Mind is the Whole Problem The darkness seems so deep, my eyes covered in a haze, my mind never ending noise – except for those moments I am with you – swirling around and around. The light is there but seems so far away in all this darkness. Sometimes I wonder if I am going to make it. Beloved Master, I cannot find the door. Don’t be worried. You don’t need to find the door, because you a...

How to Die Every culture, every civilization, every so called religion, cuts every child off from his heart. It is a most dangerous thing. All that is dangerous comes out of the heart. Mind is more secure, and with the mind you know where you are. With the heart, no one ever knows where one is. With the mind, everything is calculated, mapped, measured. And you can feel the crowd always wi...

Osho on Gurdjieff's Science of Idiotism Gurdjieff certainly forced people to drink, but only the people who were against alcohol. He used to make toasts every night for all the kinds of idiots in the world. He had twenty-one categories of idiots. I don′t know to which category you would belong, but you must belong to some category. Unless you are awakened you are bound to belong to some c...

Conscious While Dreaming Question 1 : Will you please explain to us what are some of the other factors which can make one conscious while dreaming? This is a significant question for all those who are interested in meditation, because meditation is really a transcending of the process of dreaming. You are constantly dreaming – not only in the night, not only while you are asleep; you are ...

Selfishness is Unawareness Your selfishness is nothing but your unawareness, your lack of discipline. Create an inner discipline, a little training in awareness, and your selfishness will disappear, because your SELF will disappear. And when there is no self left, then real Self with a capital S, the Supreme Self, arrives. You disappear as a wave, you appear as the ocean. That is liberati...

Two Hundred Torches Can Give Fire to Millions Question 2 Beloved Osho, You have just been saying that the words of the Master become mere words after the Master is gone. What will happen after you are gone? Do you think my words are not already dead for you? First, think of that. The master is there, his words are there, but are those words alive for you? If they are alive for you, don’t ...

Self-Remembering Vs. Witnessing The technique of self-remembering seems easier for me than witnessing. Do they both lead to the same goal? They both lead to the same goal, but the technique of self-remembering is harder, longer and dangerous. Only very few people in the whole history of mankind have attained to enlightenment through the technique of self-remembering. Many have tried, but ...

Hakim Sanai HAKIM SANAI: THIS NAME IS AS SWEET to me as honey, as sweet as nectar. Hakim Sanai is unique, unique in the world of Sufism. No other Sufi has been able to reach to such heights of expression and such depths of penetration. Hakim Sanai has been able to do almost the impossible. If I were to save only two books from the whole world of the mystics, then these would be the two bo...

Sufism Beyond Islam Once a learned Mohammedan came to me and asked, ‘You are not a Mohammedan, then why do you speak on Sufism?’ I told him, ‘I am not a Mohammedan, obviously, but I am a Sufi all the same.’ A Sufi need not be a Mohammedan. A Sufi can exist anywhere, in any form – because Sufism is the essential core of all religions. It has nothing to do with Islam in particular. Sufism c...

Gurdjieff’s Work is for a Particular Type [A visitor says that he was at John Bennett’s school in England, where they did Gurdjieffian exercises: Actually I left there quite confused – I suppose there’s no way out of that. I never had much ability to do any of the exercises or things like that.] It may not have suited you because Gurdjieff’s work is for a particular type, the will type – ...

“Remember yourself always and everywhere.” “Remember you come here having already understood the necessity of struggling with yourself – only with yourself. Therefore thank everyone who gives you the opportunity.” “One of the best means for arousing the wish to work on yourself is to realize that you may die at any moment. But first you must learn how to keep it in mind.” “Man’s possibili...

There is No Ladder Question 1 Every day you talk about the ‘Earth’ and about the ‘Sky’ – About the potential and about the ultimate. But what is the ‘ladder’ in between? What is the process that happens in between? Why do you not talk about the ‘ladder’? The ladder exists not. There is no ladder. There is no in between. There is not any gap, it is all one. The earth and sky are not discon...

Helping Others Ouspensky in his In Search of the Miraculous quotes George Gurdjieff as saying: "In order to be able to help people one must first learn to help oneself. A great number of people become absorbed in thoughts and feelings about helping others simply out of laziness. They are too lazy to work on themselves; and at the same time it is very pleasant for them to think that they a...

Osho on Bahaudin Bahaudin is one of the greatest Sufi Masters ever. He is of the same status as Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed, Christ. "Naqshband" means "a designer"; and he was a designer, and this story is a design. He used to create situations because people can only be taught through real situations. And he was one of the greatest designers. Gurdjieff learned his devices from the Order of...

