The Diamond Sutra

Talks on Vajrachchedika Prajnaparamita Sutra of Gautama the Buddha

Talks given from 21/12/77 am to 31/12/77 am

English Discourse series

11 Chapters

Year published: 1979

The Diamond Sutra

Chapter #1

Chapter title: That Realm of Nirvana

21 December 1977 am in Buddha Hall

Archive code: 7712210

ShortTitle: DIAMON01

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 80 mins

VAJRA CHEHEDIKA

PRAJNAPARAMITA

SUTRA

OF

GAUTAMA

THE

BUDDHA

THUS HAVE I HEARD AT ONE TIME.

THE LORD DWELT AT SRAVASTI.

EARLY IN THE MORNING THE LORD DRESSED,

PUT ON HIS CLOAK, TOOK HIS BOWL,

AND ENTERED THE GREAT CITY OF SRAVASTI

TO COLLECT ALMS.

WHEN HE HAD EATEN AND RETURNED

FROM HIS ROUND, THE LORD PUT AWAY

HIS BOWL AND CLOAK, WASHED HIS FEET,

AND SAT DOWN ON THE SEAT ARRANGED FOR HIM,

CROSSING HIS LEGS, HOLDING HIS BODY UPRIGHT, AND

MINDFULLY FIXING HIS ATTENTION IN FRONT OF HIM.

THEN MANY MONKS APPROACHED TO WHERE

THE LORD WAS, SALUTED HIS FEET WITH

THEIR HEADS, THRICE WALKED ROUND HIM

TO THE RIGHT, AND SAT DOWN ON ONE SIDE.

AT THAT TIME THE VENERABLE SUBHUTI

CAME TO THAT ASSEMBLY, AND SAT DOWN.

THEN HE ROSE FROM HIS SEAT,

PUT HIS UPPER ROBE OVER ONE SHOULDER,

PLACED HIS RIGHT KNEE ON THE GROUND,

BENT FORTH HIS FOLDED HANDS TOWARDS

THE LORD, AND SAID TO THE LORD:

'IT IS WONDERFUL, O LORD,

IT IS EXCEEDINGLY WONDERFUL, O WELL-GONE,

HOW MUCH THE BODHISATTVAS,

THE GREAT BEINGS, HAVE BEEN HELPED

WITH THE GREATEST HELP BY THE TATHAGATA.

HOW THEN, O LORD, SHOULD ONE WHO HAS

SET OUT IN THE BODHISATTVA-VEHICLE,

STAND, HOW PROGRESS,

HOW CONTROL THE THOUGHTS?'

AFTER THESE WORDS THE LORD SAID TO SUBHUTI:

'THEREFORE, SUBHUTI, LISTEN WELL,

AND ATTENTIVELY!'

SOMEONE WHO HAS SET OUT IN THE VEHICLE

OF A BODHISATTVA SHOULD PRODUCE

A THOUGHT IN THIS MANNER:

'AS MANY BEINGS AS THERE ARE

IN THE UNIVERSE OF BEINGS,

COMPREHENDED UNDER THE TERM "BEINGS",

ALL THESE I MUST LEAD TO NIRVANA,

INTO THAT REALM OF NIRVANA

WHICH LEAVES NOTHING BEHIND.

AND YET, ALTHOUGH INNUMERABLE BEINGS

HAVE THUS BEEN LED TO NIRVANA,

NO BEING AT ALL HAS BEEN LED TO NIRVANA.'

AND WHY?

IF IN A BODHISATTVA THE NOTION

OF A "BEING" SHOULD TAKE PLACE,

HE COULD NOT BE CALLED A BODHI-BEING.

AND WHY?

HE IS NOT TO BE CALLED A BODHI-BEING

IN WHOM THE NOTION OF A SELF

OR OF A BEING SHOULD TAKE PLACE,

OR THE NOTION OF A LIVING SOUL

OR OF A PERSON.'

I love Gautama the Buddha because he represents to me the essential core of religion. He is not the founder of Buddhism -- Buddhism is a byproduct -- but he is the beginner of a totally different kind of religion in the world. He's the founder of a religionless religion. He has propounded not religion but religiousness. And this is a great radical change in the history of human consciousness.

Before Buddha there were religions but never a pure religiousness. Man was not yet mature. With Buddha, humanity enters into a mature age. All human beings have not yet entered into that, that's true, but Buddha has heralded the path; Buddha has opened the gateless gate. It takes time for human beings to understand such a deep message. Buddha's message is the deepest ever. Nobody has done the work that Buddha has done, the way he has done. Nobody else represents pure fragrance.

Other founders of religions, other enlightened people, have compromised with their audience. Buddha remains uncompromised, hence his purity. He does not care what you can understand, he cares only what the truth is. And he says it without being worried whether you understand it or not. In a way this looks hard; in another way this is great compassion.

Truth has to be said as it is. The moment you compromise, the moment you bring truth to the ordinary level of human consciousness, it loses its soul, it becomes superficial, it becomes a dead thing. You cannot bring truth to the level of human beings; human beings have to be led to the level of truth. That is Buddha's great work.

Twenty-five centuries ago, just some day early in the morning -- just like this day -- this sutra was born. Twelve hundred and fifty monks were present. It happened in the city of Sravasti. It was a great city of those days. The word Sravasti means the city of glory. It was one of the glorious cities of ancient India; it had nine hundred thousand families in it. Now that city has completely disappeared. A very very small village exists -- you will not find even its name on any map; even the name has disappeared. Now it is called Sahet-Mahet. It is impossible to believe that such a great city existed there. This is the way of life -- things go on changing. Cities turn into cemeteries, cemeteries turn into cities... life is a flux.

Buddha must have loved this city of Sravasti, because out of forty-five years of his ministry he stayed in Sravasti twenty-five years. He must have loved the people. The people must have been of a very evolved consciousness. All the great sutras of Buddha, almost all, were born in Sravasti.

This sutra -- The Diamond Sutra -- was also born in Sravasti. The Sanskrit name of this sutra is Vajrachchedika Prajnaparamita Sutra. It means perfection of wisdom which cuts like a thunderbolt. If you allow, Buddha can cut you like a thunderbolt. He can behead you. He can kill you and help you to be reborn.

A buddha has to be both -- a murderer and a mother. On the one hand he has to kill, on the other hand he has to give new being to you. The new being is possible only when the old has been destroyed. Only on the ashes of the old the new is born. Man is a phoenix. The mythological bird phoenix is not just a mythology, it is a metaphor. It stands for man. That phoenix exists nowhere except in man. Man is the being who has to die to be reborn.

That's what Jesus said to Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a professor, a learned man, a rabbi, a member of the board that controlled the great temple of Jerusalem. One dark night he came to see Jesus. He could not gather courage to come to him in the day time; he was afraid what people would say. He was so respectable, so much respected. Going to a vagabond teacher?... going to somebody who is hated by all the rabbis and all the learned people?... going to somebody who moves with thieves and drunkards and prostitutes? But something in him was very desirous to see this man. maybe he had seen Jesus walking, coming to the temple. He must have felt something deep in his unconscious for this man. He could not hold himself back.

One night when everybody had left, when even the disciples had gone to sleep, he reached Jesus and he asked, "What should I do so that I can also enter into the kingdom of God?"

And Jesus said, "Unless you die nothing is possible. If you die, only then can you enter into the kingdom of God. You will have to die as you are, only then can you be born as really your inner being is."

The ego has to die for the essential being to surface. That is the meaning of Vajrachchedika Prajnaparamita. It cuts like a thunderbolt. In one stroke it can destroy you. It is one of the greatest sermons of Buddha. Get in tune with it.

Before we enter into the sutra, a few things to be understood that will help you to understand it. Gautama the Buddha has started a spirituality that is nonrepressive and nonideological. That is a very rare phenomenon. The ordinary kind of spirituality, the garden variety, is very repressive. It depends on repression. It does not transform man, it only cripples man. It does not liberate man, it enslaves man. It is oppressive, it is ugly.

Listen to these words of Thomas a Kempis, author of Imitation of Christ. He writes: "The more violence you do to yourself, the greater will be your growth in grace. There is no other way save of daily mortification. To despise oneself is the best and the most perfect counsel." There are thousands of saints down the ages who will agree with Thomas a Kempis. And Thomas a Kempis is pathological.

Or the French priest Bossuet says: "Cursed be the earth! Cursed be the earth! A thousand times cursed be the earth." Why? Why should the earth be cursed? Life has to be cursed. These people have been thinking as if God is against life, as if life is against God. Life IS God, there is no antagonism, there is no separation even. They are not different things, they are two names for one reality.

Remember this: Buddha is nonrepressive. And if you find Buddhist monks to be repressive, remember, they have not understood Buddha at all. They have brought their own pathology into his teachings. And Buddha is non-ideological. He gives no ideology, because all ideologies are of the mind. And if ideologies are of the mind, they cannot take you beyond the mind. No ideology can become a bridge to reach beyond the mind. All ideologies have to be dropped, only then the mind will be dropped.

Buddha believes in no ideals either -- because all ideals create tension and conflict in man. They divide, they create anguish. You are one thing and they want you to be something else. Between these two you are stretched, torn apart. Ideals create misery. Ideals create schizophrenia. The more ideals there are, the more people will be schizophrenic, they will be split. Only a nonideological consciousness can avoid being split. And if you are split how can you be happy? how can you be silent? how can you know anything of peace, of stillness?

The ideological person is continuously fighting with himself. Each moment there is conflict. He lives in conflict, he lives in confusion, because he cannot decide who really he is -- the ideal or the reality. He cannot trust himself, he becomes afraid of himself, he loses confidence. And once a man loses confidence he loses all glory. Then he is ready to become a slave to anybody -- to any priest, to any politician. Then he is just ready, waiting to fall in some trap.

Why do people become followers? Why are people trapped? Why do people fall for a Joseph Stalin or an Adolf Hitler or a Mao Zedong? Why in the first place? They have become so shaky, the ideological confusion has shaken them from their very roots. Now they cannot stand on their own, they want somebody to lean on. They cannot move on their own, they don't know who they are. They need somebody to tell them that they are this or that. They need an identity to be given to them. They have forgotten their self and their nature.

Adolf Hitlers and Joseph Stalins and Mao Zedongs will be coming again and again until and unless man drops all ideologies. And remember, when I say all ideologies, I mean ALL ideologies. I don't make any distinction between noble ideologies and not so noble. All ideologies are dangerous. In fact the noble ideologies are more dangerous, because they have a more seductive power, they are more persuasive. But ideology as such is a disease, exactly a dis-ease, because you become two: the ideal and vou. And the you that you are is condemned,,, and the you that you are not is praised. Now you are getting into trouble. Now sooner or later you will be neurotic, psychotic or something.

Buddha has given a nonrepressive way of life, and nonideological too. That's why he does not talk about God, he does not talk about heaven, he does not talk about any future. He does not give you anything to hold onto, he takes everything away from you. He takes even your self. He goes on taking things away, and finally he takes even the idea of self, I, ego. He leaves only pure emptiness behind. And this is very difficult.

