"BELOVED OSHO,
THE OTHER NIGHT WHEN YOU TALKED ABOUT THE FALSE AND THE REAL, I CAME TO A PLACE
INSIDE OF ME THAT COULD FOR THE FIRST TIME REALLY UNDERSTAND YOU. IT WAS
AS IF I WAS LOOKING AT MYSELF FROM THE OUTSIDE, AS A BODY THAT WAS GIVEN
TO ME BUT WAS NOT REALLY "ME"; THEN A LAYER OF MY PERSONALITY THAT
WAS ALSO JUST A LAYER OF FALSENESS AND NOT REALLY "ME". AND EVEN
FURTHER INSIDE WAS A SPACE THAT WAS VERY SILENT AND BEAUTIFUL, BUT THAT COULDN'T
BE ME EITHER, BECAUSE IT WAS NEITHER MASCULINE NOR FEMININE, NOR COULD IT
UNDERSTAND ANY LANGUAGE OF WORDS -- IT WAS JUST A NOTHINGNESS. BELOVED OSHO,
IF NONE OF THOSE THREE THINGS ARE ME, THEN WHERE AM I?
Anand Disha, one of the most fundamental things to be remembered -- not only
by you but by everyone -- is that whatever you come across in your inner journey,
you are not it.
You are the one who is witnessing it. It may be nothingness, it may be blissfulness,
it may be silence, but one thing has to be remembered: however beautiful and
however enchanting an experience you come across, you are not it. You are the
one who is experiencing it. And if you go on and on and on, the ultimate in
the journey is the point when there is no experience left -- neither silence,
nor blissfulness, nor nothingness. There is nothing as an object for you, but
only your subjectivity.
The mirror is empty; it is not reflecting anything.
It is you.
Even great travelers of the inner world have got stuck in beautiful experiences,
and have become identified with those experiences, thinking, "I have found
myself." They have stopped before reaching the final stage where all experiences
disappear.
Enlightenment is not an experience.
It is the state where you are left absolutely alone, nothing to know. No object,
howsoever beautiful, is present. Only in that moment does your consciousness,
unobstructed by any object, take a turn and move back to the source. It becomes
self-realization, it becomes enlightenment.
I must remind you about the word "object." Every object means a hindrance
-- the very meaning of the word is "hindrance," objection.
So the objects can be outside you, in the material world; the objects can be
inside you, in your psychological world; the objects can be in your heart,
feelings, emotions, sentiments, moods. The objects can be even in your spiritual
world. And they are so ecstatic that one cannot imagine there can be more.
Many mystics of the world have stopped at ecstasy. It is a beautiful spot,
a scenic spot, but they have not arrived home yet.
When you come to a point when all experiences are absent, when there is no
object, then consciousness without obstruction moves in a circle -- in existence
everything moves in a circle, if not obstructed -- it comes from the same source
of your being, goes around. Finding no obstacle to it -- no experience, no
object -- it moves back, and the subject itself becomes the object.
That's what J. Krishnamurti, for his whole life, continued to say: that when
the observer becomes the observed, know that you have arrived.
Before that, there are thousands of things in the way. The body gives its own
experiences, which have become known as the experiences of the centers of kundalini;
seven centers become seven lotus flowers. Each is bigger than the other and
higher, and the fragrance is intoxicating. The mind gives you great spaces,
unlimited, infinite. But remember the fundamental maxim that still, the home
has not come.
Enjoy the journey and enjoy all the scenes that come on the journey -- the
trees, the mountains, the flowers, the rivers, the sun and the moon and the
stars -- but don't stop anywhere unless your very subjectivity becomes its
own object. When the observer is the observed, when the knower is the known,
when the seer is the seen, the home has arrived.
This home is the real temple we have been searching for, for lives together,
but we always go astray. We become satisfied with beautiful experiences. A
courageous seeker has to leave all those beautiful experiences behind, and
go on moving. When all experiences are exhausted and only he himself remains
in his aloneness... no ecstasy is bigger than that, no blissfulness is more
blissful, no truth is truer. You have entered what I call godliness; you have
become a god.
Anand Disha, you are asking, "If none of those three things are me, then
where am I?"
An old man went to his doctor. "I have got toilet problems," he
complained.
"Well, let us see. How is your urination?"
"Every morning at seven o'clock, like a baby."
"Good. How about your bowel movement?"
"Eight o'clock each morning, like clockwork."
"So, what is the problem?" the doctor asked.
"I don't wake up until nine."
Anand Disha, you are asleep and it is time to wake up. All these experiences
are experiences of a sleeping mind.
The awakened mind has no experiences at all.
And in the immediately following answer Osho says:
"If you have lived joyously, you will be ready to welcome death too -- invite
her for a dance! Death is powerful only over people who have never lived, who
don't have the courage to relax peacefully in moments of death without any fear
-- because no accident, no disease, nothing can make even a dent in your consciousness;
you are always intact."
Much love to you Rupda, and to all of us meeting now thru her passing...
Rabia (rabia@telia.com)