This is the meaning when we have said in the East that God is emptiness. Only nothingness can be infinite; somethingness is bound to be finite. Only out of nothingness is an infinite expanse of life, existence, possible -- not out of somethingness. God is not somebody: He is nobody or, more correctly, nobodiness. God is not something: He is nothing or, even more correctly, no-thingness. He is a creative void -- what Buddha has called SUNYA. He is a creative void.

 

What am I teaching to you? I am teaching you the same: to become creative voids, non-doers, delighters in just being. That is why the question is bound to come to everybody's mind sometime or other. You ask: "Sometimes I wonder what I am doing here." You wonder rightly -- you are doing nothing here. Your mind may supply answers, but don't listen to them. Listen to my answer. You are not doing anything here; I am not teaching you to do something. Your mind may say that you are learning meditation: you are doing meditation, yoga, this, that or you are trying to achieve enlightenment, satori, SAMADHI -- all nonsense.

 

This is your mind supplying because the mind is an achiever, the mind cannot remain without activity. The mind goes on creating some activity or other. Earn money; if you are finished with that, then earn meditation -- but earn. Achieve something, do something.

 

You become afraid when you are not doing anything, because then suddenly you are face to face with the creative void. That is the face of God. You are in a chaos, you are falling in an infinite abyss and you cannot see the bottom. There is none.

 

Sitting before me, what are you doing? Just sitting. That is the meaning of ZAZEN. In Zen they call meditation 'zazen'. Zazen means just sitting, doing nothing. If you can just sit near me that is enough, more than enough; nothing else is needed. If you can just sit without doing anything -- not even doing thinking or dreaming -- if you can just sit near me, that will do everything.

 

"Suddenly you are too.much for me," you say. Yes, if you just sit I will be too much -- because if you just sit, suddenly I will be flowing within you. If you just sit, you will immediately become aware of light and love, and then you will say, "I want to leave you," because you are afraid of love and light.

 

You have become a denizen of darkness. You have lived in darkness so long that your eyes are afraid. No matter what you say -- that you would like to live in the light -- your deep-rooted habits shrink and say, "Where are you going? " You have a great investment in darkness.

 

All your knowledge is related to darkness. In light you will be absolutely ignorant. All your wisdom and experience is out of darkness; in light you will be naked, nude. All that you know belongs to darkness; in the light you will find yourself just like an innocent babe, a small child, not knowing anything.

 

You have lived in bondage and now you are afraid to be free. You go on talking about freedom and MOKSHA -- absolute freedom -- but if you watch yourself you will know that whenever freedom comes your way, you escape. You become afraid. Maybe you talk about freedom just to deceive yourself; maybe it is a substitute, the substitute Wagner is talking about.

 

You are in bondage; you have never known freedom. You talk about freedom, you sing songs of freedom and through those songs you have a vicarious satisfaction -- as if you have become free. It is an as-if freedom. But with me it is not going to be as-if, it is going to be a reality. You become afraid of the reality.

 

-Osho, “Come Follow To You, Vol 1, #6, Q2”

 

 

 

 

Nothingness is the fragrance of the beyond. It is the opening of the heart to the transcendental. It is the unfoldment of the one-thousand-petaled lotus. It is man's destiny. Man is complete only when he has come to this fragrance, when he has come to this absolute nothingness inside his being, when this nothingness has spread all over him, when he is just a pure sky, unclouded.

 

This nothingness is what Buddha calls nirvana. First we have to understand what this nothingness actually is, because it is not just empty -- it is full, it is overflowing. Never for a single moment think that nothingness is a negative state, an absence, no. Nothingness is simply nothingness. Things disappear, only the ultimate substance remains. Forms disappear, only the formless remains. Definitions disappear, the undefined remains.

 

So nothingness is not as if there is nothing. It simply means there is no possibility of defining what is there. It is as if you remove all the furniture from your house and put it outside. Somebody comes in and he says, "Now, here is nothing." He has seen the furniture before; now the furniture is missing and he says, "Here there is no longer anything. Nothing is." His statement is valid only to a certain extent. In fact, when you remove the furniture, you simply remove obstructions in the space of the house. Now pure space exists, now nothing obstructs. Now there is no cloud roaming in the sky; it is just a sky. It is not just nothing, it is purity. It is not only absence, it is a presence. [....]

