Osho on Gurdjieff

 

 

George Gurdjieff, says that identification is the only sin.

 

-Osho, “Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, #15”

 

 

 

George Gurdjieff is right when he says that man is a machine, but by `man’ he means all those who are living unconsciously, who are not aware, who are not awake, who do not respond to reality but only react. Ninety-nine point nine percent of human beings come in the category of machines. With these machines, astrology is possible.

 

-Osho, “Beyond Enlightenment, #31, Q3”

 

 

 

George Gurdjieff used to say, “My whole teaching can be condensed into one word, and that is disidentification.” He is right. Not only his teaching can be condensed into one word, all the teaching of all the masters can be condensed into one word: disidentification. Don’t be identified with the mind.

 

-Osho, “The Book of Wisdom, #21“

 

 

 

Gurdjieff follows the path of will. He says, ’Bring tremendous effort - to the very climax, so that you can become crystallized. Struggle hard, make all the efforts that you can.’

 

If you go to Zen Masters, Buddhists, they believe in effortlessness, they believe in surrender. They don't believe in struggle. They say,'Drop all efforts. Just sit silently, don't do anything: non-doing. Someday it will happen; because it cannot be done, it happens.'

 

Both are clear-cut. If you follow Gurdjieff, you are against Zen people. If you follow Zen, you are against Gurdjieff. Things are clear-cut, logical. With me, confusion is bound to be there, because I say both. I say work hard. I say bring your total energy into effort so that one day effort can be dropped and you can become effortless. To me, will brings you to Surrender, and effort brings you to effortlessness.

 

-Osho, “Come Follow To You, Vol 4, #8, Q3“

 

 

 

Gurdjieff’s work is for a particular type, the will type — people who can work hard and very persistently, almost madly… because the whole thing depends on a very deep crystallisation of the ego. Once the ego is crystallised then further steps can be taken. But the whole Gurdjieffian system depends on you having a centre, a self.

 

Ordinarily you don’t have a centre. In fact Gurdjieff says you don’t have a soul — that is only a possibility; you may die without attaining it. What he calls the soul is nothing but a crystallised self, and crystallised so much so that it takes the position of being sovereign, enthroned, in the crowd of your many selves.

 

Ordinarily you have many egos, not one, and a conflict continuously going on. Sometimes one is in power, sometimes another is in power; a sort of democracy. A political head is not permanent, so much politics goes on within. So much politics and so much chaos goes on within that you never know where you are, who you are, what you are. Sometimes you have the feeling that you are this, but by the time you realise it that self is gone, is no more m power.

 

When you have a permanent self then Gurdjieff’s system really starts functioning. To attain that permanent self, one has to do tremendous work, in fact absurd work. Just out of too much work crystallisation happens; the work functions out of a chemical opportunity.

 

-Osho, “Above All Don't Wobble, #17“

 

 

 

Gurdjieff says that the only technique to become integrated is selfremembrance, and all the masters of the world have been insisting on being more and more conscious. The more conscious you become, the more a certain dryness happens inside. Literally, you become more and more dry, more and more aware, more and more conscious and alert. Because awareness is fire, that’s why you become more and more dry.

 

-Osho, “The Hidden Harmony, #7“

 

 

 

George Gurdjieff used to say that every man is not born with a soul. On the surface it appears not believable because for centuries you have been told by the priests that everybody is born with a soul and you believe in it. It is comfortable to believe that you have a soul. It feels very good, cozy, warm, that deep inside you, you have a soul, eternal, immortal. And Gurdjieff says you don’t have a soul at all! You are jut hollow within; there is nothing inside you — just habits and habits, a cluster of habits and at the very center there is nobody. The house is empty. The master has not yet come or is fast asleep.

 

Gurdjieff is right: you are only potentially a human being. A possibility is there, but the possibility can be easily missed. And millions of people miss it because to become conscious, to become a soul, arduous effort is needed. It is an uphill task. To remain in your habits is cheap, easy, downhill. Gravitation is enough; it goes on pulling you.

