Osho Meditation: Finger Pointing to the Moon

I will say only that which I know. I will say only that which you can also know. By knowing I mean living it. One may know even without living it, but such knowledge is a burden; one may sink because of it, but one cannot be saved by it. Knowing can be alive also. Such knowing renders us weightless - light so that we can fly in the sky. Only when living becomes knowing do wings grow, fetters break and the doors to the infinite become wide open.

But knowing is difficult; accumulating knowledge is easy. Mind chooses the easier and avoids the difficult. But the one who avoids the difficult will miss religion as well. One who wants to avoid not only the difficult but the impossible too will never ever come close to religion.

Religion is only for those who are ready to enter into the impossible. Religion is for the gamblers, not for the shopkeepers. Religion is neither a business deal nor a compromise. Religion is a wager.

A gambler puts his wealth at stake; the religious person puts himself at stake because that is the ultimate wealth.

One who is not ready to stake his very life will never be able to know the hidden mysteries of life. Those secrets are not available cheaply. Knowledge is available very cheaply; knowledge is available from books, from scriptures, in education, with the teachers. Knowledge is available almost for free; you do not have to pay anything for it. In religion you have to pay heavily. It is not right even to say "heavily" because only when someone stakes everything do the doors to that life open. The doors to that life open only for those who put this life at stake. To put this life at stake is the only key to the door of that life. But knowledge is very cheap, so the mind chooses the easier and the cheaper way. We learn things - words, doctrines - and think that we know. Such knowledge only enhances ignorance.

The ignorant person at least knows that he does not know; at least that much truth he has. But more untruthful people cannot be found than those whom we call knowledgeable. They do not even know that they do not know. Something heard, something committed to memory, deludes them into thinking they have also known.

I will say to you only that which I know, because only in saying that lies some value; because only that which I know can, if you are willing, vibrate the strings of your heart too with its living impact.

What I myself do not know, and what is only skin deep in me, cannot go much deeper in you either.

Only that which has entered the depths of my own heart has the possibility; if you cooperate, it can reach your heart. Even then your cooperation is a must, because if your heart is closed there is no way of thrusting the truth forcefully into it. And it is good that it is so, because if truth can be forcibly inculcated it cannot become your freedom, it can only become your slavery. All compulsions become slaveries.

So in this world, everything can be given to you through force; only truth cannot be, because truth can never become slavery. The very nature of truth is freedom. So truth is the only thing in this world which nobody can give you forcefully, which nobody can thrust upon you, which cannot be put upon you from the outside like clothing; for which your willingness, your openness, your receptivity, your invitation, your heart full of gratitude are the prerequisites. If your heart becomes like the earth before the rainy season when it is thirsty for water and develops wide cracks due to the parching summer heat - as if it has opened up its lips here and there anticipating the rains - then the truth enters you. Otherwise the truth turns back even from your very doorstep. Many times it has turned back - in many, many lifetimes.

You are not new - nothing is new on this earth; you are all very old. You have sat at the feet of Buddha and heard him, you have seen Krishna, you have also been around Jesus, but still you have missed, because your heart was never ready. The rivers of Buddha and Mahavira have flowed past you, but you have remained thirsty.

The day Buddha was about to leave his body, Ananda was weeping and beating his chest in desperation. Buddha asked him, "Why are you weeping? I have been near you for long enough...

forty years! And if it has not happened even in forty years, what is the point of weeping now? And why are you feeling so troubled about my death?"

Ananda replied, "I am so distressed because I could not manage to disappear while you were here.

Had I disappeared, you would have been able to enter me. For forty years the river was flowing by my side and I have remained thirsty. Now I am weeping because I do not know when and in what lifetime I shall be able to meet this river again."

You are not new. You have cremated Buddhas, you have cremated Mahaviras - Jesus, Krishna and all; you are living after cremating them all. They lost the battle against you. You are very old. You have been here since life is. It has been an infinite journey. Where are we missing? It is just that you are not open, you are closed.

I will say to you only that which I have known. If you can make yourself an opening, you will also know that. And it is not that there is some great difficulty in it. There is only one difficulty, and that is you.

Some people move only with curiosity, just like small children asking while they are on a walk, "What is the name of this tree?" And if you don't reply, they immediately forget that they had asked anything and they start asking something else: "Why is this rock lying here?" They ask just for the sake of asking and not in order to know. They do not ask in order to know, they ask because they cannot remain without asking.

Those who are living out of curiosity are still childish. If you ask, "What is God?" just as casually as a child would ask on seeing a toy shop on the road, "What is this toy?" you are still a child. And the child can be forgiven, but not you.

Curiosity will not do. Religion is not a child's play. Even if you are given a reply, it serves no purpose.

The child's fun is in asking. He could ask, that is his fun. Even if you give him a reply he is not very interested in it. What is the matter?

Psychologists say that when children learn to speak for the first time they are only practicing their speaking by asking; just as when a child learns walking for the first time, he tries every now and then to get up and walk. So children repeat the same sentence again and again only because they have acquired a new experience, a new dimension through speaking. So in that new dimension they are floating and rehearsing - that is why they ask just anything, they say just anything.

In the world of religion, if you are also asking just anything, saying just anything, thinking just anything without any deep desire to know - only out of curiosity - then you will still cremate some more buddhas; then who knows how many more buddhas will still have to work hard on you!

Truth has no relationship to curiosity.

Some people move a little ahead of curiosity and become inquisitive. There is a little more depth in inquisitiveness, but just a little more. Inquisitiveness is also not very deep, it is shallow as well, for it is only intellectual. The intellect is the same as scabies: if you scratch it a bit, it feels good.

So the intellect goes on itching: Is there God? Is there any soul? Is there any salvation? What is meditation? - not that you want to do it. What is God? - not that you want to know it, but just for discussion, just for conversation.... It is a mental exercise, an intellectual entertainment. So people only talk big, they never stake anything. Whether God is or is not, it is not truly their concern; and they remain untransformed whether God does exist or does not.

It is very interesting: one person believes there is a God, another believes there is no God, and the lives of the two are identical. If someone is abused, the one who believes there is a God gets angry, and the one who believes there is no God, he also gets angry. Sometimes it happens that the one who believes there is a God gets even more angry. The one who believes there is no God, how much can he do to you? At best he may abuse you in return, hit you or kill you. But the one who believes there is a God can send you to rot in the agonies of hell. He has more ways of becoming angry.

If belief in God or no belief in God does not bring about any change in one's life, it only means that it has no relation to God, it is only intellectual talk. Such inquisitiveness makes a man a philosopher. He goes on contemplating and deliberating, he learns the scriptures, accumulates too many doctrines, is able to think of all the pros and cons, holds debates, but he never lives.

If you are also only full of inquisitiveness there will be no journey at all. People full of inquisitiveness are those who sit near the milestone and ask, "What is the destination? How far is the destination?"

They continue asking this but never get up and begin to walk.

You know so much! What is there that is lacking in your knowing? You know almost everything - whatever Buddha knew or Mahavira or Krishna knew you also know. While reading the Gita, don't you feel you know all this?

Yes, you also know, but this is all only in your head. Their seed has not reached your heart. And the ideas that are only in the mind are like the seed lying on a stone. The seed is there, lying on the stone, but it cannot sprout. To sprout, the seed will have to fall down off the stone and seek the soil. And the surface of the soil is not suitable either, because more moisture is needed. So it has to move underneath the surface to where there is some water, where there is some juice flowing.

Seeds remain in the mind like those lying on the stone. Until they fall down into the heart the wet soil is not available. In the heart some juice flows, some love; there is some water there. If a seed falls there, it sprouts.

Inquisitive people have a lot within them; everything is there, but it is like the seeds lying on the stone. The soil is not far off, but even this little journey is difficult for them. They are averse to moving, so the seed remains sitting on the rock. This small journey will have to be undertaken - that the seed falls down from the stone to the soil, seeks a place in the soil, finds some wetness, and hides itself a little inside the soil.

Remember, whatsoever is to be born in this world needs a deep silence, solitude and darkness.

Those things that are kept in the mind are kept in the open light. Sprouting is not possible there.

The heart is the wet soil hidden within you. There something can sprout.

Therefore those who live only in inquisitiveness become scholars and pundits; knowledgeable, but nothing sprouts within them - no new birth, no new life, no new flowers, nothing at all.

There is one more dimension of seeking, we call it mumuksha, a deep longing for liberation. Here there is no concern for knowing, the concern is for living. Here there is no concern for knowing, the concern is for being. The question is not whether there is a God or not, the question is whether I can be God. There may be a God, but if I cannot become God then there is no point in it all. The question is not whether there is any liberation, the question is whether I can also be liberated. If there is no possibility of my becoming liberated, then even if there is a liberation somewhere it is meaningless for me. The issue is not whether there is a soul within or not - there may be, there may not be - the real issue is whether I can become a soul.

Mumuksha, the longing for liberation, is a search to be. And when one wants to be, one has to put oneself at stake. This is why I say religion is a gambler's affair.

I will say only that which I know, which I have lived. If you agree to put all at stake, whatever is my experience can also become yours. Experiences do not belong to anyone; whosoever is ready to receive them, they come to him. Nobody has any right over the truth, whosoever is willing to disappear inherits it. Truth belongs to one who shows the readiness to ask for it - who opens the doors of his heart and calls for it.

This is why I have chosen this Upanishad. This Upanishad is a direct encounter with spirituality.

There are no siddhants, doctrines, in it; there are only experiences of siddhas, the fulfilled ones, in it. In it there is no discussion of that which is born out of curiosity or inquisitiveness, no, in it there are hints to those who are full of longing for liberation by those who already have attained liberation.

There are some people who have not attained, yet they are unable to drop the enjoyment of guiding others. Giving guidance is a very enjoyable thing. In the whole world, the thing that is given the most is guidance, and the thing least accepted is also guidance. Everybody gives, nobody takes.

Whenever you have an opportunity to give advice to someone you do not miss it. It is not necessary that you are capable of providing this advice; it is not necessary that whatever you are saying is your knowing at all, but when it comes to giving advice, the temptation or the joy of being a teacher is very difficult to overcome.

What is the joy in being a teacher? You suddenly, free of cost, are on the upper side and the other is on the lower side. If someone comes to you for a donation, how difficult you find it to even give a penny! The difficulty is that you have to give something from what you have. But in giving guidance, you have no difficulty. Because what difficulty can there be in giving what you do not have? You are losing nothing. On the contrary, you are gaining something - you are gaining joy, you are gaining ego-enhancement; today you are in a position to guide, and the other is at the receiving end. You are on the top, the other is below.

This is why I say that, in this Upanishad, there is no pleasure of giving any advice or guidance, rather there is great pain, because what the seer of this Upanishad is giving, he is giving after knowing it.

He is sharing something very intimate, very inner.

The hints are brief but deep. The hits are very few, but deadly. And, if you are willing, the arrow will pierce your heart directly and will not leave you alive. It will kill you. Therefore, be aware and be alert, because this very business is a dangerous one. You will have to lose what you think you are. In it, there is no way of achieving without losing yourself. Here only those who lose are the achievers.

That is also why I have chosen this Upanishad. As it is, I can tell you directly, there is no reason for bringing the Upanishad in - but I will use it as an excuse, a shelter. If you shoot an arrow directly, the person can escape; but if it is hidden behind the Upanishad there are less chances of you missing it.

I have selected the Upanishad so that you may not know that I am directly aiming at you. This way the chances of escape are minimized. All hunters know that better hunting is done from a hiding place. This Upanishad is only a hiding place.

I will say only what I have known, but then there is no difference between that and the Upanishad.

Because whatever the seer of this Upanishad has said, he also has known it.

This Upanishad is the manifestation of the subtlest mysteries of spirituality. But if I go on talking on the Upanishad only, there is a fear that the talk may remain merely talk. So the talks will be only a background, and along with it there will be experiments. Whatever is said, whatever the seer has seen, or whatever I say, and I have seen - there will be attempts to turn your face, to raise your eyes towards that. The attempt to raise your eyes towards that will be the main thing, the talk on the Upanishad will be only for creating a milieu. Such vibrations can be created all around you so that you forget the twentieth century and arrive in the world of the seer of this Upanishad, so that this world which has become so lusterless and ugly may disappear and the memories may arise of those days in which this seer lived.

