Satyam, Shivam, Sundram

- Truth, Virtue(Godliness), Beauty -

 

 

Question 1:

Beloved Osho,

What is the mystic conception of ultimate reality?

 

 

Maneesha, the mystic's conception of the ultimate reality is the only authentic, real experience. It is not a thought or a concept, but an existential experience.

 

But the mystic does not deal with the mind. His whole effort is to get rid of the prison of the mind.

 

The mystic is not a philosopher; his world is beyond all philosophies. Philosophies are simply by- products of mental processes. They do not reflect the reality, they only reflect you. That's why there are so many philosophies in the world, contradicting each other.

 

The reality is one. How can there be so many philosophies? - there are not so many mystical experiences. There is only one experience; neither time changes it, nor space. Since millennia, the mystic in every country, in every race, in every age has experienced the same reality. The philosopher thinks about reality; the mystic simply drops all thinking. In his silence, utter silence and serenity, he becomes a mirror, and the reality reflects itself.

 

The mystic is the greatest flowering of human consciousness. His ultimate vision can be described in three beautiful words which have been used for thousands of years and there has not been any improvement on them. They are three words from the ancientmost sources: Satyam, Shivam, Sundram.

 

Satyam means the truth - not what you think about it, but what it is; not your idea about it, but its reality. To know this truth you have to be utterly absent. Your very presence will distort the vision, because your presence means the presence of your mind, your prejudices, your conditionings. You are nothing else but a bundle of all that has been forced upon you by the religions, by the society, by the so-called leaders of humanity.

 

Your absence means absence of all prejudices, all borrowed knowledge, absence of the Christian, absence of the Hindu, absence of the Mohammedan... just a pure sky, a pure being. I am using the word absence to deny all that is not you.

 

But don't misunderstand me; this absence of you is your real presence. Only the prejudices are absent, the ego is absent, your knowledgeability is absent - but your being shows in its utter purity.

 

You disappear as a personality and there remains only a pure presence. So it is absence on one side of all that is false in you, and it is presence on the other side of all that is real in you. In this state you don't think, you simply see.

 

This seeing of existence is the first experience of the mystic contained in the word satyam. Satyam means the truth - not any conception about it, but truth itself.

 

The second word, shivam, means virtue - all that is good, all that is valuable, all that is the most precious in you, the ultimate good. The man who comes to experience the truth starts living the truth immediately. There is no other alternative. His living the truth is shivam. Shivam means truth in action, truth in your life, truth in your love, truth in your friendship, truth in your eyes, and truth in your heart. Shivam is the action of truth; truth itself is the center of the cyclone. But if you experience the truth, the cyclone around you becomes shivam. It becomes pure godliness.

 

A man of truth is the only proof that the world is divine. No argument can prove that the world is divine.

 

I am reminded of one of the greatest mystics, Ramakrishna. When asked by a logician, "What is truth? Do you have any argument, any evidence for it?" Ramakrishna laughed hilariously.

 

He said, "I am the argument, and if you cannot see in my eyes the proof and the evidence, you will not find it anywhere else. I am the only proof that existence is not dead, that existence is not only matter; that existence is not only available to science, that existence is much more than matter, that you are much more than the body, that you are much more than the mind...."

 

But this "much more" cannot be proved by any logician, any scientist; only the mystic is the proof.

 

He can also not prove it by words, but only by his way of life. The way of life of the mystic is the only possibility to come in contact with the divine which is all around you. You are living in the very ocean of the divine, but the mystic becomes your first window through which you can see the non-material, the spiritual, the beyond.

 

Shivam is the mystic in action - his gestures, the music in his words, the poetry of his life, the light and the depths of his eyes. Whatever he does, whether he is chopping wood or carrying water from the well, you can see that there is a subtle difference. He is total in his every act, and that totality brings the third word, sundram.

 

Sundram means beauty. So this is the mystic trinity: satyam, the truth; shivam, the good, the divine; and sundram, the beauty.

 

You have seen the beauty of the flowers, you have seen the beauty of the stars, you have seen the beauty of a bird on the wing, you have seen beauties upon beauties of sunsets and sunrises.

 

But the greatest beauty is to see the totality, the intensity of the mystic. That is the greatest flowering in existence of consciousness itself. It is available only to those who are humble enough to receive it, who are not living a closed life of fear, of paranoia, but who are living a life of love, with all the windows open, and are ready to go with life wherever it leads.

 

These receptive souls are the only real seekers in the world. These receptive souls are blessed with their experience of sundram: the beautiful rose that is opening in the heart of the mystic. These three words are so unique, so incomparable, there is nothing parallel to them.

 

Truth is the experience, shivam is the action that comes out of the experience, and beauty is the flowering of consciousness of the man who has experienced truth. These three are the ultimate reality for those who are on the mystical path.

 

This is a mystery school.

 

All my effort is not to give you knowledge, but to take all knowledge away from you, to make you so innocent, just like a newly born child who is fully conscious, sensitive, alert, but knows nothing. His not knowing makes every child experience something which is available only to the greatest sages of the world.

 

To understand the psychology and the development of religious consciousness, I would like you to start with the child. It is the child's experience that haunts intelligent people their whole life. They want it again - the same innocence, the same wonder, the same beauty. It is now a faraway echo; it seems as if you have seen it in a dream.

