|
Osho's Last Discourse, on Monday, 10 April 1989
Don't be lost in my words;They are just toys to play with
"What I am saying is not important at all. What I am being here is important. So don't be lost in my words: they are just toys to play with. Liste to my being, to my presence.“
-Osho, "The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 4, #10"
"Whatever I say to you, you need not believe it. You have just to be available to it, so that you can decide. The decision has to be yours. And if it suits you, suddenly if it rings a bell in your heart, then I am no longer responsible for it: the bell is ringing in your heart. But if it doesn't suit you, my love for you remains the same, because it is not based on converting you.
And, in fact, each individual has to be unique. That is the prerogative of human beings -- to be unique. And all the religions, all the political ideologies, they have all tried to destroy that privilege. I want to encourage your privilege. On no account should your individuality be interfered with. Your freedom is absolute, and the highest value."
-Osho, "From Bondage to Freedom, #37"
"Every religion wants people who don't ask awkward questions, embarrassing questions which they cannot answer. I am here to answer all of your questions. You can find from any nook and corner of the world any question, and I am ready to answer, because I have no investment in you and I have no investment in any fold, any cult, any creed, any religion.
My only love is to share the truth, the beauty, the godliness that I have found. It is overflowing. All I need is just a silent receptivity, a silent listening, and you will not be turned into soldiers of anybody. You will be an individual on your own feet - a sannyasin in your own right."
-Osho, "Christianity: The Deadliest Poison and Zen: The Antidote to All Poisons, #6"
You will find me
So remember, when I am gone, you are not going to lose anything. Perhaps you may gain something of which you are absolutely unaware. Right now I am available to you only embodied, imprisoned in a certain shape and form. When I am gone, where can I go? I will be here in the winds, in the ocean; and if you have loved me, if you have trusted me, you will feel me in a thousand and one ways. In your silent moments you will suddenly feel my presence.
Once I am unembodied, my consciousness is universal. Right now you have to come to me. Then, you will not need to seek and search for me. Wherever you are... your thirst, your love... and you will find me in your very heart, in your very heartbeat."
-Osho, “Beyond Enlightenment, #11”
"When I see you moving, growing, this is my gratitude towards existence. It has given me so much, there is no way to pay anything back; there is no word even to express gratitude. The only way is that my every breath should be used in helping people to reach to the same Everest of consciousness."
-Osho, "From Bondage to Freedom, #19"
My words are not my words
"When you are part of the universal mind your individual mind functions as a beautiful servant. It has recognized the master, and it brings news from the universal mind to those who are still chained by the individual mind.
When I am speaking to you, it is in fact the universe using me. My words are not my words; they belong to the universal truth. That is their power, that is their charisma, that is their magic."
- Osho, “Satyam Shivam Sundram, #7”
Truth is one
Question : Osho, Why do all buddhas say the same thing?
Vinod, Truth is one. Even if it is said differently, it is the same truth. Languages may differ, metaphors may differ parables may differ, but if you really look a little deep, then all parables, all languages, all metaphors, culminate in one truth. TRUTH is one — what can Buddhas do? Although each Buddha speaks in his own way, and his expression has HIS signature on it. His expression is just his and nobody else’s. But still those who can see will always find that it is the same diamond — maybe we have been shown only one aspect of it by Krishna, another aspect by Christ, still another by Mohammed, but those are aspects of the same diamond.
The diamond is one, this universe is one — and all the Buddhas have been saying the same thing, in different languages, in different ways. Those differences come from their individualities, not from their experience. The moment of experience is wordless, the moment of experience is thoughtless. So when Buddha experienced it, it was the same purity of consciousness as when Jesus experienced it.
Two purities cannot be different; two impurities can be different. Two healths cannot be different; two diseases can be different. Two silences cannot be different; two noises can be different. The truth is known in silence, but you cannot utter It in silence — you have to use words, language, noise. And immediately… when Buddha speaks, he speaks in Pali; that is the language that he knows, that is his mother tongue. And Jesus speaks in Aramaic; that is his mother tongue. If Jesus and Buddha had met, they would not have understood each other’s language at all, but they would have looked into each other’s eyes and would have understood each other TOTALLY!
A Sufi story: Mulla Nasruddin is sitting in the village square one evening plucking the strings of a sitar. Little by little, an expectant circle of villagers gathers around him. He keeps on playing just one note. Finally, one villager enquires, “That’s a very nice note you are playing, Mulla, but most musicians use all the notes. Why don’t you?”
“Those donkeys,” retorts the Mulla, “they are searching for the note, but I have found it!”
Truth is one — when you have found it you can go on repeating it, you can find different ways to repeat it, unique ways to express it, you can devise your own methods. And there are many methods devised — because of the compassion of the enlightened ones. Strange methods, very contradictory to each other.
If you go to a Sufi saint, he will be very polite to you, he may even touch your feet — because the Sufis respect God in all forms. That is their device. When a Sufi Master touches your feet… just think of that moment, contemplate over the moment — a Bahauddin, or a Jalaluddin, or a Farid — great Masters! diamonds of the purest water. A Bahauddin touching your feet, it is a device. In that moment when Bahauddin touches your feet, you are BOUND to fall silent, howsoever noisy your mind. Bahauddin touching your feet!? A great silence will descend on you. Bahauddin is giving you a taste of his meditation in this way; this is his device.
And a Zen Master is just the opposite: you go to him, you have to bow down seven times. And you ask some innocent question… and he jumps on you, hits you on the head — so unexpectedly. A very different device, but just think: a Bodhidharma, a Rinzai, a Bokoju, jumping on you, hitting on your head! For a moment all thinking stops… so unexpected. And you had asked a simple question: “Is there a God?” and he became furious. And you cannot figure it out — why? And he gives you no time to figure it out; he gives you no time to escape either.
It happened once that when Bokoju met his Master and asked something about Buddha, the Master took him physically and threw him out of the window… from a three-storey building. The poor fellow fell down on a rock, smashed, and the Master was looking from the window and he asked, “Do you understand now?” And the whole ridiculousness of it!
And the silence of the garden. And the silence of the accident. The shock. And the Master’s smiling face, and those compassionate eyes, and his asking, “Now do you understand?”
And in that moment, Bokoju became enlightened. He said, “Yes, yes, Master. Can I come in and touch your feet in gratitude?”
“You are welcome,” the Master said, “to have a cup of tea with me.” And they are sipping tea together.
Something immensely valuable has happened. In that moment, in that dangerous moment, when you are falling, it is almost as if you are going to die — you are finished. How can you think? In dangerous moments thinking stops. When you come across a snake, suddenly thinking stops. You don’t decide to jump out of the way, remember — you jump FIRST and then you decide, then you think it over, then you can afford to think it over. But you jump first!
Gurdjieff used to say that mind is very slow in action, and he is right. The body is far quicker. Mind is very lethargic; it goes on round and round in circles. So whenever there is some urgency, then your existence does not allow your mind to go round and round through logical processes to come to a conclusion, because then it will be too late.