An atmosphere, a milieu - the Upanishad is only for that. But that is not enough - it is necessary, but not enough.

So whatever I say, if you just stop at hearing it I will know you have not heard it at all. Whoever does not set out on the journey after hearing this, I don't believe he has heard. If you think you have understood just by hearing... do not be in such haste! If it was possible to understand something only by hearing we would have understood long ago. If it was possible to understand something only by hearing there would be no shortage of people with understanding in the world and an ignorant person would be difficult to find. But as it is the world is full of only the ignorant.

Nothing is understood only by listening. By listening we only close our fists on words. Not by listening but by doing one understands. So listen to find the way of doing, not for the understanding. Listen in order to do, do in order to understand. Do not come to the conclusion that just by listening you have understood. That intermediary link of doing is necessary. There is no other way. But our mind says, "I have got it; now where is the need to do?"

Destinations are reached by moving towards them. You may have understood everything, the whole route of your journey may have been memorized by you, you may have a detailed map in your pocket; still, without moving no one ever comes to their destination. But it is possible to dream of having arrived. A person may be asleep right here and can dream of having arrived anywhere. The mind is an expert in dreaming.

Do not think that only you see such dreams; even those whom you call very intelligent also go on having these dreams. Your saints, your monks and sannyasins - those who have been searching for years - have not come even an inch closer to anywhere. They have not even begun their journey at all and they have been searching for years!

Their whole search has been circular. In the mind a circle has been created - a sort of whirlpool. And in that whirlpool they move round and round and ultimately everything gets lost - all the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Korans, the Bibles, everything gets lost, but there is not even an inch of movement.

We will discuss the Upanishad - not to make you understand the Upanishad, but for you to become the Upanishad. If by listening you memorize something and begin to repeat it, it means I have harmed you; I did not prove to be your friend. Your repeating what you have heard is of no value.

When I can see that the same happens to you as has happened to me, that your eyes also open up - only then have you become the Upanishad.

Understand it this way: a poet sings a song about some flower. There can be a great sweetness, rhythm and music in this song - songs have their own beauty - but howsoever much the song may sing of the flower, yet the song is just a song, it is not the flower, it is not the fragrance of the flower.

And if you are satisfied only with that song, then you have gone astray.

This Upanishad is a song of a flower that you have not yet seen. The song is wonderful: the singer has seen the flower. But do not be satisfied by the song, the song is not the flower.

It also happens that sometimes you too come close to the flower - only sometimes. Sometimes you too get a glimpse of the flower - accidentally, suddenly - because the flower is not foreign to you, it is your very nature. It is very close to you, just by your side. Sometimes it touches you - in spite of you. Sometimes the flower gives you a glimpse, a glimpse like a flash of lightning. In some moment it abruptly enters your experience: you feel that there is something more in this world, that this world that you know is not all that is. In this rocky world there is something else which is not a stone but is a flower - alive and blossoming. And if you have seen it in some dream, or a lightning flash in the dark of night.... You see something and it disappears again - thus it happens sometimes in your life.

It often happens in the lives of the poets. It often happens in the lives of the painters that a glimpse of the flower comes close by.

Yet, however close to the flower, however great a glimpse you may have had, this closeness is still a distance. No matter how close the flower may come to you, still the distance remains. And even if I can actually touch the flower with my hands, still it is not certain that the experience I am having is that of the flower, because the message is coming through my hand. The hand may give a wrong message. There is no certainty of my hand giving the right message: there is no reason to trust my hand implicitly. Again, the message that the hand will give will be less about the flower and more about itself.

If the flower feels cold, it is not necessary that the flower is cold - maybe my hand is feverish and that is why the flower is felt to be cold. The message is more about the hand, because whenever a message comes through a medium it is always relative. One cannot be absolutely certain about it.

I was reading a memoir written by Popov. Popov was a seeker - and an ardent seeker. She was practicing spiritual disciplines with Piotr Dimitrovich Ouspensky. Once she was sitting with Ouspensky and a gentleman came and asked him whether there is a God or not. Ouspensky exclaimed, "God? No, there is no God." Ouspensky paused a little, and said, "But I cannot say with any guarantee, because whatever I have known is through a medium. Sometimes I have seen through my eyes, but the eyes cannot be relied upon. Sometimes I have heard through my ears, but the ears can hear wrongly. Sometimes I have touched through my hands, but touch cannot be relied upon either. So far I have not seen directly, I have never been face to face. Therefore I cannot say with any guarantee. Whatever I have known so far, it has not given me any experience of God. But that does not prove that there is no God, it only informs you about what my experiences are. So I cannot give you any guarantee that God is not. But do not drop your search and believe me, go on searching for yourself."

Whenever something happens through a medium it is not trustworthy. Even if we come very close to a flower, still it is the eyes that see, the hands that touch, and the nose that gathers the fragrance - these are all experiences through our senses. Thus it is that sometimes a poet comes so close to that ultimate flower that its echo descends into his songs. But still he is not a Buddha, not a Mahavira.

Who is Buddha? Who is Mahavira? Buddha is that consciousness which has become the flower itself; even that much distance, that of seeing the flower, does not exist - consciousness has become the flower.

Only by becoming the flower can one fully know what is.

These are statements of a seer of the Upanishad. It is like a song about some flower. Go on humming it - there is a lot of sweetness and an exquisite taste in it, but it is not the flower, it is only a song. If you make the effort, you will sometimes see the flower.

People come to me and say, "There was a great light during the meditation, but I lost it again. Infinite light was there, but it disappeared again. There was immense bliss." But where has it gone now?

Now they are searching for it again and cannot find it.

A glimpse means you had come close. But glimpses are bound to be lost. Meditation can, at the most, give only a glimpse. But do not stop there. Do not get stuck looking for that same glimpse again and again. The only purpose of meditation is that one gets a glimpse. Then one has to go ahead, into samadhi, into enlightenment, so that one becomes the very flower.

In meditation is a glimpse; samadhi is being it.

Do not stop at glimpses. They are very lovely: the whole world starts looking stale - just one glimpse of that living flower, that flowering which is within, and the whole world becomes insipid and meaningless. But then some people catch hold of the glimpses and start repeating them and think everything has happened. No, until you are the divine yourself, do not believe that God is.

You can be it, because you already are it. You have only to open up a little, to uncover a little. You are present here and now, just hiding. There are only a few layers of clothes covering you - and they too are very thin - so that if you so desire you can throw them off right now, be free of them, and be the divine. But your clinging is very strong; though the clothes are thin, your grip is very tight. Why is this clinging so strong? The clinging is strong because we think that these clothes are our being, that this is what we are. Other than that we do not know of any other existence.

In this Upanishad there will be hints of that existence which is beyond these coverings. And along with this Upanishad we will meditate, so we can get a glimpse. And we will hope for samadhi, enlightenment, so that we become that without which there is no contentment, no peace, and no truth.

The Upanishad begins with prayer. The prayer is addressed to the whole universe.

May the sun god give us his benediction. May varuna, aryama, indra, brahaspati and vishnu give us their benediction. Salutations to that brahma.

O vayu, salutations especially to you because you are the brahma manifest, i shall call only you the manifest brahma; the truth, the rit - the law. May they all protect me and my master, the speaker.

The Upanishad begins with this prayer. The journey of religion has begun with a prayer. It has to be so. Prayer means trust and hope. Prayer means our feeling of being one with the whole universe.

Prayer means, "How would I be able to manage alone?"

If it were possible that you alone could make this happen it would have happened long ago. But by yourself even the trivial could not be achieved. You had desired money, you could not achieve even that. You had wished for position, you could not manage even that. You had all sorts of wishes, large and small, but none were fulfilled. Alone you could not even manage the world: would this great journey of truth be possible by yourself alone? By yourself, you are even defeated in the world.

Everyone is defeated in this world. Even those who appear to be victorious are also defeated. They only appear victorious to others, in themselves they are utterly defeated. You also appear to yourself as defeated, but to others you appear victorious. There are people behind you who feel that you have achieved, that you have won in the worldly battle. But if we look within man, everyone is defeated.

This world is a long story of defeats. Here victory just does not happen. Here victory just cannot happen, it is not in the nature of the world. Defeat is the destiny here. Defeat is not of any individual, not of any person, but the destiny of being in the world is defeat. You will have to accept defeat there. Nobody ever wins there.

We could not win in the world where it was all a concern with petty things, where it was just a dream - Shankara calls it maya, an illusion. When we were defeated even in that illusion, in that dreamlike happening, how then can we hope to win on our own in the world of truth?

Prayer means the realization of a person who has been defeated in the world. When even after trying for lives upon lives he has been defeated in the mundane, what capability can he claim in the matters of the sacred and the absolute?

Hence the prayer. Hence the seer has invoked the whole universe to help him. He has invoked the sun, he has invoked Varuna. All these names are symbolic of the powers of the universe. The sun has been invoked first because the sun is our life. Without him, we wouldn't be. Within us, it is the sun that lives, burns. If the sun is extinguished there, we will be extinguished here. The sun is our life, hence he has been invoked.

The seer says: Salutations to vayu, the god of air - Vayu has been especially saluted in this prayer - because you are the brahma manifest. It is a bit strange. Think a little. It is very interesting, because Vayu is absolutely unmanifest; all other things are manifest. Had the seer said to the sun, "You are the manifest Brahma" - radiant, burning, hot, living - it would have been understandable. But the seer did not call the sun "manifest Brahma" he said that to Vayu, whom we cannot see at all, who is really unmanifest.

Where is that Vayu manifest? We only infer that it is, we only feel that it is, but it cannot be seen.

Where is it available to the eye? Manifest means that which can be seen by the eyes. Now, Vayu is not at all available to the eyes. Rocks, mountains, they are all visible, but not Vayu. But the seer says: Oh vayu! Salutations to you, because you are the manifest brahma. He said so because Vayu, the air, is not visible but still is; it is not seen by the eye, nevertheless it is touching the eye each moment - and the same is the situation with the supreme truth. It is not seen but it is touching us every moment.

Vayu is not seen because we do not have the eyes to see it. Vayu is simply there. Without Vayu we cannot exist. Vayu is in our breath, protecting us, and our very life depends on its inhalation and exhalation. Something which is so near us, which is our very breath, we cannot see, because our eyes are very gross. Whatever is very gross, that is what we see. Whatever is subtle, we are unable to see.

Vayu, the air, is very subtle. It is present before us; it is within us and without us. It is present in every cell of our body - but not visible. That is why it is said: you are the manifest brahma - you are just like the Brahma.

Brahma is present here but not visible. And it is present in our every fiber; in fact, it is the fiber and yet we see no trace of it. That is why Vayu has been saluted, that we know the Vayu, but not the Brahma. A thread of relationship has been attempted, that Brahma is just like Vayu, the air.

"I will call you the manifest Brahma," the seer says, "I will also name you the truth and rit, the law, because you are just like that which is and is not known to us; who we ourselves are and yet whom we do not know; who is now and here since eternity and not known by us. But this search may be fulfilled, if all the gods protect us."

What is meant by gods is the endless number of life-forces since eternity. And life is a vast network of endless numbers of forces. Your existence is also a vast network of these endless powers. Within you meet the sun, Varuna, Indra, Vayu; Agni, the fire; Prithvi, the earth; Akash, the sky - they all meet. If we can know one individual in his totality we have known the whole of the existence in seed form. Everything is there in the individual. Everything has united in him, and in their meeting the individual exists.

So prayer is for the help of all these. But will the sun help? That question does arise. Even if the prayers are done will the sun help, or will the Vayu help, or will the earth help? The question is not of the earth's help or the sun's help, but that you prayed - that is the great help! Let this be understood properly.