 

But the whole of religion is born out of the haunting childhood experience of wonder, of truth, of beauty, of life in its beautiful dance all around. In the songs of the birds, in the colors of the rainbows, in the fragrance of the flowers the child goes on remembering deep in his being that he has lost a paradise.

 

It is not a coincidence that all the religions of the world have the idea in parables that once man lived in paradise and somehow, for some reason he has been expelled from that paradise. They are different stories, different parables, but signifying one simple truth: these stories are just a poetic way to say that every man is born in paradise and then loses it. The retarded, the unintelligent completely forget about it.

 

But the intelligent, the sensitive, the creative go on being haunted by the paradise that they have known once and now only a faint memory, unbelievable, has remained with them. They start searching for it again.

 

The search for paradise is the search for your childhood again. Of course your body will no more be a child's, but your consciousness can be as pure as the consciousness of the child. This is the whole secret of the mystical path: to make you a child again, innocent, unpolluted by any knowledge, not knowing anything, still aware of everything that surrounds you, with a deep wonder and a sense of a mystery that cannot be demystified.

 

This is something of fundamental importance to understand. The scientist is trying to demystify existence. His whole effort is to make everything known. The very word science means knowledge.

 

The work of the mystic is exactly the opposite of the work of a scientist. The mystic does not want to demystify existence; on the contrary, he wants to become part of this enormous mystery itself. He does not want to become a knower, he wants to disappear in the mystery of existence.

 

I am reminded of a beautiful story. Of course it cannot be true, but it is so significant that whether it can be true or not, I don't care.

 

A Chinese emperor called all the painters of his empire, which was one of the greatest empires in the world. He himself was in deep love with painting and he asked the painters, "I want to declare one of you the master painter of my empire. You are going to be my guest and you have to paint. I will come to see your paintings and whichever painting proves to be the best, the painter will become part of my royal court and the master painter of the whole empire - with many rewards."

 

Thousands of painters participated in this competition. One old painter said to the king, "It will take at least three years for me to complete the painting, and I a have few conditions. While I am making the painting, nobody should enter into my house. I don't want anybody to see the incomplete painting.

 

When the painting is complete, I will invite you."

 

The king said, "Three years? - this is too much."

 

The painter said, "Then I can get out of the competition. Three years is nothing. You don't know what I am going to paint."

 

Reluctantly the emperor agreed. All the other painters finished their work, somebody in one week, somebody in two weeks, at the most four weeks. But the king was not satisfied. He was waiting for the old man because without seeing his painting he cannot declare his judgment.

 

After three years the old man came and asked the emperor, "Now the painting is complete, you are welcome." He was painting in the king's palace itself. He had been given a beautiful palace which was guarded twenty-four hours a day so that nobody should enter for three years. Let the painter do his work unhindered, uninterfered with.

 

The emperor was waiting for three years. It is a long time and he was old and he was afraid that perhaps death may come before then. But fortunately he was still alive. With great wonder in his heart he entered the palace where the painter had done his work. He had painted on a whole wall of the palace, a beautiful forest with a small river flowing, and a small footpath going into the deep forest and disappearing into the mountains that he had painted.

 

The king could not believe his eyes. It was almost miraculous - magical. He was in awe. After a long silence he asked the painter only one question: "I am very much interested in this little footpath that goes around the forest, is seen sometimes around the mountains and then disappears. Where does it go?"

 

The painter said, "There is no other way to know unless you walk on it."

 

The king completely forgot that it was only a painting. He was so overwhelmed by the beauty that he took the hand of the painter in his hand and they both walked on the path and disappeared into the mountains. They have not returned yet.

 

This is the way of the mystic.

 

He disappears into existence not to return.

 

The scientist remains always an outsider, speculating, dissecting, analyzing, but he is not part of what he is doing. He is just a neutral objective observer.

 

The mystic is not an observer.

 

The mystic joins the dance. He dances with the trees, he dances in the rain, he dances with the peacocks. He sings songs with the birds. He slowly, slowly merges and melts into existence. He does not demystify it, he makes it more mysterious. He glorifies it, he gives it its splendor, its majesty.

 

He makes it the most profound orgasmic experience.

 

The mystic is a lover, not a knower. His path is of love, not of knowledge. Love is his God, not logic. Through his love he has come to realize three things: satyam, shivam, sundram - the truth, the godliness of existence and the tremendous beauty... the unbelievable poetry, the song of the silence, the music without songs.

 

Only the mystic knows without any knowledge.

 

The scientist has knowledge but knows nothing. A man of the caliber of Albert Einstein said to his friends before dying, "If there is another life, I would not like to be a scientist or a physicist again.

 

This has been a sheer wastage. I have known so much, but I know nothing about myself. What is the use of all this knowledge? My inner world remains dark and I have been watching faraway stars and the galaxies and the nebulas and I have not looked at myself."

 

Only a man of tremendous intelligence can see the point: Albert Einstein was not dying with contentment, with joy, but with a deep frustration and disappointment.

 

The world may think that he was one of the greatest, most successful men, perhaps the greatest scientist that has ever walked on the earth. But ask him... He has missed all that is beautiful, he has missed all that is divine, he has missed all that makes life a rejoicing.

 

The mystic's concern is to create a song in your heart and a dance to your feet and a joy that never fades in your very being.

 

Maneesha, remember these three words. They are the most beautiful words ever uttered by anyone, and they reveal the very essence of the ultimate reality - satyam, shivam, sundram.

 

-Osho, "Satyam Shivam Sundram, #1, Q1"