This is very difficult because we have completely forgotten how to give. We only know how to take. We go on taking everything. I TAKE the exam and I TAKE the wife and even I TAKE the afternoon nap -- a thing which cannot be taken, you have to surrender to it. Sleep comes only when you surrender. Even a wife, a husband, you go on taking. You are not respectful. The wife is not a property. You can take a house -- how can you take a wife or a husband? But our language shows our mind. We don't know how to give - how to give in, how to let go, how to let things happen.

Buddha takes all ideals away, the whole future away, and finally he takes the last thing that is very very difficult for us to give -- he takes your very self, leaves a pure, innocent, virgin emptiness behind. That virgin emptiness he calls nirvana. Nirvana is not a goal, it is just your emptiness. When you have dropped all that you have accumulated, when you don't hoard anymore, when you are no longer a miser and a clinger, then suddenly that emptiness erupts. It has always been there.

Hakuin is right: "From the very beginning, all beings are buddhas." That emptiness is there. You have accumulated junk so that emptiness is not visible. It is just like in your house you can go on accumulating things; then you stop seeing any space, then there is no more space. A day comes when even to move in the house becomes difficult; to live becomes difficult because there is no space. But space has not gone anywhere. Think of it, meditate over it. The space has not gone anywhere; you have accumulated too much furniture and the TV and the radio and the radiogram and the piano and everything -- but the space has not gone anywhere. Remove the furniture and the space is there; it has always been there. It was hidden by the furniture but it was not destroyed. It has not left the room, not for a single moment. So is your inner emptiness, your nirvana, your nothingness.

Buddha does not give you nirvana as an ideal. Buddha liberates instead of coercing. Buddha teaches you how to live -- not for any goal, not to achieve anything, but to be blissful herenow -- how to live in awareness. Not that awareness is going to give you something -- awareness is not a means to anything; it is the end in itself, the means and the end both. Its value is intrinsic.

Buddha does not teach you otherworldliness. This has to be understood. People are worldly; the priests go on teaching the other world. The other world is also not very otherworldly, it cannot be, because it is just an improved model of the same world. From where can you create the other world? You know only this world. You can improve, you can decorate the other world better, you can remove a few things that are ugly here and you can replace a few things which you think will be beautiful, but it is going to be a creation out of the experience of this world. So your other world is not very different, cannot be. It is a continuity. It comes out of your mind; it is a game of imagination.

You will have beautiful women there -- of course more beautiful than you have here. You will have the same kinds of pleasures there -- maybe more permanent, stable, but they will be the same kinds of pleasures. You will have better food, more tasty -- but you will have food. You will have houses, maybe made of gold -- but they will be houses. You will repeat the whole thing again.

Just go into the scriptures and see how they depict the heaven and you will find the same world improved upon. A few touches here and a few touches there, but it is not in any way otherworldly. That's why I say the otherworldliness of other religions is not very otherworldly; it is this world projected into the future. It is born out of the experience of this world. There will not be misery and poverty and illness and paralysis and blindness and deafness. Things that you don't like here will not be there, and things that you like will be there and in abundance, but it is not going to be anything new.

Mind cannot conceive of anything new. Mind is incapable of conceiving the new. Mind lives in the old, mind IS the old. The new never happens through the mind. The new happens only when mind is not functioning, when mind is not controlling you, when mind has been put aside. The new happens only when the mind is not interfering.

But all your scriptures talk about the heaven -- and the heaven or the paradise or FIRDAUS or SWARGA, is nothing but the same story. It may be printed on a better art paper, with better ink, in a more improved press, with more colorful illustrations, but the story is the same; it cannot be otherwise.

Buddha does not talk of otherworldliness or the other world. He simply teaches you how to be here in this world; how to be here alert, conscious, mindful, so that nothing impinges upon your emptiness; so that your inner emptiness is not contaminated, poisoned; so that you can live here and yet remain uncontaminated, unpolluted; so that you can be in the world and the world will not be in you.

The otherworldly spirituality is bound to be oppressive, destructive, sado-masochistic -- in short, pathological. Buddha's spirituality has a different flavor to it -- the flavor of no ideal, the flavor of no future, the flavor of no other world. It is a flower here and now. It asks for nothing. All is already given. It simply becomes more alert so you can see more, you can hear more, you can be more.

Remember, you are only in the same proportion as you are conscious. If you want to be more, be more conscious. Consciousness imparts being. Unconsciousness takes being away. When you are drunk you lose being. When you are fast asleep you lose being. Have you not watched it? When you are alert you have a different quality -- you are centered, rooted. When you are alert you feel the solidity of your being, it is almost tangible. When you are unconscious, just dragging by, sleepy, your sense of being is less. It is always in the same proportion as the consciousness is.

So Buddha's whole message is to be conscious. And for no other reason, just for the sake of being conscious -- because consciousness imparts being, consciousness creates you. And a you so different from you that you are, that you cannot imagine. A you where 'I' has disappeared, where no idea of self exists, nothing defines you... a pure emptiness, an infinity, unbounded emptiness.

This Buddha calls the state of meditation -- SAMMASAMADHI, right state of meditation, when you are all alone. But remember, aloneness is not loneliness. Have you ever thought about this beautiful word, alone? It means all one. It is made of two words -- all and one. In aloneness you become one with the all.

Aloneness has nothing of loneliness in it. You are not lonely when you are alone. You are alone but not lonely -- because you are one with the all; how can you be lonely? You don't miss others, true. Not that you have forgotten them, not that you don't need them, not that you don't care about them, no. You don't remember others because you are one with them. All the distinction between one and all is lost. One has become the all and all has become one. This English word alone is immensely beautiful.

Buddha says sammasamadhi is aloneness. The right meditation is to be so utterly alone that you are one with all. Let me explain it to you. If you are empty your boundaries disappear because emptiness can have no boundaries. Emptiness can only be infinite. Emptiness cannot have any weight, emptiness cannot have any color, emptiness cannot have any name, emptiness cannot have any form. When you are empty, how will you divide yourself from others? -- because you don't have any color, you don't have any name, you don't have any form, you don't have any boundaries. How are you going to make any distinctions? When you are empty you are one with all. You have melted into existence, existence has merged with you. You are no more an island, you have become the vast continent of being.

Buddha's whole message is condensed in this one word -- sammasamadhi, right meditation. What is right meditation and what is wrong meditation? If the meditator exists then it is wrong meditation. If the meditator is lost in meditation then it is right meditation. Right meditation brings you to emptiness and aloneness.

This sutra... this whole sutra is concerned with how to become utterly empty. This is his basic gift to the world.

THUS HAVE I HEARD AT ONE TIME.

These sutras have been remembered by Buddha's great disciple Ananda. And one thing to be remembered: all sutras start: THUS HAVE I HEARD....

When Buddha died all the disciples gathered together to collect whatsoever Buddha had said in those forty-five years. Ananda was the only one who had lived continuously for those forty-five years with Buddha. He was the most authentic to be relied upon. Others had heard, but they had heard from others. Sometimes they were with Buddha and sometimes they were not with Buddha. Only Ananda had lived like a shadow.

So Ananda relates, but the beauty is that he never says that "Buddha said this"; he simply says, "Thus have I heard". The difference is great. He does not say, "Buddha has said this," because he says, "How am I to say what Buddha has said? All that I can say is this -- that this is what I have heard. What Buddha said, only he knows. What he meant, only he knows. All that I can remember is what I have heard. My capacities are limited. He may have meant something else. I may have forgotten a few words, I may have put a few words of my own."

This is a great sincerity. He could have claimed, "This is what Buddha said. I was present, I am an eyewitness." And he WAS an eyewitness; nobody can deny that. But look at the humbleness of the man: he says "Thus have I heard. Buddha was saying, I was hearing -- I can only relate what I have heard. It may be right, it may not be right. I may have interfered, I may have interpreted, I may have forgotten a few things, something of my own mind may have got into it -- that all is possible. I am not an enlightened man." Ananda was not yet enlightened, so he says, "This is all that I can say, I can vouch for."

THUS HAVE I HEARD AT ONE TIME.

THE LORD DWELT AT SRAVASTI.

EARLY IN THE MORNING THE LORD DRESSED,

PUT ON HIS CLOAK, TOOK HIS BOWL,

AND ENTERED THE GREAT CITY OF SRAVASTI

TO COLLECT ALMS.

WHEN HE HAD EATEN AND RETURNED

FROM HIS ROUND, THE LORD PUT AWAY

HIS BOWL AND CLOAK, WASHED HIS FEET,

AND SAT DOWN ON THE SEAT ARRANGED FOR HIM,

CROSSING HIS LEGS,

HOLDING HIS BODY UPRIGHT, AND MINDFULLY

FIXING HIS ATTENTION IN FRONT OF HIM.

This you will be surprised at. When Ananda says, he goes into very small details. One never knows -- when you are reporting about a buddha, you have to be very careful, mm? Even this much he reports again and again -- such small things.

EARLY IN THE MORNING THE LORD DRESSED,

PUT ON HIS CLOAK, TOOK HIS BOWL,

AND ENTERED THE GREAT CITY OF SRAVASTI

TO COLLECT ALMS.

Ananda is following him like a shadow, a silent shadow just watching him. Just to watch him was a benediction. And he watches everything.

WHEN HE HAD EATEN AND RETURNED

FROM HIS ROUND, THE LORD PUT AWAY

HIS BOWL AND CLOAK, WASHED HIS FEET,

AND SAT DOWN ON THE SEAT ARRANGED FOR HIM.

When for the first time Buddhist sutras were translated into Western languages, the translators were a little bit puzzled -- why this continuous repetition? It goes on and on like that; again it will be, again this repetition. Why are these small things related? They could not understand it. They thought that this is repetitive, that this is a very unnecessary repetition; it is not needed at all. What is the point of it all? But they missed. What Ananda is saying is that Buddha pays attention to small things as much as to big things. For a buddha there is nothing small and nothing big -- one thing.

When he takes his bowl he is as respectful to the bowl as he would be respectful to any God. When he puts his cloak or puts his dress on he is so mindful; he's absolutely alert, he is not mechanical. When you put your dress on you are mechanical. You know mechanically how to put it on, so what is the point of paying attention to it? Your mind goes on moving into a thousand directions. And you take a shower -- but you are very disrespectful to the shower. You have not been there, you have been somewhere else. You eat, but you are disrespectful to the food. You are not there, you simply go on swallowing the food inside you. You go on doing your things habitually, mechanically. When Buddha does a thing he is utterly there, he is nowhere else.

WHEN HE HAD EATEN AND RETURNED

FROM HIS ROUND, THE LORD PUT AWAY

HIS BOWL AND CLOAK, WASHED HIS FEET,

AND SAT DOWN ON THE SEAT ARRANGED FOR HIM,

CROSSING HIS LEGS,

HOLDING HIS BODY UPRIGHT, AND MINDFULLY

FIXING HIS ATTENTION IN FRONT OF HIM....