No sun is coming to help you, but you prayed and it will affect you, not the sun, because a prayerful mind becomes humble, a prayerful mind becomes helpless, a prayerful mind accepts the fact that alone it cannot accomplish anything; a prayerful mind is ready to dissolve and give up its ego and the feeling that it can do it. And these things bring results.

The whole outcome of the prayer is on you. The prayer does not change the sun, but you. And the moment you change, you enter into another world.

Normally when you pray you think that someone is going to do something for you, and that is why you pray. No, prayer is only a device. Certainly you join your hands in prayer towards someone else, but its consequences happen within you - in the one who has joined hands in prayer.

Thus there are difficulties in understanding it. If you pray in the presence of a scientist: "Oh sun, help me!" the scientists will say, "What nonsense! How can the sun help you? When has the sun ever helped anyone?" Or you pray: "O Indra, bring rains!" and he will say, "Have you gone mad?

Have rains ever fallen by prayers?" The scientist is right.

Neither the sun nor the clouds nor the winds will listen to you. None will listen to you. But the fact that you called out will transform you. How intensely you called will create an equally deep intensity within you. If your whole being calls out, you will become a totally different person.

This is what prayer is for.

Enough for today.

first quote

second quote

Chapter 2. We Are In It!

John Nguyen 5:07 AM Add Comment

Finger Pointing to the Moon

John Nguyen

Osho - Finger Pointing to the Moon

Chapter 2. We Are In It!

In the cavity of the heart, which is situated within the body, an unborn eternal lives.

Earth is its body, it dwells within the earth, but the earth does not know it.

Water is its body, it dwells within the water, but the water does not know it.

Light is its body, it dwells within the light, but the light does not know it.

Air is its body, it dwells within the air but the air does not know it.

Sky is its body, it dwells within the sky, but the sky does not know it.

Mind is its body, it dwells within the mind, but the mind does not know it.

Intellect is its body, it dwells within the intellect, but the intellect does not know it.

Ego is its body, it dwells within the ego, but the ego does not know it.

Reasoning mind is its body, it dwells within the reasoning mind, but the reasoning mind does not know it.

The unmanifest is its body, it dwells within the unmanifest, but the unmanifest does not know it.

The indestructible is its body, it dwells within the indestructible, but the indestructible does not know it.

Death is its body, it dwells within death, but death does not know it.

It is the innermost self of all these elements, its sins are all destroyed,

And it is the one divine god narayana - the sustainer of all human beings.

The body, the senses, etcetera, are non-soul matter, and the feeling of 'i-Myness' over them is adhyas - illusion. Therefore, an intelligent person should drop this illusion through allegiance to brahma - the absolute

Reality.

A fish in the sea remains a stranger to the sea, not because the sea is far away from the fish but because the sea is too close. Whatsoever is at a distance is seen but what is very near becomes invisible to the eye. It is not difficult to know the distant, it is difficult to know what is close. And it is impossible to know that which is the closest of the close. Let this be understood properly, because it is something that must be known for the inner journey.

People ask where to seek God. They ask, "How did we forget that which is hidden within? How has that been separated which is nearer to us than our heartbeats, which is nearer to us than our breathing? How has that been forgotten which I myself am?" And their question seems to be logical.

It appears that what they are asking has validity and that it should not have happened like this.

If I am unable to know even that which is hidden within me, if even what I am remains unknown, then who else will we know, who else will we recognize? When even the near slips out of the hand, how could we achieve that which is far? And it is not that it has only come close to us today. It has always been close to us - since endless time. Not even for a single moment have we been separated or away from it. Wherever we run, it runs with us; wherever we go, it goes with us; it travels with us to hell as well as to heaven; it stands by us in sin as well as in virtue. It is not right to say that it stands by us, because even in standing by there is some distance. Actually our being and its being are one and the same thing.

If this is true, then it is a great miracle in the world that we have lost our own selves - which sounds impossible. How can one lose one's own self? It is not possible even to lose our shadow, and we have lost our souls. How it is possible? But this has happened. How this losing of the self takes place - that is the essence of this sutra. Before we enter into the sutra, let us understand its basic foundations.

Eyes have a limit of vision, a range. If an object is beyond that range the eyes cannot see it. If an object is within that range but too far to either side, then too the eyes cannot see it. Eyes have a

range of vision. A thing brought too close to the eyes cannot be seen and taken too far away it also cannot be seen. Beyond either side of a certain range of vision the eyes cannot see - they are then blind. Now, you are so near yourself that you are not only near the eyes but you are behind them.

And that is the problem.

Let us understand it this way. If you are standing before a mirror, at a certain distance your image is very clear. If you move too far away from the mirror there will be no image. If you come too close to the mirror, so much so that you put your eyes against it, then you cannot see your image at all.

But here the situation is that you are standing behind the mirror; thus there is no possibility of there being any image of you in the mirror - the eyes are in the front and you are behind them.

Eyes see that which is in front of them. How are the eyes to see that which is behind them? Ears hear that which is outside the ears. How are the ears to hear that which is within the ears? Eyes open outwards, ears also open outwards. I can touch you, but how can I touch myself? And even if I am able to touch my body, it is just because I am not the body - the body too is the other, hence I am able to touch it. But how can I touch the one that I am, the one that is touching? With what can I touch?

Therefore the hands touch everything but cannot touch themselves. The eyes see everything but cannot see themselves. In regard to our own selves we are blind, none of the senses that are known to us are of any use. Unless some other senses open up - some eye that can see withinwards, backwards, in the reverse, or some ear that is affected also by the inner sound - there is no way we would be able to see and hear and know ourselves. Till that happens there is no way of touching our own selves.

What is near is missed; what is nearest of all is not possible to be known. This is why the fish is not able to know the sea.

The second thing: a fish is born in the sea, it lives in the sea, the sea is its food, the sea is its drink, the sea is its life, the sea is its everything. Then it dies and dissolves into the sea, but it never gets the opportunity to know the sea because it does not have any distance from the sea. A fish, however, comes to know what the sea is if someone comes and lifts it out of the sea. This is a very contradictory thing: the fish comes to know the sea when it is away from the sea - when it is struggling for its life on the sand under the hot sun, then it knows what the sea is. For knowing, this much distance is necessary.

How can we know the one that existed even before we were born and that will remain existing even after we are dead? How can we know the one in which we are born and in which we shall disappear?

For knowing, some separation is a must. That is why the fish does not know the sea; only when someone throws it out onto the shore does it come to know.

Man is in a greater difficulty. The divine is the ocean that surrounds us. It has no shores to it where you can be thrown out, where you may start writhing with pain like a fish. It would have been very easy if there was such a shore. But there is no such shore; God is the ocean. This is why those who look for God as a shore are never able to find him. The shore is available only to those who are ready to drown in the ocean of the divine.

There simply is no shore so there is no way to find it. How can there be a shore? Everything else can have a shore; the whole cannot have a shore - because something else is needed to form the shore. The bank of a river is formed of something other than the river. The shore of the sea is formed of something other than the sea. But there is nothing other than God which can form the shore.

The very meaning of God is that there exists nothing other than it. God does not mean someone sitting somewhere up in the sky and administering the world from there. No, these are stories for children. What is meant by God is that element other than which nothing exists. This is the scientific definition of God.

God means the whole, the total, everything - whatever is. What is cannot have a shore, because there remains nothing else to form the coast. Therefore God is everywhere; there is no shore. One who is ready to drown is saved. One who tries to be saved, drowns.

We are in it. We are in what we are trying to find.

There is no need to call who we go on calling, because there is not even that much gap that one has to call. That is why Kabir asked, "Has your God gone deaf that you shout your ajan so loudly?"

God is so near that there is no need even to call him. Even if there is silence within, that too will be heard - he is so near. If you have to call the other, you have to speak. But for calling oneself, where is the need to speak at all? One can hear others only when words are spoken, but even one's own silence is heard.

Being so near is the difficulty. Let this be understood properly: we have missed the truth because we are born in it. Our flesh, the marrow, the bones, the whole body is made of it. It is our breath, our life, everything. In numerous ways, through numerous doors, we are combinations of it - we are its play. There is no gap at all, therefore there is no memory. Therefore its remembrance has become impossible. Therefore we see the world, but the truth is not seen at all. The world is at a distance, there is a gap between the two, this is why the passion for the world arises.

What is the meaning of passion? Passion means an attempt to close the distance between you and the object from which you have a feeling of distance. There is no passion for God because there is no distance between you and God. Or even if someone seems to be searching for God it looks like a false passion. The person seems to be searching for something else in the name of God. He is making God an excuse but he wants something else. Maybe he wants power, maybe he wants prestige, wealth, position or something else.

A friend came and told me, "Since the time I began to absorb myself in meditation experiments in your camps, I have been benefitting greatly."

I asked, "What benefit are you getting?"

He replied, "Spiritual benefit there is none, but financial benefit has begun!"

Very good! Where is the haste for the spiritual, it can be postponed. Monetary benefit is the immediate need!

We search for something while we name it something else. Wherever we have put the label God, if we tear the label off we will find something else underneath. We want something else. A person who wants something else in the name of God is more dishonest than the person who is openly seeking worldly pleasures. At least there there is honesty, an authenticity. One person says, "I want money," another says, "I want sexual pleasures," still another says, "I want position, I want ego fulfillment," and there is one who says, "I want God," but in this desire for God is also his feeling that one day he will show to the world that God too is in his fist.

Therefore watch the seeker of God carefully. If his ego is increasing, understand that his search is for something else; if his ego is decreasing, shattering, disappearing, then his search is really for God.

The conceit of sannyasins and your so-called saints is well known. Even the conceit of big politicians stands nowhere against it. At least the politician's very search is for that conceit, so it is fine, it is a clear-cut matter, there is nothing much of a fabrication in it. The fun of being something special is the whole game for them. But for a saint the matter is different. He says that he is in search of being nothing... and he then goes on becoming something. If two saints meet, they cannot be made to sit on the same dais because there will be problems as to who sits where, higher or lower. So usually saints simply do not meet each other, because many problems arise.

There is a friend who is a little crazy - crazy in the sense that he tries to arrange for saints to meet with each other. He told me once that great problems surfaced. Even such questions arise as to who should join hands first in greeting. A difficult situation. Even worldly people do not look so worldly.

They may not be wanting to greet somebody with folded hands, yet they do it. In their minds they may think that it would have been better had the other folded hands first, but they hide such feelings; it looks ungentlemanly. To some saints it does not appear even ungentlemanly - these saints do not even respond to greetings, they have stopped the very arrangement. They only give blessings.

That friend was busy arranging a meeting of such a saint with another. The other saint said, "Everything else is okay, but if I do not greet him and he immediately gives me blessings, that will spoil everything."

Our search is of something else. It has nothing to do with religion or with the divine. We are desiring something else, we are asking for something else, but we are dishonest and we have covered ourselves with claims that are different. How can the search for God begin, because there is no distance. If there is a distance, a passion arises. If there is a distance, one feels like running. If there is a distance, a desire arises to win. If there are difficulties, ego becomes interested - to defeat, to win. But as far as God is concerned, there is no distance. The situation is that God is already with us.

When Tensing and Hillary climb Mount Everest, what is their joy? They are the first in human history to have stood on the highest peak. There is nothing else on Everest. But the first man on Everest!

History is created; the ego finds importance in the act. Now as long as there is Mount Everest in the world, the names of Hillary and Tensing cannot be effaced.

There was so much competition to reach the moon until recently. It is very interesting to know what we have left behind on the moon. Those who reached the moon were Christians, but they did not

leave a statue of Jesus there, they have left the flag of America. Just think, flags are real, Jesus is unreal! Even the idea did not cross the minds of the Americans to take at least a small statue of Jesus. They took the flag! The flag is the real ego of man. And if the name of Jesus is remembered sometimes, that too means a kind of a flag, it does not mean anything else. When it is a question of fighting, of keeping the flag aloft, at those times Jesus, Rama, Krishna, Buddha are all remembered; but their use is also not more than that of a flag. They are also a flag on the ego of man.

On the moon, we have left behind flags. Man is busy desiring to find something which only he can do so that his ego acquires importance. But if you were born on Everest then you would be in great difficulty as to where to hoist the flag.

