Tariqa means the path, the method

 

 

RELIGION exists in three dimensions. That is the original source of the concept of Trinity, or the Hindu idea of trimurti - the three faces of God.

 

Or we can say that religion exists on three planes - because man exists on three planes. Man exists in the body, in the mind, in the soul. Religion also has a body, a mind and a soul. If you only exist in the body you cannot relate to any other religion except the outermost. If you exist as a psychology - as a mind, as a psyche - then you can relate to the second layer of religion, otherwise not. And until you start existing as a soul, there is no possibility of coming to encounter the innermost core of religion - tasawur, the ultimate, what the Sufis are searching for.

 

The Sufis have three names for these three planes. They have to be understood; they are very significant.

 

The first is called sharia. sharia means the body of religion. It may be alive, it may be dead - both are possibilities. When a Buddha is alive, sharia is alive. When a Mohammed is alive, sharia is alive - because Mohammed breathes life into it. But when Mohammed is gone there will be a corpse.

 

The corpse resembles the real body but it is not; it only resembles it. When life leaves you, your corpse will just look life you - but it is not. The real has left, the subtle has left. Only the gross is lying there on the ground. That creates trouble because people become so much acquainted with the face that they go on believing that the corpse is alive.

 

Islam is dead. When Mohammed was there to breathe life into it, it was a totally different kind of religion. That is called sharia. sharia means exotericism - the ritual, the formal, the Sunday religion.

 

It does not affect you at all. It gives you a certain respectability in the society. It is more social than spiritual. And it is more political than religious. Islam without Mohammed and Hinduism without Krishna and Buddhism without Buddha are nothing but garbed political standpoints. In the name of religion politics continues.

 

When God is not there to breathe into the body, the Devil starts breathing into it. So a dead body is not only dead, it is very dangerous. It can be possessed by the Devil. The politician is the Devil.

 

When the saint is gone the body is there - somebody can enter into it, somebody can start having that body. It resembles the real. When the saint is gone the priest will use it, the politician will use it, and many will be deceived by it because they know only the face.

 

Think of it in this way. When you look at another human being, do you know anything more than the face? Even your beloved, even your child - do you know anything more than the face? Have you ever penetrated farther than the face? Your acquaintance remains very superficial; it is not even skin deep. It remains formal - of the form. But the face is not the person, the personality is not the person. The outer shape is not the inner reality. Will you be able to recognise your woman if she comes as a spirit? You will not be able to. Will you able to recognise your own child if the child comes as a spirit, not as a body? You will not be able to recognise it at all. You will get so frightened, you will think that a ghost has come.

 

Once a woman was brought to me. Her husband had died. Three months had passed but she was still in agony, tremendous agony - crying and crying and weeping and not eating and not sleeping.

 

It was okay for a few days, the relatives tolerated it, but then it became too much - she was driving the other people of the family mad too. So they brought her to me.

 

I asked her what she wanted. She said, 'I want my husband back. I cannot live without him. Life is meaningless without him.'

 

I said, 'Okay, I will arrange for you to have a meeting with your husband.' She could not believe what I was saying because she had said the same thing to many people and they all had consoled her - as people do console. But I said, 'Yes. I will arrange a meeting. You go into that room, close the doors, sit silently there and within half an hour your husband will be standing before you - as a spirit, remember.'

 

She said, 'As a spirit? What do you mean?'

 

I said, 'There will be no body. You have burned the body already. He will come as a ghost.'

 

She said, 'I cannot go into that room. If he comes as a ghost I will be very scared. As it is I am already suffering too much - no more suffering! Please, don't do it to me.'

 

I said, 'But you loved the man so much....'

 

'Yes,' she said, 'I loved the man, but not as a ghost!'

 

Nobody loves you as a spirit. That is why love never satisfies.

 

Since that day she has calmed down. I had told her then, 'Calm down within three days otherwise I will persuade your husband to visit you.' And I went to her house every day to enquire whether she had calmed down or not. The third day she said, 'Now you need not come. I have calmed down for my whole life! You have scared me so much; in the night I cannot even sleep. A little noise outside, somebody walking, the policeman passing, and I become afraid. Maybe he's coming!'

 

And for the same husband she was crying and weeping and calling; she was ready to die. But she was not ready to encounter him without his body.

