Question 3
Beloved Osho,
I have done so many therapy groups in order to deprogram myself; and above all i have the greatest fortune in existence to be so close to you. still, sometimes i feel like having moved miles from where i was stuck a few years ago, and sometimes i feel i haven't moved one inch. then i feel so desperate that everything seems to be futile. i can watch this happening but still there is suffering.
Please give your advice.
It happens to everybody, because both the experiences are still of the mind. The beautiful space and the despair, the suffering -- they are not opposite to each other. They are part of the same mind, because mind exists in duality.
It is just like a bullock cart: two wheels are needed. You cannot have a bullock cart with one wheel. The mind is even older than a bullock cart -- it is the mind that invented the bullock cart.
The trouble arises when you start identifying yourself with the beautiful moments, then you are getting ready for trouble. Then soon the other thing is going to happen: you will be suffering, you will be desperate.
So the first thing to be understood is that both things are of the mind. That will give you a little distance from both the experiences. And secondly, don't bother about the suffering and the despair. Concentrate when you are feeling beautiful, when you are feeling that you have moved miles from where you were stuck. That is the moment to remember, "It is a mind game, and I am not going to participate. I am going to remain simply a witness."
Not identifying with the beautiful moment will automatically destroy the other part: the suffering, the despair.
People always do vice-versa; and that is not possible in the nature of things, because the second part is the other side of the coin. When you are feeling beautiful, you get identified; you feel, "It is me, this is my real self."
Now you are preparing the ground -- digging the ditch to fall into it. And when you are in despair and suffering, then how can you say, "I will be simply a witness"? You cannot be a witness.
Nobody wants despair or pain, all those negative feelings; everybody wants to get rid of them. But the way to get rid of them is to get rid of them through the beautiful spaces that you come across.
So whenever you are again feeling in a silent, peaceful, blissful state, remind yourself -- don't fall asleep -- remind yourself, "This is not me. I am just seeing something far away there on the screen. I am just consciousness, awareness. I am taking note of it, what is happening there."
Keep aloof. It will be a little difficult -- one wants to jump into it, it is so beautiful -- but if you can keep aloof from the beautiful moments, you have won a great victory, because the person who is capable of keeping himself just a witness of beautiful moments and does not get identified.... It will be child's play for him to witness depression when it comes.
Both the extremes, witnessed, start disappearing.
Witnessing is almost the finest fire you can find. Witness anything and that thing soon disappears. And don't be afraid that beautiful spaces will disappear. You don't know yet what is really waiting ahead of you -- when beautiful spaces and depressive moments both have gone, when that duality is no longer there.
You are not aware of what is going to happen to you. It is so profound and so deep that those who have found it have remained silent. They will not say a single word about it. There is no word in any language to express it. All these words -- "beautiful," "blissful" -- fall too short. And the greatest thing is that there is no duality, that you have come to a point which remains with you always; there is no opposite to it.
This is something to be remembered, that whenever you experience something of which there is no opposite, you have come home. While the opposite exists you will be torn apart continuously.
Between those two experiences you will be just a football -- sometimes feeling happy, sometimes feeling miserable; but never knowing yourself, that there is something beyond both the beautiful and the depressive. That's why it cannot be brought into words, because all words are dualistic; otherwise they won't have any meaning.
This is the nature of language: you cannot have a word without having its opposite. If you don't have the opposite, then the word won't have any meaning.
If somebody asks you, "What is light?," you can say, "That which is not darkness." How do you define light? -- by its opposite; otherwise you don't have any definition. How do you define health? -- just by saying that it is opposite to sickness. How do you define life? -- by saying it is opposite to death. Without the opposite you cannot even have meaning for any word.
So just try to reach into a wordless space.
Begin from the beautiful space, because in those moments you are more full of energy, and it is possible to get out of it. When you are depressed, all your energy is so dull, so sad, that you cannot get out of it.
So use those beautiful moments just for a jumping board into the wordless, non-dual experience of your own being. Once you have succeeded in doing it from the beautiful space, you will be able to succeed in the depressive part also, because now you know the way, now you understand that those were not anything significant. You were simply getting identified with fictions.
Now you have touched reality -- and reality is strength, power. And then slowly the other spaces will disappear and you will remain in this wordless experience without falling out of it.
You can call it true meditation, the authentic experience of life. It only looks difficult if you have not tried. Once you have tried, it is a very simple experience.
-Osho, “Light on the Path #25, Q3”