Man is born in God; only he is. You are already there, you have never gone away. That is your land on which you are already standing. Therefore, in attaining God there is no scope for any ego. Ego is not interested in it. Then how can any longing or thirst arise when there is no desire for God?

A thirst for the divine arises in a very strange way. Understand this properly, because there is no other way than this. A thirst for the world arises because of the distance. If the distance is impassable, the attraction becomes tremendous. And this is why, in the world, that whenever things are achieved one's interest in them is lost, because the distance is covered. You desired a woman, you found her; you desired to build a house, you built it; you desired to raise a gold spire on your house and you put it there - what next?

So whatever is achieved, it then becomes worthless because it has come close to you, it is not distant any more. If it is distant and there are difficulties in the way so that not everyone can achieve it, only then you feel the thrill, the joy of it.

The joy of richness is not in the richness itself, it is in the poverty of many others. If everybody becomes rich, the whole thing is spoiled. That is the problem in America - the joy of being rich is becoming less and less. The poor are wearing the same type of clothes as the rich, driving the same type of cars, living in similar houses. There is not much basic difference between the rich and the poor. The fun of the rich is getting spoiled. The rich are feeling troubled due to it. They are searching for new tricks, which only they should be able to enjoy.

We are in God, hence there is no call, no invitation in it for the ego; there is no challenge, no motivation for the ego. How then can the longing for the divine arise?

The longing for the worldly things arises due to their distance and due to their challenge and calling.

The longing for God arises from the failure of worldly things. Let this be understood. When you have run in all the directions and are defeated everywhere; when you have achieved everything and it has all proved worthless; when your search for things is complete, and with the completion arises their negation, everything comes to a zero; then only arises the longing for God. All things appear gold from a distance, but they all prove to be a lump of mud as they reach your hands. The longer the distance, the purer the gold. As it starts coming closer, it starts becoming more impure. Even more close, and it starts turning into clay.

There is the story about Midas of Greece. There is a great satire in it. Midas was blessed with a supernatural power; the gift from the deity was that whatever he touched became gold. We are all the reverse of Midas, whatever we touch becomes a lump of mud!

But it is very interesting.... Even Midas was in great trouble - how can there be any end to our troubles? Whatsoever Midas touched became gold. He touched his wife, she became gold. He touched his food, it became gold. He picked up a glass of water, before it reached his lips it became gold. Poor Midas! He was in great difficulty. You cannot quench your thirst with gold. No matter how much we may talk about "a body like glittering gold," no satisfaction will arise from such a body. No matter how much a lover may praise the body of his beloved as "a body of gold," he should realize what happens if that body really becomes gold. He would beat his head, if that ever happened. He would feel that the earlier body was better.

So Midas was in a great difficulty. He was attracted to gold by the talk of the poets. Now what?

Everything became gold - his wife, water, food! People began to run away from him. His own children started keeping a distance from him - who knows when he may touch you! No friends would come near him. Midas became very lonely. He was a king, and he became lonely. His ministers would not come too close to him; they would keep a safe distance so they could run away if necessary. Midas started dying of hunger. He could not take any food, he could not take any water.

He started shrieking and shouting, "Oh, God, take back your gift! I was better as I was before! This blessing has turned into a curse."

Midas was in such a state - everything that he touched was turning into gold. Just imagine what our condition would be when whatever we touched turned into a lump of clay. The wife appears to be beautiful and golden when she is at a distance. The day the marriage takes place she begins turning into dust. Within four or five years she becomes as good as dirt. Everything turns into dirt.

The day you realize that all running is futile you come to a dead stop right where God is. The day you come to know that you have not gained anything by running, you do not run anymore. And because of not running, now you see what was not seen before because of running.

When the mind was engrossed in running, things that were far away were seen. When the running becomes useless, the eyes return to the nearer scene. And if the running ceases totally, the eyes start seeing in reverse. Up until now they were seeing only outside, now they begin to see inwards.

The mirror performs an about-turn. Then you do not find anything worth seeing in the world, or worth getting and worth searching for in the world. Now the world does not remain a desire any more. That is why Buddha, Mahavira and the Upanishads have laid so much stress on the fact that desirelessness is the door.

Desire is a door to go out far away; desirelessness is a door to come near.

Let us now understand this sutra:

"Within the body is hidden the unborn and eternal."

It is never born. It is there forever and ever. The eternal and unborn is hidden within the body but the body does not know it. Body is part of the earth; it is hidden within the earth, but the earth does not know it. In this sutra the same thing is repeated from different angles.

The unborn and the eternal is hidden within fire, but the fire does not know it. It is hidden everywhere, but the one behind which it is hidden does not know it because the one behind which it is hidden is

running outside. Have you ever realized this? If you can experience the inward running of your body you will attain samadhi. You have experienced only the outside running of the body - a beautiful body is seen and a thrill runs through your body; every cell of your body begins to run after it. A beautiful flower is seen and the eyes begin to run. A sweet melody is heard and the ears begin to run.

The body is always running outwards. Have you ever experienced the body running inwards? No, you have not. Then how is the poor body to know who is hidden within? Where the body never goes, where the body never looks, never hears, never explores... how can the body know what is there within? Therefore the body remains a stranger to the one whose body it is. All the running is outwards, hence an ignorance prevails inside. This sutra is a repetition of the same thing from different doors.

What is hidden within the air, the air does not know. Mind does not know the one whose body it is. The ego is unaware of the one whose body it is. The reasoning mind, the imperishable, the unmanifest - they all do not know the one whose body they are and who is hidden within them. Even death remains unacquainted with the one whose death happens. This statement is a little strange:

"The death remains a stranger of the one who dies! Nothing dies when one dies."

When death happens, who actually dies? Nobody. Body does not die, because it has always been dead. There is no question of its dying. The one who is hidden within the body is eternally immortal.

There is no question of its dying either. Only the relationship breaks. In death the relationship between the dead and the immortal breaks. But death itself, even after coming so close, remains ignorant of the one that is immortal.

How many times have we died, and yet we have not come to know so far that within us is the one which is immortal. The very situation of this non-acquaintance is that even in coming close we are unable to look inwards; our seeing continues to focus itself outwards. See a man lying on his deathbed: he still goes on looking outwards. Even now he does not feel like looking within. Death is pulling and dragging him from the body, but he still clings to the body - clings more forcefully, more than ever before.

This is why old people become ugly and the young look beautiful. If we look at it deeply, the reason for this is not the body alone. The young person does not cling to the body, he is still confident of it.

The old person begins to cling to the body; and because of that clinging, all sorts of ugliness is born.

The old person begins to be afraid: here comes death... now comes death... death is close by. The more the old person is afraid of death, the more strongly he clings to life. And the more strongly the person clings to life, the more ugly he becomes.

How lovely children look! They simply do not cling at all. They have no idea that death exists. Look at the birds and the animals: however old they become, they look the same. I am talking of those animals and those birds who are not yet spoiled through the company of man. A man just spoils everything.

So, it appears very strange that in the jungle the birds and the animals do not appear to become old.

The kind of old age that catches man does not seem to catch birds and animals. They remain like children. In some deep sense they are not aware at all that death will be coming, therefore there is no clinging to the body.

The freshness that is in children is because life is natural, there is no fear of death. It becomes difficult in old age, death becomes clearer. Life is an effort now, the old man lives by effort. Every inch of the journey he is conscious of death now. That creates an uncertainty; tension grows within him and anxiety and anguish catch hold of him permanently - and that turns the mind ugly.

Even death does not come to know the immortal hiding within the body. The only reason for this is that the phenomenon of looking inwards happens only when the looking outwards becomes futile and meaningless. Let this be understood properly. It seems to become meaningless many times, but it does not really become so. It is not that the meaninglessness does not dawn upon you, it does dawn upon you. You were thinking of buying a car and you have bought it. When you had not bought it, you were dreaming about it in the night. The night before the day of its delivery, you could not even sleep well - the whole night!

Someone has written about his friend who purchased a very beautiful car, a Ferarri. It was a costly car. On the very first day he was driving it, the car was a little scratched.

That friend was not a child, he was a fifty-year-old man; and he was not an illiterate, he was a professor in a university - and a professor of philosophy at that. But he was seen weeping that day, resting his head on his mother's shoulder. Just because the Ferarri got scratched! The car was costly. How much he must have dreamed about it. That scratching of the car must have entered deep into him, to his very soul - that is why he wept.

Weeping you all do. That man must have been more honest. On the open road, resting his head on the shoulder of his mother, he started weeping. But how long will this state last? In a few days the Ferarri will become old. After a month or two this man will be sitting in the same car and he will not even feel in what car he is sitting. He will get bored with this car - but not with cars. Dreams of some other car will catch hold of him. He may think of owning a Rolls Royce now, or some other car. Mind will get bored with one woman or one man - but it will not get bored with woman as such, or man as such.

We all get bored, but our boredom remains tied to particular things. But the very reality of this boredom does not become a part of our experience. When we are tired of one thing, we just select another new one of the same type and this process continues forever.

This is the only difference between you and a buddha - you get bored with one woman but your interest continues in another woman. If you are bored with your wife, your interest continues in someone else's wife. Whatever is near and available becomes useless, but what is at a distance sustains your interest. That thing at a distance will also become useless tomorrow when it comes close to you. But it is not possible that all things can come near one. Some things continue to remain at a distance, thus the interest continues, the desires go on racing.

A buddha, in getting bored with one woman, is bored with all women. A buddha, in living in one palace, has lived in all palaces. For a buddha, just one happening is enough. This is a scientific approach. If one drop of water has been known, then the whole sea has been known. He would be a mad scientist who continues to go on testing all the oceans and saying, "When I complete the tests of all the drops of all the oceans, I will make a statement that water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen." We are a similar kind of mad entity. A scientist tests just one drop, discovers that water

is made up of hydrogen and oxygen atoms and that H2O is the equation for its constituents, and the matter is over for him. All water of all seas is now known. Wherever there is water, even on any other planets - and the scientists say there are at least fifty thousand earths like ours in the whole expanse - or anywhere in the universe, it will be made up of the same arrangement of atoms: H2O.

All water is known by knowing one drop.

Understanding the pattern and the behavior of one desire, he comes to know the whole nature of all desires and becomes a buddha. On knowing one desire, he who sees its futility - the compulsory futility - and its unavoidable failure, his desires simply drop. The desires drop like the crutches of a lame person falling down suddenly. He was walking with the help of the crutches, he had no feet to walk, he had wooden feet. Suddenly the crutches fall down and the lame person collapses: a similar thing happens when the crutches of desires drop down. There are no real feet to walk on in the worldly life; they are artificial, wooden, made of desires. Desires falling down are the crutches falling down, and one suddenly finds oneself there - from where he had never moved, where he has always been, in his basic nature. That is God, that is soul.

The end part of the sutra explains this:

Death is its body, it dwells within death, but death does not know it.

It is the innermost self of all these elements, its sins are all destroyed,

And it is the one divine god narayana - the sustainer of all human beings.

Reality.

The last thing is this sutra.... The race after desires is due to the fact that some dream always appears to be coming to its fulfillment somewhere in the far distance. A person looks in the desert, sees a lake of water near the horizon, runs for the water and on reaching there discovers that there is no water, that there is nothing but sand, and sand. But then the lake of water appears somewhere else. This is called an illusion.

When the sun's rays become hot and are reflected on sand, the vibrating rays create an illusion of ripples and waves. The ripples and waves are so continuous that a sort of vast, reflecting stretch of surface appears. If a tree is nearby, even that tree will be reflected in that surface, which acts like a mirror. When from a distance you see not only water but even the reflections of the fleeting clouds in water, how can you disbelieve? If there are also reflections of the rows of birds flying in the sky in the so-called water, and if the nearby trees are also getting reflected in water, your confidence regarding the existence of water is confirmed. Not only waves are seen, even the reflections in the waves are seen. But as you go nearer the reflections cease to appear, and on reaching the spot you find nothing but sand.