 

But don't laugh at her, you will not be able to do that either. We know people only by their faces.

 

Why? Because we know ourselves only by our faces as seen in the mirror. You would not recognise even your own head if you had not seen it in a mirror before - or would you? If you had never seen yourself in the mirror, and some day somebody brought your head in front of you, would you be able to recognise it? You would not recognise it at all. Your acquaintance with yourself is also very superficial. It's okay with the others, you look at them from the outside; but at least with yourself you are not outside, you are inside - can't you look at yourself from the inside? No, even to look at yourself you need the help of an outside mirror. So the mirror reflects, and you become an outsider to yourself - then you can see. And then you know that face, that body, that form.

 

Our so-called knowledge of ourselves and others is very much body-rooted. Hence we never enter deeper into any other dimension than the body. That dimension is called sharia. It is the outer dimension of religion. When a Mohammed walks on the earth, or a Buddha, or a Mahavira, you simply watch the body. You watch his behaviour. You watch how he sits, what he eats, what he wears, how he talks, his gestures - you watch these things. And out of these things you create a certain discipline and you start following that discipline. This is a dead religion; this is a corpse religion.

 

At this point Mohammedanism exists, Hinduism exists, Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism.... All the 'isms' exist at this point. The crowd believes in sharia, that's why the crowd always remains irreligious. The crowd as such is irreligious. You can find only individuals religious, never a crowd.

 

A crowd, by its very nature, is insane; a crowd, by its very nature, is political, never religious. In fact, if you are alone you cannot be political. Have you ever thought about it?

 

If you are left alone on the earth you can't be political. For politics the other is a must. If you are left alone on the earth you can be religious, there will be no hindrance, but you cannot be political.

 

Politics needs the crowd, the collective mind. Religion needs only you - you are enough unto yourself. Your very aloneness becomes the passage towards religion. That's why when a person wants to be religious he goes into aloneness, he seeks solitude. He goes to the mountains or to the desert. He wants to escape from the crowd because the crowd is basically mad.

 

Soren Kierkegaard, one of the most perceptive thinkers of the West, has said: 'The crowd is the untruth.'

 

Truth is always individual - a Buddha has it, a Mohammed has it, a Jesus has it. Truth is always a flowering of the individual consciousness, but the crowd never has it. The crowd always has the untruth. Even from a Buddha or a Christ or a Mohammed the crowd gathers the superficial: what he eats, when he goes to sleep. People even come and ask me. They say. 'Osho, when do you go to sleep? What hour exactly? - because we would also like to follow it.' For what? 'What do you eat - what vegetables, what fruits? - because we would also like to eat in the same way.' For what?

 

But that's how the mind of the crowd functions; it always goes for the non-essential. What I eat is meaningless, what I am is meaningful. What I do is irrelevant, what I am is relevant. Man is not equal to his behaviour, he is more than that. And the greater the man, the bigger the difference.

 

Ordinarily a man is exactly like what his behaviour is. What you do, that you are. But when a Buddha is there then the is very, very ordinary and what he is, is tremendously extraordinary. The distance is so vast that you cannot fathom his being through his behaviour.

 

But the modern mind suffers very much from this disease. You can go and see. B. F. Skinner and other psychologists - Pavlov and others - just watching the behaviour of rats to decide what the human mind is. Watching the behaviour of a rat to decide about man...!

 

A rat is just his behaviour. He has not yet grown an individuality, he has not yet grown a self. But one thing has to be said in favour of Skinner and others of his kind: about the mass they are right, about the crowd they are right. The crowd has the same state as the rat. But they miss the exceptional, and the exceptional is the essence of humanity.

 

They can explain your behaviour through the study of rats, but they cannot explain a Buddha or a Mohammed. But they try - and there they go berserk.

 

The sharia is created by watching the behaviour of the enlightened person. And it is okay when the enlightened person is in his body, but when he has disappeared from it then what will you do? You will start worshipping the body, the clothes. And sometimes it happens that when a great man dies - like a Mohammed or a Buddha - for a few days something hovers around him, as if he is still alive.

 

That also creates trouble.

 

You must have heard the famous Greek story.... The story is told that the runner of Marathon was dead an hour before he reached Athens. He was dead yet he still ran. And as a dead man he announced the victory of the Greeks.