By the time you have decided…. For example, if a snake is passing by and you give it to the mind, then there is trouble. First the mind will say, “Ninety-seven percent of snakes are non-poisonous, so there are only three chances out of a hundred that this snake is poisonous. A hundred persons who are bitten by snakes, they don’t all die; only five percent die, ninety-five percent are saved. And those five persons who die, maybe they were going to die anyway. So what is the hurry? Why bother? And one has to die one day.”
And great philosophical ideas about death and the immortality of the soul…. And snakes don’t care about these things! They are absolutely non-philosophical; they won’t give you that much time. The snake may strike you before you have come to any conclusion. Gurdjieff is right: he says whenever there is any urgency, the body immediately takes over from the mind; it does not give mind any chance to do — it does it on its own. The body has its own wisdom: it jumps out of the way. It is almost an in-built response, so no thinking is needed. That’s what Zen people have been doing with their disciples.
One Zen Master had this habit that whenever he would talk of God, of Buddha, of the higher dimensions of life, he would raise one of his fingers towards the sky. It became so characteristic of him that one of his small sannyasins, a young boy — must have been of the age of Siddhartha — became very much interested in this one finger pointing upwards. And he was always in attendance just to do something for the Master — if he needs some tea, to run and bring the tea, or just to be by his side and to help him to get rid of the mosquitoes.
He learnt the trick, and playfully, whenever the Master was not looking at him, he would show one finger to the audience. The Master knew — people would laugh, or smile and he would know who was doing the whole trick.
One day — and this can be done only by a Zen Master — he simply caught hold of the child when he was making the gesture of one finger pointing to heaven, and cut the finger with a sharp knife. Now, just think of doing such a thing to poor Siddhartha….
The child cried, screamed, and the Master said, “Stop! And put the finger up!” And his shout was such, it was such a thunderlike shout, that the child forgot all about his finger, that it had been cut and blood was oozing, and he showed the finger which was NO more there, because the Master had ordered.
And in that moment when he was showing a finger which was no more there, he became aware of the invisible; the Master was not pointing to something visible, but something invisible. And the child started laughing, and the Master took him into his embrace and said, “You have understood.” And it is said that small child had his first satori. Later on became a famous enlightened Master.
Different approaches… but the truth is one. The truth is silence — the single note of silence. Be silent and know, and you will also know the same thing that Buddhas have always known and will always know: truth is eternal. It has nothing to do with time, it never changes.
- Osho, “The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty”
I had to throw my net far and wide.
I had been speaking on Jesus, on Krishna, on Buddha, on Mahavira. I was speaking on all other traditions of religion: Hassidism, Zen, Sufism. I had spoken on almost all important people who had contributed something to human consciousness:
Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu, Bodhidharma, Bokuju, Socrates, Pythagoras, Zarathustra, Kabir, Shankara, Dadu, Milarepa, Marpa Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu. I covered almost the whole world.
Wherever I found a man who has contributed to human consciousness, whether it was Greece - Heraclitus, Diogenes, Dionysius - or it was Tibet, or it was China, or it was Arabia, it did not matter to me.
I was speaking on these people for a certain reason, a simple device. I had no people of my own. I had to throw my net far and wide. When I spoke on Jesus, Christians were happy, immensely happy; they started coming to me. Even priests, bishops, became sannyasins.
And I was laughing all the time inside, that what I was saying was my own, it had nothing to do with Jesus; Jesus was just an excuse. I used his words, but put my meaning into them. And those people were thinking, "We have never understood Jesus rightly, we were thinking something else." In fact, they were right; I was changing the wine, keeping the bottle.
And when I had enough people who were capable of listening to me directly, and I didn't have to drop things which are ugly in Jesus, ugly in Mahavira, ugly in Mohammed... because in the beginning I was not in the position to offend these people. To offend these people in the beginning would have been a disaster: you would not have been here, I would not have been here.
So I used those devices, and then I stopped speaking just to give a gap - so that those who are only interested in me because I speak on Jesus will leave. Those who think that I am supporting Hinduism by speaking on the GITA will leave - because silence is not a discourse on the GITA.
This was a beautiful experience. A few people left, just enough to be counted on your fingers. But more than half a million people are now ready to listen to me. Now I don't care. I can call Jesus just what he is: a crackpot. I can call Mahavira just exactly what he is: a masochist. Now I know that you can understand me.
It was a preparatory period. I was not thinking that I was going to catch so many fish, but truth has its own mysterious ways. I have with me, with great love, trust, friendliness, more than half a million sannyasins. But that is not the whole number who are getting close to me. There are at least two million people who are in great sympathy with what I am saying, but they don't yet have courage enough to come out and declare, "I have dropped the past and I am ready for the present."
And there are at least one million people who are just fifty-fifty: they read my books, they go to church too. I know that if they go on continuing to read my books - particularly now that I am creating the new BIBLE and THE LAST TESTAMENT.... You have heard about the Old Testament and the New Testament; I am creating THE LAST TESTAMENT. If they go on reading what I am saying now, things will be settled. Either they will burn my books and take shelter in a church, or they will burn the Old Testament and the New Testament and be my people.
Right now they are in a split. But I don't see how any intelligent person can choose - if he understands me - anything two thousand years old, three thousand years old, five thousand years old, unless he is a junk collector.
Yes, it is totally a new phase, because I have found my people and now I can open my heart totally. Now all the cards are open on the table! I have nothing to hide from you, because I know your love will be able to understand it.
-Osho, "From the False to the Truth, #23"
Image Courtesy: osho.com
My whole approach is inpidualistic
"My whole approach is inpidualistic. And my message to my sannyasins is: be unique, be inpiduals. Live your life the way you feel to live it… be rebels! There is no need to be too ready to fit into any mould. If you choose and if it is your joy it is perfectly good, otherwise there is no need… For no other reason, for no other motive should one fit into anything. If one feels this is the thing that one would like to be, then it’s okay. Then it is no more a slavery; it is freedom.
If you choose even hell out of freedom, you will be happy there, and if you are forced into heaven without your choice, without your will, then you will be unhappy there. So hell and heaven are not places; they are certain spaces within. When one accepts something, welcomes something of one’s own accord, heaven arises. One may remain a beggar, but if one has chosen that, then there is joy. One may become a millionaire and if one has not chosen it of one’s own accord, has been pulled, forced, manipulated, pushed… the parents, the wife, the children; the society, the priests, the politicians – a thousand and one manipulators are there… if one has been pulled like a puppet, one can have all the riches the world can give and one will be unhappy, one will be in hell. So from this moment assert your uniqueness, your inpiduality, your bliss. Nothing is lacking, all is already there. Good!"
–Osho, “The No Book (No Buddha, No Teaching, No Discipline)”
"The whole effort of a Jesus or a Buddha or a Bodhidharma is nothing but how to undo that which society has done to you. These are the most antisocial people in the world. They destroy whatsoever the society has created around you, all the fences around you, all the defenses around you, all the walls around you -- they destroy, they go on destroying. They are great nihilists. They simply destroy -- because that which is, need not be created. It is already there. It has not to be invented, it has only to be discovered."