These minor details are worth relating, because they bring the quality of buddhahood. Each moment he lives in awareness. What he is doing is irrelevant; each moment he pours his attention into whatsoever he is doing. When he makes a gesture he is totally the gesture. When he smiles he is totally the smile. When he talks he is totally his words. And when he is silent he is totally silent.

To watch a buddha is a blessing in itself -- how he walks, how he sits, how he makes gestures, how he looks at you. Each moment is a radiant moment of awareness. That's why Ananda reports. There must have been great silence when Buddha came, arranged his dress, washed his feet, sat on the seat arranged for him, sat upright, then focussed his whole attention in front of him. What is this 'fixing your attention in front of yourself'? That is a special Buddhist method called ANAPANSATIYOGA -- mindfulness of breath coming in and breath going out. That is the meaning of focussing your attention in front.

When Buddha is doing something, for example dressing, then he is attentive of that act. When he is walking he is attentive of walking. When he is not doing anything then he is attentive of breath coming in and breath going out. But he is attentive; even while he is asleep he is attentive.

Ananda asked Buddha once.... For ten years he lived with Buddha and he was surprised that he remained in the same posture the whole night. Wherever he put his hand, he kept it there the whole night. He must have looked many times, must have sneaked in in the night. It was worth it, mm? -- how the Buddha sleeps? And he was surprised and puzzled that he kept the same posture -- the same posture the whole night. He could not hold his curiosity. One day he said, "It is not right for me to get up in the night and look at you, I should not do such a thing, but I am curious about you and I am puzzled -- you remain in the same posture? Do you sleep or do you continue your awareness?"

And Buddha said, "Sleep happens in the body, I remain alert. Now the sleep is coming, now it has come, now it has settled, now the body is relaxed, the limbs are relaxed -- but I keep my awareness bright."

Meditation is a twenty-four hour thing. It is not that you do it once a day and you are finished with it. It has to become your flavor, it has to become your climate. It should surround you wherever you are, whatsoever you are doing.

... AND MINDFULLY FIXING HIS ATTENTION

IN FRONT OF HIM, HE SAT.

THEN MANY MONKS APPROACHED

TO WHERE THE LORD WAS,

SALUTED HIS FEET WITH THEIR HEADS,

THRICE WALKED ROUND HIM TO THE RIGHT

AND SAT DOWN ON ONE SIDE.

To ask a question to a Buddha needs a certain attitude, only then will you receive the answer. Not that Buddha will not give the answer. You can ask very disrespectfully -- Buddha will give the answer, but you will not receive it. So it is not a question that only when you are respectful will Buddha give the answer. Buddha will give the answer anyway, but if you are not very respectful, very humble, receptive, feminine, you will miss it. How you ask the question determines whether you will be able to receive the answer or not.

How you ask, in what mood.... Are you receptive? Are you just curious? Are you asking the question out of your accumulated knowledge or is your question innocent? Are you asking just to test whether this man knows or not? Are you asking from a state of knowledge or from a state of not knowing? Are you humble, surrendered? Are you ready to receive the gift if it is given to you? will you be open, will you welcome it? will you take it to your heart? Will you allow it to become a seed in your heart? To ask a question to a Buddha is not to ask a question to a professor. It needs a certain quality in you; then only will you be benefited by it.

THEN MANY MONKS APPROACHED

TO WHERE THE LORD WAS,

SALUTED HIS FEET WITH THEIR HEADS,

THRICE WALKED ROUND HIM TO THE RIGHT

AND SAT DOWN ON ONE SIDE.

Walking thrice is symbolic of the three bodies. The first round is for the physical body, the body that we can see, which is available to the senses. The physical body of the Buddha is also beautiful; it is the shrine where God abides. So the first round is a salutation for the first body, the physical body. The second round is for the bliss body, the second body. And the third round is for the Buddha body, the truth body.

These three rounds are symbolic of something else too. In Buddhism there are three shelters, three refuges: "I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the sangha, I take refuge in the Dhamma." These three rounds are symbolic of them too.

When a person comes to Buddha to ask anything, he has to take refuge. He has to have this state of mind -- that "I am falling in tune with Buddha," that "I am ready to vibrate in the same wavelength." "I take refuge in the Buddha. You are my shelter, I come to you as a disciple, I come to you knowing that I don't know, I come to you in innocence, I bow down to you, I recognize that you know and I don't know -- so I am ready to receive whatsoever you think I am ready to be given."

"I take refuge in the sangha, in the commune."... Because one Buddha is only a representative of all the Buddhas of the past and the future. One Buddha is a door to all the Buddhas. You can call the Buddhas the Christs or the Krishnas; it doesn't make any difference. These are different names given by different traditions.

So the first refuge is in this Buddha who is just in front of you. The second refuge is in all the Buddhas, the sangha, the commune of the Buddhas -- past, present, future. And the third refuge is in the Dhamma -- that essential being that makes a man a Buddha. That art of awakening is Dhamma, the religion.

AT THAT TIME THE VENERABLE SUBHUTI

CAME TO THAT ASSEMBLY AND SAT DOWN.

One of the great disciples of Buddha is Subhuti. THEN HE ROSE FROM HIS SEAT, says Ananda -- and again he repeats the whole thing. Because Subhuti is also no ordinary man. He is almost a Buddha, just on the verge of it. Any moment he is going to become a Buddha. So Ananda repeats again:

THEN HE ROSE FROM HIS SEAT,

PUT HIS UPPER ROBE OVER ONE SHOULDER,

PLACED HIS RIGHT KNEE ON THE GROUND,

BENT FORTH HIS FOLDED HANDS TOWARDS

THE LORD, AND SAID TO THE LORD:

'IT IS WONDERFUL, O LORD,

IT IS EXCEEDINGLY WONDERFUL, O WELL-GONE,

HOW MUCH THE BODHISATTVAS,

THE GREAT BEINGS, HAVE BEEN HELPED

WITH THE GREATEST HELP BY THE TATHAGATA.

HOW THEN, O LORD, SHOULD ONE WHO HAS

SET OUT IN THE BODHISATTVA-VEHICLE,

STAND, HOW PROGRESS,

HOW CONTROL THE THOUGHTS?'

Subhuti is almost close to buddhahood. He is a bodhisattva. Bodhisattva means one who is ready to become a Buddha, who has come almost close to it; one step more and he will become a Buddha. Bodhisattva means bodhi-essence, bodhi-being: ready ninety-nine degrees -- and on the hundredth degree he will evaporate. But a bodhisattva is one who tries to remain a little longer at ninety-nine degrees so that he can help people out of his compassion, because once he has jumped the hundred degrees, he has gone beyond.... GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHISWAHA. Then he has gone and gone beyond and beyond. Then it will be very difficult to make contact with the people who live on this shore.

The greatest help is possible from those who are at the ninety-nine degree point. Why? -- because they are still not enlightened. They know the ways of the people who are unenlightened. They know the language of the people who are unenlightened. They are yet with them, and yet in another sense ninety-nine percent they have gone beyond. That one percent keeps them linked, bridged.

So a bodhisattva is one who is close to buddhahood but is trying to remain on this shore a little longer so that he can help people. He has arrived; he would like to share his arrival. He has known; he would like to share what he has known. Others are stumbling in darkness; he would like to share his light with them, his love with them.

Subhuti is a bodhisattva. Ananda reports about him also in the same way as he reports about Buddha.

THEN HE ROSE FROM HIS SEAT.... Just imagine, visualize, a bodhisattva arising. He is utter awareness. He is not just rising like a robot. Each breath is known, fully known. Nothing passes unknown. He is watchful. What the Catholic tradition calls recollectedness, that is what Buddhists call SAMMASATI -- right mindfulness. Mindfulness or recollection, to be recollected,, to live recollectedly: SAMMASATI -- not to do a single act unconciously.

HE ROSE FROM HIS SEAT,

PUT HIS UPPER ROBE OVER ONE SHOULDER,

PLACED HIS RIGHT KNEE ON THE GROUND,

BENT FORTH HIS FOLDED HAND TOWARDS

THE LORD AND SAID TO THE LORD...

And remember, even a bodhisattva, who has come very close to becoming a Buddha, bows down to the Buddha in utter gratitude.

'IT IS WONDERFUL, O LORD,

IT IS EXCEEDINGLY WONDERFUL,

O WELL-GONE....'

Well-gone means one who has gone to the other shore. Subhuti is on this shore, Buddha is on that shore. Subhuti has come to that understanding: he can see the other shore, he can see Buddha on the other shore. 'O Well-gone...'

This word 'well-gone' has many meanings. One: one who has reached to the other shore. Another one who has reached to the ultimate of meditation. Buddha has said that there are eight steps towards ultimate meditation. One who has reached to the eighth is called 'well-gone'. But it is the same. One who has reached samadhi, the ultimate samadhi, he has gone to the other shore. he is no more -- that is what is meant by 'well-gone'. Gone, utterly gone. He is no more, he is just an emptiness. The self has disappeared, evaporated.

'O WELL-GONE,

IT IS WONDERFUL,

IT IS EXCEEDINGLY WONDERFUL,

HOW MUCH THE BODHISATTVAS,

THE GREAT BEINGS,

HAVE BEEN HELPED WITH THE GREATEST HELP

BY THE TATHAGATA.

TATHAGATA is the Buddhist word which means well-gone. Subhuti says, "How much help has been given, how wonderful it is -- it is exceedingly wonderful, it is unbelievable how much you have given to us. And you go on giving, and we don't even deserve it."

'... WONDERFUL, O LORD,

IT IS EXCEEDINGLY WONDERFUL, O WELL-GONE,

HOW MUCH THE BODHISATTVAS, THE GREAT BEINGS,

HAVE BEEN HELPED BY THE TATHAGATA.

HOW THEN, O LORD, SHOULD ONE

WHO HAS SET OUT IN THE BODHISATTVA-VEHICLE...

One who has decided to remain on this shore a little longer to help people.

... HOW SHOULD HE STAND, HOW PROGRESS,

HOW CONTROL THE THOUGHTS?'

What is he asking? He is asking a question which may not be relevant to many of you, because it becomes relevant only when you have become a bodhisattva. But some day, some day or other, you will be becoming bodhisattvas. Some day or other the question will be relevant. It is better to think about it, it is better to meditate over it.

He says, "Those who have decided to be bodhisattvas, how should they stand?" He is saying, "The attraction of the other shore is so much, the pull of the other shore is so much -- how should they stand on this shore? We would like to help people, but how? The pull is such, the magnetic pull is such -- the other shore is calling. So teach us how we can stand here, how we can become again rooted on this shore. We have become uprooted; in this world we don't have any roots. Ninety-nine percent of the roots are gone."