 

It is a beautiful myth. It shows that the dead Masters act for a while as if they were still alive. But only a little while - one year, ten years, fifty years, perhaps. In any case, a finite period. Yes, this happens.

 

When a Mohammed disappears from the body, the body has tasted so much joy, the body has known so much celebration, that it goes on dancing - the runner goes on running. That myth is really beautiful and meaningful. At least about the great Masters it is true - for a few years things go on happening as if they are still alive.

 

This happens because of the tremendous energy released by the dying Master. His very place becomes a sacred place for pilgrimage. That's how a Mecca is created; that's how Kailash becomes of great significance; that's how Jainas have Gimar and Shikharji. On the mountains of Shikharji, twenty-three Jaina teerthankaras have died - out of twenty-four. Out of twenty-four great Masters, twenty-three Masters have died on a small hill. The whole hill has become suffused with the vibe of the beyond.

 

But that continues only for a while - that also creates a problem. Then the disciples think that the corpse is still alive because things go on happening. When I am gone things will go on happening for a few years and for those who are deep in love with me it will be as if I am still alive. Naturally, they will think that everything is as it was before.

 

But that is a fallacy. Once the man is gone, within a few years time those vibes that were created, and the echo of those vibes that were created, will by and by disappear into nothingness.

 

The sharia is the superficial core of religion - the body. Beware of sharia.

 

The second layer is called haqiqa. The sharia is the circumference of a circle - haqiqa. The word 'haqiqa' comes from 'haq'. 'haq' means truth - pure truth. haqiqat! That's why Mansoor declared, 'an-el-haq! - I am the Truth.' haqiqa means the truth, pure, uncontaminated by anything. haqiqa means the centre of the circumference, the very soul of religion.

 

At the point of sharia there is Mohammedanism, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism; at the point of haqiqa there is Sufism, Zen, Hassidism, Yoga. Remember it. To become a Mohammedan is not of much use, but to become a Sufi is immensely valuable. To become a Buddhist is just changing your clothes, but to become a follower of Zen is really moving towards transformation. To remain a Jew is nothing, but to be a Hassid is great splendour.

 

This is the second point, the innermost core.

 

At the first, sharia, there is politics, society, morality and a thousand and one things. Because of sharia the Koran is so full of social rules - so full of social rules . Because of sharia the Vedas are so full of rubbish. Because of sharia Manusmriti reads only as if it is a treatise on law. Only few and far between will you find real statements about religion. They are there - even in Manusmriti they are there. In the Vedas they are there, in the Koran they are there, but only few and far between.

 

Only if you are really in search of them will you be able to find them, otherwise the diamond is lost in the mud - the mud is too much. The mud is sharia; the diamond is Sufism.

 

Always rush towards the centre; never become too attached to the body. Create this continuous awareness of looking into depth, of looking into the centre of the circumference. And the circumference is big, the centre is very small. Islam is a great crowd, so is Hinduism, so is Christianity. Sufis you can count on your fingers; Yogis you can count on your fingers; Hassids or Zen Masters you can count on your fingers. They don't exist like the crowd, you will have to search for them. And if you have a real desire to find them, only then will you find them - otherwise you will miss.

 

For the sharia you need not go in search anywhere, the sharia comes in search of you. The sharia comes to convert you to Islam and the Buddhist monk comes to convert you to Buddhism. But if you want to search for a Sufi or a Hassid you will have to move, you will have to become a sincere seeker. And you will have to learn many things on the way - because for one real Master there are ninety-nine false Masters. And the false will appeal to you more because you are false. The false will appeal to you more because you understand the language of the false. The real may not appeal to you at all, the real may sometimes create fear in you.

 

You will resist the real Master and you will fall and become a victim of the unreal. Beware of that!

 

You are unreal, so naturally you are attracted by the unreal. The unreal promises you things that you want. He will say, 'If you follow me, you will have more wealth, you will have more power, more prestige, this and that.... 'That's what you are seeking.

 

The real can only promise one thing: 'If you come close to me, you will die.' The real can promise only death. The real can promise only one thing: 'I am going to destroy you utterly' - because only after death is the resurrection. The real Master is a cross; the real Master is a door into death. You disappear into him. Yes, you will come out, but you will come out a totally new being. The real Master is a fire - one gets frightened, one feels very much afraid, one remains aloof. From far away one watches a real Master.

