Osho on Grace

 

Question 1:

Beloved Osho,

Contemplating you floods me with a deep ecstasy, and I feel the Grace. You Say you are not doing anything to create this ecstasy in us, but it is for sure That I also am not doing anything. Then from where is this bliss coming and How is it happening if neither you nor i are doing anything? Is it possible for You to explain more about the mystery of it? What is this phenomenon which We call grace?

 

 

It can happen only when neither the disciple nor the master is doing anything; it can happen only in a nondoing, absolute nondoing, because grace is not something you can do anything about. You can simply be receptive, open, that’s all. Nothing positively can be done about it. It is already flowing – the whole existence is filled with grace. You are closed, and the more you do something, the more you will become closed – because every effort gives you a more egocentric feeling; whatsoever you do creates your ego.

 

You feel I am doing something – and whenever you do something you start thinking of the future, of the result. You start expecting. So two things happen: firstly, whatsoever you do becomes a food for the ego; secondly, whatsoever you do leads you into the future, then you are not here and now. And these both are the barriers. One thing: you must be here and now, and you must not be – you must not be – an ego. Then you are open, and whenever you are open the grace is already flowing; it has been flowing forever. If you are not getting it, it is not something that you can get by doing.

 

The more you do, the more it will be impossible for you to get it. The whole effort of the master is to teach you nondoing, nonaction. Or in other words, the whole effort of the master is to take you back – to teach you how to die, how to throw the ego completely, and how to be in a state of nothingness, a state of nonbeing. Buddha called that state anatta, the state of no-self: you are but you are not a self. Then there is no boundary to it, then there is no barrier around you, then all the doors are open – then life can flow, come and go, through you.

 

Grace is not something special that is going to happen to you: grace is the very existence itself, it is grace-filled. The blessing is showering on you. I will tell you one Buddhist anecdote – it happened in Buddha’s time. One of Buddha’s great disciples, Manjushree, was sitting under a tree meditating. Then suddenly he became aware that flowers were dropping from the tree, many flowers showering. But he was surprised because it was not the season for the flowers, and just in the morning when he had come there was not a single flower on the tree – so where were these millions of flowers showering all around coming from?

 

So he looked at the tree. Then he was even more mystified, because they were not coming from the tree, they were showering from the sky. So he asked, ”Who is doing this? What is happening?” A voice was heard, ”We are the deities, and we are happy that you have attained, and just to express our happiness we are showering these flowers.” Manjushree said, ”What have I attained? I have attained nothing. Rather, on the contrary, I have lost myself. There is no attainment because there is no one who can attain now. This very afternoon I have died.”

 

The voice said, ”We are celebrating your death, because your death is the birth of a new life. You have died, Manjushree, but for the first time you are born.” More and more flowers showered. Somebody reported to Buddha, ”Something has happened. Manjushree is sitting there and flowers go on showering.” Buddha said, ”For the first time Manjushree is not there, that’s why flowers are showering. Up till now Manjushree was there; just today he has disappeared. He has attained the state of no-self, anatta – that’s why flowers are showering.”

 

These flowers are just symbolic, they indicate grace. This voice is symbolic, no one had said anything. The flowers that were showering there were not those you can see, but invisible flowers. The whole existence celebrates it when you disappear – the whole existence feels blissful. When you are there, you are like a wound – the whole existence suffers with you. I am trying only one thing – I am not doing anything – to make you filled with bliss. But that cannot be done.

 

Only one thing can be done, and that is to help you to disappear, to help you not to be. And whenever, even for a single moment, you are not there, flowers will start showering. When Manjushree is not there, flowers have always showered. I am not doing anything, I have never done anything with you. You are doing something. When you also stop, growth happens. When you also drop doing, suddenly the ego disappears. You are not ill; you have become whole and healthy. And whenever you are whole you have become holy.

 

Both the words come from the same root. The word holy doesn’t mean anything more than becoming whole. Whenever you are whole you are holy. And you cannot be whole with the ego, because ego consists of division. Ego creates a split, you divide yourself. When the ego disappears divisions disappear. So the whole effort is how to make you effortless, and the whole doing is how to bring you to a point where doing ceases, is no more.

 

Grace has been flowing always, that is already the case. It is there right now, flowing around you, but you don’t give a door to it. All your windows are closed, all your doors are closed; you are closed, imprisoned in yourself, you don’t allow any winds to blow. These meditations we are doing are just to help you to drop all doing.

 

It is said that once Milarepa, a Tibetan mystic, asked his master, Naropa, ”Following you, listening to you, I have dropped everything. But still nothing has happened.”

 

Naropa laughed and said, ”Drop this also – that you have dropped everything. Drop this also, don’t say it any more, because this again is a clinging: I have dropped everything. But the ’I’ has remained, and the dropping itself has been converted into doing. The doer has remained.”

 

One man, a great king, came once to Buddha. In one hand he had brought many flowers; in the other hand he had brought a very rare, valuable diamond. And he had brought both because he thought, ”Maybe Buddha will not like the diamond; then I will give these flowers, put these flowers at his feet.”

 

He came, both hands were full; in one hand the great diamond, in the other, flowers. First he tried to put the diamond at Buddha’s feet. Buddha said, ”Drop it!” He thought, ”He has rejected the diamond,” so he dropped it on the ground. Then he tried to put the flowers and Buddha said, ”Drop it!” so he dropped those flowers also. Then there was nothing to give him as a present, so with both hands joined in namaskar, he tried to put his head at Buddha’s feet. And Buddha said, ”Drop it!”

 

Then he was in a puzzle – what to do? How to drop this head? Buddha started laughing and he said, ”Those things were useless – you can drop the diamond, that is not of any significance; you can drop the flowers, that is not of much significance – unless you drop yourself. And those two droppings, those two orders, were just to prepare you so that you can learn dropping. Now the ultimate has come. Drop yourself!”

 

And there cannot be anything else before a buddha. What can you give as a present? Flowers, diamonds are meaningless – unless you give yourself, unless you become the offering. I am not doing anything; you are still doing – that’s why there is a problem. Whenever one of you drops doing and becomes just like me, not doing anything, suddenly the happening, suddenly flowers will start showering. When Manjushree disappeared.... Flowers had always been showering there at that tree, only Manjushree could not see them. When he disappeared he could see.

 

- Osho, "Vedanta: Seven Steps to Samadhi, #7, Q1"