Just think of a tree -- ninety-nine percent of the roots are gone; only one percent of the roots are there. The tree is asking, "How should I stand now? I am going to fall, and I understand that if I can stay a little longer I will be of immense help to people, and they need it. I was in need -- you helped me. Now, others are in need -- I should help." That is the only way a disciple can pay his debt to the master. There is no other way. The master has helped you; the master needs no help -- how to pay the debt? what to do? The only thing to do is help somebody who is still stumbling, groping in the dark. Do whatsoever the master has done for you to others, and you have paid your debt.

He asked "How to stand?" -- it is difficult, it is almost impossible -- and "How to progress, how to start helping people?" -- because that too is difficult. Now we understand their miseries are all false. Now we understand that they are suffering just nightmares; their miseries are not true. Now we know they are afraid only of a rope, thinking that it is a snake. Now it is very difficult to help these people. It is ridiculous. And we know that they need help, because we know our own past. We were trembling, crying, screaming. We know how much we have suffered, although now we know that all suffering was just like a dream, it was illusory; it was maya."

Just think, if you know that the other person is just talking nonsense, that he has no wounds.... Once a man was brought to me. He had got the idea somehow that two flies had entered into his stomach -- because he sleeps with an open mouth. And the flies kept on revolving in his stomach. Naturally, if they have entered they will revolve. He was continuously worried and he was not even able to sit in one posture. He would move to this side and that and he would say, "They have gone to this side, and now they have gone to that side." He was almost mad.

Now, he had been to all the doctors and nobody was of any help, and they all laughed; they said, "You are just imagining." But just to say to a person that he is imagining his misery is not of much help, because he is suffering. It may be imaginary to you, but to him it makes no difference whether the suffering is imaginary or real; he is suffering all the same. What you call it makes no difference.

I touched his stomach and then said, "Yes, they are there." He was very happy. He touched my feet, he said, "You are the only man. I have been to many doctors and physicians -- ayurveydic and allopathic and homeopathic -- and they are all fools! And they go on insisting on one thing. I tell them, If you don't have any medicine simply say that you don't have any medicine, but why do you go on saying that I am imagining? Now here you are. Can't you see?"

I said, "I can see perfectly -- they are there. I deal in such problems." I said, "You have come to the right person. This is my whole work -- I deal in such problems which don't exist really. I am an expert in dealing with problems which are not." I said, "You just lie down and close your eyes. I will have to blindfold you, and I will take them out. And you open your mouth and I will call them. A great mantra is needed."

He was very happy. He said, "This is how it should be done." I blindfolded him, told him to open his mouth, and he was lying there, very happy, waiting for the flies to come out. And I rushed into the house to find two flies. It was difficult because I have never caught flies before, but somehow I managed it, and when he opened his eyes and saw those two flies in the bottle he said, "Now give this bottle to me. I will go to those fools." And he was perfectly okay. But it is very difficult to help such people, very difficult, because you know that their difficulty is all false.

Subhuti is asking, "Lord, first tell us how to stand here, because our roots are gone, we don't belong to this world any more. Our attachments are gone -- they are the roots. And how to progress, to work? -- because we now know that this is all just nonsense; people are imagining all their miseries. And how to control thoughts?"

What does he mean? Because a bodhisattva has no thoughts ordinarily -- not the thoughts that you have. Now there is only one thought, and that thought is of the other shore... and the other shore continuously pulls. The door is open, you can enter into utter bliss, and you are holding yourself at the door -- and the door is open.

First you were searching for many lives for where the door is; then you were knocking and knocking for many lives -- now the door is open. And Buddha says, "You wait, you remain outside the door. There are many who have to be helped." Naturally a great desire to enter, a great passion to enter through the door will arise. That's what he is asking.

AFTER THESE WORDS

THE LORD SAID TO SUBHUTI:'THEREFORE, SUBHUTI, LISTEN WELL

AND ATTENTIVELY. SOMEONE WHO HAS SET OUT

IN THE VEHICLE OF A BODHISATTVA

SHOULD PRODUCE A THOUGHT IN THIS MANNER;'

It does not look very good in the English translation. The Sanskrit word is CHITTOPAD. One should create such a mind, such a decision; one should create such a great decision, determination -- CHITTOPAD -- in this manner:

'"AS MANY BEINGS AS THERE ARE

IN THE UNIVERSE OF BEINGS,

COMPREHENDED UNDER THE TERM 'BEINGS',

ALL THESE I MUST LEAD TO NIRVANA..."'

"Not one or two, Subhuti, not one or two, but all the beings -- men, women, animals, birds, trees, rocks. All the beings in the world. One should create such a determination that 'I will lead all of them into Nirvana.'"

'... INTO THAT REALM OF NIRVANA

WHICH LEAVES NOTHING BEHIND.

AND YET, ALTHOUGH INNUMERABLE BEINGS

HAVE THUS BEEN LED TO NIRVANA;

NO BEING AT ALL HAS BEEN LED TO NIRVANA.'

That too you have to remember, you should not forget; otherwise, leading others, you will fall into ignorance again.

All the beings have to be led to the other shore, and still you have to remember that their miseries are false, so your remedies are also false. And you have to remember that they have no selves; neither do you have any self. So don't forget; don't think that you are helping people, that you are a great helper, this and that, otherwise you will fall again. Again you will grow roots on this shore.

So two things have to be remembered. You have to remain on this shore with great determination, otherwise you will be pulled by the other; and yet you are not to grow roots, again otherwise you will not be of any help. You will destroy yourself, you will fall into the dream again.

'AND WHY?

IF IN A BODHISATTVA

THE NOTION OF A "BEING" SHOULD TAKE PLACE,

HE COULD NOT BE CALLED A "BODHI-BEING".

AND WHY?

HE IS NOT TO BE CALLED A "BODHI-BEING"

IN WHOM THE NOTION OF A SELF

OR OF A BEING SHOULD TAKE PLACE,

OR THE NOTION OF A LIVING SOUL

OR OF A PERSON.'

"So you have to remember, Subhuti, two things. One, that you have to lead all the beings to the other shore, and still you have to remember that nobody has a being -- neither you nor they. All egos are false and illusory.

"Go on remembering this and go on with great determination. Help people to the other shore. They are already there; you just have to make them alert and aware. But don't get lost, don't become a saviour -- these two things."

And again and again Buddha will repeat in this sutra THE VEHICLE OF THE BODHISATTVA. I would like you all to become bodhisattvas.

Enough for today.

The Diamond Sutra

Chapter #2

Chapter title: Love Released

22 December 1977 am in Buddha Hall

Archive code: 7712220

ShortTitle: DIAMON02

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 66 mins

The first question:

Question 1

OSHO,

IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THE NO-MIND EVOLVES QUITE NATURALLY OUT OF THE MIND WITHOUT STRUGGLE AND ANGUISH, WITHOUT EXPLODING, HAMMERING, CUTTING AND SUCH WILD ACTS? IS THE VERY IDEA OF NO-MIND, WHICH SEEMS TO BE IN THE MIND AND YET TRANSCENDING THE MIND, A SEEDLIKE FORM OF THE NO-MIND? IS IT HELPFUL TO MEDITATE ALONG THESE LINES OF MIND-TRANSCENDING CONCEPTS LIKE ETERNITY, NIRVANA, DEATH? MY MIND SEEMS TO EXPLODE WHEN I DO. IT FEELS LIKE I AM PUSHING OVER MY LIMIT AND I GET AFRAID OF BECOMING SCHIZOPHRENIC.

The no-mind cannot arise out of the mind. It is not a growth of the mind, it is not in continuity with the mind; it is discontinuous. It is as discontinuous as disease is with health. The health does not arise out of the disease, it arises out of the removal of the disease. Disease was encroaching the space and was not allowing the health to bloom. The disease has to be removed. It is like a rock blocking the path of a small spring. You remove the rock and the spring starts flowing. It does not arise out of the rock. The rock was blocking it, the rock was a block. So is the mind. Mind is the block for the no-mind.

No-mind simply means that which is not mind at all. How can it arise out of the mind? If it arises out of the mind, it may be super-mind, but it can't be no-mind. That's where I differ from Shree Aurobindo. He talks about the super-mind. A super-mind is the same mind more decorated, more cultivated, more cultured, more sophisticated, more strong, more integrated -- but all the time the same old mind.

Buddha says not super-mind but no-mind; not super-soul but no soul; not super-individuality, super-self, but no-self, ANATTA. That is where Buddha is unique and his understanding the deepest. A super-mind is a growth, a no-mind is a leap, a jump. The no-mind has nothing to do with the mind at all. They never meet even, they never encounter each other. When the mind is there, the no-mind is not there. When the no-mind is there, the mind is not there. They don't even say hello to each other -- they can't. The presence of the one is necessarily the absence of the other. So remember it.

That's why I say Shree Aurobindo never became enlightened. He remained polishing the mind. He was a great mind, but to be a great mind is not to be enlightened. So is Bertrand Russell a great mind. But to be a great mind is not to be enlightened. So is Friedrich Nietzsche a great mind -- and Aurobindo and Nietzsche have many similarities. Nietzsche talks about the superman and Aurobindo also talks about the superman. But the superman will be a projected man. A superman will be this man; all the weaknesses destroyed, all the strengths strengthened -- but this man. Bigger than this man, stronger than this man, higher than this man, but still on the same wavelength, the same ladder. There is no radical change, there has never been a discontinuity.

No-mind means discontinuity with all that you are. YOU have to die for no-mind to be.

So the first thing. You ask, "Is it possible that the no-mind evolves quite naturally out of the mind?" No. It is not an evolution, it is a revolution. The mind is dropped and suddenly you find the no-mind is there, has always been there. The mind was clouding, making you confused, was not allowing you to see that which is. So it is not an evolution.

And you ask, "Is it possible without struggle and anguish?" It has nothing to do with struggle and anguish. No-mind has nothing to do with struggle and anguish. It does not come out of struggle and anguish. Anything that comes out of struggle and anguish will carry the wounds. Even if those wounds are healed, the scars will be carried. It will be again a continuity.

The struggle and anguish is not for the no-mind; the struggle and anguish arises because the mind struggles to keep itself in power. The fight is given by the mind. The mind does not want to go, the mind wants to stay. The mind has become so powerful; it possesses you. It says, "No, I am not going to get out. I am going to stay here." The whole struggle and anguish is because of the mind. The no-mind has nothing to do with it. And you will have to go through this anguish and struggle. If you don't go through the anguish and the struggle, the mind is not going to leave you.

And again let me repeat, the no-mind is not born out of your struggle; out of your struggle only comes the mind. The no-mind comes without any struggle. The rock gives you the struggle. It does not want to move. It has remained in that spot for centuries, for millennia -- who are you to remove it? "And about what spring are you talking? There is none. I have been here for centuries and I know -- there is none. Forget all about it!" But you want to remove the rock. The rock is heavy, the rock is rooted in the earth. It has remained there for so long. It has attachments; it does not want to go. And it knows nothing of the spring. But you will have to remove this rock. Unless this rock is removed, the spring will not flow.