 

Just the other day there was a young man - he is very young - who said that five or seven years before he had promised Guru Maharaji that he would devote his whole life and his work to him. Now he is in trouble. He does not feel that he is growing in any way. He has not gained a small, even the smallest insight through this contact or relationship. But now the promise that he has given.... Now he thinks that he is being very religious because he goes on clinging to his promise. It is not religion, it is ego. Now he cannot accept the idea of dropping his promise because that hurts the ego: 'You are a man of your word. Once you have given the word you have to follow.'

 

But this seems to be stupid. If you are not getting well, getting integrated, if you are not growing, then one needs the courage to drop it. And in these five years you have become wiser than you were when you gave the promise. A stupid mind gives a promise, and for five or ten or fifty years you go on following the same promise knowing perfectly well that nothing has happened - is it not suicidal?

 

How can the past be binding? I am not saying don't give promises and I am not saying don't fulfil your promises. Give promises, fulfil them, but when you come to see that nothing is happening then be courageous enough to drop the ego. This is just egoistic.

 

I was reading a story....

 

A man lived a very religious life - religious in the sense of sharia. He followed all the rituals of his religion, he followed the moral precepts that his religion prescribed, he followed a Master - and yet both were in the same boat. He followed the Master because the Master was very, very perfect in following the same principles that he was following. He was ahead. The Master was an extremist; he was absolutely devoted to the dead word, the dead letter. The scripture was his soul. He would not move an inch on his own. He was already a dead man. But he was perfect as far as ritual was concerned; you could not find a single fault in him. He was faultless. And this man followed him.

 

Then one night he dreamed a dream. He dreamed that he died and went up to meet St. Peter, asking, 'Can I come into heaven?' He was very confident about it because he had followed perfectly whatsoever had been told to him. He had followed all the commandments mechanically, never committing a single error. So he was very certain.

 

He asked, 'Can I come into heaven?' That was just to be polite.

 

'Good heavens!' said Peter. 'This is not heaven.' Peter then explained that the Pearly Gates were much higher up and could only be reached by a long ladder. He showed him a ladder which went up and up and disappeared somewhere in the clouds - beyond the clouds.

 

The man looked at the ladder and became frightened. The ladder seemed to be endless. The man said, 'When will I reach? This ladder seems to be endless!'

 

St. Peter said, 'Don't be afraid. It depends how long it is. For each person it functions differently. I will show you the way. You take this chalk and start climbing. For each sin of adultery, fornication, lechery, or whatever you have committed or you have thought of committing, go on marking with your chalk. Each sin has to be marked on one rung. When you have. finished and you have made a mark for every single act or thought, you will come to the end of the ladder and the gate of heaven will be in front of you. So it depends. If you have committed many, many sins then it will be very long. If you have done very few it will not be so long. This ladder is flexible; it changes with the person who is climbing on it.

 

The man was very happy. He took the chalk and started climbing the ladder. He kept on going for ages. His legs ached, his arms ached, yet he met no one. And no sign of any gate. And the ladder was still the same, going beyond and beyond.

 

Then one day he got very fed up with the whole journey. But now he was stuck because to go back would take those same ages again. 'It is better to go on. Some day.... Perhaps.... There is a possibility, a hope.' And he was surprised - because although he had not committed any sins he had thought of committing all kinds of them, endlessly.

 

The ritualistic religion makes a man repressive. This SHARIA - the body, the dead body of a religion - makes you crippled in the body, but your mind becomes very, very imaginative about all kinds of wrongs. You fantasize; you commit them in the mind.

 

Your consciousness becomes more contaminated when things move in your mind than when you actually do them. When you actually do something, there is a possibility of getting rid of it by seeing it - its meaninglessness.

 

If you are angry, sooner or later anger itself will make you aware that anger is useless - not only useless, it is poisonous; not only poisonous, it is very destructive and suicidal. But if you go on only thinking of being angry, murdering people, destroying people, you will never come to an understanding. You will never become able to get rid of anger.

 

If you go into sex, sooner or later you will lose all the fantasies that you have been creating about it.