 

Nothingness means a state of not-knowing, a state where no cloud floats into your consciousness. When your consciousness is unclouded, then you are nothing. Nothing goes perfectly well with truth -- only nothing goes perfectly well with truth. Knowledge cannot contain the mystery of being; knowledge is against the mysterious. 'The mysterious' means that which is not known, that which cannot be known, that which is basically, intrinsically, essentially unknowable -- not only unknown, but unknowable. How can the unknowable be reduced to knowledge? Knowledge goes on collecting pebbles on the shore and goes on missing the diamonds. Knowledge is mediocre, borrowed, never authentic, never original. To know truth you need an insight, original insight. You need eyes which can see through and through; you need transparent vision. [....]

 

Nothingness can know truth because in nothingness intelligence functions totally. Only in nothingness does intelligence function totally. That's why -- you see the miracle! -- children are so intelligent and old people, by and by, become so dull. Children learn things so fast! The older you become the more difficult it becomes to learn. If you are old and you want to learn Chinese, you will take thirty years; and a child learns within two or three years. [....]

 

Nothingness knows no fear, no greed, no ambition, no violence. Nothingness knows no mediocrity, no stupidity, no idiocy. Nothingness knows no hell, no heaven. And because there is no fear, there is intelligence.

 

-Osho, “The Heart Sutra, #5“

 

 

 

 

Nothingness can either be just emptiness or it can be a tremendous fullness. It can be negative, it can be positive. If it is negative it is like death, darkness. Religions have called it hell. It is hell because there is no joy in it; no song in it, there is no heartbeat, no dance. Nothing flowers, nothing opens. One is simply empty.

 

This empty nothingness has created great fear in people. That's why in the West particularly, God has never been called nothingness except by a few mystics like Dionysius, Eckhart, Boehme; but they are not the main current of Western thinking. The West has always conceived nothingness in negative terms; hence it has created a tremendous fear about it. And they go on saying to people that the empty mind is the Devil's workshop.

 

The East has known its positive aspect too; it is one of the greatest contributions to human consciousness. Buddha will laugh at this statement that emptiness is the Devil's workshop. He will say: Only in emptiness, only in nothingness, does godliness happen. But he is talking about the positive phenomenon.

For Gautam Buddha, for Mahavira, for the long tradition of Zen Masters and the Taoists, nothingness simply means no-thingness. All things have disappeared, and because things have disappeared there is pure consciousness left behind. The mirror is empty of any reflection, but the MIRROR IS there. Consciousness is empty of content, but CONSCIOUSNESS IS there. And when it was full of content, so many things were inside you could not have known what it is. When the consciousness is full of contents, that's what we call mind. When consciousness is empty of all contents, that's what we call no-mind or meditation.

To create nothingness in you is the goal of meditation, but this nothingness has nothing to do with the negative idea. It is full, abundantly full. It is so full that it starts overflowing. Buddha has defined this nothingness as overflowing compassion.

 

-Osho, "Guida Spirituale, #11, Q1"

 

 

 

 

The first thing to remember is that when I say witness, in the beginning you witness things of the body, of the mind, of the heart, emotions, thoughts... layer upon layer you go on witnessing. And finally, you find just a pure mirror, the witness itself. I call it a pure mirror because it is witnessing nothing. This nothingness is your very nature.

 

Out of this nothingness arises everything, and into this nothingness dissolves everything. And if you are ready to be nothing -- even while you are alive -- your life will have a flavor of peace, silence, and grace.

 

All your educational systems and all your cultural beliefs, force you to be ambitious, to be somebody. But to be somebody means creating anxieties in a silent pool, ripples and waves. The greater the ambition, the more tidal is the wave of anxiety. You can become almost insane desiring. Trying to be somebody, you are trying the impossible, because basically you are nobody.

 

Zen has an absolutely unique perception into the nothingness of everyone. It does not teach you any ambition, it does not teach you to be someone else. It simply wants you to know that in the deepest part of your being you are still nothing, you are still carrying the original purity which is not even contaminated by an idea of "I."

 

So while you are witnessing, you say, "I have experienced nothing." If you have experienced nothing, you should not be there. Experiencing nothing means you are not, nothing is -- simply waves in the water, coming and going.

 

It is not that you witness nothing. You are creating another small "I," but it contains the whole world of ambitions. Experiencing nothing simply means you are not. And there comes a tremendous joy, because the whole energy that was involved in anxieties and desires and tensions, is released in a dance, in a blissfulness, in a silence, in a tremendous insight, but it does not belong to any "I" -- a pure white cloud without any roots, floating in freedom, without any reason and without any direction. The whole existence has become its home. It no longer separates itself. This inseparation is the ultimate blossoming of buddhahood. To know that you are not is the greatest knowing.

