Question :

When does the boat reach the other Shore?

 

 

Deva Vigyan, there is no other shore, this is the only shore there is. And it is not a question of reaching somewhere else, it is a question of awakening here and now. It is never there, it is always here; it is never then, it is always now. This moment contains the totality of reality.

 

The boat I am talking about is not really a boat. I am talking about becoming aware. Man has fallen asleep — man is already where he needs to be, where he is meant to be. Man is in paradise. The garden of Eden has never been left, nobody can expel you from it. But you can fall asleep, and you can start dreaming a thousand and one things. Then those dreams become your reality, and the reality fades far away, becomes unreal.

 

You need not go anywhere. Meditation is neither a journey in space nor a journey in time, but an instantaneous awakening. If you can be silent now, this is the other shore. If you can allow the mind to cease, not to function, this is the other shore.

 

But the mind is very clever and cunning; it distorts every great teaching. It jumps upon words, catches hold of the words, and starts giving meanings to them which are not real meanings.

Yes, I talked about the other shore. And your mind must have caught the words “the other shore, the boat.” “Where is the other shore, and where is the boat, and how can I get to the boat, how can I get into it, and when will I reach the other shore?”

 

You misunderstood the whole thing. Be awake, and this shore becomes the other shore, and this very moment becomes eternity. This very body the buddha, and this very place the lotus paradise. And awakening does not need time; not even a split second is needed for it to happen. It is only a question of a tremendous desire arising in you, of such a quality of intensity that you become afire with it. In that fire, the old is gone and the new has arrived. The old was never there in the first place, you only believed in it. And the new has always been the case, you had only forgotten it.

 

I declare to you that this is the only world there is, and this is the only life there is. Don’t start thinking of some other life somewhere after death, beyond the seven skies, in heaven. Those are all just mind dreams, mind trips, new ways to fall asleep again.

 

Hence my insistence that no sannyasin has to leave the world, because leaving the world is part of a project, part of a dream of reaching to the other world. And because there is none, all your efforts will be in vain. You are not to go to the monasteries or to the Himalayas; you are not to escape from here. You have to become awakened here.

 

And in fact it is easier to be awakened here than in a Himalayan cave. Have you not observed it? If you are suffering from a nightmare, awakening is easier. If you are having a sweet dream, awakening is more difficult. If in your dream you are on a honeymoon with your beloved, who wants to be awakened?

 

In fact the person who tries to wake you up will look like the enemy. But if you are followed by a tiger and it is a question of life and death, and you are running and running and the tiger is coming closer and closer and closer, and you start feeling his breath on your back, then suddenly you will be awake. It is too much to tolerate, it is unbearable.

 

In a Himalayan cave you will be dreaming sweet dreams. That’s what people are doing in the monasteries — dreaming beautiful dreams of God, of angels, of heaven, of eternal peace and joy. In the world, people are suffering from nightmares — the nightmares of the share market, the nightmares of power politics. It is easier to be awakened here. If you cannot awaken here, you cannot wake up anywhere else.

 

But remember, let me repeat it again, there is no other reality, there is only one reality. But the one reality can be seen in two ways: with sleepy eyes, dreamy eyes, eyes full of dust, and then what you see is distorted; and the same reality can be seen without sleep, without dreaming eyes, without dust. Then whatsoever you see is the truth — and truth liberates.

 

– Osho, “The Book of Wisdom, #8, Q1”