 

Sooner or later it becomes a very ordinary thing. Sooner or later you start getting bored by it. But if you simply imagine, then you will never be bored. Then you are never going to become disinterested in it. One day or other sinners can drop it, but the saints, the so-called saints, they cannot drop it.

 

They are sitting on a volcano.

 

This man was surprised because he went on marking those rungs on the ladder for ages and still they were coming and still he went on remembering. It was as if he had never done anything except commit sins in his mind.

 

Then one day, all at once, he saw his guru descending the ladder. He was very happy to see his Master.

 

'Ah, my Master!' he said, 'Are you by any chance going back for more disciples to bring to heaven?'

 

'No, you fool!' said the guru. 'I am going back for more chalk!'

 

Beware of the false gurus - they are many. The false guru will promise you things of this world; even if he is promising them in the other world he is promising the same things. He will promise you beautiful women in Paradise - firdaus. He will promise you streams of wine in paradise. But he is promising the same thing. He may promise you golden castles, palaces studded with diamonds in paradise, but diamonds and gold and silver and women and wine - they all belong to this world. He is simply titillating you; he is simply befooling you.

 

The real Master only promises one thing: your death. So wherever you find death waiting for you, then gather courage. You have to disappear for God to be.

 

This is the second dimension or plane of religion: haqiqa.

 

The third dimension or plane is called tariqa. tariqa means the path, the method... from the outer to the inner.

 

The outer is a circumference, the inner is a centre, and tariqa is the radius proceeding from the circumference to the centre - the initiative path that leads from outward observance to inner conviction, from belief to vision, from potency to act, from dream to reality.

 

This TARIQA - method, technique, path, way, Tao, Dhamma - is the whole science of religion. The circumference is there, the centre is there, but one has to move from the circumference because we are there and we have to use a certain radius. Only a radius can join the circumference to the centre. What is the radius that Sufis propose? They are called the people of the path because they have devised many techniques.

 

They have the most potential TARIQA - it can transform you, it can transform you utterly. They are not concerned with theology at all, they are only concerned with methodology. They are not worried about whether God is or is not. They say, 'Don't talk nonsense! Here is a way. Go through it and see for yourself. This is the way to develop your eyes - and then see whether God is or is not.'

 

They don't argue, they don't try to convince; they demonstrate. They say, 'Come with me. I know a window from where you can look into the open sky. Remaining closed in this dark room, how can I convince you that there is open sky - infinite?'

 

It will be as difficult as it was for the frog you have heard about, who lived in a small well. It is a Sufi story. One day it happened that a frog from the ocean came to the well - he must have been a tourist. He came into the well, introduced himself to the frog of the well, and said, 'I come from the ocean.'

 

Naturally, the frog asked, 'Ocean? What do you mean by ocean? What is it?'

 

And the frog from the ocean said, 'It is very difficult to describe, sir, because you have never left this well it seems. It is so small. But still I will try.'

 

The frog of the well laughed. He said, 'Nobody has ever heard about anything bigger than this well.

 

How big is your ocean?' And the frog of the well jumped one third of the space of the well and said, 'This much?'

 

And the frog from the ocean laughed. He said, 'No, sir.'

 

So the frog from the well jumped two thirds of the space and said, 'This much?' Then he jumped the whole space and said, 'Now it must be exactly like this well.'

 

But the frog from the ocean said, 'It is impossible to describe. The difference is not of quantity, it is of quality. It is vast! It is not circumscribed!'

 

The frog from the well said, 'You seem to be either a madman or a philosopher or a liar. You get out from here! Don't talk nonsense!'

 

That's what the man of the world has always said to the mystic: 'Don't talk nonsense! Be practical and talk the language that we understand.'

 

Sufis don't say anything about God, they only talk about tariqa - they say: 'This is the way to know.

 

You will have to know to know We cannot explain it to you. It is so mysterious that it will be almost a profanity to bring it to your level. Truth cannot be brought to your level; the only way possible, the only way left, is that you can be brought to the level of truth.' That is what tariqa is. Philosophy is an effort to bring truth to your level so that you can understand it. tariqa is to take you to truth so that you can see - so that you can see on your own.

 

Remember these three words.