 

It is like when you are coming downhill in a car, you put the engine off. You don’t need any gas for coming downhill; the pull of gravitation is enough. But that cannot be done when you are moving uphill; then gas will be needed. You will need some integrity, some power. And only consciousness releases power.

 

Consciousness is the key, the ignition key, that releases power in you, and you become capable of soaring high.

 

-Osho, “The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 8, #8, Q2”

 

 

 

Gurdjieff used to say that man has no soul. He used to say that you have got no self, because self means self consciousness; otherwise, how can you be said to have a self? If you are not conscious, how can you be a self? How can you be an individual? So Gurdjieff’s teaching doesn’t believe that every man has got a soul. He says, “Every man has got a potentiality he can develop, he may not develop.”

 

If you become self conscious, then you develop the individual; then you become the individual. If you are not self conscious then you are just one object among other objects, and there is nothing more. Gurdjieff’s teaching makes this central point the supreme point. He says, “Try to remember yourself without any object. Try to remember yourself without any object, without any relation to anything else. Remember yourself directly, simply.” It is very arduous; in a way it seems impossible. You cannot remember yourself without in any way relating to something else - Can you? Can you remember yourself? Can you feel yourself?

 

Whenever you feel, you feel in relation to: someone's son, someone's daughter, someone's husband, being rich or poor, belonging to this country or that, being healthy or ill -- but this is all in relation to something else. Can you remember yourself without any relation? -- unrelated? without any context? just you? It becomes inconceivable. Really, we have not known ourselves, we have known only in relation. And this is the miracle: you know yourself in relation to someone, who knows himself in relation to you. See the absurdity of it! Everyone knows themselves because of others -- and the others know themselves because of him.

 

Everyone is ignorant, but by being related with other ignorant people, you become wise. You know yourself because you know your name, you know your house, your address, your city, your country -- and not for a single moment have you known who you are. This sushupti, this third state of unconsciousness must be broken apart, must be penetrated beyond. One must become aware of oneself without being related to anything else -- this is self knowledge. This fourth is known as the turiya.

 

-Osho, “That Art Thou, #5“

 

 

 

George Gurdjieff is the only man in the whole of history who has said such a tremendously significant thing: "You don't have any soul." Now, throughout the whole world, all the religions believe that you have a soul, that you come with a soul. George Gurdjieff's voice is alone in the whole of history, saying that not all man are with a soul; the place of the soul is empty. There is a possibility -- you can work, you can create the soul -- but you are not born with it.

 

I know, and Gurdjieff knows that you are born with a soul — but the idea that we are born with a soul has not been helpful. It has made man more asleep: We are born with a soul, God is within you, the kingdom of God is within you, so what do you have to do? Things that are not within you, work hard to get them — money, power, respectability — because nobody says, “Every child is born with money, every child is born with political power, every child is born with respectability.” Nobody will say that. These things have to be earned.

 

Freedom, consciousness, God, whatever you call it, has to be discovered. It is hidden, dormant; it has to be made dynamic, has to be made fully mature. It should be brought to flower and fruition. But to tell people, “You are born free — and equal in dignity and rights”…. People can go on lying so smoothly, with such beautiful words — destroying those words.

 

Nobody is equal. This is a psychological truth.

 

Neither in your body nor in your mind nor in your talents… nor among your geniuses — nobody is equal. A Sigmund Freud is a Sigmund Freud; a Bertrand Russell is a Bertrand Russell; a D.H. Lawrence is a D.H. Lawrence. There is not even one other D.H. Lawrence, and never will be.

 

Each individual is unique. This idea of equality is so ugly, but it has become almost the religion of the contemporary man - `equality.’ I say to you, it is the most destructive idea that has penetrated into the human mind. You have to be reminded about your uniqueness.

 

-Osho, “Sermons in Stones, #26, Q1”

 

 

 

What Gurdjieff was saying has been told by all the great masters of the world. “Awake,” Buddha says. It is the same; words differ. “Be watchful,” Jesus says. Be as watchful as if the master of the house has gone out and he has told the servants to remain alert because he may come any moment and he does not want them to be asleep — any moment he can come. They have to be alert, on guard, all the time. Jesus says to be alert.