-Osho, "Zen: The Path of Paradox, Vol 1, #3"
My speaking is really one of my devices for meditation.
Question : Osho, I realized that it is easier to become silent while listening to you than in any other meditation. when you stop talking everything seems to stop for a moment and i get a glimpse of what meditation can be! these are the most precious moments for me! osho, why is it easier to become silent in your presence?
Dhyan Sandesh, the question you have raised is significant not only to you, but to many more who are not fortunate enough to be in my presence, but who will be reading these words or listening or seeing this on the video screen all over the world.
The question arises almost for everyone, that the way I talk is a little strange. No speaker in the world talks like me -- technically it is wrong; it takes almost double the time! But those speakers have a different purpose -- my purpose is absolutely different from theirs. They speak because they are prepared for it; they are simply repeating something that they have rehearsed. Secondly, they are speaking to impose a certain ideology, a certain idea on you. Thirdly, to them speaking is an art -- they go on refining it.
As far as I am concerned, I am not what they call a speaker or an orator. It is not an art to me or a technique; technically I go on becoming worse every day! But our purposes are totally different. I don't want to impress you in order to manipulate you. I don't speak for any goal to be achieved through convincing you. I don't speak to convert you into a Christian, into a Hindu or a Mohammedan, into a theist or an atheist -- these are not my concerns.
My speaking is really one of my devices for meditation. Speaking has never been used this way: I speak not to give you a message, but to stop your mind functioning.
I speak nothing prepared -- I don't know myself what is going to be the next word; hence I never commit any mistake. One commits a mistake if one is prepared. I never forget anything, because one forgets if one has been remembering it. So I speak with a freedom that perhaps nobody has ever spoken with.
I am not concerned whether I am consistent, because that is not the purpose. A man who wants to convince you and manipulate you through his speaking has to be consistent, has to be logical, has to be rational, to overpower your reason. He wants to dominate through words.
One of the very famous books of Dale Carnegie is about speaking and influencing people as an art -- it has been sold second only to THE HOLY BIBLE -- but I will fail his examinations. He used to run a course in America to train missionaries, to train professors, and to train orators. I will fail on all counts. First, I have no motivation to convert you; I have no desire anywhere to impress you. And I don't remember what I have said yesterday, so I cannot bother about being consistent -- that is too much worry. I can easily contradict myself, because I am not trying to have a communication with your intellectual, rational mind.
My purpose is so unique -- I am using words just to create silent gaps. The words are not important so I can say anything contradictory, anything absurd, anything unrelated, because my purpose is just to create gaps. The words are secondary; the silences between those words are primary. This is simply a device to give you a glimpse of meditation. And once you know that it is possible for you, you have traveled far in the direction of your own being.
Most of the people in the world don't think that it is possible for mind to be silent. Because they don't think it is possible, they don't try. How to give people a taste of meditation was my basic reason to speak, so I can go on speaking eternally -- it does not matter what I am saying. All that matters is that I give you a few chances to be silent, which you find difficult on your own in the beginning.
I cannot force you to be silent, but I can create a device in which spontaneously you are bound to be silent. I am speaking, and in the middle of a sentence, when you were expecting another word to follow, nothing follows but a silent gap. And your mind was looking to listen, and waiting for something to follow, and does not want to miss it -- naturally it becomes silent. What can the poor mind do? If it was well known at what points I will be silent, if it was declared to you that on such and such points I will be silent, then you could manage to think -- you would not be silent. Then you know: "This is the point where he is going to be silent, now I can have a little chit-chat with myself." But because it comes absolutely suddenly.... I don't know myself why at certain points I stop.
Anything like this, in any orator in the world, will be condemned, because an orator stopping again and again means he is not well prepared, he has not done the homework. It means that his memory is not reliable, that he cannot find, sometimes, what word to use. But because it is not oratory, I am not concerned about the people who will be condemning me -- I am concerned with you.
And it is not only here, but far away... anywhere in the world where people will be listening to the video or to the audio, they will come to the same silence. My success is not to convince you, my success is to give you a real taste so that you can become confident that meditation is not a fiction, that the state of no-mind is not just a philosophical idea, that it is a reality; that you are capable of it, and that it does not need any special qualifications.
You may be a sinner, you may be a saint -- it does not matter. If the sinner can become silent, he will attain to the same consciousness as the saint.
Existence is not so miserly as religions have been teaching you. Existence is not like the KGB or FBI -- watching everybody to see what you are doing, whether you are going to the movie with your own wife or with somebody else's wife. Existence is not interested at all. The problem of whether the wife is yours or not is just a man-created problem. In existence, there is nothing like marriage. Whether you are stealing money, taking it out from somebody's safe or from your own, existence does not and cannot make the difference. You are taking out the money from the safe -- that is a fact -- but to whom the safe belongs, that is absolutely of no concern to existence.
Once George Bernard Shaw was asked, "Can a man live his life so lazily, just keeping his hands in his pockets and enjoying?" George Bernard Shaw said, "Yes, just the pocket should be somebody else's!"
Keeping your hands in your own pockets, you cannot survive! And the fact is that almost everybody has his hand in somebody else's pocket. And that fellow may have his hand in somebody else's pocket, so he cannot stop you because by stopping you, he will be stopped. So he has to accept it, and if he has his hands in a richer pocket, he does not care about you. Go on doing whatsoever you are doing, just don't create a disturbance.
Existence has no morality as such -- it is amoral. For existence there is nothing wrong and nothing right. Only one thing is right -- your being alert and conscious. Then you are blissful.
It is very strange that no religion has defined `right' as being blissful, or defined `virtue' as being blissful. And they were in a difficulty to define it exactly as I am defining it because their concern was that in the world, the people they think are sinners look happier than the people they think are saints -- the saints look absolutely unhappy. And if they say that blissfulness is the criterion, whether you are right in tune with existence or not, this will destroy their whole superstructure. The saints will look like sinners and the sinners will look like saints.
But this is my criterion because I don't care about the scriptures, I don't care about the prophets, I don't care about the past -- that was their business and their problem. I have my own eyes to see, why should I depend on anybody else's eyes? And I have my own consciousness to be aware, why should I be dependent on Gautam Buddha, or Bodhidharma, or Jesus Christ? They were not dependent on me. Obviously, there is no spoken or unspoken agreement. They lived their lives according to their own understanding and insight; I am to live my life according to my understanding and my insight.
My effort here to speak to you is to give you a chance to see that you are as capable of becoming a no-mind as any Gautam Buddha -- that it is not a special quality given to a few people, that it is not a talent. Everybody cannot be a painter, and everybody cannot be a poet -- those are talents. Everybody cannot be a genius -- those are given qualities from birth. But everybody can be enlightened -- that is the only thing about which communism is right. And strangely enough, that is the only thing communism denies.