You ask: "without exploding, hammering, cutting and such wild acts?" The no-mind has nothing to do with your acts. But the mind will not go. You will have to hammer and cut and you will have to do a thousand and one things.

"Is the very idea of no-mind, which seems to be in the mind and yet transcending the mind, a seed-like form of the no-mind?"

No -- there is no seed in the mind of the no-mind. The mind cannot contain even the seed of no-mind. The mind has no space to contain it. No-mind is vast, like the sky. How can it be contained in a tiny thing, the mind? And the mind is already too full -- full of thoughts, desires, fantasies, imaginations, memories. There is no space.

In the first place it is very tiny -- it cannot contain the no-mind. In the second place it is so full, overcrowded, so noisy. The no-mind is silent, the mind is noisy. The mind cannot contain it; the mind has to cease. In that cessation is the beginning of a new life, a new being, a new world.

Is it helpful, you ask, to meditate along these lines of mind-transcending concepts like eternity, nirvana, death?

Those so-called mind-transcending concepts are still concepts and are of the mind. When you are thinking of eternity, what will you do? You will think. When you are thinking of nirvana, what is going to happen? Your mind will spin and weave, and your mind will give you beautiful ideas about nirvana -- but that will be all mind work. What can you think about death? What will you think if you think about death? You don't know. How can you think anything about that which you don't know?

Mind is perfectly capable in repeating the known; with the unknown it is impotent. You don't know eternity, all that you know is time. Even when you think of eternity it is nothing but lengthened time, stretched time -- but it is time. What do you know about nirvana? -- all that you have heard about it, read about it. That is not nirvana. The word nirvana is not nirvana, and the concept of nirvana is not nirvana. The word God is not God, and all the pictures and all the statues that have been made of God have nothing to do with him -- because he has no name and no form.

And what are you going to think about death? How can you think about death? You have heard a few things, you have seen a few people dying, but you have never seen death. When you see a man dying what do you see? He breathes no more; that's all that you see. His body has become cold; that's all that you see. What more? Is this death? -- the body becoming cold, breathing stopping? is this all? What has happened to the innermost core of the person? You cannot know without dying. You cannot know without experiencing. The only way to know the unknown is to experience it.

So these concepts won't help. They may rather, on the contrary, strengthen the mind, because the mind will say, "Look, I can even supply you mind-transcending concepts. See what I am doing for you. Keep me with you always. I will help you to become enlightened. Without me you will be nowhere. Without me how will you think about death and nirvana and eternity? I am absolutely essential. Without me you will not be anything at all."

No, these meditations won't help. You have to see it -- that the mind is not going to help at all. When you see the point that mind is not going to help at all, in that very helplessness, in that very state, there is silence; all stops. If the mind cannot do anything, then nothing is left to do. Suddenly all thinking is paralyzed; it is pointless. In that paralysis you will have the first glimpse of no-mind... just a small window will open. In that stopping of the mind you will have a taste of no-mind. And then things will start moving. Then it will be easier for you to get lost into the boundariless-ness.

You cannot meditate, you have to go into it. Meditating upon it is a pseudo activity; it is a kind of avoiding, escaping. You are afraid of death, you think about death. You are afraid of nirvana, you think about nirvana. Thinking gives you the feeling that you are capable even of thinking about death and nirvana.

My mind seems to explode when I do.

Mind is very cunning. It must be deceiving you -- because mind cannot explode while you are thinking. About what you are thinking does not matter; while you are thinking, mind cannot explode. Mind will be enjoying it, and in that very enjoyment you are thinking you are exploding.

It feels like I am pushing over my limit and I get afraid of becoming schizophrenic.

Dinesh, you need not be afraid of ever becoming schizophrenic, because you already are -- everybody is. Mind is schizophrenic, because mind knows nothing of unity. Mind is always split. Mind always has alternatives. To be or not to be, to do this or to do that. Mind is always indecisive. Even if you choose something it is only a part of the mind that chooses it, the other part remains against it.

The mind is never total, so mind is schizophrenic. You need not be afraid of that. To be in the mind is to be schizophrenic. Only Buddhas are beyond it. The whole humanity is schizophrenic, more or less. When you go beyond a point then you have to seek and search for the psychiatrist, but the difference is only of degrees; the difference is only of quantity not quality. Even between you and your psychoanalyst there is only a difference of degrees.

Remember, mind will not help. Mind cannot help, mind can only hinder. Seeing this, no-mind arrives. It is not that you bring it; it arrives on its own accord.

The second question:

Question 2

IN YESTERDAY'S SUTRA, BUDDHA SAYS 'SOMEONE WHO HAS SET OUT IN THE VEHICLE OF A BODHISATTVA SHOULD DECIDE THAT "I MUST LEAD ALL THE BEINGS TO NIRVANA, INTO THAT REALM OF NIRVANA WHICH LEAVES NOTHING BEHIND."' OSHO, WHAT IS THIS REALM OF NIRVANA WHICH LEAVES NOTHING BEHIND?

Buddha has talked about two kinds of nirvana. One he calls nirvana with substratum. The tree has disappeared, the tree of desires. The foliage, the leaves, the flowers, the fruits -- everything has disappeared. But the roots are still there underground, hidden in the dark soil. From the outside the tree has been removed, but the tree is still capable of renewing itself again. The substratum is still there, the seed has not been burnt yet. This he calls 'nirvana with substratum.

This is exactly the same that Patanjali calls SABEEJ SAMADHI -- samadhi with seed. It is very difficult from the outside. The tree has been completely removed, but underneath the soil the roots are still alive, waiting for the right moment to sprout again. Rains will come and they will sprout. They are waiting for their season, for the moment again to assert.

This is the state when many times you have come to the point where mind disappears, no-mind is felt, but again mind comes back, again it sprouts. You reach to a peak. That moment of that peak experience, you think all is finished, now you will never be falling back to the valley of darkness. You think that you will never go back into those ugly and miserable days, that the dark night of the soul is over, that the morning has arrived, that the sun has arisen.

But again one day you suddenly find you are slipping back into the darkness -- again the valley, again light is no more, again that peak experience is just a memory. And one starts becoming doubtful whether it has happened or not. "Have I been just imagining? Or maybe I was just dreaming." ... Because if it had happened then where has it gone? Where is that sunlit peak? Where are those moments of ecstasy? And misery is back and anger is back and agony is back -- you have fallen into hell again. This happens many times.

This Buddha calls nirvana with substratum; sabeej samadhi in Patanjali's words. Manifestation of the world is gone but the unmanifested seed remains.

The second nirvana Buddha calls the nirvana without substratum. In Patanjali's words NIRBEEJ SAMADHI -- seedless samadhi. Not only the tree has been destroyed, but the seed also burned. A burned seed cannot sprout again, all substratum is gone. Then you remain on the peak forever, then there is no falling back.

That's what Buddha says in yesterday's sutra: 'SOMEONE WHO HAS SET OUT IN THE VEHICLE OF A BODHISATTVA SHOULD DECIDE THAT "I MUST LEAD ALL THE BEINGS INTO NIRVANA, INTO THAT REALM OF NIRVANA WHICH LEAVES NOTHING BEHIND..."' which leaves no substratum, no roots, no seeds behind.

The third question:

Question 3

OSHO,

WHAT IS THE ZEN APPROACH TOWARDS SEX? THE ZEN PEOPLE SEEM TO HAVE A NEUTER GENDER, OR ASEXUAL AURA ABOUT THEM.

Zen has no attitudes about sex, and that is the beauty of Zen. To have an attitude means you are still obsessed this way or that. Somebody is against sex -- he has an attitude; and somebody is for sex -- he has an attitude. And for and against go together like two wheels of a bullock cart. They are not enemies, they are friends, partners in the same business.

Zen has no attitude about sex. Why should one have any attitude about sex? That's the beauty of it -- Zen is utterly natural. Do you have any attitudes about drinking water? Do you have any attitudes about taking food? Do you have any attitudes about going to sleep in the night? No attitudes.

I know there are mad people who have attitudes about these things too: that one should not sleep more than five hours. Sleep is a kind of sin, something like a necessary evil, so one should not sleep more than five hours; or in India there are people who think only three hours. And I have come across one person who has not slept for ten years. And he is worshipped for this only; he has nothing else, no other creative talents. It is his only talent. Maybe he is just an insomniac. Maybe even this is not a talent, maybe he cannot sleep.

He has gone so neurotic that he cannot relax, and he looks mad. One will become mad if for ten years one has not slept. And people come, crowds come, to worship him. He has attained something great. What has he attained? What is the attainment there? He is just an abnormal person, ill. To sleep is natural. And he is bound to be very tense -- he is tense. He must be boiling within. Just think, for ten years not sleeping! But now it has become a great investment, now it is paying. His madness has become an invest-ment, now thousands of people worship him -- only for this?

Down the ages this has been one of the greatest calamities -- that people have been worshipping uncreative things, and sometimes pathological things. Then you have an attitude about sleep. There are people who have an attitude about food. To eat this or to eat that; to eat only so much, not more than that. They don't listen to the body, to whether the body is hungry or not. They have a certain idea and they impose the idea on nature.

Zen has no attitudes about sex. Zen is very simple, Zen is innocent. Zen is childlike. It says there is no need to have any attitudes. Why? Do you have any attitude about sneezing? -- to sneeze or not, whether it is sin or virtue. You don't have any attitude. But I have come across one man who is against sneezing, and whenever he sneezes he immediately repeats a mantra to protect himself. He belongs to a small foolish sect. That sect thinks that when you sneeze the soul goes out. In the sneeze the soul goes out, and if you don't remember God it may not come back. So you have to remember, you have to immediately remember so that the soul is given back. If you die while sneezing you will go into hell.

You can have attitudes about anything. Once you have attitudes, your innocence is destroyed and those attitudes start controlling you. Zen is neither for anything nor against anything. Zen says whatsoever is ordinary is good. To be ordinary, to be a no one, to be a nothingness, to be without any ideology, to be without character, to be characterless....

When you have a character you have some kind of neurosis. Character means something has become fixed in you. Character means your past. Character means conditioning, cultivation. When you have a character you are imprisoned in it, you are no more free. When you have a character you have an armor around yourself. You are no more a free person. You are carrying your prison around yourself; it is a very subtle prison. A real man will be characterless.

What do I mean when I say he will be characterless? He will be free of the past. He will act in the moment according to the moment. He will be spontaneous; only he can be spontaneous. He will not look back into the memories for what to do. A situation has arisen and you are looking in the memory -- then you have a character. Then you are asking your past, "What should I do?" When you don't have any character you simply look into the situation and the situation decides what has to be done. Then it is spontaneous and there is response and not reaction.