 

In alertness the first experience is that you have a personality which is false. Gurdjieff calls it the false will. And you have something else, something impersonal in you, which is the true will. Your appearance from the outside is false; what you experience from your innermost core is true. You are a mixture of the accidental and the essential, of the incidental and the intrinsic. You are the meeting point of time and eternity, a crossroads where matter and consciousness meet, where body and soul meet, where real and unreal shake hands. Yes, you are exactly a crossroads. And you have to be very alert not to choose the false — because the false is very appealing. The false makes all kinds of propaganda for itself; the false will try to convince you with all kinds of arguments.

 

The truth remains silent. Unless YOU are ready to receive it, it will not even knock on your doors. The false is afraid that if much smoke is not created around it the falsity of it will be seen by you. So beware of the rationalizations of the false, its propaganda, its argumentation, its proofs. And also remember the silence of truth -- utter silence, absolute silence. Truth will never persuade you; it will wait -- it can wait for eternity. But the false cannot wait, it is momentary, it can't be so patient. It has to persuade you, it has to seduce you as immediately as possible. The false is very hypnotizing. Their ways are totally opposite.

 

Truth is achieved through awakening, and the false is achieved through deep sleep. The false is like a tranquilizer: it is very consoling, comforting, cozy, secure, safe. It gives you all kinds of protections, insurances. It goes on telling you, "Be with me and I will protect you. I am your guardian, your guide, your friend, your philosopher." The truth never claims anything.

 

-Osho, “The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 8, #11, Q1“

 

 

 

The East says: Just remain unidentified. Remember — that’s what Gurdjieff means when he says’self-remembering’. Remember that you are a witness! Be mindful! — that’s what Buddha says. Be alert that a cloud is passing by! Maybe the cloud comes from the past, but that is meaningless. It must have a certain past, it cannot come just out of the blue; it must be coming from a certain sequence of events — but that is irrelevant. Why be bothered about it? RIGHT NOW, this very moment, you can become detached from it, you can cut yourself away from it. The bridge can be broken right now — and it can be broken ONLY in the now.

 

Going into the past won’t help. Thirty years before, the anger arose and you got identified with it that day. Now you cannot get unidentified from that past; it is no more there. But you can get unidentified this moment, this very moment. And then the WHOLE series of angers of your past is no more part of you.

 

-Osho, “The Tantra Vision, Vol 1, #6, Q2“

 

 

 

Only if you do, if you work hard, if you try to transform yourself… And a thousand and one times you may fail, but if you go on and on, then success comes. It comes, certainly, because it has come to Jesus, it has come to a Buddha; it can come to everybody! It is everybody’s birthright. You can have it, but you cannot have it cheap. You will have to pay for it, and you will have to pay with your whole life. Less than that, and you will not attain it.

 

That’s what Gurdjieff means when he says ‘work’.

 

-Osho, “I Say Unto You, Vol 1, #7“

 

 

 

Gurdjieff used to say: Man is a prisoner, and he has lived in the prison so long that he has completely forgotten that he is a prisoner. And the prison is so big that you cannot feel it, because you never see the boundary. The boundaries are very subtle — the walls ARE there but they are very subtle and transparent, made of pure glass, crystal glass. And you have lived in the prison so long that you think this is your home, this is your life. this is how life is supposed to be. Unless somebody comes from the outside and says ‘This is a prison, and I know what freedom is’ even the desire to be free will not arise in you. That is the chain.

 

A master is one who is outside the prison, is one who is awake. He can create devices, occasions, for you to be awake. He can create some disturbance in your sleep.

 

All these meditations that you are doing here are nothing but efforts to disturb your sleep — to shake you up, to shock you so deeply that it goes beyond your shock absorbers and reaches you. To shout — a master goes on shouting. Jesus said: Go on the housetops and shout as loudly as you can.

 

A master is one who shouts loudly. There are many shock absorbers around your you have buffers which absorb anything that comes from the outside. The alarm won’t work if your ears are closed; if you are using ear-plugs the alarm won’t reach you. And. just to be safe, people have created many shock absorbers, many buffers around them. Otherwise life will be miserable, very miserable. There are so many shocks happening every moment that you cannot allow them to reach to you. To prevent the bad you have created the buffer — but it prevents the good too. To prevent the enemy you have closed the door and locked it and bolted it. But now it prevents the friend too.

