Question :

What is a Mystic?

 

 

I don't know, Purna, and nobody else knows either. That's why a mystic is called a mystic. Something indefinable, something very elusive, something that cannot be grasped, that cannot be comprehended. Not that it is something special -- it is very ordinary. That makes the mystery ten thousandfold.

 

A mystic is in a state of natural being. He is the most ordinary man, he has renounced all extraordinary desires. All desires are basically to become extraordinary, to become somebody. A mystic is one who IS and who has no desire to become anybody else. A mystic is a state of utter contentment, a state of no movement. He is not going anywhere, he has no goals, not motives. He simply is. He has stopped all desires to know; rather, he has started living.

 

There are people who go on searching for knowledge, They are anti-mystic; their whole effort is how to demystify life. That's what knowledge means. Knowledge means how to know each and everything -- so that life can be demystified, so that the wonder of life is killed and man can become absolutely a boss, a manipulator. So that man can control everything.

 

Knowledge is an effort to control, knowledge is power. All curiosity, all desire for knowledge, is desire for power.

 

Science is non-mystic. A scientist is just the anti-pole, the other extreme, of being a mystic. He is trying to poke his nose into reality, to find out its secrets. He is trying to undress reality. He is trying to see reality so that reality can be manipulated.

 

The mystic is one who has come to see the point that th ere is no way to know the reality, because we are part of it -- and how can the knower know itself? There is no possibility. It is an impossible search, it is doomed to fail.

 

A mystic is one who has become mature enough to be able to live without knowledge, to be able to live in ignorance, to be ready to live. He is not worried about knowing. He does not make it a condition that "First I have to know, then I will live. How can I live without knowing? If I am to love, first I have to know what love is -- only then can I be loving. If I am to enjoy, first I have to know what enjoyment is, otherwise how can I enjoy?"

 

He makes questions out of simple phenomena. He goes on creating questions, he transforms everything into a problem. That is the state of the non-mystic.

 

The mystic is one who has relaxed, who says, "There is no need to know what love is -- still you can love." Knowledge in no way helps -- on the contrary, it hinders. If you know everything about love you will never be able to love. It is a blessing that you are not capable of knowing what love is. It is a blessing that God has made it an utter mystery, otherwise nobody will ever love. Once you know, love will disappear. Awe will disappear from life; your eyes will not know that quality of wondering. You will become smug, you will become satisfied with your knowledge, You will become dull -- knowledge makes people dull. The more knowledgeable a person is, the more dull he is, the more insensitive he is.

 

The mystic has come to see the point that knowledge is not possible. That the life, existence, God, or whatever you call it, is basically not only unknown but unknowable. All effort to know is futile. Relax and live.

 

The mystic lives, the non-mystic thinks. The non-mystic thinks, "How to live? How to love? How to be?" The mystic simply is. He is so much occupied with living that he has no energy for knowing. And the paradox: because he does not bother about knowing, he comes to know in a deeper way. It is not knowledge, it is experience,

 

And the man who tries to know, never comes to know. His very effort is egoistic. The seeker after knowledge is a rapist; he is violent, aggressive.

 

The mystic loves life, and in that love mysteries are opened, veils upon veils are removed. But the mystery deepens; it is not finished. One door opens, and you see another door. That opens, and you see another door. Deeper and deeper you move, but there is no end to depth.

 

I was reading:

 

A Yugoslav peasant who, reading the newspapers, came more and more often upon the word 'dialectics' wanted to know what the word meant, but nobody could tell him...

 

Communists talk too much about dialectics -- dialectical materialism, dialectical evolution. Hegelians also talk about dialectics -- that life moves through thesis, antithesis, synthesis; that everything moves through struggle, conflict with the opposite. And each synthesis becomes a thesis again, and it goes on and on....

 

So this peasant went to the priest who said, "It is simple and I'll explain it to you -- in a concrete example. Two men, one clean and one dirty, are walking towards the river. Which one will take a bath?"

 

"The dirty one," said the peasant.

 

"No, why should he? He is already used to his dirt. It is the clean one who will want to remain clean. Let us see it one more time. Two men, one dirty, one clean, are walking towards the river. Which one will take a bath?"

 

"It is simple," the peasant said. "The clean one, for he will want to continue in cleanliness."

 

"No," the priest said. "Why should he, since he is already clean? It is the dirty one who will want to become clean. Let us see it one more time. Two men are walking towards the river. Which one will take a bath?"

 

"Both," the peasant said -- confident he has finally caught up with 'dialectics'.

 

"Neither," the priest said. "For why should they? The clean one is already clean and the dirty is used to dirt."

 

And so on and so on....