Adhyas, or illusion, means seeing what is not there. Shankara loved this word very much and for the Upanishads it is very fundamental. Adhyas means projection, seeing what is not there: what is seen is not really there, you are projecting it from within. You are the cause of the projection.

A face appears beautiful to you: is that beauty there or are you projecting it?... because tomorrow the same face can appear ugly to you. Maybe it did not appear beautiful to you yesterday. Today suddenly your divine eye has opened up and the face has begun to look beautiful to you. To your friends, it still does not look beautiful.

It is said that Laila was not beautiful, only to Majnu she looked beautiful. The whole village was troubled, and people tried to persuade Majnu: "You are naive; there were many other more beautiful girls in the village, you are unnecessarily obsessed with Laila." Majnu replied, "If you want to see Laila, you have to have the eyes of Majnu." This is adhyas, illusion. The question is not of Laila but of the eyes of Majnu. The question is not of what is being seen but of the one who is seeing her. So Majnu said, "See with my eyes, then you will be able to see Laila." There is no doubt that with the eyes of Majnu she will look beautiful. If it were possible to borrow Majnu's eyes, then Laila would appear to you as beautiful as she appeared to Majnu.

Eyes are also a type of spectacles. The colors of the spectacles get projected onto the objects seen. All your senses are projecting. You are creating a world all around you. Your mind is not only a receiver, it is a creator as well. You are creating a world all around you - of beauty, of fragrance, of this, of that.

This world is not as you see it. It is dependent on you. If you change, the world also changes. A young man sees one world, an old man sees another, and children see yet another. What makes the differences? The world is the same. But the children do not have the same eyes that the young man has. Children are still interested in collecting stones and pebbles. Just the colorfulness of things is enough. The young man says, "Throw them away! What is in them? What value do they have?" For a young man money has become valuable. He has started understanding the value of money. Now collecting stones and pebbles won't do. Now it is no use running after butterflies.

Children are catching butterflies, they look heavenly to them. The young man takes children to be ignorant but when the man becomes old, his senses get tired, his experiences turn pungent and bitter and he feels as if his mouth is full of a kind of tastelessness. Now even young people appear like children to this man. For him, young people are running after different kinds of butterflies.

Only the kind of butterflies has changed, but not the butterflies as such. Old people go on saying, explaining, that these are butterflies, but no young man listens to them. They themselves had not listened to their fathers and grandfathers. There is a reason for not listening, and that is that they have different eyes. If the young man receives the eyes of an old man he will see the same. And remember, the interesting thing is that if the old man can receive the eyes of the young again, he will forget all these experiences; he will forget all this wisdom he is displaying; the world once again will become colorful to him.

I have heard: a chief justice of the Supreme Court of America had come to Paris when he was young and got married. After thirty years, when he became old, and after his children had also become married and had visited Paris, the chief justice came again to Paris with his wife. His name was Peare. He saw Paris, and said to his wife, "It is not the same Paris. Its colorfulness has gone. Beautiful were those days in Paris when we came here for the first time. Everything was incomparable; Paris was different!" His wife replied, "Excuse me, you have forgotten. The first time we came Peare was different, Paris is still the same. If you can see Paris with the eyes of a young man, it is still the same. How can Paris change?" People change and their vision changes.

If the world appears changed with the change in your vision, understand well that what you had seen and thought it to be was only adhyas, an illusion. It was created by your projections, it was not the world as it is. Is there any way that the world can be seen without your projections? If there is, only then one would see the world as it is.

Projections are illusions. Therefore, remember, seeing does not mean just seeing with the eyes.

Seeing means such a state when all your projections cease, when you have no viewpoints. When you do not have your individual eyes to impose conditions, when you have no emotions and desires to project, then seeing happens.

See the desert when you are not thirsty - the desert cannot deceive you then. Deception happens because of the thirst. You want water, and when you do not get it the desire becomes more intense.

And when desire is too intense, your mind goes insane and it wants to believe even in that which actually is not there.

But there is a state where all visions cease and seeing arises. When do the visions cease? Visions cease only when all desires cease, because every vision is a game of your desires, an extension of your desires.

The sutra says, Death is its body, it dwells within death, but death does not know it.

It is the innermost self of all these elements, its sins are all destroyed,

And it is the one divine god narayana - the sustainer of all human beings.

Through allegiance to brahma - allegiance to the self.

Our allegiance is always to the other, to somebody else, not to our own self. We are running after other things, not towards our own center. We are always going somewhere else, avoiding the one place which is within.

Allegiance to Brahma means that the race of desires is gone, the person has arrived at his self. He has come to the place where there is no mind, no senses, no body, but only pure consciousness. In his being rooted there, all illusions are at once shattered; then there is no world but only Brahma, the absolute reality.

When I am speaking in Hindi - many people do not understand Hindi but they can also utilize this occasion. Those who do not understand Hindi should close their eyes and listen just to the sound.

They should sit in silence as if in meditation. And many times the truth that one does not understand through the words one comes to understand merely by listening to the sound.

When I am speaking in English, friends who do not understand English should not think that this is of no use to them. They should close their eyes and meditate on the sound of my words without attempting to understand the language. There is no need to try to understand a language which you do not know. Sit silently, become like an ignorant person, and meditate upon the impact of the sound. Just listen. That listening will become meditation and it will be beneficial.

The real question is not the understanding, but to become silent. Hearing is not the point, becoming silent is the point. So many times what happens is that what you have understood becomes a barrier, and it is good to listen to something that you do not understand at all; then thinking cannot interfere. When something is not understood there is no way for thoughts to move; they simply stop.

Therefore, listening sometimes to the wind passing through the trees, to the birds singing, to the sound of running water is better than listening to the seers and sages. The real Upanishads are flowing there, but you will not understand them. And if you do and you can just listen, your intellect will soon quieten down because it is not needed. And when your intellect quietens, you are transported to the place you are in search of.

Enough for today.

first quote

second quote

Chapter 3. The Witness and The Illusion

John Nguyen 5:05 AM Add Comment

Finger Pointing to the Moon

John Nguyen

Osho - Finger Pointing to the Moon

Chapter 3. The Witness and The Illusion

Knowing oneself as sakshi pratyagatma, the inner witnessing soul, of one's intellect and all its dispositions, and acquiring the disposition that "that am i," giving up the claim of 'mine' over all things.

Giving up following lok, the society, he gives up following the body also.

Giving up following the scriptures, he gives up the illusion of the soul also.

Being rooted in his own soul, and through techniques, through listening and through self-experiencing, the yogin comes to know himself as the soul of all and his mind is annihilated.

Without giving opportunity to sleep, to society's talks, to sound, touch, form, taste, and smell - the objects of the senses - and to forgetfulness of the soul, contemplate the soul within you.

How may one enter into that supreme truth, how may one know that supreme mystery which is so near and yet remains unknown; which is forever with us and yet is lost? How may we reach it, how has anyone ever reached it? In these sutras is the explanation of that science, the process of that path.

Let us first understand a few things about illusion. Illusion means to see as it is not. Truth means to see as it is. Whatsoever we see is illusion, because we involve ourselves in our seeing; our experience does not remain objective, it becomes subjective. Whatsoever is out there, it does not reach us as it is. Our mind distorts it, embellishes it, ornaments it, prunes it - making it bigger or smaller and changing it into many, many forms.

The biggest change and the deepest illusion is that we associate ourselves with everything, which in fact we are not associated with at all. As soon as we are associated the reality is lost and the dream projection starts appearing true. For example, we call a thing 'mine' - 'my house'... the house which was there when we were not and which will still be there when we will be no more.

Something that can be before I am, and will continue after I am not, which does not disappear with my disappearance - how can it be 'mine'? If I die this moment my house does not collapse or disappear, in fact it will not even know that I have died - then what kind of association can there be between myself and that house? What is the relationship? Tomorrow someone else will live in that same house and call it 'mine'. Yesterday somebody else was living in it and he was calling it 'mine'.

Who knows how many people have stuck their 'I' on that house, and have passed away? But that 'I' never sticks onto the house, and that house does not belong to anybody; the house belongs to itself.

In this world everything belongs to its own self. If we can understand this properly, we shall be able to shatter the illusions easily.

There is a piece of land. You call it 'my field', or 'my garden'. If not today, tomorrow there will be claims advanced about the moon - America will say it is 'ours', Russia will say it is 'ours'. Until yesterday the moon did not belong to anybody; it simply was. It simply belonged to itself. But now someone or other will claim the moon and sooner or later there will be struggles and confrontations.

Up to now the sun belonged to itself, but tomorrow the sun may also be claimed.

Wherever man puts his feet he labels it with his 'I'. Nature does not accept his labels, but other human beings have to, otherwise there will be confrontation. Others have to accept the labels because they want to put their own labels on things. So the house becomes somebody's and the piece of land becomes somebody else's. Why are we so impatiently eager to stick this label of 'I' somewhere? The eagerness is because the more places and things on which we stick this label, or make our signatures, the bigger the circle of 'mine' grows and the bigger the 'I' is developed within us.

'I' is as big as the number of things that carry its label. If someone says that he has one acre of land, how can his 'I' be as big as that of another person who says, "I have one thousand acres of land"?

With the expansion of the 'mine', the 'I' feels as if it is growing bigger. If the expanse of 'mine' decreases, the 'I' also shrinks. So every brick of 'I' is made up of 'mine'. Thus the more ways I can say 'mine', the higher rises the palace of 'I'. Hence our whole life we remain in only one race - how many things we can stick our labels on and say, "It is mine." In so doing, while we continue to label things, one day we die and wherever we had put our labels, someone else begins to stick his labels on the things we had called 'mine'.

Things belong to themselves, not to any person. They can be used, but there can be no ownership.

Ownership is an illusion, and while we are using them we should have a sense of gratitude because we are using something that does not belong to us. But when we say 'mine', all sense of gratitude disappears and a new world of 'mine' is created. That includes money, position, prestige, education and everything. For these things it may be okay, but what is more surprising is that things which have nothing to do with 'I' also get included. We say: my religion, my god, my deity, my temple - with whom 'I' can have no relationship whatsoever. And if it can, then there is no possibility of freeing oneself from the world. If religion can also be mine and thine, if God can also be mine and thine, then there is no hope; where shall we then find a way out of 'mine'? If God also falls within its jurisdiction, then there remains no space left anywhere for the 'I' to go away to. But we put the label of 'mine' on temples and mosques and on God as well.

Wherever man goes he reaches there with his 'mine'. Try to understand the implications: 'I' actually becomes bigger through 'mine', but the greater the expanse of 'mine', the greater the unhappiness.

The increase in 'I' is the increase of unhappiness, because 'I' is a wound. And the greater the 'I', the bigger the area vulnerable to hurt, so that more hurt can be inflicted upon it. It is like someone having a large physical wound which tends to get hurt every now and then; any move the person makes and it gets hurt. The wound is big, its area large, and any little touch becomes a hurt. The bigger the 'I', the bigger the hurt and the greater the pain.

With the expansion of 'mine', the 'I' expands. As the 'I' grows, the pain also grows. On one hand one feels that happiness is on the increase, on the other hand the unhappiness also goes on increasing.

The more we increase this happiness, the more unhappiness goes on increasing - and between the two an illusion is carried on. Where there is no possibility of saying 'mine', there too we go on saying 'mine' falsely, unmeaningfully. This hand you call 'mine', this body you call 'mine', are also not yours.

When you were not, even then the bones, the skin, the blood of this hand existed somewhere; and they will exist even after you. The bones in your body, they have been bones in so many other earlier bodies. The blood in your body has flowed in the body of some animal yesterday and in some tree the day before. Who knows how long, how many billions and trillions of years, the journey has been?

Even when you won't be, not a single particle of your body will be annihilated. It will all exist. It will flow in some other bodies.

Understand it this way: the breath you took in just now, a moment ago it was inside the person sitting next to you. A moment ago he was calling it "my breath," and a moment later it does not belong to him any more, it has become somebody else's.

Life does not accept anybody's claim over it and goes on flowing each moment. But we go on claiming. This illusion of claim, this is man's deepest illusion.