 

Unless some ray from the beyond enters your being, unless you taste something of the transcendental, even the desire to be liberated will not be there. A master does not give you liberation, he creates a passionate desire for liberation. He makes you aflame with an unknown passion that you have never known before, never felt before.

 

-Osho, “The Revolution, #8, Q1“

 

 

 

Gurdjieff had a story about it...

 

There was a magician who used to live in faraway deep forests, and he had many sheep because that was his only food. In those deep forests he was keeping all those sheep just to kill them every day, one by one. Naturally, the sheep were very afraid of the man, and they used to run into the forest being afraid that any day can be their day. Their friends are gone, there is no reliability... tomorrow they may be gone. Out of fear they used to go far away, deep into the forest. And to find them was a tedious job every day.

 

Finally, the magician did a trick. He hypnotized all the sheep, and told every sheep, "You are an exception; everybody may be killed but you can never be killed. You are no ordinary sheep; you have a divine privilege." To some he said, "You are not sheep at all; you are lions, you are tigers, you are wolves. Only sheep are killed. You need not hide yourself in the forest; that is very embarrassing, because a lion hiding himself in the forest in the fear that he will be killed... only sheep are killed." And in this way, he managed to hypnotize all the sheep in different ways.

 

He even said to a few sheep, "You are men, human beings, and human beings don't kill each other. You are just like me. Never be afraid and never escape out of fear." Since that day, no sheep escaped and hid in the forest, although they all saw every day that one sheep was being killed, slaughtered. But naturally everybody thought, That must be a sheep; I am a tiger, a lion, a human being. I am special and exceptional, I have a divine privilege.... So many different stories he put in their minds.

 

Gurdjieff says that unless you realize the first thing -- that you are in prison, that you are the prison -- then there is no hope for freedom. If you already believe that you are free, you are a hypnotized sheep which believes himself to be a lion -- exceptional, there is no need to be afraid -- which even believes he is a human being. He goes on seeing other sheep being killed, and still remains in a hypnotized state, never being aware of his actuality. To be free, if you already know that you are free, there is no problem.

 

All the religions together, perhaps unintentionally, have created a tremendous hypnotic state. People believe they have immortal souls. I am not saying that they don't have, I am simply saying that they don't know what they are believing. And because they believe they have an immortal soul, they never discover that they already have it. They have been told, "You are the very kingdom of God"... and it is so comfortable and so consoling to believe. But then there is no way to seek and search and find whether your hypothetical belief has any truth in it, or is just a hypnotic trick used by the society to keep you unafraid of death, to keep you unafraid of disease, old age, to keep you unafraid of your loneliness.

 

Your God may be just a psychological hypnosis. It is not your discovery. That is true -- that much is absolutely true. It has been implanted in your mind, and because you go on believing in it, your belief prevents any adventure in seeking the truth.

 

Ordinarily, you have been told continually that unless you believe, you will not find. But the truth is just the contrary. Belief is a barrier, it is not a bridge. Those who believe never find, because they never even begin the search; there is no need.

 

You are in prison and you think you are free.

 

-Osho, “The Invitation, #4, Q1“

 

 

 

About consciousness also, I have differences with George Gurdjieff. When he says ‘Be conscious’ he says ‘Be conscious that you ARE.’ He insists for self-remembering. Now, this has to be understood. Your consciousness has two polarities. One polarity is the content. For example, a cloud of anger is inside you — that is the content. And you are aware of the cloud of anger — that is consciousness, the witness, watchfulness, the observer. So your consciousness can be divided in two — the observer and the observed.

 

Gurdjieff says: Go on remembering the observer — self-remembering. Buddha says: Forget the observer, just watch the observed. And if you have to choose between Buddha and Gurdjieff, I will suggest choose Buddha. Because there is a danger with Gurdjieff you may become too self-conscious — rather than becoming self-aware, you may become self-conscious. You may become an egoist. And that I have felt in many Gurdjieff disciples — they have become very very great egoists. Not that Gurdjieff was an egoist — he was one of the rarest enlightened men of this age. But the method has a danger in it: it is very difficult to make a distinction between self-consciousness and self-remembering. It is almost impossible to make the distinction, it is so subtle. And for the ignorant masses it is almost always self-consciousness that will take possession of them; it will not be self-remembering.

