implies dropping of the mind. Even if dropping of the mind is needed, it is through mind – because unless you drop the mind you will never be able to know the true.

Osho

If you follow the path of awareness, let love be the criterion. When your awareness suddenly blooms into love, know perfectly well that awareness has happened, samadhi has been achieved. If you follow the path of love, then let awareness function as a criterion, as a touchstone. When suddenly, from nowhere, at the very center of your love a flame of awareness starts arising, know perfectly well...rejoice! You have come home.

Osho

LOVE -- NEVER AN IMPOSSIBILITY

And love is never an impossibility: it is very simple: it is present in everyone. It has to be developed and widened, Though its seeds have been sown in every one it is the fortunate alone who live to enjoy the flowers of love. Why? We never allow the seeds of love to germinate and grow. We seek love but we don't show it. Love grows when offered, not obtained, for remember that love is an unconditional offer. He who is capable of offering such a love does get it in plenty. Moreover, love offered freely creates the capacity to receive it too. It qualifies the receiver to receive it. The measure of love offered is commensurate with the amount of love received. Only in this manner is further depth achieved and gradually the very vital breaths are transformed into love, into nothing but love wholesome and furl. The beginning of the perfection of love must always be traced to the readiness to offer, not to the eagerness to demand. Peremptory demand will never enable them to make a beginning. Love's state is imperial, not that of a beggar. Those who demand it never get it, and this failure, so dispiriting to them, gradually renders them incapable of offering it too. As the failure increases, the difficulty to secure it increases as well. Please remember therefore that love implies offering without any desire to obtain, to get back in return, to demand. Let us free it from the expectation of obtaining something in return. There can never be a commercial transaction in the affairs of love. Its pleasure, its bliss, its fullness lie in giving away and not in securing anything in return. The giving up is so satisfying and blissful that even the question of gaining anything in return does not arise. That is why the person who gives love is ever obliged to the person who accepts it. Only in the act of giving love abundantly -- an entire, unbounded gift, do the vital breaths develop the wings that take them unto God. 

Friends, let us spread out the wings of love and soar up in the vast firmament of the Supreme Soul. With our wings of love full-fledged, our consciousness of things belonging to us and of those belonging to others -- our awareness of what is mine and what is yours -- disappears, and what is left is the consciousness -- nay, the very being of God. It is in the absence of love that man has of necessity to be on the hard ground of egotism full of thorny shrubs of hatred, violence and anger. Where is the necessity of being stuck in this rocky ground, once the wings of love are grown? Then the flight to the wonderful world of beauty -- limitless, inexhaustible and immaculate beauty -- becomes easy. So let us be filled with love -- towards all love unconditional, love selfless. Standing or sitting, sleeping or waking, let us be submerged in love, love which is the very breath of our existence, love with its waves ever surging in our hearts. You have now reached the precincts of the sacred temple of the most divine. Visiting ordinary temples is not obligatory. Those temples with idols of stone cannot claim perfection and reality. Would it be surprising if the hearts of those who frequent these stone temples become adamantine and hard? No doubt, discussions and discourses on Divine Love do take place in these temples, but what is disseminated from there is nothing but hatred. Hatred and violence disguise themselves in the gaudy clothes of false love. Verily I say that to no other temple should recognition be accorded than to the temple of love, the only temple of our Lord. I am afraid that these other temples have been designed and devised to prevent men from reaching the temple of love. Satan is definitely engaged in this! Love is itself a temple and a sacred scripture. "The man who has had a smattering of love's language," says Kabir, "is a scholar." Certainly nothing remains to be learnt if one has learnt all about love. Mastery of love implies mastery of all learning. He who hasn't learnt the art of loving is ignorant of everything. No knowledge, no sensation, no experience is superior to love. Love's eye scans what is written on leaves, carved on stones or, hidden waves. Friends, the Lord's autograph can be seen everywhere. Of what real use are the works of mortals? What can we gain from the words of ordinary mortals?

Where will they lead us? Indeed man's words cannot take us above and beyond man. To be able to go beyond man we have to leave him behind. In fact, man's words, scriptures and principles are obstacles in the pathway to God. We have to read, learn and comprehend what is God's to reach God. That can be read in love. We have to learn human languages to read what man has written, his shastras. Similarly, the Lord's language is to be learnt to read the Lord's Book. And his language is love. Learn the art of love which is so necessary if you wish to attain the Lord. The whole creation of the Lord is all around you. Behold it, for your eyes will not fail you, but in the absence of love it can neither be seen nor known. A mysterious miracle takes place when love's eye begins to scan. What was being seen vanishes and what had escaped our notice comes into view. Then nothing remains save the divine form.

I affirm that where the scholar loses, the lover wins; what learning misses, love lights upon. In the case of the scholar having a smattering of love's language, the matter is different. Entry into the depths of life is impossible without love. Mere knowledge loses itself in its peregrinations round the border, and it is incorrect to say that knowledge annihilates distance. Only through love can distance disappear. Knowledge does not go deeper than the physical body, but love does not stop before it reaches the soul. Hence all knowledge divorced from love is unreal and incomplete: Knowledge contained in love is the only real knowledge. What is the importance of love? How is it to be realized? Shall one incessantly repeat the word 'love' as some zealots repeat the names of Ram and Krishna. Will such loud repetitions of the word 'love' help us realize love. Never. Mere repetitions of names does not achieve anything. Love should be lived; it should be part and parcel of our very being. Life will be purposeful, meaningful, when there is liveliness of love in it. Let the energy of love be vigilant and vibrant and awake in the self. Let no occasion for ardent, sincere love find it slumbering there. Let no challenge offered to love be left unanswered. For every challenge, for every call, let your love give a befitting reply. Even when there is no challenge from any quarter, let love continue to flow as light flows from the lamp or as sweet fragrance flows from the flower. A calm unbroken current of love should always be present. When the heat is continuously kept moving by means of love-currents, all the obstacles on its way are kept at bay. We find the gentle hill-stream eroding off the hardest rock from its path by means of its constant flow. Can anyone deny the presence of huge stumbling blocks in the path of love? There are, no doubt, hard rocks, but the power of love is equally boundless. Let us make this boundless energy function effectively and be ever active. Utterly slow and silent are its activities, but in that quiet briskness, huge rocks are worn off into fine particles of sand. Much fuss and ado indicates weakness.

Powerful forces function silently. How quiet, silent and free from fuss is the creative activity of God!

Friends, let us give love an opportunity to transform you from the very root. Love's potion can instil a new life in you a life which will never perish. For that reason alone is love free from fear even in the presence of death, because love knows no death.

Osho_Wings of Love and Random Thought