So whenever a person says 'mine', he is falling in ignorance. This sutra is to break this very illusion.

Not only the land is not mine, the house is not mine, the money is not mine; even the body is not mine. Your body is made up from the atoms of your parents. Those atoms existed before you were, and they are coming to you after a long journey. Before your parents, they were in the bodies of their parents. These atoms have had a long journey of millions of years; now they constitute your body.

That body too is a field, a land in which you are rooted, but you are not it. You are not the body, you are separate from it.

This sutra says a man is not only not the body, it goes even deeper and says man is not even the mind, because mind is also an accumulation.

Do you have a single thought which may be yours, which you can say is yours? There are none.

Some have come from tradition, some from scriptures, some from hearing someone, some from your reading - they have come from one or the other external sources. If you search for the birth- chart of your every single thought, if you look at the journey of every single thought, you will find you don't have a single thought of your own, they are all borrowed; they have come to you from somewhere.

No thought is ever original, all thoughts are borrowed. But we claim even a thought to be 'mine'.

Remember, even a breath cannot be called 'mine'; thought is a much more subtle matter. Going deeper and deeper into this analysis, where does one come to? Where have the Upanishads come to? Where does Buddha come to? Where does Mahavira come to? Continuing this analysis, using the negation: "I am not this, I am not this"; when in the end nothing remains to be negated, when nothing remains about which I can even think whether it is mine or not, that which remains even then.... When there is nothing left to cut, when all relations are broken and none remains that can still be broken, that which remains even then is what the Upanishads have called sakshi, the witness.

There is a big world around me - it is not mine. Shrinking I come closer - this body is not mine.

Descending deeper into it - the mind is not mine. Then who is there whom I can call 'I'? Or is there nothing in me which I can call 'I'? Am I, or am I not? Cutting away 'mine' in its entirety, what purest thing remains within? Only one thing remains which is not discarded; there is no way it can be discarded.

In the West there was a philosopher named Descartes - a deep thinker. He decided not to accept anything until he found the truth which cannot be doubted, so he began to reflect. He labored hard and he felt everything was doubtful. One may say "God is," but a doubt can be raised about it. God may or may not be, but a doubt can always be created. "There is heaven," "There is liberation" - it can all be doubted. Descartes said, "I will believe only in a thing which cannot be doubted, not something that can be proved, or argued in favor of, no. Something that cannot be doubted, something which is inevitable, indubitable... only then I will accept it."

He searched and searched. However he too stopped at one point. He denied God, heaven, hell, and everything else, but he got stuck at one point - "Am I or not?"

Descartes said, "This cannot be doubted, because even if I say 'I am not,' then too I am needed to be able to say this." It is like a person who is in the house and who answers the caller, "I have gone out," or "Right now I am not in the house. Come back in a little while and then I may meet you because by then I will be back home." His very telling this will be the proof of his being at home. So the fact of my being is indubitable. This much is clear, that I am. Though what I am is not so clear.

Am I a body, or a mind, or what? - this is not so clear.

This is what the Upanishads are in search of. One after another everything is eliminated, just as one would remove layer after layer of an onion. If you go on peeling an onion, finally nothing will be left of it in your hand. An onion is nothing but layers upon layers of skin - clothing over clothing - and there is nothing to be found if you go on undressing it. It is as if someone may have made a cloth-doll and we remove the cloths one by one. The first layer removed, the second layer is revealed; the second layer removed, the third layer is revealed; and so on, until all layers of cloths have finally been removed - and there remains no doll any more, just a nothingness in your hand.

So the biggest search of man is to find out if he too is nothing but an accumulation of many, many layers that we can go on peeling off and in the end there is nothing in our hand. If we go on denying and saying, "I am not the body," "I am not the mind," "I am not this," "I am not that," it may turn out to be the story of the onion and in the end nothing may remain of which one may say that "This is me."

But the Upanishads say that even if it is so, yet it is necessary to know the truth; even if it is true that there is nothing within, yet it is worth knowing it, because the outcome of knowing the truth is very significant. But on searching deeply, however, it is found in the end that no, man is not just an accumulation of clothing, man is not just layers upon layers upon layers, there is something within the layers which is different. But we only come to know of that when by removing all the layers we arrive within ourselves. That element which remains in the end is called by the Upanishads sakshi, the witness.

This word sakshi is very beautiful and very valuable. The whole philosophy, genius and wisdom of the East is implied in this small word. The East has contributed no other more important word than sakshi, the witness, to the world.

What does sakshi mean? Sakshi means the seer, the witness. Who is this who is experiencing that "I am not the body?" Who is this who is experiencing that "I am not the mind?" Who is this who goes on denying that "I am not this, I am not this?" There is an element of seeing, of watching, of the watcher within us which sees, which observes everything.

This seer is the sakshi, the witness. What is seen is the world. The one who is seeing is who I am, and what is being seen is the world. Adhyas, the illusion, means that the one who is seeing misunderstands himself to be all that is seen. This is the illusion.

There is a diamond in my hand: I am seeing it. If I start saying that I am the diamond, that is an illusion. This illusion has to be broken and one has to come, finally, to that pure element which is always the seer and is never the seen. This is a little difficult. The one who is the seer can never be seen, because by whom will it be seen? You can see everything in the world except yourself. How will you see yourself? - because two will be needed for seeing, one who sees and the other who is seen. We can grab everything with a pair of tongs except the tongs themselves. That effort will fail.

We may find it puzzling that when the tongs grab everything, why can they not grab themselves?

We see everything, but we are not able to see ourselves. And we will never be able to. Whatsoever you can see, know well that that is not you. Thus take one thing to be certain, that whatsoever you are able to see is not you. If you are able to see God, then one thing has become certain, that you are not God. If you have seen light within you, one thing is conclusive, that you are not light. If you have an experience of bliss within you, one thing is determined, that you are not bliss. Whatsoever has been experienced, you are not that. You are that which experiences.

So whatsoever becomes your experience, you are beyond it. Therefore it will be useful to understand one difficult point here, that spirituality is not an experience. Everything in the world is an experience, but not spirituality. Spirituality is reaching towards that which experiences all, but which itself never becomes an experience. It always remains the experiencer, the witness, the seer.

I see you: you are on one side, I am on the other side. You are there, the one who is being seen; I am here, the one who is seeing. These are two entities.

There is no way of dividing oneself into two so that one part sees and the other part is seen. Even if it was possible to divide, then the part that would be seeing is myself, the part that would be seen would not be myself. The matter is finished.

This is the whole process or methodology of the Upanishads: neti, neti - neither this nor that.

Whatsoever can be seen, say that you are not that. Whatsoever can be experienced, say that you are not that. You can go on stepping backwards, until nothing remains that can be denied or eliminated. A moment comes when all scenes are lost. A moment comes when all experiences are dropped - all!

Remember, all! The experience of sex is of course dropped, the experiences of meditation are also dropped. The experiences of the world, of love and hate are dropped, the experiences of bliss and enlightenment are also dropped. Only the pure seer remains. Nothing is there to be seen, only emptiness remains all around. Only the watcher remains, and the empty sky all around. In the middle stands the seer, the watcher, who sees nothing because everything has been denied and eliminated that could be seen. Now he experiences nothing. He has removed all experiences from his way. Now he remains alone, the one who was experiencing.

When there is no experience, there is no seeing; there is nothing seen and there is no object to be seen, and the witness alone remains. It becomes very difficult to express in language what really happens because we have no other word except 'experience' in our language, therefore we call it 'self-experience' or 'self-realization'. The word experience is not right. We say "experience of consciousness" or "experience of the Brahma, the absolute," but none of these expressions are right, because the word experience belongs to that same world which we have eliminated. The word experience does have a meaning in the world of duality, where there was 'the other' too. Here it has no meaning at all. Here only the experiencer remains, the witness remains.

The search for this witness is spirituality.

Remember: the search for God is not spirituality. In the ancient yoga sutras God is not discussed, not even mentioned. There was no need. Later, even when the sutras mentioned God, they called God a means in the journey of spirituality and not a goal. It is said God is useful in the spiritual practice, in the spiritual search, hence it is good to accept it, but it is only a means, a device, that's all.

Buddha and Mahavira also denied God. They invented new devices. This device is not needed, they said. If God is nothing but a device, then other devices will serve the purpose as well.

But both Buddha and Mahavira cannot deny sakshi, the witness. They can deny God, they can deny everything else, but when it comes to sakshi, it is religion. If there is no mention of the witness, understand it well that the whole thing has nothing to do with religion. Everything else is secondary. Everything else may be useful, may not be useful, there can be differences of opinion about everything else, but not regarding the witness.

Therefore, if some day in this world a science of religion is created, there will be no mention of God, soul or Brahma. These are all local matters - some religions believe in them, some do not - but the sakshi will certainly be mentioned because it is not a local issue.

There can be no religion without the witness. So the witness alone is the scientific basis for all religious experiences - of all religious search and journeying. And it is on this and around this sakshi that all the Upanishads revolve. All principles and all indicators are for pointing out the witness.

Let us try to understand this a little further. It is not difficult to understand the meaning of the word witness, but it is a complex thing in actual practice.

Our mind is like an arrow, sharpened on one end. You may have seen an arrow: it cannot be shot from both its ends, an arrow will only go in one direction. It can't travel in opposite directions simultaneously, it will go only towards its target in one direction.

So, when the arrow is on the bow and then it is shot, there are two aspects to be considered - when it leaves the bow on which it was set it begins to move away from it; and it begins to come closer towards the target, where it was not earlier. One state was that the arrow was on the bow, and far away on a tree was sitting a bird. The arrow was still on the bow and had not yet pierced the bird.

Then the arrow left the bow, started moving away from it and coming closer to the bird. And then comes the state when the arrow has pierced the bird; the bow remains vacant and the arrow is in the chest of the bird.

This is what we are doing with our awareness the whole time. Whenever the arrow of our awareness leaves us, the bow within becomes vacant and the arrow, on reaching the object, is attached to it. A face looked beautiful to you, the arrow of your awareness is released. Now that arrow is not within you, the awareness is not within you. The awareness raced away and attached itself to the beautiful face.

There is a diamond lying on the road; the arrow is released from the bow. Now the awareness is not within you, now the awareness moves and, reaching the diamond, pierces its heart. Now your awareness is with the diamond and no longer within you. Now the awareness is somewhere else. So all the arrows of your awareness have reached out and pierced somewhere else - and somewhere else, and somewhere else. You have no awareness within you any more, it is always going out. An arrow can only go in one direction but awareness can be bi-directional - and when that happens, the witness is experienced. The arrow of awareness can go in both directions; it can be two-edged.

When your awareness is drawn somewhere, if you can manage only this much, then one day the witness will happen within you. When your attention is drawn outside - say a beautiful young woman passed by or a beautiful young man passed by, your awareness was caught there and now you have completely forgotten yourself, the awareness is no longer within. Now you are not conscious, now you have become unconscious because your consciousness has traveled to someone else, now your consciousness has become the shadow of that person or object - now you are no longer conscious.

Now, if you can do this one thing: you saw someone beautiful, your awareness was drawn there. If in that same moment you can be aware of the bow within from where this arrow has been shot, if you can simultaneously see them both - the source from where the awareness is shooting forth and the object where awareness is going to - if they can both come into your attention simultaneously, then you will experience for the first time what is meant by the witness. From where the awareness is arising, from where the awareness is shooting away - that source has to be found.

We see a tree - we see its branches, its foliage, its leaves and flowers, its fruits, but we are not able to see the roots. The roots are hidden in the darkness underneath. But the tree is taking its nourishment from the roots. Your awareness expands and travels all around, a big tree of the world is created, but the source from where the awareness emanates, that oceanic consciousness remains unnoticed. What is needed is that the roots are also seen at the same time, both the roots and the tree are seen simultaneously.