 

The very word 'self' is dangerous -- you become more and more settled in the idea of the self. And the idea of the self isolates you from existence.

 

Buddha says: Forget the self, because there is no self. The self is just in the grammar, in the language; it is not anything existential. You just observe the content. By observing the content, the content starts disappearing. Once the content disappears, watch your anger -- and watching it, you will see it is disappearing. Once the anger has disappeared there is silence. There is no self, no observer, and nothing to be observed. There is silence. This silence is brought by VIPASSANA, Buddha's method of awareness.

 

Ordinary man does both. He goes on changing his gear -- sometimes he observes the self, sometimes he observes the content. He goes on moving from this to that, he is a constant wavering. Gurdjieff says the one thing is: Be settled in the observer. Buddha says: Look at the observed.

 

My own approach is different from both. My approach is that Gurdjieff's method is more dangerous than Buddha's method, but even in Buddha's method there is bound to be some tension -- the effort to watch. The very effort to watch will make you tense.

 

-Osho, “This Very Body the Buddha, #4, Q4“

 

 

 

My own method is: You relax. Neither watch the watcher nor watch the watched. Just relax, be passive. If something floats and you cannot help seeing it, see it. But don’t make any effort to see it deliberately. If you are relaxed like a mirror, if some cloud passes by, it will be reflected. Be like a mirror — lucid, passive. Drop both — the Gurdjieffian method of self-remembering, and the Buddhist method of watching.

 

But if you have to choose between Gurdjieff and Buddha, choose Buddha. If you have to choose between Buddha and me, choose me.

 

Relax. And just see things. And there is nothing much — if you miss something, it is not of worth. You can miss, you are allowed to miss. Take life easy, take it easy.

 

So people who have been in some kind of effort -- and Gurdjieff's work is of great effort -- will be puzzled here. That's why Lewis is puzzled, a little bit confused. And sooner or later, either he has to understand me or he has to condemn me -- both are open. And condemnation will be easier. Because for thirty yeas working hard -- and now sud-denly he has become attracted to a man who does not believe in effort at all. Who does not believe in improvement, who does not believe in growth, who does not believe in going anywhere, who does not believe in any WAY.

 

He says, THE FOURTH WAY, AS TAUGHT BY GURDJIEFF.

 

What I am teaching here is: No Way. There is really no way, because truth is not a goal. All ways lead away from where we are. All roads, all ways, all paths, distract you from truth. And there is nowhere to go, either. And nobody to go. There is no way of being here and now but to be here and now. When I say 'Be here and now' don't ask how -- the 'how' will take you away. When I say 'Be here and now' don't ask 'What is the way to be here and now?' There is no way of being here and now but to BE here and now. There is no way to be still, and no need of any way. To see, wholly to see, that there is no way, is at once to be still.

 

Seeing that, is stillness. All ways lead everywhere but here.

 

To live one's life as it comes and goes, is awareness. Passive, lucid, mirror-like, with no tension. So I don't teach you attention, because attention has the word 'tension' in it. And the phenomenon of attention has the feeling of tension in it -- hence the word 'attention'. Enjoy, relax. Just understanding this, that there is nowhere to go, is liberation. Liberation is not like a goal somewhere else waiting for you. Liberation is understanding that you are already liberated.

 

It is impious for us to assert so flatly what should be, in the face of what is. What is, is the truth. YATHA BHUTAM -- that which is is the truth. To assert what should be, is impious, sacrilegious, it is a sin. 'Should' is a sin. That which is -- relax with it, float with it. I don't teach even swimming, I simply say float with it. It is our responsibility to know how to accept and live through that which is.