Enlightenment is the only thing, the only experience where everybody is equal -- equally capable. And it does not depend on your acts, it does not depend on your prayers, it does not depend on whether you believe in God or not. It depends only on one thing and that is a little taste, and suddenly you become confident that you are capable of it. My speaking is just to give you confidence. So I can tell a story, I can tell a joke -- absolutely unrelated!
Every intellectual will condemn me, saying, "What kind of speech is this?" But he has not understood my purpose; it is not a speech, it is not a lecture. It is simply a device to bring confidence to you and to your heart that you can be silent. The more you become confident, the more you will be able. Without my speaking you will start finding devices yourself. For example, you can go on listening to the birds, and they suddenly stop, and they suddenly start. Listen... there is no reason why this crow should make noises and then stop -- it is just giving you a chance.... You can find them, once you know -- even in the marketplace where there is so much noise, everything is going on, crazy. [....]
I don't follow any rules. I have read books; for example, I mentioned Dale Carnegie, HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE, but my whole life I have been doing just the opposite: how to influence people and create enemies. And I have been successful in that!
Your question is, Sandesh, "I realize that it is easier to become silent while listening to you." The reason is that you are attentive; your mind is still because you want to listen to me. When I stop, your mind cannot start quickly, and before it starts, I start again! I am watching you! I give you only this much gap, so you cannot start your taxi again; otherwise you will run against the red light, and create more chaos.
So my speaking is not oratory; it is not a doctrine that I am preaching to you. It is simply an arbitrary device to give you a taste of what silence is, and to make you confident that it is not a talent -- that it does not belong to any specially-qualified people, that it does not belong to long austerities, that it does not belong to those who call themselves virtuous. It belongs to all, without any conditions; you just have to become aware of it. And that's my whole purpose in speaking to you.
Once you are certain that you can be silent, then your whole focus will change. It is not a question of discipline, it is not a question of being prayerful, it is not a question of believing in God and all kinds of nonsense. It is a question of feeling your own possibility, and once you have known the possibility and become confident about it, the whole religion in your vision will have a different color.
It is a question of silence and consciousness and blissfulness -- it has nothing to do with sins and virtues and confessions. Existence does not bother about your sins -- what sin can you commit? What punishment should be given to poor human beings? Religions have been giving, for small things, eternal hell. One has to be a little just also.
I don't want you to be addicted to me.I don't want to be a drug to you.
Meditation is an effort to bring light and to bring joy and to bring silence and to bring blissfulness, and out of this beautiful world of meditation it is impossible for you to do anything wrong.
So I have changed it completely. Religions were insisting on action; my insistence is on consciousness, and consciousness can grow only in silence. Silence is the right soil for consciousness. When you are noisy you cannot be very alert and conscious. When you are conscious and alert, you cannot be noisy -- they cannot co-exist.
So my speaking, my talking should not be categorized with any other kind of oratory; it is a device for meditation to bring confidence in you which has been taken away by religions. Instead of confidence, they have given you guilt which pulls you down and keeps you sad. Once you become confident that great things are available to you, you will not feel inferior, you will not feel guilty -- you will feel blessed. You will feel that existence has prepared you to be one of the peaks of consciousness. But you have not been going accordingly; you have been following the priests who have destroyed your dignity and your pride.
Sandesh, you say, "I realized that it is easier to become silent while listening to you than in any other meditation," because in those other meditations you are alone. It will take a little time to gain confidence -- that's why I am speaking morning and evening, almost for thirty years continuously. Perhaps two or three times in these thirty years, I have stopped because I was not feeling well; otherwise I have continued to speak.
Every morning and evening I want to give you the confidence that you are losing in your meditations. When you are meditating, of course it is you who are meditating; your mind goes on with its old habit. And many people who have not been given the confidence have turned back. They try meditation for a few days and it becomes a failure and a sadness that it doesn't happen. And they start thinking, "Perhaps my evil acts of the past life" -- which the religions have forced in your mind -- "or perhaps my belief in God is not total; something is wrong with me."
I want you to be absolutely certain that nothing is wrong with anybody; all wrongs have been fed into you.
Religions have not been helpful in creating a better humanity. They have only destroyed all that was beautiful in man; they have stopped its growth, they have cut the very roots.
Man has remained a pygmy in the world of consciousness.
I have changed the whole focus. I don't say to you that you have to do this, you have not to do that, that this is sin and this is virtue. I say only, simply be alert and conscious and silent and blissful, and everything else will follow. Alone, it will take a little time for you.
As your confidence becomes more and more solid, then alone also you will be able to be silent.
With me, to be silent is easier because of one other reason -- I am silent; even while I am speaking I am silent. My innermost being is not involved at all. What I am saying to you is not a disturbance or a burden or a tension to me; I am as relaxed as one can be.
Speaking or not speaking does not make any difference to me.
Naturally, this kind of state is infectious. Seeing me, being here in my presence, looking into my eyes... even watching my hands, you can feel that they are the gestures of a silent man. Slowly, slowly you become infected, contagious; moreover, around a silent man there is a certain energy field created.
You can try one beautiful experiment: just put some sand on a plate and then when somebody is playing music, put your plate with the sand on top of it. You will be surprised to see that every sound makes a change in the pattern of the sand on the plate. It goes on changing with every sound. Classical music will put all the sand in a very silent, very harmonious state; it will create a pattern of harmony. The same sand, the same plate and any stupid kind of modern music -- from jazz to the skinheads -- and you will be surprised that your sand is in a chaos. It loses all harmony, it loses all peacefulness, and patterns are created which show immediately to anybody disharmony, discord.
A man of silence moves with a certain field of energy around him, and if you are receptive, his vibe starts touching your heart.
Have you noticed? A husband and wife, if they have really been in love, non-possessive, non-jealous -- and if they have helped each other to remain individuals and they have deep respect for each other -- living a long life, for fifty years together, you will be surprised to know... it is a well-known fact noticed down the ages that they start looking almost the same. Their voices, their eyes, their faces, their gestures... they become so harmonious with each other.
Certainly, between a master and disciple the phenomenon is a millionfold greater, because there is no conflict at all. And particularly with a man like me -- I am not in any way forcing you to be disciples, and I will not prevent anybody from leaving me. I welcome you when you are here; if you leave, my welcome remains the same. My love does not change. You can go away, you can even betray me, but my love remains the same. There is no contract between me and you; you are here out of your freedom, any moment you can go. I am here out of my freedom; you don't bind me.
In this state of freedom the master and disciple can come closest, and naturally energy flows from the higher to the lower. It is just like water coming from a mountaintop towards the valley.
Lao Tzu has actually called his philosophy of life "the watercourse way." When the master and disciple are so deeply in tune, because they are not in any bondage, both are meeting out of their freedom -- and an authentic master never thinks himself higher than the disciple, although the authentic disciple can conceive of the master as higher than anything -- energy flows slowly to the depths of your being. Meditation becomes almost a by-product; silence happens on its own accord. Your heart itself starts dancing with the master.