Zen has no belief-system about anything, and that includes sex too -- Zen says nothing about it. And that should be the ultimate thing. Tantra has an attitude about sex. The reason? -- it tries to redress what the society has done. Tantra is medical. The society has repressed sex; Tantra comes as a remedy to help you redress balance. You have leaned too much to the left; Tantra comes and helps you to lean to the right. And to redress the balance sometimes you have to lean too much to the right, only then the balance is gained. Have you not seen a rope walker, a tightrope walker? He carries a staff in his hand to keep balance. If he feels he is leaning too much to the left, he immediately starts leaning to the right. Then again he feels that now he has leaned too much to the right, he starts leaning towards the left. This is how he keeps in the middle. Tantra is a remedy.

The society has created a repressive mind, a life-negative mind, an anti-joy mind. The society is very much against sex. Why is the society so much against sex? -- because if you allow people sexual pleasure, you cannot transform them into slaves. It is impossible -- a joyous person cannot be made a slave. That is the trick. Only sad people can be turned into slaves. A joyous person is a free person; he has a kind of independence to him.

You cannot recruit joyous people for war. Impossible. Why should they go to war? But if a person has repressed his sexuality he is ready to go to war, he is eager to go to war, because he has not been able to enjoy life. He has become incapable of enjoying, hence has become incapable of creativity. Now he can do only one thing -- he can destroy. All his energies have become poison and destructive. He is ready to go to war -- not only ready, he is hankering for it. He wants to kill, he wants to destroy.

In fact, while destroying human beings he will have a vicarious joy of penetrating. That penetrating could have been in love and would have been beautiful. When you penetrate a woman's body in love, it is one thing. It is spiritual. But when things go wrong and you penetrate somebody's body with a sword, with a spear, it is ugly, it is violent, it is destructive. But you are searching for a substitute for penetration.

If society is allowed total freedom about joy, nobody will be destructive. People who can love beautifully are never destructive. And people who can love beautifully and have the joy of life will not be competitive either. These are the problems.

That's why primitive people are not so competitive. They are enjoying their life. Who bothers to have a bigger house? Who bothers to have a bigger balance in the bank? For what? You are happy with your woman and with your man and you are having a dance of life. Who wants to sit in the marketplace for hours and hours and hours, day in, day out, year in, year out, hoping that in the end you will have a big bank balance and then you will retire and enjoy? That day never comes. It can't come, because the whole life you remain an ascetic.

Remember, the business people are ascetic people. They have devoted everything to money. Now a man who knows love and has known the thrill of love and the ecstasy of it will not be competitive. He will be happy if he can get his daily bread. That is the meaning of Jesus' prayer: "Give us our daily bread." That is more than enough. Now Jesus looks foolish. He should have asked, "Give us a bigger bank balance." He asks only for the daily bread? A joyous man never asks for more than that. The joy is so fulfilling.

It is only unfulfilled beings who are competitive, because they think life is not here, it is there. "I have to reach to Delhi and become the president," or to the White House and become this or that. "I have to go there, joy is there" -- because they know here there is no joy. So they are always on the go, go, go, go. They are always on the go, and they never reach. And the man who knows the joy, is here. Why should he be going to Delhi? For what? He is utterly happy herenow. His needs are very small. He has no desires. He has needs certainly, but no desires. Needs can be fulfilled, desires never. Needs are natural, desires are perverted.

Now this whole society depends on one thing and that is sex repression. Otherwise the economy will be destroyed, sabotaged. War will disappear and with it the whole war machinery, and the politics will become meaningless and the politician will no longer be important. Money will not have value if people are allowed to love. Because they are not allowed to love, money becomes the substitute, money becomes their love. So there is a subtle strategy. Sex has to be repressed, otherwise this whole structure of the society will fall immediately.

Only love released into the world will bring revolution. communism has failed, fascism has failed, capitalism has failed. All 'isms' have failed because deep down they are all sex repressive. On that point there is no difference -- no difference between Washington aud Moscow, Beijing and Delhi -- there is no difference at all. They all agree upon one thing -- that sex has to be controlled, that people are not to be allowed to have innocent joy in sex.

To redress the balance comes Tantra; Tantra is a remedy. So it emphasizes sex too much. The so-called religions say sex is sin and Tantra says sex is the only sacred phenomenon. Tantra is a remedy. Zen is not a remedy. Zen is the state when the illness has disappeared; and of course, with the illness, the remedy too. Once you are cured of your illness you don't go on carrying the prescription and the bottle and the medicine with you. You throw it. It goes to the dustbin.

Ordinary society is against sex; Tantra comes to help humanity, to give sex back to humanity. And when the sex has been given back, then arises Zen. Zen has no attitude. Zen is pure health.

The fourth question:

Question 4

OSHO,

IS EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD OKAY? AND WHAT HAS THAT TO DO WITH LOVE? WHEN YOU SAY THE WORLD IS OKAY IT SOUNDS OKAY TO ME. IF ANYBODY ELSE SAYS SO, OR IF I SAY SO, IT SOUNDS WRONG.

It depends on who is saying it. When I say the world is okay, I am not propounding a theory, I am sharing a vision. In fact, the word theory comes from a Greek root THEORIA, and theoria means vision. When I am saying anything to you, it is not mind stuff; I am sharing my experience. In those moments, if you are available to me and open to me, you will also have the vision; a little bit of my vision will spill into your being. For the moment the doors will open and you will say, "Yes, this is so."

When somebody else is saying it, and if it is not his vision.... Even when you say to somebody and it is no more your vision -- it was just a borrowed eyesight -- it will not sound right. If a man like Buddha even tells a lie, it will sound like truth. And if you tell even a truth, it will sound like a lie.

It depends more from where it comes, the source; not what you say, but who says. You can go on repeating Christ's words and nobody is going to crucify you. Why? Why don't they crucify you? You can declaim the whole Sermon on the Mount and you can go on standing. And that's what people are doing all over the world -- Christian priests, and missionaries and Witnesses of Jehovah, mm? All kinds of people are doing that -- carrying the New Testament, quoting the New Testament, repeating the words, and nobody crucifies them. Why? When Jesus said these things what was the matter? The words had fire then. Jesus was sharing his vision. When you repeat, there is no vision in it; it is a mere word. It has no passion, no intensity, no truth. Truth comes only through experience.

You ask: "IS EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD OKAY?" When I say the world is okay, what do I really mean? I mean this is the only world and there is no other world. You don't have any way to compare. Okay or not okay is irrelevant. This is the only world there is; there is no other. You cannot compare whether it is better or not better. Comparison is not possible. Comparison is possible only when there are two worlds, but there are not.

So when I say, "All is okay," I mean there is no point in comparing. But why do people say that this is not the right world? They have created an utopia in their mind and they compare with the utopia. They have an idea of how things should be and then nothing seems to be right, because things are not like their utopian idea. If you think man should have four eyes.... And that looks very logical; two for the back. Two eyes don't look right -- what about the back? What if somebody comes from the back and hits you? God has missed there... two eyes in the back. Then things are not okay -- man has only two eyes; man should have four. Then suddenly man is not okay. And man is the same; you have just created an idea, and that idea condemns.

Man should live more than seventy years. Why? Once you say that man should live seven hundred years then seventy years look very poor. But why? What will you be doing here for seven hundred years? Don't you think seventy years are enough to do harm? to destroy? You need seven hundred years? Just think of Adolf Hitler living seven hundred years.

Once you have an idea, a goal, then things become different. I have no idea; I am absolutely non-utopian, I am absolutely realistic. I carry no ideals in my mind. Then this is the only world; roses are red and trees are green and people are this way -- the way they are -- and it is absolutely beautiful.

"IS EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD OKAY? AND WHAT HAS THAT TO DO WITH LOVE?"

That has much to do with love. If the world is okay, only then you can love. If the world is not okay, you become a politician, you become political. The politician depends on the idea that the world is not okay: he has to bring a revolution, he has to change things, he has to put things right, he has to improve upon God. That is the politician's mind. And the politician has no love, he has only condemnation, because he has judged.

The religious mind has no judgment. Jesus says, "Judge ye not." The religious mind has no judgment, has no condemnation, hence he can love. And remember, in your life also, you can love only when you don't judge. If you have too many ideas to judge with, you will never love. You will go on imposing your ideas on whomsoever becomes a victim of your so-called love. You will go on imposing your ideas on him. Even if a child is born to you, immediately you will jump on him and start manipulating, managing, improving. And you will destroy the being. That's how everybody has been destroyed by the parents and by the society.

If you love a woman, you immediately start improving how she should be. And the woman, of course, is a great improver. If you become a victim of a woman's love, then you are no more. Then she will improve you so much that she will make something else out of you. After a few years you will not be able to recognize who you are. She will cut and prune and do things and paint: "Behave this way" and "Speak this way" and "Talk this way."

A young woman fell in love with a man. The woman was a Catholic and the man was a Jew. The woman's family was very worried, and they said, "We cannot allow vou." The family was very rich, and they said, "If you marry this man then you will not inherit anything." And she was the only child, so all the money was hers.

Now this was too much, so she asked, "What should I do?"

So they said, "First convert him, let him become a Catholic -- then....

"So she tried, and she was very happy, because the Jew was more interested in the money than in the woman, so he was very willing. A Jew is a Jew, he was very willing. He started reading The Bible and started going to the church, and he was over-enthusiastic. The woman was very happy -- things were going perfectly well -- and after every month she would report to her parents that things are going perfectly well.

Then one day she came home and was crying and weeping and the father asked, "What is the matter? What happened?'

She had gone to ask the man to get married, she was thinking that he was ready. And she said to her father, "Yes, he is ready, but I have done too much reformation, I have reformed him too much."

The father was confused. He said, "I don't understand. What do you mean? Too much?"

She said, "Yes, now he wants to become a Catholic monk. I have overdone."

What you call love is more or less reforming the other. And you go on saying that you want to reform the other because you love. This is absolutely untrue. If you love you never reform anybody. Love accepts. Love respects the other as he is.

If the world is okay as it is, only then can you love it. The revolutionary, the politician cannot love it; only the religious consciousness can love it. And when you love you come to know that it is even more okay than you had thought before. Then you love more, and then you come to find that it is immensely beautiful, not just okay. Then more love... and by and by you find that the world disappears -- it is God himself.

The fifth question:

BELOVED OSHO,

Question 5

THE FIRST TIME I SAW A DEAD HUMAN BEING WAS WHEN I SAW MY DEAD GRANDMOTHER. SHE LAY THERE AND LOOKED SO WHITE AND PEACEFUL, SO SILENT AND HAPPY, OPEN AND CLOSED AT THE SAME TIME. I WAS JEALOUS, BUT AT THE SAME TIME AFRAID. I THOUGHT SHE MUST BE SO LONELY. I COULD NOT REACH HER ANY MORE.

WHEN I SAW YOU, DEAR OSHO, ON YOUR BIRTHDAY DARSHAN, I HAD EXACTLY THE SAME FEELINGS. DID YOU NOT FEEL VERY VERY LONELY BETWEEN ALL THE NOISES, SHATTERINGS, MOVINGS? YOU WERE SO FAR AND IN HOLY SILENCE -- AS NEVER BEFORE FOR ME.