 

So I don't teach any way -- fourth or fifth or sixth. And I don't teach conscience, I teach a lucid relaxed consciousness. Out of that, many flowerings happen. Out of that, many songs are born. But they are born on their own. You cannot be the doer of them and you cannot feel enhanced that 'I have done'. You cannot feel your ego fulfilled through them. The more those flowers will come, the more you will disappear. And one day there is flowering, but you are not. That is the day, the moment, of liberation.

 

-Osho, “This Very Body the Buddha, #4, Q4“

 

 

 

Gurdjieff used a Sufi exercise. Sufis call it “halt”. For example, you are sitting here, and if you are practising the exercise of “halt” it means total halt. Whenever the teacher says “Stop!” or “Halt!” then you have to stop totally whatsoever you are doing. If your eyes are open, then stop them there and then. Now you cannot close them. If your hand is raised, let it be there. Whatsoever your position and gesture, just be frozen in it. No movements! Halt totally! Try this, and suddenly you will have an inner awakening — a feeling. Suddenly you will become aware of your own frozenness.

 

The whole body is frozen, you have become a solid stone, you are like a statue. But if you go on deceiving yourself, then you have fallen into sleep. You can deceive yourself. You can say, “Who is seeing me? I can close my eyes. They are becoming painful.” You can deceive yourself — then you have fallen into sleep. No — deception is sleep. Don’t deceive yourself, because no one else is concerned. It is up to you. If you can be frozen for a single moment you will begin to see yourself as different, and your center will become aware of your frozen body.

 

-Osho, “The Ultimate Alchemy, Vol 1, #16, Q2”

 

 

 

First it must be understood what is meant by awareness. You are walking; you are aware of many things: of the shops, of people passing by you, of the traffic, of everything. You are aware of many things, only unaware of one thing: yourself. You are walking on the street: you are aware of many things; you are only not aware of yourself! This awareness of the self Gurdjieff has called “self-remembering”. Gurdjieff says, “Constantly, wherever you are, remember yourself.”

 

For example, you are here. You are listening to me, but you are not aware of the listener. You may be aware of the speaker, but you are not aware of the listener. Be aware of the listener. Feel yourself here; you are here. For a moment a glimpse comes, and again you forget. Try!

 

Whatsoever you are doing, go on doing one thing inside continuously: be aware of yourself doing it. You are eating: be aware of yourself. You are walking: be aware of yourself. You are listening, you are speaking: be aware of yourself. When you are angry, be aware that you are angry. In the very moment that anger is there, be aware that you are angry. This constant remembering of the self creates a subtle energy -- a very subtle energy in you. You begin to be a crystallized being.

 

Ordinarily, you are just a loose bag. No crystallization, no center really -- just a liquidity, just a loose combination of many things without any center -- a crowd, constantly shifting and changing, with no master inside. By awareness is meant be a master! And when I say "Be a master", I do not mean to be a controller. When I say "Be a master", I mean be a presence -- a continuous presence. Whatsoever you are doing or not doing, one thing must be constantly in your consciousness: that you are.

 

This simple feeling of oneself, that one is, creates a center -- a center of stillness, a center of silence, a center of inner mastery -- an inner power. And when I say "an inner power", I mean it literally. That is why this sutra says "the fire of awareness". It is a fire. IT IS A FIRE! If you begin to be aware, you begin to feel a new energy in you -- a new fire, a new life. And because of this new life, new power, new energy, many things which were dominating you just dissolve. You have not to fight with them.

 

You have to fight with your anger, your greed, your sex, because you are weak. So, really, greed, anger and sex are not the problems. Weakness is the problem. Once you begin to be stronger inside, with a feeling of inner presence that you are, your energies become concentrated, crystallized on a single point, and a Self is born. Remember, not an ego but a Self is born. Ego is a false sense of Self. Without having any Self you go on believing that you have a Self. That is ego. Ego means a false self. You are not a Self, and still you believe that you are a Self.

 

-Osho, “The Ultimate Alchemy, Vol 2, #1”

 

 

 

Art out of madness, art out of neurosis, art out of pathology, is not real art. Gurdjieff used to divide art into two kinds. He used to call this kind of art subjective, and another kind — the Taj Mahal, or Khajuraho — objective, because when you have painted, your work is finished but the painting will live. If you have put in the painting a certain pattern of neurosis, whoever will see the painting and think about the painting and look at the painting will have the feeling of the same kind of illness arising in him — the same nausea, the same sickness. The painting will become a mandala; it will become a yantra. That’s how in the East we have used paintings: as yantras.