Understand it this way: when I am speaking, your awareness is on my words. Make this a double- pointed arrow... it can become so right now, this very moment. When I am speaking, do not only listen to what I am saying, also remain aware simultaneously that you are listening. The speaker is someone else, he is speaking; I am the listener, I am listening. If even for a moment, now, here, you can manage both things simultaneously - listening as well as remembering the listener, this remembrance within that, "I am listening" - then there is no need to repeat the words. If you repeat the words, "I am listening," you will not be able to listen at the same time, you will miss what I said.

There is no need to form the words inside, "I am listening, I am listening." If you did that, you would be deaf for that period of time to what I was saying. In that moment when you heard your own voice saying, "I am listening," you wouldn't hear what I was saying.

It is a simultaneous experience of listening to what I am saying and also being aware that you are listening. The feeling, the realization, the experience that you are the listener is the second aspect.

Achieving awareness of the second aspect is difficult. If you can manage it, becoming aware of the third aspect is very easy.

The third aspect is this: if the speaker is A, the listener is B, then who is the one that is experiencing them both, the speaker as well as the listener? That one is the third, and this third point is the witness. You cannot go beyond this third. This third one is the last point. And these are the three points of the triangle of life: the two are the object and the subject, and the third point is the witness of these two, the experiencer of these two, the seer of these two.

Now we may understand the sutra.

The seeker, the explorer of this truth, the aspirant for liberation, having experienced that "I am the witness" and never a doer, that "I am ever a witness" and never the indulger, drops the feeling of 'mineness' and the desire over everything. He goes on receding within to that point beyond which it is not possible to recede any more.

Giving up following lok, the society... Such a man stops following the society. The word lok means the society, the culture, the civilization, the people who are around you, the crowd.

To give up following the society before you have the experience of the witness is dangerous also; because with society are associated its morals, its rules, regulations, limitations, organization and discipline. So society will certainly become the master for one who is not yet his own master.

Somebody has to control one who is not his own master; some discipline is needed, otherwise all systems will go berserk, will become anarchic. But the one who has experienced his own being, the one who has experienced his witnessing, is himself his master in this world.

It is very interesting that one who drops all mastery over everything becomes his own master; and the one who goes on accumulating all kinds of mastery, he only indicates that he has no mastery of his own self yet. This means that one who is busy making efforts to have more houses, more land, a kingdom, this and that - one thing is certain, that he does not yet belong to himself, because to one who acquires his inner kingdom, all other kingdoms become insipid and worthless. The one who acquires his inner kingdom does not have any desire for any other kingdom.

Even if he has an outside kingdom, it becomes worthless. If his desire for the outside kingdom is strong, it only indicates that he has no idea at all of the inner master, the witness; he is trying to substitute for it. There is no master inside, so through gaining mastery over things he is trying to convince himself that he is a master: "Look! I have so much land, so much money, so many possessions!" By so doing, he is trying to create a confidence within himself that, "Who says I am not a master? I am a master of many things!" This mastery is false, because nobody is ever a master of things in this world.

Bhartrihari renounced his kingdom: he left his kingdom, went to a forest and began to meditate deeply. Later, a very interesting event happened. He was sitting near the mouth of his cave; suddenly a horse rider came along the road that ran in front of the cave. Almost simultaneously another horse rider appeared from the other direction and swords were instantly drawn for a deadly battle. Bhartrihari could not understand this sudden happening. As they pointed their swords towards something on the road, Bhartrihari saw that there was a diamond lying there. The first rider claimed that he had seen the diamond first, therefore it was his. The second rider said, "Do you see the sharpness of my sword? Do you see the strength of my arms? How does it matter who saw it first? Whoever is fit to be the owner is the owner. Naturally, I am the owner!"

A deadly battle ensued and within moments both the riders' heads were rolling on the ground; both the blood-soaked bodies were lying on the ground, and the glittering diamond lay where they had seen it.

Bhartrihari thought how strange the incident was! The diamond, for which both riders had claimed ownership and had perished, wouldn't even know what had happened around it, because of it.

And who knows what else might have happened in the past around this same diamond? And the diamond is just lying there. Many more may perish for it in the future, and the diamond will still be lying there, unconcerned.

The efforts for mastery over things is an indication that the person so doing has no mastery over himself. Whenever a person starts experiencing the witness he becomes his own master. His desire for mastery drops. He no longer wants to become the master of anybody or anything else, because now he knows that there is simply no way to become a master of the other. Let me repeat it, "There is no way of becoming a master of the other."

If a husband thinks he is the master of his wife, he is insane. If a wife thinks she is the master of her husband, her mind needs medical treatment. Nobody can be anybody's master, because everybody is born as his own master. In the very nature of things everyone's mastery is hidden within oneself. On no account can it be revoked. And unless it is revoked, how can anybody else become its master?

Therefore, a very interesting thing happens. A husband thinks, "I am the master." The wife laughs inwardly and she knows, "I am the master." That is why there is friction twenty-four hours a day. That friction is for this very reason, that each moment it has to be decided as to whom is the master, who is in power. There is no certainty. There never is certainty. Since there is no certainty even in relation to things, there can be absolutely no certainty in relation to individuals. There can be no mastery even over a diamond, how can there be mastery over a living individual?

One who is the witness drops all kinds of mastery because he has become his own master. The mastery that can be, it becomes his; the mastery that cannot be - he does not bother to fall in that madness. In such a state he drops bothering about society; he drops it because now there is no control over him, he is his own controller. Now he can walk on his own feet, now he can walk in his own light, now he does not need any borrowed light any more.

Giving up following lok, the society, he gives up following the body also.

Not only does he stop following others, as the realization of the witness deepens he drops the slavery of the body too. Then he does not do things because the body is saying so, now he does what he wants to and the body follows him like a shadow.

Right now your body does not follow you like a shadow; on the contrary, you follow the body like its shadow. The body dictates to you to do things or not to do things, and you have to act accordingly.

The body is the master, and it has its own indicators which control you.

It is bound to be so, because whosoever is not his own master, the society will be his master, his biology will be his master. Society is the group of human beings around us, and our body is connected with the earth, with nature. One who becomes his own master becomes free of the systems of the society and also of his biology. Then the body does not tell him, "Do this"; then he moves on his own and the body follows.

The phenomenon of the body following you is very valuable. We cannot even conceive how the body can follow. Only when the body is hungry... even if it is the body of a Mahavira, he too will feel hunger only when the body is hungry first; and it is only when the body indicates its hunger that Mahavira will go out in search of food, begging for food. So how can the body follow one? Does it mean that suddenly Mahavira will say, "I am hungry," and the body will become hungry?

What is the meaning of the body following? It is a deep alchemy. Certainly the body will not be hungry unless Mahavira agrees. Whatever happens to the body, whatever it feels, it will be able to convey it to Mahavira only when he is ready to listen. It is Mahavira who decides that he will fast for a month. If you decide that you will go on a fast for one day, for twenty-four hours you will go on eating food in your mind, because the body will protest, "Who is the master? Without consulting me... fasting? I will see to it!" The body will go on sending the message around the clock: hunger, hunger, hunger; and your whole consciousness will be covered over by hunger. Ordinarily the body will not trouble you very much if you just could not eat, even if it is for a whole day, but you make a decision one morning that you will not eat that day, and...!

A very interesting thing happens which is worth noting. If you take your meals daily at one o'clock in the afternoon, normally your body will not report hunger till about one o'clock. But if early one morning you get up at six o'clock and decide that today you will fast, your mind will start having lunch right from six o'clock that day. The body should have waited at least until one o'clock! But no, the body has received the hint that you are trying to establish your mastery. One o'clock is a far-off matter, your body will begin to agitate right from the morning. It has never before happened like this, you used to feel hunger only around one o'clock, but today it will start happening right from the morning.

The mastery of the body is ancient, thousands upon thousands of lifetimes. And whomsoever is the master, no one ever wants to relinquish the mastery so easily.

If Mahavira says he will fast for a month, the body becomes silent for one month, it does not communicate any message of hunger till then. The body follows, which means that it does not report. It will report only after a month whether it is hungry or not; for the whole month it will remain quiet. But what does this mean? Will it happen through practicing? If you go on practicing every day - just as one takes daily exercise, similarly if you go on practicing fasting every day then slowly will a habit be formed? No, do not fall in this fallacy. It is not a question of practice and habit, it is a matter of the experience of the witness.

If the experience of the witness is there, if a Mahavira decides to fast not only for a month but even for a year.... The body may become just a skeleton of bones, and die, and be finished, but it will not need to send any message to Mahavira. It will not dare to communicate the message to Mahavira that it is hungry. It is none of the body's business to send the message. It is a matter of settling once and for all who is the master. As long as the body knows that it is the master it does the mastery, but once the witness is experienced the mastery of the body is immediately gone. The inner law simply changes. The body starts following you. And then there are unique experiences.

After Mahavira thousands of people have fasted - so many Jaina monks are engaged in fasting - but Mahavira's fasting was unique. Have you looked at Mahavira's body, his statue? If you put the bodies of these Jaina monks in front of Mahavira's you will know what I mean. Where is the difference? Monks' bodies are continuously reporting hunger, not only to them but even to you.

Mahavira's body does not report any hunger - neither to Mahavira nor to you.

It is very difficult to find a body as beautiful as Mahavira's. That handsome body is saying that now someone has become the master inside and the body has no capacity to disturb. Now the body cannot say anything like, "Do this" or, "Do not do that." Now it is of no concern for the body; now everything is in the hands of the knower within. Now whatsoever he decides, howsoever he decides he may do - the decisions are in his hands. He may live if he chooses to live, he may die if he chooses to die, but the body cannot interfere. The body will only follow like a shadow.

Giving up following lok, the society, he gives up following the body also.

Giving up following the scriptures, he gives up the illusion of the soul also.

Thus one goes on giving up: the society, the body, the following of the scriptures. For one who is the witness, all scriptures become meaningless. This is a little complex. We can say this in the opposite way also, that to him who is the witness, the scriptures also become meaningful. And this is the same. The reason it is the same is that as long as you have not become the witness, no scriptures can be meaningful to you. You may learn them by heart, you may have learned all the Vedas by heart, but they are not meaningful because the meaning is not in the words but in the experience.

The experience is not your own. You may go on repeating the word witness like a parrot, but even while you are repeating it there is no witness within who may be listening to it.

Until you are a witness all scriptures are useless. But they will appear to be meaningful until you have your own knowing. The day you have your own knowing, you yourself become the scripture.

When you yourself have become the scripture, what use have you now for scriptures?

Thus the day the scriptures become meaningful they become useless too. You now know that which the scriptures express. Now what value are the scriptures? You have arrived at the destination; the journey is completed, so what is the use of that map that you have been carrying up to now? Now you can throw the map away. What will you do with it now?

Buddha used to say that when someone crosses a river in a boat, the moment he has crossed the river the boat is of no further use. The person leaves the boat there and moves on. But Buddha told the story: It once happened that four idiots crossed a river in a boat. Upon crossing the river they lifted up the boat and started carrying it on their heads. People of the village said to them, "We have seen many people crossing the river, but they all leave the boat there at the river. What are you doing?"

They replied, "How can we leave the boat that has been so helpful? We are not so foolish."

Now they were stuck. The boat had helped them to go beyond the river, but now how to go beyond the boat? So they started carrying the boat wherever they went. Now it was becoming impossible to get rid of the boat.

Do not think that such people existed only in the past. They may have died, but their children are there and they continue to carry the boat. They say, "Our father used to carry this same scripture and we shall also carry it. Our father's father also did the same; so what can we do now, we are helpless. This has always been on the heads of our forefathers, so we too will keep it on our heads.

Moreover, this scripture is a kind of boat, and how many sages have been able to cross over due to these boats."

The day one experiences oneself, nothing remains to be learned from the scriptures - and this is also true, that that day the scriptures also become meaningful. It is then that we come to know that what is written in the scriptures is correct. This will appear to be a paradoxical statement: the day you know firsthand that what the scripture says is right, from that day on the scripture becomes useless, and one drops it. The real spiritual traveler drops all the scriptures.