Bayazid When a Sufi mystic, Bayazid, was dying, people who had gathered around him -- his disciples -- were suddenly surprised, because when the last moment came his face became radiant, powerfully radiant. It had a beautiful aura. Bayazid was a beautiful man, and his disciples had always felt ar aura around him, but they had not known anything like this; so radiant. They asked, 'Bayazid,...

The Royal Way The belief in the myth of change is the most dangerous kind of belief. Man has suffered much from it – much more than from any other kind of belief. The myth of change – that something better is possible, that man can improve upon himself, that there is some place to go to, that there is somebody to be, and that there is some kind of utopia – has corrupted human mind infinit...

The Divine Melody Unless you have known what love is, you have not known what melody is. oshoIt is the meeting, orgasmic meeting, of death and life. Unless love is known, you have missed. You were born, you lived, and you died - but you missed. You missed tremendously, you missed utterly, you missed absolutely - you missed the interval in between. That interval is the highest pinnacle, th...

Osho on Rumi Question 1: Osho, I am a sinner. can i also become your sannyasin? Govind, yes, absolutely yes! In fact, only a sinner can become a sannyasin. Those who think themselves saints, holier-than-thou, they are the closed people, they are the dead people. They have become incapable of living, incapable of celebrating. Sannyas is celebration of life, and sin is natural: natural in t...

Sufism still depends on a hypothetical God. - You will have one day to change from Sufis to Zen - (Professor Coleman Barks - the translator of a collection of Rumi's work - has asked a question) Question 1: Professor Coleman Barks has asked a question: I feel very grateful for your enlightenment, your wisdom, your daring experiments, your life. Thank you! Rumi said, “I want burning, burni...

You Are It Question 4 What is a mystical experience? Margo, first: a mystical experience is not an experience at all. It is called ’mystical experience’ because we have to call it something, but it is not an experience at all. An experience is always outside you. You see the clouds in the sky, or the lightning in the sky. Or, you can see the same inside too: you can close your eyes and yo...

No Way Question: Osho, The Fourth Way, as taught by Gurdjieff, has been called the way of conscience. What place has conscience in your teaching? The question is from Cecil Lewis. No place at all. I don’t believe in conscience, I believe only in consciousness. I don’t believe in morality, I believe only in religion. I am amoral. Conscience is a trick of the society played upon you. The so...

I have always loved to remember a Sufi master, Junnaid. He was the master of al-Hillaj Mansoor. He had a habit: after each prayer – and Mohammedans pray five times a day – after each prayer he would say to the sky, “Your compassion is great. How beautifully you take care of us, and we don’t deserve it. I don’t even have words to show my gratefulness, but I hope you will understand the une...

Remembrance LA ILLAHA ILL ALLAH – there is no God but God. There is no goal but the goal. And the goal is not separate from the source; the source and the goal are the same phenomenon. This is one of the most fundamental things to be understood: to reach the goal one has to reach the source. The alpha is the omega. If you go on trying to reach the goal you will remain in an eternal wander...

Gurdjieff’s Self-Remembering The first step to reclaiming the “I AM” is referred to by Gurdjeff as “self-remembering”. The following post is taken from chapter seven of Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous in which he gives his recollection of Gurdjieff’s teaching as well as his own experience. ON ONE occasion while talking with G. I asked him whether he considered it possible to attai...

Osho on Sufism Sufism is not concerned with knowledge. Its whole concern is love, intense, passionate love: how to fall in love with the whole, how to be in tune with the whole, how to bridge the distance between the creation and the creator. The so-called organized religions of the world teach a kind of duality, that the creator is separate from the creation, that the creator is higher t...

Bahaudin Bahaudin is one of the greatest Sufi Masters ever. He is of the same status as Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed, Christ. "Naqshband" means "a designer"; and he was a designer, and this story is a design. He used to create situations because people can only be taught through real situations. And he was one of the greatest designers. Gurdjieff learned his devices from the Order of Naqshba...

G. I. Gurdjieff : The Last Hour of Life ============================= Imagine, that you have only a few minutes, maybe an hour left to live; somehow you have discovered exactly when you will die. What would you do with this precious hour of your stay on Earth? Would you be able to complete all your things in this last hour, do you have a conscious idea about how to do it? And letting go y...

The Head and the Heart Question 1 Osho, How is it possible that Gurdjieff needed another head, an Ouspensky, to work on a third psychology, the psychology of the buddhas, while you work by yourself and you can be both in the state of mind and no-mind? There have been two kinds of Masters in the world. One kind, the first, has always needed somebody else to express, to interpret, to philos...