 

A pattern can be created so that if you look at it, it gives silence. A pattern can be created so that if you look at it, it makes you tense. The objective art, Gurdjieff says, is the art which leads people towards silence, towards blissfulness, towards inner harmony, towards grace. And the art that leads people towards pathology, neurosis, perversion, is not really art. You can call it art, but that is a misnomer.

 

-Osho, “Zen: The Path of Paradox, Vol 3, #8, Q4“

 

 

 

man as he is is just a seed. He is not conscious, he is not a consciousness. This will be difficult and very humiliating, because we go on thinking that we are conscious. And this is the most fatal belief -- dangerous, poisonous -- because if you think that you are already conscious, then there is no possibility for you to flower. If a seed thinks and believes that it is already a tree, already flowering, then there is no possibility for the seed to grow. It has deceived itself completely.

 

Gurdjieff has said that you are in a prison, but you can come to believe that you are not in a prison -- that this is your home. You can decorate your prison in such a way that it begins to look like your home. You can even be proud of it, you can boast of it, your chains can become your ornaments. It depends on you. You can interpret, and this interpreting is, in a way, very satisfying, because then there is no need to fight against this imprisonment. Then you can be at ease. It is very convenient.

 

All human beliefs are conveniences, but dangerous. Because of them the possibility to evolve is nullified completely, negated completely. The prisoner can think that he is not a prisoner, but already a free man. This is convenient to believe because then there is no burden. But then this prisoner can never be free. So Gurdjieff says that the first necessary step towards freedom is to recognize the humiliating fact that you are a prisoner -- only then does growth become possible.

 

-Osho, “The Ultimate Alchemy, Vol 1, #17“

 

 

 

An unawakened — sleeping — person is not a doer. Things are happening to him, but he thinks I am doing. The awakened person also is not a doer but thinks I am not the doer. This is the only difference. There is no difference in their actions but there is difference in their attitude — knowing — of their performance. The awakened also walks, the unawakened also walks. An individual full of awareness walks with the knowledge of, ‘I am not’, and a person without awareness walks full of ego — full of pride. This is the difference.

 

The crystallization of an awakened person happens when an individual takes birth in such a person. Jung also says the same thing which Gurdjieff says, when a person is a awake within, his individuality becomes stronger. So, it is natural to raise a question whether the individualization of an awakened person becomes strong or dies out. Is it transformed into ego or does it go away? This is merely the difference in language, nothing more. I call that as the birth of void — emptiness which Gurdjieff calls crystallization. Really speaking ‘an individual is born for the first time by being ‘void’, because by becoming void, he achieved that virat — huge individual. By becoming void, by losing individuality, a person becomes ‘an individual’ for the first time, but this is difficult to understand.

 

This is one of those contradictions of religion we fail to understand. When a drop of water falls into the ocean, someone can say the drop is lost, where is it now? And someone else can also say that the drop has become the ocean. Someone can say, the drop is lost, it is non-existent, it has become void. Someone can say the drop has become the ocean. It was nothing before, but it has become the ocean now for the first time. These are the negative and positive ways of speaking. Gurdjieff and Jung call this individuation, crystalization. The person has become an individual for the first time like the drop has become the ocean now. Mahavira calls it the Atma. It means the same. Shankara calls it Brahma -- it is the same thing. All these are positive terms. Only Buddha used negative terms. He said, 'Anatma' which is non-Atma. It does not become Atma, has perished. There is now no Atma, no Brahma and what remains now has no words.

 

-Osho, “The Perennial Path: The Art of Living, #8“

 

 

 

 

Gurdjieff said, “You are nothing but the body, and when the body dies you will die. Only once in a while does a person survive – one who has created soul in his life survives death – not all. A Buddha survives; a Jesus survives, but not you! You will simply die, not even a trace will be left.”

