Ocean

 

 

Life is not just a madman's thought. It is very systematic. It is not chaos, it is a cosmos. There is order. Even behind disorder there is order; only eyes are needed to penetrate to that depth. On the surface maybe you can see only a sequence of moments and you cannot see eternity. On the surface maybe you can see only the body and nothing more. Just as when you go to the ocean, standing on the beach you cannot see the depth of the ocean, only the waves. But the ocean is not just waves. In fact, waves cannot exist without the ocean; the ocean can exist without the waves. Waves are not separate from the ocean. Waves are nothing but ocean waving, and ocean has tremendous depth. But to know that depth one has to go into that depth, one has to dive deep.

 

-Osho, "The Beloved, Vol 2, #1"

 

 

⯎

 

 

First try to understand what a wave is, and then you can feel how this consciousness of waves can help you to enter into meditation. You see waves in the ocean. They appear; they are in a sense, and still in a deeper sense they are not. This is the first thing to be understood about a wave. The wave appears; it is there in a sense, but still it is not there in a deeper sense. In a deeper sense only the ocean is. You cannot have a wave without the ocean, and even while the wave is there, only the ocean is. The wave is just a form, not a substance. The ocean is substantial; the wave is just a form.

 

Because of language many problems are created. Because we say "wave," it looks as if a wave is some thing. It would be better if we use not wave, but "waving." There is no wave, just waving -- just an activity, not a thing; just a movement, not a substance; just a process, not matter. The matter is the ocean; the wave is just a form. The ocean can be silent. The waves will disappear, but the ocean will be there.

 

The ocean can be silent or in movement or in much activity or in no activity, but you cannot find a silent wave. A wave is activity, not a substance. When the activity is there, the wave is there: it is a waving, a movement -- a simple form of movement. But when the silence comes, when inactivity comes, the wave is no more and the ocean is there. In both the cases the ocean is the reality. The wave is just a play-form. The wave happens and disappears, the ocean remains.

 

Secondly, waves appear as individuals. Each wave has its own personality -- unique, different from any other. No two waves are similar. Some waves are big, some waves are small. They have their own peculiar characteristics. Each wave has its own character, and, of course, each wave is different from the other. One wave may rise, another may die. While one is rising, another is dying. Both cannot be the same because one is rising, another is dying. Still, the reality behind both is the same. They look different, they look separate, they look individual, but the look is fallacious. Deep down only one ocean is, and no matter how they look unrelated they are related. And while one wave is rising and another is dying, you may not see any relationship; the relationship may not appear, because how can a rising wave be related to a dying wave?

 

An old man is dying and a child is born: how are they related? If they are related, they will die both together or they will be born together. The child is born and the old man has died; one wave is dying, another is arising. But the rising wave may be gathering energy from the dying wave. The dying wave may be helping it, by its death, to rise. The dispersing wave may be the cause of the wave that is rising.

 

Deep down they are related to one ocean. They are not different; they are not unrelated, they are not separate. Their individuality is false and illusory. They are non-individual. Their duality appears to be, but it is not so: their non-duality is the truth. [....]

 

What is our problem? The problem is that the wave thinks itself separate from the ocean; then there are problems. If a wave thinks itself separate from the ocean, the fear of death will immediately come. The wave has to die and the wave can see all around dying waves. And you cannot deceive yourself for long. The wave is seeing that other waves are dying, and the wave knows that even in its rising, death is hidden somewhere, because those other waves a moment before were rising and now they are falling down, dispersing. So you are to die. If the wave thinks itself separate from the ocean the fear of death is bound to appear sooner or later. But if the wave knows that it is not and only the ocean is, there is no fear of death. Only a wave can die, not the ocean. I can die, but not life. You can die, you will die -- but not the cosmos, not the existence. The existence goes on waving. It has waved in you, it will wave in others. And while your wave may be disappearing, just by your dispersal other waves will arise and the ocean continues.

 

Once you detach yourself from the wave form, and you become one and feel one and realize oneness with the ocean, the formless, there is no death for you. Otherwise the fear of death will create misery. In every pain, in every anguish, in every anxiety, the basic fear is of death. You are afraid, trembling. You may not be conscious of it, but if you penetrate within you will find that every moment there is a trembling because you are going to die. [....]

 

You are a wave, and that too not substantial; every moment you are changing. And a wave cannot be static, a wave has to be changing; a wave has to be constantly in movement. There can be no phenomenon like a non-moving wave. How can there be? A non-moving wave makes no sense. There is movement, process; you are a process, a movement. If you become identified with this movement and process and think yourself confined between birth and death, you will be in misery. Then you are taking appearance as reality. This is what Shankara calls MAYA -- illusion. The ocean is the BRAHMAN, the ocean is the truth.

 

So think yourself as a wave, or as a continuum of waves rising and falling, and just be a witness to this. You cannot do anything. These waves will disappear. That which has appeared will have to disappear; nothing can be done about it. Every effort is absolutely useless. Only one thing can be done, and that is to be a witness of this wave form. Once you become a witness, suddenly you will become aware of something which is beyond the wave, which transcends the wave, which is in the wave also and out of the wave also, which forms the wave and still goes beyond, which is the ocean.

 

 -Osho, "Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, #39"