Seeking

 

 

I do not believe in fixed methods. I use methods just to push you into a very chaotic consciousness, because the first thing to be done with you, as you are, is to disturb your whole pattern. You have become solid, rigid; you must become more and more liquid and flowing. And unless you become flowing, riverlike, you can never know the divine, because it is not a thing, it is an event.

 

You cannot seek the divine, it cannot be sought after, because you can seek only that which you know already. Seeking means desiring and you cannot seek something that is unknown. How can you seek something that you have not known at all? The very urge to seek comes only after you have tasted something, known something -- even a glimpse. So the divine cannot be sought. But when I say the divine cannot be sought, I do not mean that it cannot be found. It cannot be sought, but it can be found.

 

The more you seek it, the less will be the possibility to find it. Seek, and you will not find at all, because the very seeking, the very seeking, becomes the barrier. So do not seek something that is not known to you; rather, go deep into that which is known to you. Do not long for the unknown; go deep into the known. And if you go deep into the known, you will stumble upon the doors to the unknown, because the known is really the door to the unknown. So go deep.

 

For example, you cannot seek the divine, but if you have loved, then you have known love; so go deep into love. And as you go deep into love, somewhere, the lover and the beloved are not there and the divine appears. So rather than seek the divine, it is better to go into that which is actual to you, that which is known to you, near to you. Do not go far; begin from the near. We are so anxious to go far that we never take the first step, which can be taken from the near. We ask for the last step first, but you cannot take the last step in the beginning. The first must be taken first; the first is here and now, but we are concerned with there and then.

 

Seeking means seeking in time. Seeking is a postponement, a deep postponement, because seeking is always in the future; it can never be in the present. How can you seek here and now? There is no space. You can be here and now, but you cannot seek. So the very mind that seeks creates time, because time is needed; only then can you seek.

 

That is why those who are seeking moksha, liberation, absolute liberation, have had to create the concept of transmigration. More time is needed. One life is not enough, many lives are needed. Only then, within this expanse of time, this space that time creates, can you move. If you have to find the absolute, one moment is not enough; and of course, one life is also not enough.

 

Time is really a byproduct of desiring. The more you desire, the more time you need. You can deal with this in two ways: one is to conceive of life after life, time not ending at all. This is one way, the Eastern way, to create more space for the desire. Another is the Western way: to be more conscious of time and to do many things in the allotted time period. There is one life: there is no possibility of further lives, this life is all, so you have to do many things – many, many things. You have to accommodate so many desires in the allotted period. And this is why the West has become so conscious of time; in fact, time consciousness is one of the most common aspects of the Western mind.

 

But either way, whenever you desire, you create time. Time is a fourth dimension of space, it is a sort of space. Without time your desires cannot move, so any desire creates time and future; and then you can postpone the present moment, which is not really time but existence. So it is better to go deep into what is known to you, what is life to you. Go deep in it; whatever it may be, go deep in it. Do not be on the surface, go into it to its ultimate depth. And the moment you begin to go deep, fall deep, you come to a different dimension. It is not a going into the future, it is going deep into the present, into this very moment.

 

For example, you are hearing me. You can hear very superficially, then only your ears are involved; that is the first layer of hearing. You can say, ”Of course I am listening,” but only the ears are hearing, only the body mechanism; your mind may be somewhere else. But if you can go deep, you can listen very intently and the mind is also involved; then you are going deeper into this very moment. But even if your mind is involved, your being may not be involved. If you are thinking about what I am saying, the mind is involved, but there are still deeper depths. Your being may not be here at all; there may be unconscious currents because of which you are not here. You can go even deeper; that means that the being is involved. Then you are just vacant, not even thinking about it. Your mechanism is here, your mind is here, your being is here – all focused. Then you go deep.

 

So whatever you are doing at the moment, go deep in it. The more deep you are in it, the nearer you will be to the unknown. And the unknown is not something opposite to the known; it is something hidden in the known. The known is just a screen.

 

So do not go into the future; do not seek. Just be here – and be. In seeking you spread yourself out, but in being you are intense, and that intensity, that total intensity in the moment, brings you to a certain crystallization. In that total, intense moment, you are. That being, that happening of being, becomes the door; and you have found it without seeking; you can get it without even seeking. So I say: Do not seek it, and find! All the devices and all the methods I use are just to make you more and more intense here and now, to help you to forget the past and the future. Any movement of your body or mind can be used as a jumping board: the emphasis is that you jump in the here and now.

 

Even dancing can be used, but then be just the dancing, not the dancer. The moment the dancer comes in, dancing is destroyed. The seeker has come in, the time-oriented has come in; now the movement is divided, dancing has become superficial, and you have gone far away.

 

When you are dancing, then be dancing, do not be the dancer, and the moment comes when you are just the movement, when there is no division. This nondivided consciousness is meditation. And you can use anything. If you are eating then eating can become a meditation – if there is no eater. If you are walking then walking can become a meditation – if there is no walker. If you are loving then love can become a deep meditation – if there is no lover, the lover disappears. Love with a lover becomes poisonous, but love without the lover becomes divine and something of the unknown suddenly opens.

 

-Osho, “Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy, #5”