 

What was Gurdjieff trying to do? He was shocking you to the very roots; he was trying to take away all your consolations and foolish theories which go on helping you to postpone work upon yourself. Now, to tell people, “You don’t have any souls, you are just vegetables, just a cabbage or maybe a cauliflower” – a cauliflower is a cabbage with a college education – “but nothing more than that.” He was really a master par excellence. He was taking the very earth away from underneath your feet. He was giving you such a shock that you had to think over the whole situation: are you going to remain a cabbage? He was creating a situation around you in which you would have to seek and search for the soul, because who wants to die?

 

And the idea that the soul is immortal has helped people to console themselves that they are not going to die, that death is just an appearance, just a long sleep, a restful sleep, and you will be born again. Gurdjieff says, “All nonsense. This is all nonsense! Dead, you are dead forever – unless you have created the soul….”

 

Now see the difference: you have been told you are already a soul, and Gurdjieff changes it totally. He says, “You are not already a soul, but only an opportunity. You can use it, you can miss it.”

 

And I would like to tell you that Gurdjieff was just using a device. It is not true. Everybody is born with a soul. But what to do with people who have been using truths as consolations? A great master sometimes has to lie – and only a great master has the right to lie – just to pull you out of your sleep.

 

-Osho, "The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 2, #2"

 

 

 

 

Gurdjieff has been much criticized because he was a liar – and the lying came from the Sufis; he was a Sufi. He was disciplined in Sufi monasteries and schools. And in the West, in fact, he introduced Sufism in this age in a totally new version. But then it was impossible for the ordinary Christian mind to understand him because truth is a value, and nobody can think that a master, an enlightened master, can lie.

 

Can you think of Jesus lying? And I know he lied – but Christians cannot think about it: “Jesus lying? No, he is the truest man.” But then you don’t know – the question of knowledge is very, very dangerous. He lied about many things – a master has to, if he wants to help. Otherwise, he can be a saint, but no help is possible from him. And without helping, a saint is already dead. If a saint cannot help, what is the use of his being here? There is no point in it. All that he can attain through life, he has attained. He is here to help.

 

Gurdjieff was very much criticized because the West couldn’t understand, the ordinary Christian mind could not understand. So there are two versions about Gurdjieff in the West. One thinks that he was a very mischievous man – not a sage at all, just a devil incarnate. Another is that he was the greatest saint the West has come to know in these past few centuries. Both are true, because he was just in the middle. He was a ‘po’ personality. You cannot say yes, you cannot say no about him. You can say that he was a holy sinner, or a sinning saint. But you cannot divide, you cannot be so simple about him. The knowledge that he had was very complex.

 

-Osho, "Journey to the Heart, #7"

 

 

 

One old woman became very much impressed by Ouspensky, and then she went to see Gurdjieff. Within just a week she was back, and she told Ouspensky, “I can feel that Gurdjieff is great, but I am not certain whether he is good or bad, whether he is evil, devilish, or a saint. I am not certain about that. He is great – that much is certain. But he may be a great devil, or a great saint – that is not certain.” And Gurdjieff behaved in such a way that he would create this impression.

 

Alan Watts has written about Gurdjieff and has called him a rascal saint – because sometimes he would behave like a rascal, but it was all acting and was done knowingly to avoid all those who would take unnecessary time and energy. It was done to send back those who could only work when they were certain. Only those would be allowed who could work even when they were not certain about the master, but who were certain about themselves.

 

And to surrender to a Gurdjieff will transform you more than surrendering to Ramana Maharshi, because Ramana Maharshi is so saintly, so simple, that surrender doesn’t mean anything. You cannot do otherwise. He is so open – just like a small child – so pure, that surrender will happen. But that surrender is happening because of Ramana Maharshi, not because of you. It is nothing as far as you are concerned. If surrender happens with Gurdjieff, then it has happened because of you, because Gurdjieff is in no way going to support it. Rather, he will create all types of hindrances. If still you surrender, that transforms you. So there is no need to be absolutely sure about him – and that is impossible – but you have to be sure about yourself.

 

-Osho, "Vedanta: Seven Steps to Samadhi, #5"