 

You ask in your question if there is no one who perceives all this. That no one is not yet no one if it perceives anything. When there is nothing left, there is no perceiver, everything is dissolved into existence.

 

-Osho, “The Zen Manifesto: Freedom From Oneself, #6, Q2”

 

 

 

 

Remember: this is what meditation is all about, to destroy you so utterly that even if the gods come they cannot seek you, they cannot find you. You yourself have found that when such a situation arises, not even the gods can find you. There is nobody inside to be found. That “somebodiness” is a sort of tension. That’s why people who think they are somebodies are more tense. People who think that they are nobodies are less tense. People who have completely forgotten that they are, are tensionless. So remember: when the ego is lost, the “I” is not found. When the ego is lost, nothing is found. That nothingness, that purity of nothingness is your being, your innermost core, your very nature, your buddha nature, your awareness – like a vast sky with no clouds gathered in it.

 

-Osho, “Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 10, #6, Q1”

 

 

 

 

The awakening of a Gautam Buddha is total. In that total awakening there is a luminous awareness surrounded by a positive nothingness. It is not empty, it is overfull. Rather than say nothingness, Gautam Buddha used to say "no-thingness." Things have disappeared... and what has remained is inexpressible. We try to express it as blissfulness, as ecstasy, as eternal joy, but these are faraway echoes of the real thing. They don't represent it exactly -- there is no way.

 

-Osho, “The Great Zen Master Ta Hui, #16“

 

 

 

 

All distinctions are arbitrary -- like rain, snow, ice. All distinctions are arbitrary. The same river can become frozen, the same river can flow and become water, and the same river can evaporate, can become vapour and clouds -- but it is the same river.

 

Out of the same nothingness, the trees arise and the animals and man and woman. And these are all distinctions, utilitarian, but not true; necessary, but not absolute. When we disappear, we disappear again into that cosmicness, into that oneness, into that simultaneity.

 

Buddha never uses the word 'God', because God has become so much associated with wrong things -- with the priest, with the temple, with the scripture, with the ritual. So Buddha avoids that word. His word for God is 'nothingness'. And why does he insist on 'nothingness'? Because you cannot pray to nothingness. And when there is no possibility of prayer, the priest will disappear.

 

You cannot tall; to nothingness. It will look so foolish. You can talk to God. You can say, "Father, who art in heaven..." but you cannot say to nothingness, "Nothingness, who art in heaven..." It will look so foolish. You cannot say to nothingness, "Save me!" It will be ridiculous.

 

You cannot pray to nothingness! You cannot create a ritual. You need not have a priest. You need not go into the scriptures. That's the beauty of the word 'nothingness'. t simply cuts the very root of the so-called religion. It creates a different kind of religiousness -- a religiousness which understands but does not pray, a religiousness which falls in silence but does not start talking with existence, a religiousness which knows no dialogue except silence, utter silence.

 

See the beauty of it! Buddha has chosen one of the really very potential words -- SHUNYATA. The English word, the English equivalent, 'nothingness', is not such a beautiful word. That's why I would like to make it 'no-thingness' -- because the nothing is not just nothing, it is all. It is vibrant with all possibilities. It is potential, absolute potential. It is unmanifest yet, but it contains all. [....]

 

And so we all disappear into nature when we fall back. In the beginning is nature, in the end is nature, so why in the middle do you make so much fuss? WHY in the middle? Becoming so much worried, so much anxious, so much ambitious -- why create such despair?

 

Nothingness to nothingness is the whole journey.

 

There is a Buddhist expression for it. Buddha used to say: in a cold night, in a cold winter night, dark night, a bird enters into a palace by one window, flutters in the room for a while -- the coziness of the room, the king's palace, the light, the warmth -- and then is again out of the room by another window. Buddha says so is the life's dream -- just a moment's warmth, a moment's coziness, a moment's palace and the pleasures of it, and again we plunge into nothingness.

 

From nothingness we come and to nothingness we move... and just in the middle a momentary dream. Why be so much attached to it? Why be so obsessed with it? Seeing it, that we come from nothing and we move to nothing, in the middle also we can be nothing. That is Buddhahood. Just being nothing... nothing special, nothing extraordinary.

 

-Osho, “Take It Easy, Vol 1, #5”