 

Everybody exists at sharia, and at SHARIA YOU will remain miserable because you are existing with only a dead body. Everybody needs to move towards haqiqa; only at haqiqa can you be fulfilled.

 

And to reach to the HAQIQA YOU will have to follow a tariqa, you will have to follow a method, a discipline, a Master.

 

And beware of the false Masters. They are there and they speak your language. They can be very convincing. Be a little more adventurous, courageous - seek somebody who can absorb you, who can transmute you, who can consume you, who is like a flame. The moth comes to the flame and is consumed - so is the disciple. He comes to a Master and is consumed.

 

And remember, before you reach to the real Master, to the authentic Master, to satguru, you will come across many false Masters. So don't get hooked. Even if you promise, you have to be alert that no promise can be binding unless it is fulfilling you. If it is fulfilling you then there is no need.

 

That's what I wanted to say to the young man who said, 'I have promised to Guru Maharaji....' Then why are you here? There is no need. If you are really growing there, there is no need to be here.

 

The very fact that you are here shows that you are searching. And now, if you remain hooked with your so-called Guru Maharaji, then there is no possibility. Then I cannot be of any help because you will not be able to take any help - because your heart will not be open, because you will not become part of me, you will not come close.

 

And another person has written to me that he has been following George Gurdjieff for a few years.

 

Now Guru Maharaji is a false master; it is utterly stupid to follow him. But Gurdjieff was a real Master - a satguru, a Sufi. If you are following Gurdjieff, perfectly good... but Gurdjieff is no more. Even if Gurdjieff is no more, a real Master dead is more potent than an unreal Master alive.

 

But remember, if you can find a real Master alive you will not be going against Gurdjieff. No two real Masters are enemies; they cannot be. If you really followed Gurdjieff for eight years - as the seeker has written to me - if you have really followed him, then he has brought you here. Now if you want to create a barrier between me and you, in the name of Gurdjieff, it is for you to choose. But it will be your responsibility, don't blame Gurdjieff. He has brought you here. He has already done too much for you.

 

What I am saying is exactly what Gurdjieff was doing. Of course, I speak a different kind of language, I am a different kind of person. But only our fingers differ, the moon that we are pointing to is the same.

 

If you have been following a real Master and the Master is no more, then it is the responsibility of the Master to send you to another real Master so that your growth can continue. Now don't be obsessed by the past. Gurdjieff is no more - I am.

 

Soon I will not be here either. And remember, I would like to remind my disciples especially: if you really love me, when I am gone I will direct you to people who will be still alive. So don't be afraid of that. If I send you to Tibet or if I send you to China or if I send you to Japan or to Iran - go. And don't say that because you belong to me you cannot belong to another real Master. Just look in the eyes and you will find my eyes again. The body will not be the same but the eyes will be the same.

 

If your journey is not complete with me while I am here, if something is still to be done, completed, then don't be afraid. By dropping me you will not be betraying me. In fact, by not dropping me and by not following the real, the alive Master, you will be betraying me. Keep it in mind.

 

Jean-Paul Sartre has written something that I liked: 'People have often said to me about dates and bananas - you cannot judge them. To know what they are really like, you have to eat them on the spot, just after they have been picked. And I have always considered bananas a dead fruit whose real taste escaped me. The books that pass from one period to another are dead fruits too. In another time they had a different taste - sharp and tangy. We should have read Emile or the Persian Letters just after they were picked.'

 

I like this passage from Jean-Paul Sartre. Exactly so is the case with Masters. When they are alive they have a taste, sharp and tangy. When the fruit is right from the tree it has a totally different quality to it. A dead Master is like tinned fruit. You can open the tin and you can eat the fruit, but something will be missing. Be courageous and always trust in life. My love towards you or your love towards me should never become a hindrance. Love liberates. Love makes you free.

 

So don't be worried. If you have been following Gurdjieff for many years and you have come here, and now your heart starts throbbing with me, don't be worried. Gurdjieff was not very monogamous!

 

I know him perfectly well. And if he gets angry or anything, that is my problem. I will take care. But don't find excuses. When a Master is alive his TARIQA IS alive. It has a taste - sharp and tangy.

 

Taste a Master while he is alive. Fools worship death; wise people worship life.

 

-Osho, “Sufis The People of the Path Vol 1, #3”