ARE YOU DEAD AND ALIVE AT THE SAME TIME?

The question is from Ma Prem Aranyo.

Death is beautiful, as beautiful as life -- if you just know how to communicate with death. It is beautiful because it is relaxation. It is beautiful because the person has fallen back into the source of existence -- to relax, to rest, to be ready to come back again.

A wave rises in the ocean, then falls back into the ocean, then rises again. It will have another day, it will be born again in some other form. And then it falls again and disappears.

Death is just disappearing into the source. Death is going to the unmanifested. Death is falling asleep into God. You will bloom again. You will again see the sun and the moon, and again and again till you become a Buddha -- till you are capable of dying consciously, till you are capable of relaxing consciously, knowingly, into God. Then there is no coming back. That is utter death, that is ultimate death. The ordinary death is a temporary death; you will be coming back again. When a Buddha dies, he dies forever. His death has the quality of eternity. But even the temporary death is beautiful.

And you are right, Aranyo, I am dead and alive at the same time. As a person, I am dead. As somebody, I am dead. As nobody, I am alive.

You say: "THE FIRST TIME I SAW A DEAD HUMAN BEING WAS WHEN I SAW MY DEAD GRANDMOTHER. SHE LAY THERE AND LOOKED SO WHITE AND PEACEFUL, SO SILENT, SO HAPPY, OPEN AND CLOSED AT THE SAME TIME. I WAS JEALOUS BUT AT THE SAME TIME AFRAID."

Remember, that may be your relationship with me too, jealous and at the same time afraid too. You will have to put your fear aside, because the fear can prevent you -- can prevent you from enjoying this opportunity that is available to you. It is very difficult to find a nobody; you have found one. And unless you also become a nobody, go on remembering you are missing the opportunity. Die as I have died, and then you will be alive as I am alive.

There is a life which has nothing to do with any person. There is a life which has nothing to do with any self. There is a life of emptiness, innocent and virgin. I make it available to you. Put your fears aside, come closer to me. Let me become your death and your resurrection.

A Zen master, Bunon has said, "While living, be a dead man, be thoroughly dead, and behave as you like and all is well."

The last question:

Question 6

IS KNOWLEDGE ALWAYS DANGEROUS?

Not always. And knowledge is not dangerous, knowledgeability is dangerous. To know about facts is perfectly good, but to forget the mystery of life is dangerous. So knowledge is not always dangerous; sometimes it can be of great help too.

A little anecdote:

Irish Paddy's wife Maureen had been rushed to the hospital that morning. Nine months pregnant and now in labor, she gives birth to two beautiful twin daughters.

Irish Paddy, after a day's work laboring with rubble on the building site, marched up to the hospital in the cool of an autumn evening to visit his wife in the maternity ward.

"Oh, hello, little sweet darling," he cooed to his Maureen, as he approached the bed with a glint of curiosity in his right eye, as he observed two tiny babies arriving by the bed, hand in hand with a nurse.

"I have had twins, me luv," said Maureen. And for ten long minutes Paddy sat bemused by that bed, not knowing how to work it out.

The ward bell rang, Paddy kissed his wife and left. "By Christ!" he muttered, as he walked the long corridor, "If I find the other bugger I will kill him."

Enough for today.

The Diamond Sutra

Chapter #3

Chapter title: The Wheel of Dhamma

23 December 1977 am in Buddha Hall

Archive code: 7712230

ShortTitle: DIAMON03

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 67 mins

VAJRACHCHEDIKA

PRAJNAPARAMITA

SUTRA

OF

GAUTAMA THE BUDDHA

'BECAUSE A BODHISATTVA

WHO GIVES A GIFT

SHOULD NOT BE SUPPORTED BY A THING,

NOR SHOULD HE BE SUPPORTED ANYWHERE.'

'THE GREAT BEING SHOULD GIVE GIFTS

IN SUCH A WAY

THAT HE IS NOT SUPPORTED BY THE NOTION OF A SIGN.

AND WHY?

BECAUSE THE HEAP OF MERIT OF THAT BODHI-BEING,

WHO UNSUPPORTED GIVES A GIFT,

IS NOT EASY TO MEASURE.'

THE LORD CONTINUED:

'WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI, CAN THE TATHAGATA

BE SEEN BY THE POSSESSION OF HIS MARKS?'

SUBHUTI REPLIED:

'NO INDEED, O LORD. AND WHY?

WHAT HAS BEEN TAUGHT BY THE TATHAGATA

AS THE POSSESSION OF MARKS,

THAT IS TRULY A NO-POSSESSION OF NO-MARKS.'

THE LORD SAID:

WHEREVER THERE IS POSSESSION OF MARKS,

THERE IS FRAUD;

WHEREVER THERE IS NO-POSSESSION OF NO-MARKS,

THERE IS NO FRAUD.

HENCE THE TATHAGATA IS TO BE SEEN

FROM NO-MARKS AS MARKS.'

SUBHUTI ASKED:

'WILL THERE BE ANY BEINGS IN THE FUTURE PERIOD, IN THE LAST TIME, IN THE LAST EPOCH, IN THE LAST FIVE HUNDRED YEARS, AT THE TIME OF THE COLLAPSE OF THE GOOD DOCTRINE WHO, WHEN THESE WORDS OF THE SUTRA ARE BEING TAUGHT, WILL UNDERSTAND THEIR TRUTH?'

THE LORD REPLIED:

'DO NOT SPEAK THUS, SUBHUTI!

YES, EVEN THEN THERE WILL BE BEINGS WHO, WHEN THESE WORDS OF THE SUTRA ARE BEING TAUGHT, WILL UNDERSTAND THEIR TRUTH. FOR EVEN AT THAT TIME, SUBHUTI, THERE WILL BE BODHISATTVAS.

AND THESE BODHISATTVAS, SUBHUTI, WILL NOT BE SUCH AS HAVE HONORED ONLY ONE SINGLE BUDDHA, NOR SUCH AS HAVE PLANTED THEIR ROOTS OF MERIT UNDER ONE SINGLE BUDDHA ONLY.

ON THE CONTRARY, SUBHUTI, THOSE BODHISATTVAS WHO, WHEN THESE WORDS OF THE SUTRA ARE BEING TAUGHT, WILL FIND EVEN ONE SINGLE THOUGHT OF SERENE FAITH, BE SUCH AS HAVE HONORED MANY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF BUDDHAS, SUCH AS HAVE PLANTED THEIR ROOTS OF MERIT UNDER MANY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF BUDDHAS.

KNOWN THEY ARE, SUBHUTI, TO THE TATHAGATA THROUGH HIS BUDDHA-COGNITION.

SEEN THEY ARE, SUBHUTI, BY THE TATHAGATA WITH HIS BUDDHA-EYE.

FULLY-KNOWN THEY ARE, SUBHUTI, TO THE TATHAGATA. AND THEY ALL, SUBHUTI WILL BEGET AND ACQUIRE AN IMMEASURABLE AND INCALCULABLE HEAP OF MERIT.'

THEREFORE, SUBHUTI, LISTEN WELL AND ATTENTIVELY, says Gautama the Buddha.

These are strange words -- strange, because Buddha is addressing a bodhisattva. They would not have been strange if they were addressed to an ordinary human being. One can understand that the ordinary human being needs to listen well. To listen is so difficult. To listen means to be herenow. To listen means to be without any thought. To listen means to be alert and aware. If these conditions are fulfilled, only then you listen.

The mind goes on like a maniac inside, a raving maniac. The mind goes on spinning a thousand and one thoughts, and the mind goes on moving all over the world -- in the past, in the future. How can you listen? And whatsoever you listen to, it will not be right listening at all. You will listen to something else which has not been said at all, you will go on missing that which is said -- because you will not be in tune. You will listen to the words of course, because you are not deaf, but just that much is not listening.

That's why Jesus goes on saying to his disciples: "If you have ears, listen. If you have eyes, see." Those disciples were neither blind nor deaf. They had eyes as healthy as you have, ears as good as you have. But Jesus' words are not strange; they are relevant. He is talking to ordinary people; he has to bring their attention, he has to shout. But Buddha's words are strange -- he is addressing a bodhisattva, a great being, a bodhi-being; one who is just on the verge of becoming a Buddha.

What does it mean exactly when he says: "THEREFORE, SUBHUTI, LISTEN WELL AND ATTENTIVELY?"

To listen well ordinarily means to listen in a receptive mood, in deep receptivity. When you listen, if you are arguing, if you are judging, if you are saying, "Yes, this is right because it fits with my ideology and this is not right because it doesn't appeal to me logically. This is right, this is not right. This I can believe, this I cannot believe...." If you are continuously sorting out things inside, you are listening but you are not listening well.

And you are listening with your past mind interfering. Who is this judging? It is not you, it is your past. You have read a few things, you have heard a few things, you have been conditioned for a few things. It is the past continuously interfering. The past wants to perpetuate itself. It does not allow anything that can disrupt it. It does not allow anything new; it allows only the old that fits with it. That's what you go on doing when you judge, when you criticize, when you discuss inside and debate.

To listen rightly means to listen obediently. This word obedience is beautiful. You will be surprised to know that the original root from which the word obedience comes is OBEDIRE -- it means 'a thorough listening'. Why does obedience mean thorough listening? Are they the same thing? Yes, they are. If you listen totally, thoroughly, you will obey. If truth is there, you will obey. You will not need any decision on your part. Truth is self-evident. Once heard, it automatically follows that you will follow it. Once heard, you will become obedient to it. Hence this word obedience comes from obedire -- listening thoroughly.

Or as the Jewish tradition says, 'to bare your ear'. If you have really opened your ear and there is no interference and no disturbance inside, and no distraction from anywhere, you have not only opened your ear, you have opened your heart. And if the seed falls into the heart, sooner or later it will become a tree, sooner or later it is going to bloom. It may take a little time for it to become a tree. It will have to wait for the right season, for the spring to come, but it will become a tree. You will obey it if you have heard the truth.

That's why the mind does not allow you to hear it, because the mind is aware of the fact that once truth is heard then there is no way to escape. So if you want to escape, it is better not to hear. Once heard, you are caught into it; then there is no escape. How can you escape when you know what truth is? Then the very phenomenon that you know what truth is, creates a discipline in you. You start following it. And it is not something that you enforce upon yourself; it comes on its own accord.

The earlocks have to be removed. What are the earlocks? The fear of truth is the basic lock. You are afraid of the truth -- notwithstanding what you say, notwithstanding that you again and again say, "I want to know the truth." You are afraid of truth because you have lived in lies. And you have lived in lies so long that all those lies are afraid, trembling -- if truth comes they will all have to leave you. They have become owners of you. Just as darkness is afraid of light, so lies are afraid of truth. The moment you come closer to truth, the mind will become very much disturbed. It will create much stir, it will raise much dust, it will create a cloud around you so that you cannot hear what truth is.

