Heraclitus touches the deepest problem of man: that is — fast asleep even while awake. You sleep when you sleep, but you also sleep while you are awake. What is the meaning of it? — because this is what Buddha says, this is what Jesus says, this is what Heraclitus says. You look wide awake, but that is only appearance; deep within you the sleep continues.

 

Even right now you are dreaming within: a thousand and one thoughts continue and you are not conscious of what is happening, you are not aware of what you are doing, you are not aware of who you are. You move as people move in sleep.

 

You must have known somebody who moves, does this or that, in sleep, and then goes back to sleep again. There is a disease called somnambulism. Many people in the night get up from their beds; their eyes are open, they can move! They can move, they can find the door. They will go to the kitchen, they will eat something; they will come back and they will go to bed. And if you ask them in the morning, they don’t know anything about it. At the most, if they try to remember it they will see that they had a dream that night, that they woke up, they went into the kitchen. But it was a dream, at the most; even that is difficult to remember.

 

Many people have committed crimes; many murderers when in the court say that they don’t know, they don’t remember ever having done such a thing. It is not that they are deceiving the court — no. Now psychoanalysts have come to find that they are not deceiving, they are not being untrue; they are absolutely truthful. They did commit the murder — when they were fast asleep they did commit it — as if in a dream. This sleep is deeper than ordinary sleep. This sleep is like being drunk: you can move a little, you can do a little, you can be a little aware also — but drunk. You don’t know what is exactly happening. What have you done in your past? Can you exactly recollect it, why you did what you did? What happened to you? Were you alert when it was happening? You fall in love not knowing why; you become angry not knowing why. You find excuses, of course; you rationalize whatsoever you do — but rationalization is not awareness.

 

Awareness means that whatsoever is happening in the moment is happening with complete consciousness; you are present there. If you are present when anger is happening, anger cannot happen. It can happen only when you are fast asleep. When you are present, immediate, transformation starts in your being, because when you are present, aware, many things are simply not possible. All that is called sin is not possible if you are aware. So, in fact, there is only one sin and that is unawareness.

 

The original word sin means to miss. It doesn’t mean to commit something wrong; it simply means to miss, to be absent. The Hebrew root for the word sin means to miss. That exists in a few English words: misconduct, misbehavior. To miss means not to be there, doing something without being present there — this is the only sin. And the only virtue: while you are doing something you are fully alert — what Gurdjieff calls selfremembering, what Buddha calls being rightly mindful, what Krishnamurti calls awareness, what Kabir has called SURATI. To be there! — that’s all that is needed, nothing more. You need not change anything, and even if you try to change you cannot.

 

You have been trying to change many things in you. Have you succeeded? How many times have you decided not to be angry again? What happened to your decision? When the moment comes you are again in the same trap: you become angry, and after the anger has gone, again you repent. It has become a vicious circle: you commit anger and then you repent, then you are ready again to commit it.

 

Remember, even while you are repenting you are not there; that repentance is also part of sin. That’s why nothing happens. You go on trying and trying and you take many decisions and you take many vows, but nothing happens — you remain the same. You are exactly the same as when you were born, not even a slight change has happened in you. Not that you have not tried, not that you have not tried enough — you have tried and tried and tried and you fail, because it is not a question of effort. More effort won’t help. It is a question of being alert, not of effort.

 

If you are alert, many things simply drop; you need not drop them. In awareness certain things are not possible. And this is my definition, there is no other criterion. You cannot fall in love if you are aware; then falling in love is a sin. You can love but it will not be like a fall, it will be like a rise.

 

Why do we use the term falling in love? It is a falling; you are falling, you are not rising. When you are aware, falling is not possible — not even in love. It is not possible, it is simply not possible. With awareness, it is impossible; you rise in love. And rising in love is a totally different phenomenon from falling in love. Falling in love is a dream state. That’s why people who are in love, you can see it from their eyes: as if they are more asleep than others, intoxicated, dreaming. You can see from their eyes because their eyes have a sleepiness. People who rise in love are totally different. You can see they are no more in a dream, they are facing the reality and they are growing through it.

 

Falling in love you remain a child; rising in love you mature. And by and by love becomes not a relationship, it becomes a state of your being. Then it is not that you love this and you don’t love that, no — you are simply love. Whosoever comes near you, you share with them. Whatsoever is happening, you give your love to it. You touch a rock and you touch as if you are touching your beloved’s body. You look at the tree and you look as if you are looking at your beloved’s face. It becomes a state of being. Not that you are in love — now you ARE love. This is rising, this is not falling.

 

Love is beautiful when you rise through it, and love becomes dirty and ugly when you fall through it. And sooner or later you will find that it proves poisonous, it becomes a bondage. You have been caught in it, your freedom has been crushed, your wings have been cut; now you are free no more. Falling in love you become a possession: you possess and you allow somebody to possess you. You become a thing, and you try to convert the other person you have fallen in love with into a thing.

 

Look at a husband and a wife: they both have become like things, they are persons no more. Both are trying to possess each other. Only things can be possessed, persons never. How can you possess a person? How can you dominate a person? How can you convert a person into a possession? Impossible! But the husband is trying to possess the wife; the wife is trying the same. Then there is a clash, then they both become basically enemies, then they are destructive to each other.

 

-Osho, “The Hidden Harmony, #2”