 

That is how the man who is looking for knowledge moves -- this way, that; that way, this way... he goes on zigzag. He goes on arguing for, and then he starts arguing against, then he starts arguing for -- because each for leads to against, and each against leads to for.

 

Atheists become theists, theists become atheists, Christians become Hindus, Hindus become Christians... and this goes on, this search for knowledge. The West comes to the East, the East goes to the West -- see the absurdity of it. The Eastern seeker of knowledge goes to the Western universities. He hankers to go to Oxford, to Cambridge, to Harvard. And Western seekers of knowledge are coming to the East, to the Himalayas.

 

What is this nonsense all about? Thesis becomes antithesis. Everyone changes and turns into one's opposite sooner or later, because you get tired of OnE position and then you start thinking of the opposite position. The opposite seems alluring, new, unfamiliar, seems like an adventure. Then you get tired of that and you start moving again. By that time you have forgotten that you have been in the first position before. That's how people go on moving.

 

This has been my observation, that if you are a man in this life there is every possibility that you were a woman in your past life. If you are a woman, there is every possibility that you were a man in the past life. A man becomes tired of being a man and starts thinking that there must be some joy which is not available to him but which is available to women. And a woman becomes tired of being a woman and people go on changing.

 

Now science is making it available; even in one life you can change. Sooner or later, by the end of this century, people won't wait that long for another life -- why bother ? Three years you have been a man, enough is enough. Now why not try being a woman? And it is chemically possible now, physiologically possible; you can be changed. Then you can try the woman. Then within a few years you will be tired and you will start thinking again of being a man. That's how things go.

 

People get tired of heterosexuality, they become homosexual. Homosexuals become tired of homosexuality, they become heterosexual. Thesis, antithesis. And there is synthesis too -- bisexuals.

 

In every possible way, man goes on moving from one extreme to another. And sometimes he gets tired of both, then tries some synthesis.

 

A mystic is one who has dropped the whole search, the whole project. He does not look for any truth. He simply enjoys the simple things of life. The breakfast in the morning, the shower, the morning walk, a child giggling on the street, a dog, a crow crowing -- he enjoys these small things. He is not concerned about the distant: his whole concern is immediate.

 

And that is the whole approach of Zen. Understanding Zen, you will become a mystic. Then each moment is such joy, such glory, such splendour. And each moment is so precious. Once the hankering for knowledge is dropped, everything takes on a grandeur. Just a pebble on the beach is so beautiful...

 

Look at the lilies of the field, how beautiful they are. Not even Solomon was attired, in all his glory, like one of these.

 

Then THIS moment is all. A mystic is one who knows no time; time has disappeared from his mind. He lives in this moment and in eternity. He is not worried about birth, he is not worried about death, he is not worried about becoming. It is becoming that keeps you away from yourself -- he has dropped ALL ideas of becoming. He is not trying to become. He simply is. And when becoming disappears, being is revealed. That revelation of being is the state of being a mystic.

 

People are trying the impossible. Becoming is the most impossible thing. You ARE -- how can you become? How can you become that which you are not? And what is the need to become that which you are?Just see the impossibility of it. You can't become that which you are not; you need not become that which you are. A is A, and A cannot become B. And, of course, A has no need to become A; it is already A. This simple understanding is mysticism.

 

I have heard:

 

There was once a man who owned a beautiful garden. One day he trapped a hummingbird who was eating his finest fruits. The bird promised him three wise teachings as the price of his release. The man agreed.

 

Safely out of reach, the bird said, "Do not regret the irrevocable. Do not believe the impossible. Do not seek the unattainable," and burst into laughter. "If you had not let me go, you would have found inside of me a pearl the size of a lemon."

 

Enraged, the man climbed up the tree after the bird. As he came closer, the bird flew higher. With the man in frenzied pursuit, the bird flew to the highest branch of all and walked to its very tip. The man came scrambling after; the branch snapped, the bird flew off, the man dropped to the ground with a thud.

 

Bruised, he picked himself up and gazed ruefully at his tormentor. "Wisdom is for the wise," the bird admonished. "I told you not to regret the irrevocable, but no sooner did you let me go than you came after me again. I told you not to believe the impossible, yet you believed that a bird my size could contain a pearl the size of a lemon. And I told you not to seek the unattainable, yet you climbed a tree to catch a bird. You are a fool!"

 

The mystic is a wise man. He is wisdom incarnate. Not knowledge, remember -- wisdom. Knowledge is a search after the impossible. Wisdom comes out of relaxing into your being. A mystic is a relaxed person, he is in a let-go. Immense is the joy, unexpressible is the bliss.

 

Relax and see. Be and see....

 

- Osho, "Take It Easy, Vol 1, #14"