I was reading a statement of Walt Whitman, the only American I have any respect for. He says, "I celebrate myself, and sing myself." I agree on this point -- every master celebrates himself and sings himself. Anybody who is interested joins the dance. And slowly, slowly there is no master, no disciple, but only the dance, only the celebration.
But this is only half of the statement; the other half I don't agree with. That's where he shows his Christian roots: "And what I assume, you shall assume." That disturbs the whole thing. Again it has come to the same point -- "What I believe you should believe, what I assume you should assume." Then there comes a subtle domination. No, on that point I cannot agree.
I would have loved to agree with everything that Walt Whitman says, but I cannot go against reality. It is enough -- "I celebrate myself and sing myself" -- and if you rejoice in it, you join. It is not a question that you have to assume what I assume, that you have to believe what I believe, that you have in any way to be dependent on me. You are participating because you love the dance, you are participating because you love to celebrate; you are participating because for the first time you have come across a man who takes life as a celebration not as a burden or a punishment.
It is enough that you enjoy the song of the master. Your enjoyment will bring you closer.
It is enough that you enjoy the dance; it will make you dance. It is enough that you love the celebration, the very idea that life is celebration. And then slowly, slowly there is a melting and a merging. A time comes when it is difficult to find who is the master and who is the disciple.
Masters and disciples, if they have lived long enough in tune with each other, become almost alike -- without any effort of trying to become alike, because that would be forced and that would be false and that would be hypocrisy. Just dancing together, sitting together, being silent together, a merging is bound to happen.
Sandesh, you say, "When you stop talking, everything seems to stop for a moment and I get a glimpse of what meditation can be." You have forgotten to note one thing. What you have noted is right, that you get a glimpse of what meditation can be. You have forgotten to note that you are capable of having such silent moments, that you see that meditation is not something impossible, that it is not only for any exceptional category of people, that it is available to everybody. You have pointed out one thing absolutely correctly, but you have forgotten to see that you are also capable of being silent, which is very important to remember.
Because I cannot go on speaking the whole day to keep you in meditative moments, I want you to become responsible. Accepting that you are capable of being silent will help you when you are meditating alone. Knowing your capacity... and one comes to know one's capacity only when one experiences it. There is no other way.
You are saying, "These are the most precious moments for me. Osho, why is it easier to become silent in your presence?" In my presence you forget your own ego, you forget yourself. The emphasis should be not on me, the emphasis should be on you, on the fact that in my presence you love me, you respect me, you trust me, so you put aside your defense measures -- your ego is your defense measure.
Pay more attention to it, to why you become silent. Don't make me wholly responsible for your silence, because that will create a difficulty for you. Alone, what are you going to do? Then it becomes a kind of addiction, and I don't want you to be addicted to me. I don't want to be a drug to you.
The so-called masters and teachers of the religions of the whole world -- I have come across almost all kinds and all categories of teachers -- want their disciples to be addicted to them, to be dependent on them. That is their power trip. I don't have any power trip. I love you, whether you are with me or not with me.
I want you to be independent and confident that you can attain these precious moments on your own.
If you can attain them with me, there is no reason why you cannot attain them without me, because I am not the cause. You have to understand what is happening: listening to me, you put your mind aside. Listening to the ocean, or listening to the thundering of the clouds, or listening to the rain falling heavily, just put your ego aside, because there is no need... The ocean is not going to attack you, the rain is not going to attack you, the trees are not going to attack you -- there is no need of any defense. To be vulnerable to life as such, to existence as such, you will be getting these moments continuously -- soon it will become your very life.
If you ask me, I have almost forgotten the taste of misery; and because I have forgotten the taste of misery and suffering and anxiety, I have also slowly been forgetting the taste of joy, blissfulness, ecstasy -- they have become natural. Just as a healthy man does not feel continuously that he is healthy, only sick people become interested in health. The moment that you have become healthy... coming out of your sickness, you will feel health but when it becomes your natural experience of every day, every moment, you don't have any contrast of sickness to compare it with.
You don't know your head unless you have a headache -- have you observed it? Do you become aware of your head? You become aware of your head only when you have a headache. A headache gives you the idea -- people who have not experienced headaches, don't know what it is to have a healthy head without any headaches.
All our experiences depend on their opposites. If you cannot taste the bitter, you cannot taste anything sweet either -- they go together. If you cannot see darkness, you cannot see light. And if you are continuously in one state, you start forgetting about it.
That's what I call going beyond enlightenment -- the day you start forgetting that you are enlightened, the day it becomes just the natural course of your life, ordinary, nothing special. The way you breathe, the way your heart beats, the way your blood runs in the body, enlightenment also becomes part of your being. You forget all about it.
When you ask the question, I am reminded that yes, there is an experience called enlightenment. But when I am sitting alone I never remember that I am enlightened, that would be crazy! It has become such a natural, ordinary experience.
First go beyond mind. Then go beyond enlightenment too. Don't get stuck anywhere until you are simply an ordinary part of the existence, with the trees, with the birds, with the animals, with the rivers, with the mountains. You feel a deep harmony -- no superiority, no inferiority.
Gautam Buddha had some glimpses of going beyond enlightenment. He mentioned it, that there is a possibility of going beyond enlightenment. He did not say that he had gone beyond it, but he recognizes the fact that there should be a state when you forget all about enlightenment. You have been so healthy, you have forgotten all about health; only then have you come home. Finally even enlightenment is a barrier -- the last barrier.
Communication is through words,and communion is through silence.
Question 1: Osho, Why do you call your religion the first and the last religion?
It is a little difficult for me to speak again. It has been difficult always, because I have been trying to speak the unspeakable. Now it is even more so. [....]
The man who forced me to speak - for one thousand, three hundred and fifteen days I had remained silent - was also a very strange man. He himself had remained silent his whole life. Nobody heard about him; nobody knew about him. And he was the most precious man I have come across in this, or any of my lives in the past. His name was Magga Baba. It is not much of a name; magga simply means a jug. He used to carry a jug - that was his only possession, a plastic jug. From the same jug he would drink, he would ask for food with it. People would drop anything in the jug: money, food, water. And that was all he had. Anybody who wanted to take from his jug was also allowed. So people would take out money, or food - children particularly, beggars. He neither prevented anybody from dropping, nor did he prevent anybody from taking. And he was absolutely silent, so nobody had any idea even of his name, because he had never said what his name was. They simply started calling him Magga Baba because of the jug.
But deep in the night, once in a while when there was nobody, I used to visit him. It was very difficult to find a time when nobody was there, because he attracted strange types of people. He was not speaking, so of course intellectuals were not going to him - just simple people. And what can you do with him? In India, to go to a man who has realized is called seva. Literally it means service, but it will not be justified because that word seva has a sacredness about it which service has not.