And the last thing said in the Upanishads is miraculous. Only Buddha gathered that much courage and said, "I am not a soul either." This sutra of the Upanishad is wonderful. It contains the whole essence of what Buddha had said. Finally, Giving up following the scriptures, he gives up the illusion of the soul also.

Then he does not even say, "I am the soul."

"I am not the society," this is where the thing began. It went deeper when it said, "I am not the body, I am not the mind." Now this is the last jump. "I am not even the soul." What would this mean? It means that now it will be foolish on my part to create any boundaries for myself.

When we say, "I am the soul," my soul and your soul become different entities. When I say, "I am the soul," I become an individual, and the whole universe becomes separate from me. This last illusion also disappears, that I am separate, I am an individual. Then all distance and all boundaries between me and the universe disappear. The drop becomes the ocean. How can the drop even say, "I am a drop?" The drop has become the ocean.

In the end, when everything has disappeared, even the idea that "I am a soul" drops - and what does this mean? This does not mean that there is no soul. It means that "I am God." Being a soul is not enough! This is a very difficult declaration. Whenever this declaration is made, trouble arises.

Al-Hilaj Mansoor declared to the Mohammedans, "I am God." They immediately killed him. They said, "What a sinful thing you are saying. What a sin you are committing! You and God! Whatever heights you may attain, however great a siddha, the fulfilled one, you may become, you cannot be God, because being God means the last thing. Man is made of earth... and Mansoor is talking of such lofty flights... no, it is not possible."

So they cut Mansoor to pieces limb by limb. While Mansoor was being butchered he was laughing!

Somebody from the crowd asked him, "Why are you laughing?" Mansoor replied, "I am laughing because I have already said, from the beginning, that I am not that which these people are cutting up. Who do they think they are cutting up? I have already said, 'Oh fools, I am not that which you are cutting up.' Only when I could say that, I came to know that I am God."

Until his last breath, from the mouth of Mansoor the words, "Ana'l haq, ana'l haq," meaning, "I am God, I am the truth," were resounding in the whole atmosphere.

There was a fakir named Sarmad. He is looked on with great respect by Sufis. He is among those chosen few who can be counted on your fingers. Aurangzeb, the Moghul king of India, came to hear some complaints about Sarmad, that he was saying some strange things. There is a mantra of the Mohammedans, "No one is Allah except Allah, there is one Allah only." But Sarmad was only repeating half of the mantra, "No one is Allah, No one is Allah." Now this changed the whole meaning. It meant there is no Allah. It was a very serious matter!

Aurangzeb summoned Sarmad and said, "You call yourself a Sufi fakir, a lover of God! and you go on repeating 'No Allah.' This is too much."

Sarmad replied, "I have attained only this far. I have yet to travel the rest of the territory. You are saying the whole mantra 'No one is Allah except Allah, there is one Allah only.' I have not yet reached the experience of the full mantra. Let me move further, slowly, slowly perhaps I may attain. But so far I can only say that much. And I am not ready to tell a lie. Up until now I have known only this much, 'No one is Allah.' The remaining part '... except Allah, there is one Allah only' I have not yet understood. Wait a little, I am working towards it. If you have understood the mantra fully, say so."

Undoubtedly it was a sin; and this man was an atheist. How many more people are being spoiled by him? Sarmad had a great prestige in Delhi. Millions of people were touching the feet of this man who was saying, "No one is Allah." This is called a miracle - when somebody says, "There is no Allah," and millions of people see Allah in him!

It has happened so. It happened so with Buddha, it happened so with Mahavira, it happened so with Sarmad. Mahavira asserted, "There is no God," and millions of people called him bhagwan, the blessed one. Buddha said, "There is neither any God nor any soul," and millions of people bowed down to his feet and asked him to indicate the way, and how to reach that place where there is no soul and no God.

Sarmad was given three days by Aurangzeb to correct his mistake and start repeating the complete statement of the mantra - otherwise he would be beheaded.

Sarmad said, "What is the guarantee of the three days? I may be alive, I may not be alive, and you may be deprived of the opportunity to behead me. It is also not certain that in three days' time I shall be able to attain to the complete mantra - and as long as I do not attain to the truth of the whole mantra myself, I am not going to repeat it the way you want it. I will say something only if it is my experience. So it is better that you behead me now."

Sarmad is reported to have said further, "It is also possible that on being beheaded my remaining journey may be completed, the last part that I have not been able to know up to now. Perhaps it is my head that is being the hindrance."

It is doubtful that Aurangzeb would have understood. Emperors and intelligence do not have much relationship anyway. Aurangzeb had Sarmad beheaded that very day. In Jama Masjid, in Delhi, Sarmad was beheaded. And when his head fell on the steps of Jama Masjid and started rolling down the steps, it was heard to have spoken, "No one is Allah except Allah, there is only one Allah."

Thousands and thousands of witnesses heard it.

Aurangzeb repented very much, but it was too late. When he asked Sarmad's disciples, they laughed and said, "Sarmad told us, 'As long as I am surviving even in the tiniest way how can there be any talk of the second part of the mantra? Allah will be on the day when I won't be. This head is a small hindrance. It is good if it is cut off. It is very kind of Aurangzeb that he is having it cut off. I would have managed it myself, but that would have taken time. Aurangzeb is getting the job done faster.'"

When a person dissolves himself completely, he does not even say that he has a soul. Then even the last illusion drops. As long as you do not know that you are God, know well that the illusion is still surviving. As long as you do not have the very experience, "I am Brahma, the ultimate," understand well that ignorance still prevails - and go on discarding it. Become free of the society, become free of the body, become free of the scriptures, and finally become free of your own self too.

Being rooted in his own soul, and through techniques, through listening and through self-experiencing, the yogin comes to know himself as the soul of all and his mind is annihilated.

The mind can be suppressed - though even that is difficult. The mind can be hidden - though even that is difficult. But the annihilation of mind - that is the last thing that can be managed.

Even if your mind becomes quiet, it becomes unquiet again the next day. It arises again and again; it revives again and again. It sprouts again and again - somehow its seed remains. However much we may meditate, pray and remember God's name, one moment it feels that everything is alright and the next moment it feels that everything has gone topsy-turvy; sometimes it feels that the destination has come, this is the place, and then again everything gets lost.

This whole game appears like the one of snakes and ladders which children play. There are both ladders and snakes in it. Up the ladders you climb and then suddenly you come to the mouth of some snake and immediately you have dropped down to a lower level. This goes on happening - climbing up, falling down. A similar thing goes on with the mind. Sometimes it feels one has climbed, everything is fine, perfectly okay; one feels one has arrived. "So this is what the saints have been talking about - this is the very place, this is the very state - and I didn't get it until now!" But just as you remember the saints, you fall in the mouth of the snake and drop down headlong to discover that you are where you have started from. You feel those saints must have been telling lies or, "Probably I hallucinated; I just imagined everything was alright, but in fact everything is wrong."

Around me I constantly have a crowd of people who have been climbing ladders and coming down through the snake's mouth. One day they come and report to me, "How wonderful, fantastic! Now there really remains nothing to be done." And the next morning they are coming back, beaten down.

Against every ladder a snake is awaiting you.

Many times you will feel the mind is gone for good, and it will be back again. You will get glimpses.

Even if it disappears for only a little time, you will have a small glimpse of beyond the mind. Even if it moves out of your way for a while, a space is created; the sky is cleared, a window has opened up and you see the stars in the sky. But this does not last long. A yogi becomes a siddha, the enlightened one, when the mind is annihilated. The mind is annihilated when one experiences that, "I am not even a soul." ?? As long as I feel that, "True, I am not the body, I am not the mind, but I am the soul,"Eas long as there is any support left for my 'I', my mind will survive in its seed form. As long as there is any support whatsoever left, even that of the soul, my mind will remain in its seed form. Whenever a drop of rain will come the seed will break open, sprout and start growing into a tree.

Only when I no longer remain does the mind cease. It is easy to give up money, it is easy to give up position, it is easy to give up attachment to the body, it is easy to give up attachment to the mind, but it is the most difficult task to break the attachment with my very self, with my very individuality, with my very existence. But as soon as this is broken, the mind is annihilated.

Sariputta came to Buddha. He asked Buddha, "How can I be liberated?" Buddha said, "Do not come to me, go elsewhere - because I cannot liberate you, I can only liberate you from this 'you'."

Buddha said further, "'I' is never liberated. One is liberated from the 'I'. So if you are looking for your liberation, go somewhere else. But yes, if you want liberation from yourself, you have come to the right place. I will make you free from yourself. So do not ask how you will be liberated. You will not survive in your liberation. You should ask how to be free from this 'I' - how to be liberated from this 'I'."

Therefore Buddha did not select the word moksha, liberation. He selected the word nirvana. With the word moksha, there is a feeling of 'my'. At least this much will remain, the soul will remain - and sitting on siddhashila, the seat of the liberated one, one will enjoy liberation. The same person, the same man who was running a shop here, now sitting on a seat of the liberated one in the world of liberation is enjoying there!

This interest remains lurking in your mind, that you will remain. But what is there in you that is worth keeping? And what is there in you worth saving? Have you ever thought about it? Have you ever considered what you have that would be worth saving for eternity? What kind of fragrance have you that you could say that it should remain forever? What kind of melody have you that you would want to make it immortal? What is there in your personality which you would want to remain forever?

There seems to be nothing of the sort within you.

Buddha says, "This too is a sort of desire, a lust for life - that one should survive, for no reason at all. There seems to be no reason why you should survive. What is in you which, if saved, may be beneficial to the world? There is nothing."

So, Buddha says, "No, this word liberation is not right"; and he chose the word nirvana.

This sutra is a sutra for nirvana. Nirvana means the extinguishing of the lamp. When a lamp is extinguished can you tell where the flame has gone? The flame does not go anywhere, it simply ceases to be, it disappears, it simply merges. Now you will not be able to find that extinguished flame anywhere. Nowhere in all the worlds, nowhere in the vast infinity will you be able to locate that extinguished flame. It has merged, it has merged so utterly that it cannot be called back from the infinity. It has moved so deeply into the formless that it cannot take any form any more. It is annihilated.

So Buddha says that you will also get annihilated, just as a lamp is extinguished. Hence he chose the word nirvana. He says, "You will attain to nirvana, not moksha but nirvana. The flame that is faintly flickering in you will be extinguished."

This seems to be a very frightening thing. What, then, is the purpose of all this? To put more oil in your lamp and keep the flame burning? What really is the essence? But Buddha says that when you are annihilated, only then will you know what you are. And when you have disappeared only then will you know that you are not lost - you have gained all, you have become all.

So the soul is also dropped.

Without giving opportunity to sleep, to society's talks, to sound, touch, form, taste, and smell - the objects of the senses - and to forgetfulness of the soul, contemplate the soul within you.

Everything goes on dropping. Sleep is dropped, unconsciousness is dropped. We have forgotten our selves - this the Upanishads call sleep. This forgetting of our own selves, who we are, this not knowing of the truth that "I am God" - this the Upanishads call sleep. The day this sleep does not possess us even for a moment, that day there remains no way for the unconsciousness to take over. When this smoke no longer surrounds us, these clouds no longer hang around and the sky becomes spotless and clear and a darkness due to the clouds never descends, then there is a constant remembrance.

Remembrance is not the right word. All words are wrong for expressing what the Upanishads want to say. But one is helpless. There is no other way but to use words.

It is not right to say 'remembrance', because the word remembrance implies something which is past and forgotten also. Constant remembrance implies something that is never forgotten.

It happened once: There was a mystic in Tibet called Naropa. Many people used to come to him and they were puzzled, because it was well known that he was totally merged in the divine and they never heard Naropa ever remembering God's name. His disciples often asked Naropa, "People say that you are merged in the divine, but how come you never remember God?" Naropa is said to have replied, "How am I to remember when I never forget? And the day I start remembering God, know that Naropa has fallen. The day I remember, the day I call God's name, you may understand that Naropa has fallen, that he has forgotten and has fallen asleep. When I do not fall asleep, when I never forget God, how am I to remember then?"

In such a state is entry into that absolutely secret cave which is within us all.

Enough for today.