Osho on Nijinsky

 

 

Wisdom cannot be found through scriptures; it is an experience. It is not knowledge, wisdom is not knowledge. You cannot gather it from others, you cannot borrow it. It is not information. You cannot learn it from the scriptures. There is only one way to become wise and that is to enter into a live experience of life.

 

Something is said by Buddha -- you hear it; something I say -- you hear it -- but you don't become wise by hearing it. It will become knowledge. You can repeat it, you can repeat it even in a better way. You can become very skillful, efficient, in repeating it. You can say it in a better language, but you don't have the experience.

 

You have never tasted the wine yourself. You have simply seen some drunkard moving, wobbling on the road, fallen in a gutter. You have simply watched a drunkard, how he moves, how he stumbles, but you don't know what the experience is. You will have to become a drunkard -- there is no other way.

 

You can watch a thousand and one drunkards and you can collect all information about them, but that will be from the outside and the experience is inner. That will be from without, and you will collect it as a spectator. And the experience cannot be attained by seeing, it can be attained only by being.

 

Now the modern world has become very obsessed by seeing; the modern world is the spectator's world. People are sitting for hours in the movie houses, just watching, doing nothing. In the West people are glued to their chairs for hours, six hours, eight hours even, just sitting before their tv:s. You listen to somebody singing and you see somebody dancing and you see somebody making love -- that's why people are so much interested in pornography -- but you are a spectator.

 

The modern man is the falsest man that has ever existed on the earth, and his falsity consists in that he thinks he can know by just seeing, just by being a spectator. People are sitting for hours seeing hockey matches, volley ball matches, cricket matches -- for hours. When are you going to play yourself? When are you going to love somebody? When are you going to dance and sing and be?

 

This is a very borrowed life. Somebody dances for you; maybe you can enjoy it, but how can you know the beauty of dance unless you dance? It is something inner. What happens when a person is dancing? What happens to his innermost core?

 

Nijinsky, one of the greatest dancers, used to say that there come moments when he disappears, only the dance remains. Those are the peak moments -- when the dancer is not there and only the dance is. That's what Buddha is saying -- when the self is not there.

 

Now Nijinsky is moving into an ecstasy, and you are just sitting there watching the movement. Of course those movements are beautiful. Nijinsky's movements have a grace, a tremendous beauty, but it is nothing compared to what he is feeling inside. His dance is a beauty, even when you are just a spectator, but nothing compared to what is happening inside him.

 

He used to say that there are moments when gravitation disappears. I can understand because I have come across the feeling myself when gravitation disappears. And it was only for moments that gravitation disappeared for me. Now I have lived for years without gravitation. I know what he means.

 

Even scientists were very much puzzled, because there were moments in Nijinsky's dance when he would leap and jump -- and those leaps were tremendous, almost impossible leaps. A man cannot leap that way; the gravitation does not allow. And the most beautiful and amazing part was that when Nijinsky would be coming back from the leap he would come so slowly that it is impossible. He would come so slowly as if a leaf is falling from a tree... very slowly, very slowly, very slowly.

 

It is not possible, it is against the physical law, it is against physics. The gravitation does not make any exceptions, not even for a Nijinsky. And he was asked again and again, 'What happens? How do you fall so slowly? Because it is not within your power to control -- the gravitation pulls you.' He said, 'It does not happen always, only rarely -- when the dancer disappears. Then sometimes I am also puzzled, surprised, not only you. I see myself coming so slowly, so gracefully, and I know that the gravitation does not exist in that moment.'

 

He must be functioning in another dimension where the physical law does not exist, where another law starts working that spiritualists call the law of levitation. And it seems absolutely rational and logical to have both the laws, because each law has to be counterbalanced by another law in the opposite direction. If there is light there is darkness, if there is life there is death, if there is gravitation there must be levitation that pulls you up. There must be ways where a person is pulled up.

 

There are stories... especially the story about Mohammed -- that he went to heaven with his physical body; not only with his physical body, with his horse. Sitting on the horse, he simply went to heaven, upwards. It looks absurd, Mohammedans have not been able to prove it, but the meaning is clear. The story may have not exactly happened, but the meaning is clear.

 

The meaning is to be understood, it is very symbolical. It simply says that there is a law of levitation and if Mohammed cannot be pulled by levitation, then who will be pulled? He is the right person, a person who exists not. The ego is under gravitation, the no-ego is not under gravitation -- a weightlessness arises.

 

Nijinsky went mad because he was simply a dancer and he never knew anything about meditation, ecstasy, enlightenment. That became a trouble for him. If you don't understand and if you don't move with awareness and suddenly you stumble upon something which cannot be explained by ordinary laws, you will go mad. Because you will be disturbed by it. It is so weird, it is so eerie. You cannot explain it. You start getting disturbed by it. He himself started getting disturbed by the phenomenon. Finally it was so staggering it disturbed his whole mind.

 

God is very destructive. If you don't go rightly, you will be destroyed, because god is fire. Many people go mad if they don't move rightly. If they don't move under right guidance they can go mad. It is not a child's play, one has to understand.

 

And god -- if he happens like an accident -- you will not be able to absorb. Your old world will be shattered and you will not be able to create a new order, a new understanding. Because for the new understanding you will need new concepts, a new framework, a new gestalt. That is the whole meaning of finding a master.

 

It is not just from gullibility that people become attached to masters, it has a scientific base to it. Moving into the unknown is a tremendous risk. One should move with somebody who has already moved into it. One should move hand in hand with somebody who knows the territory. Otherwise the thing can happen so shatteringly that you will be at a loss.

 

Many people go mad if they don't know that somebody's help is needed. Somebody is needed like a midwife. You will be born, but somebody will be needed to watch over it. His very presence will be helpful; you can relax. The midwife is there, the doctor is there -- you can relax.

 

They don't do much -- you can ask Dr. Ajit Saraswati -- they don't do much; what can they do? -- but their very presence relaxes the woman who is going under labour. She knows the doctor is there, the nurse is there, the midwife is there. Everything is okay, she goes, she relaxes, she is no more fighting. She knows if something goes wrong people are around who will put it right. She can relax, she can trust.

 

The same happens to a disciple. It is a process of rebirth. A master is needed. But from the master don't go on collecting knowledge; from the master take hints and move into experience.

 

I talk about meditation. You can do two things. You can collect whatsoever I say about meditation, you can compile it. You can become a great, knowledgeable person about meditation -- because every day I go on talking about meditation from different dimensions in different ways. You can collect all that, you can get a Ph. D. from any university. But that is not going to make you wise, unless you meditate.

 

So whatsoever I am saying, try it in life. While I am here don't waste time in collecting knowledge. That you can do without me, that you can do in a library. While I am here take a jump, a quantum leap into wisdom. EXPERIENCE these things I am saying to you.

 

-Osho, "The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 2, #11"