When you go to a realized man what else can you do than serve him? So people would come and massage his feet and somebody would massage his head, and he would not say anything to anybody. He would neither say yes, nor would he say no. Sometimes they wouldn't allow him even to sleep, because four or five people were massaging him; they were doing seva. Many times I had to throw people out. He was just living on a porch of a bungalow, open from all sides. Once in a while, particularly on cold winter nights, I used to find him alone; then he would say something to me.
He forced me to speak. He said, "Look, I have remained silent my whole life, but they do not hear, they do not listen. They cannot understand it; it is beyond them. I have failed. I have not been able to convey what I have been carrying within me, and now there is not much time left for me. You are so young, you have a long life before you: please don't stop speaking. START!" It is a difficult, almost impossible job to convey things in words, because they are experienced in a wordless state of consciousness. How to convert that silence into sound? There seems to be no way. And there is none.
But I understood Magga Baba's point. He was very old, and he was saying to me, "You will be in the same position. If you don't start soon, the inner silence, the vacuum, the innermost zero, will go on pulling you inwards. And then there comes a time when you cannot come out. You are drowned in it. You are utterly blissful, but the whole world is full of misery. You could have shown the way.
Perhaps somebody may have heard, perhaps somebody may have walked on the path. At least you would not feel that you have not done what was expected of you by existence itself. Yes, it is a responsibility."
I promised him, "I will do my best." And for thirty years continually I went on and on talking on every subject under the stars. But I came to a point which Magga Baba had not come to. He saved me from his disappointment; but I came to a new realization, a new point. I had thrown my net far and wide to catch as many people as have the potential to blossom. But then I felt that words are not enough.
Now I have found my people and I have to arrange a silent communion, which will help in two ways:
those who cannot understand silence will drop out. That will be good. That will be a good weeding; otherwise they will go on clinging around me because of the words, because their intellect feels satisfied. And I am not here to satisfy their intellect. My purpose is far, far deeper, of a different dimension.
So these days of silence have helped those who were just intellectually curious, rationally interested in me, to turn their back. And secondly, it has helped me to find my real, authentic people who are not in need of words to be with me. They can be with me without words. That's the difference between communication and communion.
Communication is through words, and communion is through silence.
So these days of silence have been immensely fruitful. Now only those are left for whom my presence is enough, my being is enough, for whom just the gesture of my hand is enough, for whom my eyes are enough - for whom language is no more a need.
But today I have suddenly decided to speak again - again after one thousand, three hundred and fifteen days - for the simple reason that the picture that I have been painting all my life needs a few touches here and there to complete it, because that one day when I became silent everything was left incomplete. Before I depart from you as far as my physical body is concerned, I would like to complete it.
I have been speaking to Hindus, to Christians, to Jews, to Mohammedans, to Jainas, to Buddhists, to Sikhs, to people belonging to almost all the so-called religions. This is for the first time I am speaking to my own people: not to Hindus, not to Mohammedans, not to Christians, not to Jews.
It makes a lot of difference, and only because of that difference can I give the finishing touch to the picture that I have been painting. What difference does it make? To you I can speak directly, immediately. To the Hindus I had to speak through Krishna, and I was not happy about it. But there was no other way, it was a necessary evil. To Christians I could speak only through Jesus. I was not at ease about it, but there was no other way. So one has to choose the least evil. Let me explain to you.
I do not agree with Jesus on all points. In fact, there are many questions which I have left unanswered, because even to touch them would have been destructive to those Christians who had come to me. Now they are clean. People say that I am brainwashing people. No, I am not brainwashing people. I am certainly washing their brains - and I believe in dry cleaning. So I can say to you now exactly what I feel; otherwise, it was a burden on me.
To speak on Mahavira was necessary because without that it was impossible to get any Jainas to hear me. And with Mahavira I do not agree on all points. In fact my disagreement is on more points than my agreement. So I had to do a strange job: I had to choose those points on which I could agree, and not talk at all about those points on which I was absolutely against. And even on the points on which I have a certain agreement I had to manage another thing: that was to give new meanings to their words, give my meaning to their words. It was not their meaning. If Mahavira comes he will be angry; if Jesus comes he will be angry. If this whole crowd of Jesus, Mahavira, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu somewhere meets me they will all be mad at me because I have made them say things they would never have dreamed of. They could not. Sometimes I have even put meanings into their words which go basically against them. But there was no other way.
The whole world is divided. You can't find a single man who is clean. Either he is a Christian - he is carrying one kind of dirt - or he is a Hindu; he is carrying another kind of dirt. Now it is possible for me to say exactly and directly even things which may sound bitter.
Sheela has asked why I call my religion the first and perhaps the last religion.
Yes, I call it the first religion because religion is the highest flowering of consciousness. Up to now man was not capable of conceiving it. Even now, only one percent of humanity is barely able to conceive it. The masses are still living in the past, burdened with the past, conditioned with the past.
Barely one percent of mankind is in a state now to conceive religion. All the old religions are based in fear. Now, a real religion destroys fear. It is not based in fear.
The concept of God in all the old religions is nothing but out of fear, a consolation; otherwise there is no validity, no evidence, no proof for the existence of God. The people who believe in God are really people who cannot trust in themselves. They need a father figure, a big daddy. They are still childish. Their mental age is just nearabout twelve years, not more than that. They need somebody to give them courage, to guide them, to protect them. They are simply afraid to be left alone. They are afraid of death which is coming closer every day. They need somebody to protect them from death. It is a projection of your fear. The moment your fear disappears you will find there is no God.
The moment you are able to trust in yourself, to be yourself, there will be no God. You will laugh at the whole concept of God. [....]
So I have been carrying a heavy weight on me, on my heart. My health has been destroyed for many reasons; the most important is this, that I have been speaking on people with whom I do not agree at all. I disagree - not only disagree, but I find them basically psychotic, neurotic, schizophrenic, anti-life. All these religions in the past are anti-life. Nobody is for life, nobody is for living, nobody is for laughter. No religion has accepted a sense of humor as a quality of religiousness.
Hence, I say my religion is the first religion which takes man in his totality, in his naturalness, accepts man's whole, as he is. And that's what holy means to me - not something sacred, but something accepted in its wholeness. Perhaps things are a little bit upside down and you have to put them in place; just like a jigsaw puzzle, you have to put them in place. And then out of that wholeness arises religious consciousness I have spoken more on Buddha than on anybody else. But he is as much anti-life as anyone else: [....]
This is the first religion which does not reject anything from your life. It accepts you totally, as you are, and finds methods and ways of how to make a more harmonious whole. You have all the ingredients, everything that is needed is within you - perhaps not in the right place. It has to be put in its right place. And once everything is put in its right place, that I call virtue. Then the man of character, the man whom I can call a moral man, a religious man, arises out of you.
All the old religions are based on certain belief systems. Those beliefs are not to be questioned because they are all fictions - beautiful fictions, but fictions all the same. [....]
This is the first religion. I don't promise you any heaven, and I don't make you afraid of any hell; there is none. I don't say, "You have to follow me, then only can you be saved." That is absolutely egoistic. Jesus says, "Come, follow me." Even my book on Jesus is titled Come Follow Me. That is not my statement, it is Jesus' statement. If you ask me I will say, "Never! Don't follow me, because I am myself lost. Unless you choose to be lost forever like me... then it is okay." To me, anybody claiming any kind of superiority, and you have to follow him - it is a fascist attitude.
My sannyasins are not my followers but my fellow travelers, my friends, my lovers.
They have seen something in me the way you see something in a mirror. You are not a follower of your mirror - but in the mirror you can see your face. The master is a mirror. You are not to follow him. You have to see your face in his mirror - and that's all. And remember one thing: the mirror does not do anything at all. When you are facing the mirror, you are doing something; you are facing the mirror. The mirror is not bothered whether you are facing it or not. And the mirror does not do a single thing while you are facing the mirror; it simply mirrors you. That is its nature, that is why we call it a mirror. It simply mirrors, reflects. It is not a doing, it is its being.
The master does not do anything at all. It is his being, it is his presence that becomes a source of reflecting. Slowly slowly you start seeing yourself in a new light, in a new way, from a new aspect, in a new dimension.
The old religions are based on belief systems. My religion is absolutely scientific. It is not a belief, it is not a faith - it is pure science. The word science means knowing. Of course, it is a different science than the science that is being taught in the universities. That is objective science; this is subjective science. [....]
And when I say religion, my religion, is a science, that means the way science observes objects, religion observes subjectivity. Subjectivity is just the opposite of objectivity: the very diametrically opposite. The object obstructs you; subjectivity is just an abysmal depth. There is nothing to object to you. Once you let go, you start falling into a fathomless abyss; you never come to the end. But you don't want to come to the end either. Just that eternal falling is so tremendously ecstatic that to think that it will end is not possible; it is unending.
Objects begin and end; subjectivity begins but never ends. Science uses observation as its method; religion also uses observation as its method, but it calls it meditation. It is observation, pure observation, of your own subjectivity. Science calls its work experiment; religion calls its work experience. They both start from the same point but they move in the opposite directions. Science goes outwards; religion goes inwards. Hence I have not given you any belief; I have only given you methods. I have only explained to you my experience, and I have told you the way I experienced it.
Once I experienced it I tried all the ways, whether they all reach to it or not. And I found there are one hundred and twelve ways which can reach to the same point. And once you reach by one method, the one hundred and eleven are very simple because you know the point, you have reached it already. Now you can reach from anywhere. So I have been teaching one hundred and twelve methods of meditation - but no belief system. Hence I call it science.
And I have said perhaps it may be the last religion too, for the simple reason that I have not given you anything which can be argued against. I can argue against Jesus. I can argue against Mahavira.
I can argue against Lao Tzu. I can argue against Buddha. Nobody can argue against me, because in the first place I have not given you any dogma which can be argued against. I have given you only methods. Methods you can try or you may not try, but you cannot argue against a method. If you try, I know it is going to succeed. I know by my own experience that it is going to succeed - there is no question. If you don't try it, you have no right to say anything about it.
And because I have taken the whole personality of man into it, nothing has been left out. All the religions have been leaving things out, so there was the possibility of another religion taking something in. For example, Buddhism will not allow alcohol; Christianity allows it.
I have not given you anything that is not rooted in reason, in logic, in experiment, in experience, so a person can be against me only if he does not know me. If he knows me, there is no way to be against me. I don't give you any point to be against me.
And I can say it is the last religion because I have not claimed infallibility like the foolish popes of the Vatican go on doing. Only an idiot can say that he is infallible - and for two thousand years these popes have been claiming they are infallible.
And it is such a beautiful and strange story: that one pope has to correct another pope, who was also infallible! One infallible pope burned Joan of Arc alive because she was rebellious and she was a heretic, and she was not following orders from the pope. After three hundred years, as people became more and more aware of Joan of Arc, her life, her story... the pope who had butchered her became more and more condemned in people's eyes. After three hundred years it became necessary for another pope to declare Joan of Arc a saint. Now she is Saint Joan of Arc! And her bones were dragged out from the grave and worshipped. Someday some other pope may find that it is not right, she was a witch - they drag her bones out from the grave again and curse them, and spit on them, and drag them into the filth - and do whatsoever he can do. What kind of stupidity is this? These infallible people! And strange that even in this century....
That's why I say only one percent at the most has barely touched the point that an authentic religion can become possible. The ninety-nine percent are still under 'infallible' popes. They may be Hindus, then the shankaracharya is infallible.[....]
I am not infallible. So what I am giving to you is an open religion. They have given you a closed system. A closed system is always afraid of any new truth, because the new truth will disturb the whole system. You will have to arrange it again.[....]
Now, The Bible is a closed system. What I have given to you is not a closed system, it is an open experiment. Any truth that may come later on can be absorbed by this system without any conflict, because I have told you again and again that there are no contradictions in life; all contradictions are complementaries. So even something contradicting any statement of mine can be absorbed in the religion without any fear, because this is my position: every contradiction is a complementary.
Just as day and night are complementary, life and death are complementary, all contradictions are complementary, so you can absorb even the most contradictory truth that ever comes in the future and it will be part of my system.
Hence I say this is the first and the last religion. There will be no need for any other religion.
- Osho, “From Unconciousness to Consciousness, #1”
Osho on Osho Talks- These discourses are the foundations of your meditation. -
“How to give people a taste of meditation was my basic reason to speak, so I can go on speaking eternally — it does not matter what I am saying. All that matters is that I give you a few chances to be silent, which you find difficult on your own in the beginning.”
- Osho, "The Invitation, #14"
“I am making you aware of silences without any effort on your part. My speaking is for the first time being used as a strategy to create silence in you.”
- Osho, "Satyam Shivam Sundram, #28"
“I don't have any doctrine; my talking is really a process of dehypnosis. Just listening to me, slowly, slowly you will be free of all the programs that the society has forced you to believe in.”
- Osho, "Beyond Psychology, #42"
“Satsanga... just to be with the master.... But for the West it is difficult; hence I speak to you. These questions and answers are really just a game to help you to get rid of words, thoughts. Slowly, slowly you are finding it more and more difficult: what to ask?"
- Osho, "The Transmission of the Lamp, #26"
"Once you are silent, utterly silent, then there is no need to ask anything; there is nothing to ask, there is nothing to answer.
- Osho, "The Transmission of the Lamp, #26"
“These are not ordinary discourses or talks. I am not interested in any philosophy or any political ideology. I am interested directly in transforming you who have gathered around me.”
- Osho, "The Buddha: The Emptiness of the Heart, #3"
"I have been a teacher of philosophy for nine years, and finding that there was nothing except words, I entered into the world of mysticism. There I have found what was missing in all the philosophies, in all the logical treatises. But now it is impossible to say it. Still I speak. I have been speaking for thirty years continuously – round and round, hoping that somebody may get caught into the net of words and may be pulled out of the misery in which he is drowning. The words can do that much. They can pull you out of your logical world, your linguistic world, your world of philosophies. That too is great. Half the work is done, the remaining can be done by meditation.
Use logic to destroy logic. And when you have destroyed logic and language from your mind, then use meditation to invite silence. Then each moment becomes so tremendously beautiful, so ecstatic, that one does not care whether he can say it or not. But one can show it always!
That's what I am doing: I cannot say it but I can show it."
- Osho, "The Sword and the Lotus, #14"
"I am speaking with great love for the victims, but I cannot speak with love for the murderers in the name of God -- pious murderers, virtuous murderers. Yes, I am bitter -- because I see the crime that religions have been committing against humanity. I speak with love for humanity, but I cannot be in favor of the criminals.
My situation is simple and clear. With whoever has harmed humanity, I am bitter; and whoever has been harmed, I am full of love for him. For all those women you called witches and burned them alive, I have tremendous love. For all those people you killed because they were Mohammedans, they were Jews, I have tremendous love and respect -- but not for the criminals. For the criminals I am a sword, and for the victims I am a lotus. I am both together. In one hand I have a sword, in the other hand I have a lotus flower. Everybody according to what he deserves.
So I say his statement is right, but he is wrong. Do you understand what I mean? The statement is right because I am speaking with love on the one hand, and on the other hand I am speaking with great bitterness for all those people who have been preventing human evolution towards buddhahood. I cannot forgive them, neither can I forget them."
- Osho, "Christianity: The Deadliest Poison, #3
"I repeat again: the music of my voice is not my music, neither is the voice my voice. I am simply available to existence. Whatsoever it wants to say to you, I don’t hinder it, I don’t edit it, I don’t add anything to it. Just as in a mine you find raw gold, raw diamonds – uncut, unpolished: the same way I never polish anything. I never know what I am going to say to you. I simply allow the mine – for you to pick up all the raw diamonds. They belong to existence.
And you say, “I relax more and more and then the gaps….” Those gaps are almost inevitable. You may have heard many orators and many speakers: I am not an orator, I am not a speaker. The orator prepares what he is going to say: it is his own mind. And you will not find the orator leaving gaps; that is against the art of oratory."
- Osho, "The Rebellious Spirit, #2"
"I can speak without awareness. There are orators, speakers…. I don’t know any oratory; I have never learned the art of speaking, because to me it looks foolish. If I have something to say, that is enough. But I am speaking to you with full awareness, each word, each pause… I am not an orator, not a speaker.
But when you are aware of speaking, it starts becoming art. It takes on the nuances of poetry and music."
- Osho, "From Bondage to Freedom, #3"
"I don't think anybody has spoken really spontaneously the way I am speaking. And I was not aware that my spontaneity would have such a tremendous effect on people. I am not an orator; I have never been trained for oratory.
I am just talking the way I talk when you see me personally; I don t see any difference. [....]
But with me it is a totally different matter. You are not idiots. I am speaking to people who are potentially enlightened beings; I am speaking with immense respect and love. And I have never felt any kind of nervousness because I am not an orator, I am just conversing with you. Hence, many times it is bound to happen: I will tell only half a story, and then, wherever the wind blows, my cloud starts moving. I have never made any effort that things should be otherwise.
I want to remain absolutely spontaneous. And I want you also to hear me spontaneously.
In the same way I don't know what I am going to say, you should also be in that emptiness where you don't know what you are going to hear.
Then there is a possibility of a transmission of something which is not in the words but follows the words like a shadow or an aroma.
Then the word will be there; you will hear the word, but the fragrance, the shadow, will enter your being and will stir your heart.
My whole effort is not to convince your intellect: It is to have a little love affair with your heart. These are heart-to-heart talks, not oratory: Not great lectures, but just simple, human talks.
So forgive me, I am going to remain the same way but you can always remind me that I have left something out in the middle. I can always complete it. I would love to complete it but what can I do?
There is so much to say - and nothing to say.
You can understand my problem: so much to say that even if I go on for lives it will still be there - and nothing to say, because that which I want to give to you is not something which can be said.
I am living in this dilemma but trying for some middle way; and I have the feeling I have found the middle way."
- Osho, "From Personality To Inpiduality, #25"
"I am not a master orator. I have never learned oratory. I just know how to communicate simply, straightforwardly, with human beings. I am simply talking to you. I am not an orator. Orators are politicians; orators are missionaries. I am not a missionary; I am not trying to convince anything; I am not trying to attract voters to me. I am simply talking to you. And I know that if you can talk heart to heart, it reaches to the deepest core of human beings. But I am not an orator."
-Source : Oshotalks.com/aboutoshotalks
"These discourses are the foundations of your meditation. [....]
Sitting with me in these discourses is nothing but creating more and more meditativeness in you. I don't speak to teach something; I speak to create something. These are not lectures; these are simply a device for you to become silent, because if you are told to become silent without making any effort you will find great difficulty."
- Osho, "Satyam Shivam Sundram, #28"
"So when I say “listen” I am not saying “be attentive” – because in attention there is tension. The very word is out of “tension” – “attention” means “at tension.” Your mind is narrowed. When I say “listen,” I mean be relaxed, open; become a sponge. Soak it up. Let it sink into you. Listen to me as you listen to the birds singing in the trees or to the sound of running water. There is no meaning in it. Or, listen to me as you listen to music. Music has no intellectual meaning. You listen to it – you simply drink it, you let it in, you allow it into your very innermost core. And you enjoy it. If somebody later on asks if you remember what music you have heard, you will not be able to say anything. You will say, “I enjoyed it, it was beautiful, it was something that thrilled me to the very core. I was refreshed through it. I became more alive through it, I felt a sudden joy bursting in my heart.” But these are the impacts that happen to you: there is nothing to say about the music. Listen to me as you do to music.
So don’t be worried. If you forget, good. I am not saying these things to be remembered. I am not here to make you knowledgeable, professional pundits, no. I am not here to give you a memory training. But an upsurge of understanding can happen. You can respond. To whatsoever I am saying you can respond, you can vibrate with it. And that will be real hearing. That is the first step."
- Osho, "Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 2, #2"
"I am using words just to create silent gaps. The words are secondary; the silences between those words are primary. This is simply a device to give you a glimpse of meditation. And once you know that it is possible for you, you have traveled far in the direction of your own being."
- Osho, "The Invitation, #14"
"I am speaking to you and I am fully aware from where these words are coming they are coming from my nothingness. I don't find any other place from where they are coming. Nothingness is not nothing. Nothingness is all. And to recognize nothingness as all, as an experience, is the only way to find your unity with the universe. In life, in death, there is no fear."
- Osho, "Om Mani Padme Hum, #24"
|
Oshofriends Links
"Just sitting silently doing nothing, Witnessing whatsoever is happening, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself."
All Osho Talks on this site © OSHO International Foundation .
2007 ~ 2024. Oshofriends.com by Flowerrain - The New Man