The earlocks have to be removed. The basic lock is fear. You are locked in fear. Buddha has said that unless you are fearless you will not attain to truth. And look at your religions, at what you have done. Your so-called religions are all based in fear. And through fear there is no way to truth; only fearlessness knows what truth is.

When you bow down in a church or in a mosque or in a temple, to a statue, to a scripture, to tradition, from where is your bowing coming? Just watch inside -- and you will find fear and fear and fear. Out of fear there is no faith, but the so-called faith is all based on fear. That's why it is very rare in the world to come across a man who has faith, because faith happens only when fear has disappeared. Faith appears only on the death of fear.

Faith means trust. How can a fearful man trust? He is always thinking, he is always cunning, he is always protecting, defending. How can he trust? To trust, you need courage. To trust, you need to be brave. To trust, you need to be able to risk. To trust, you need to move into danger.

Just the other day I was looking at a Chinese ideogram for crisis and I was intrigued by it, because the Chinese ideogram for crisis consists of two symbols: one means danger, another means opportunity. Yes, that moment is a critical moment when you are facing danger and opportunity both. If you don't go into danger you will miss the opportunity. If you want the opportunity you will have to go into danger. Those who know how to live dangerously, only they are religious. Fear is the basic earlock. Then there are others, but they arise out of the fear -- the judging, the argumentation, clinging with the past, not allowing the new any entry in your being.

In many many forms, in many many languages, the word for obedience is an intensive form of the word listening. HORCHEN, GEHORCHEN, obedire, etcetera -- all these words simply say passionate, intense, total listening. One thing more. You will be surprised to know that the word absurd is the exact opposite of obedience. ABSURDUS means absolutely deaf. So if you say something is absurd, you are simply saying, "I am absolutely deaf to what this is going to tell me." Replace an absurd attitude with an obedient attitude and then you will be baring your ear, then you will be utterly open.

But it is good to say to an ordinary human being, "listen attentively." Why does Buddha say this to Subhuti? There is something very significant to be understood. A word has no meaning in itself; the meaning is created only when the word is addressed. To whom it is addressed will determine the meaning. So you cannot find the meaning in any dictionary, because dictionaries are not written for bodhisattvas; they are written for ordinary human beings.

So what does this mean -- 'LISTEN WELL AND ATTENTIVELY?' It means a few things which have to be understood. One: when a man like Subhuti is there, there is no question of earlocks, not at all. There is no question of his openness to Buddha, there is no doubt about it, he is open. There is no doubt that he is no longer arguing with Buddha; he is totally with him, flowing with him. But when a person has attained to bodhisattvahood, when one has come very close to buddhahood, there arise a few new problems.

Each new stage of consciousness has its own problems. This is the problem with a bodhisattva: he is open, he is receptive, he is ready, but he has become uprooted from the body. His heart is open, his being is open, but he is no more rooted in the body. He has become detached from the body, the body is just hanging around. He does not live in the body, he is almost unidentified with the body -- that is the problem.

When someone says to you, "Listen well," he means that your body is listening but you are not listening. When Buddha says it to Subhuti he means, "You are listening, but your body is not listening." It is just the opposite. When you listen, your body is here, you are not here. The words reach to the ear, they make sound and noise there, and from the other ear they go out. They never cross your being; your being does not touch them. With a man like Subhuti just the opposite is the case. His being is there but his body is not there. He has lost track of the body. He forgets, he tends to forget the body. There are moments when he will not think of the body at all. He will be there but the body will not be there. He has come to bodilessness.

Now, listening is possible only when body and soul both are together. In you the body is present, the soul is absent. In Subhuti the soul is present but the body is absent. That is the meaning of Buddha when he says, "Subhuti, listen well." Bring your body here. Let your body function. Get into the body, be rooted in the body, because the body is the vehicle, the body is the instrument, the medium.

And Buddha says, "... and attentively." Is Subhuti lacking in attention? That is not possible otherwise he would not be a bodhi-being. A bodhi-being is one who has attained to attention, who is aware, who is alert, who is conscious, who is no more a robot. Then why does Buddha say. "Be attentive, listen attentively"? Again a different meaning has to be understood.

A man like Subhuti tends to go inwards. If he is not making an effort he will drown into his being, he will be lost there. He can be outside only if he makes an effort. Just the opposite is with you. With a very great effort you can rarely move into your inner being. For a single moment thoughts stop and you are lost into the inner splendor. But it rarely happens, and after long arduous efforts, meditation, yoga, this and that, and then only for a few moments you have that beauty, that benediction. The sky opens, the clouds disappear and there is light, and there is life and there is utter joy. But only for rare moments... again and again it is lost. If you make great effort to be attentive, you attain the inner experience.

With Subhuti, just the opposite is the case: he is lost inside himself, he is utterly drowned by his inner joy. Unless he makes an effort he will not be able to listen to what Buddha is saying. He is perfectly capable of listening to Buddha's silence. If Buddha is silent there is communion, but if Buddha is saying something then he has to make effort, he has to pull himself together, he has to come out, he has to come in the body, he has to be very attentive. He is drunk with the inner wine.

Hence Buddha says these strange words: "LISTEN WELL, AND ATTENTIVELY." And this is for the first time that I am explaining to you these words. For twenty-five centuries nobody has commented on these words. They have been taken ordinarily, as if Buddha is saying to anybody, "Listen well, attentively." Buddha is not talking to an ordinary human being.

For twenty-five centuries nobody has commented rightly. People have been thinking they understand the meaning of the words. The meaning of the words changes; it depends by whom they are used, for whom they are used. The meaning of the words depends on the context and the circumstance. The words don't have any meaning in themselves. The words are meaningless. The meaning arises only in a particular situation.

Now this situation is very rare. Buddha has used these words thousands of times; every day he had to use these words to people -- "Listen well, attentively." So those who have commented on The Diamond Sutra have missed. I think the commentators were not knowers. They knew the language but they were completely unaware of this strange situation. Buddha has not addressed some ordinary human being; Buddha has addressed somebody who is very close to buddhahood, who is just on the boundary of it, entering into buddhahood.

And he starts the statement with therefore: "THEREFORE, SUBHUTI, LISTEN WELL AND ATTENTIVELY." Now this 'therefore' is also very illogical. therefore is only logical when it comes as a part, as a concluding part, of a logical syllogism: All men die. Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal. Then 'therefore' is perfectly right. It is part of a syllogism, a conclusion. But here there is no logic, nothing has preceded it, there has been no premise. And Buddha starts with the conclusion -- THEREFORE?

That too has a strangeness about it. And that is Buddha's way. That is how in The Heart Sutra he addressed Sariputra -- "Therefore, Sariputra....". Now he says, "Therefore, Subhuti...." Subhuti has not said anything for which 'therefore' is needed, Buddha has not said anything for which 'therefore' is needed, but something is present in Subhuti's being. 'Therefore' is related to that presence; nothing has been uttered.

A master responds to what is present in you. A master responds more to your silence than to your words. A master is more interested in your quest than in your questions. A master is more interested in your needs than in your questions. This 'therefore' indicates a subtle need in the innermost being of Subhuti. Maybe Subhuti himself is not aware of it, maybe Subhuti will take a little time to become aware of it.

The master has to go on looking into the disciple's being, and the master has to respond to the inner need -- expressed, unexpressed, that is not the point. Maybe left alone the disciple will take months to find out the need; or even years, or even lives. But the master looks not only into your past, not only into your present, but into your future too. What is going to be your need tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, this life and the next life -- the master provides for the whole journey. This 'therefore' is related to some need in Subhuti's inner being.

Now the sutras:

'BECAUSE A BODHISATTVA

WHO GIVES A GIFT

SHOULD NOT BE SUPPORTED BY A THING,

NOR SHOULD HE BE SUPPORTED ANYWHERE.'

This is the need for which Buddha has used "THEREFORE, SUBHUTI, LISTEN WELL AND ATTENTIVELY." Deep down Subhuti must be having this idea, a very subtle idea -- "If I give to people what I have attained, great will be my merit."

This may not be inwards, this may not have yet become a thought; it may be just a feel, a ripple, deep inside. "If I give the Dhamma as a gift to people..." and that is the greatest gift, Buddha had said. The greatest gift is to give people your enlightenment, to share it. It has to be the greatest. Somebody shares his money, it is nothing. Even if he is not going to share, the money will be left here when he dies. Somebody shares something else. But to share enlightenment is to share eternity, to share enlightenment is to share God, to share enlightenment is to share the ultimate. Buddha has called it the greatest gift.

Now he is saying to Subhuti to share whatsoever you have attained. And create a decision, chittopad, create a great decision in your being that you will not leave this shore unless you have liberated all the human beings. Make a great decisive act in your being before you start disappearing. Before your boat starts moving to the other shore, create a great desire to help people. That desire to help people will function as a chain with this shore. Before it is too late, create chittopad. Bring your whole energy into it -- that "I will not leave this shore whatsoever the temptation of the other shore."

And there is great temptation. When all has changed and you have become capable of moving to the other shore for which you have been longing and longing for millions of lives, the temptation is great not to be here at all. For what? You have suffered enough, and now you have the passport to enter into nirvana. And Buddha says, "Deny the passport, throw it away, and make a great decision that you will not leave this shore until and unless you have liberated all the human beings."

Listening to this, a subtle desire must have arisen into Subhuti's heart, at the deepest substratum of his being, that "that will be a great thing. How much merit I will get out of it, how much PUNYA, how much virtue." That must have been a small ripple. It is even difficult for Subhuti to read it, to read what it is. It must have flashed, an intuitive flash, just for a second or a split second, but it has been reflected in Buddha's mirror.

A master is a mirror. Whatsoever is in you is reflected in him. Sometimes he will not answer the question that you have asked because your question may be just a curiosity and has nothing to do with your inner being, or your question may be just an exhibition of your knowledge. Or your question may be just to prove to others, "Look what a great seeker I am. I ask such beautiful questions." The question may not be existential, it may be just intellectual. Then the master is not going to answer lt.

And sometimes the master will answer a question that you have not asked; not only not asked, but that you have never known existed in you. But it will relate to your innermost need and requirement.

Buddha says:

'BECAUSE A BODHISATTVA

WHO GIVES A GIFT

SHOULD NOT BE SUPPORTED BY A THING,

NOR SHOULD HE BE SUPPORTED ANYWHERE.'

The support means motive. The support means that "I will be getting something out of it." Then you have missed the whole point. Then it is a bargain, then it is no more a gift. And nirvana can only be a gift, it cannot be a bargain. It is not business. You have to give it for the sheer joy of giving it. You should not carry any motive to gain anything out of it. If you are carrying any motive to gain anything out of it you cannot help anybody; in fact you yourself still need help. You are not liberated yet, you don't have the passport for the other shore yet. You can misguide but you cannot guide.

The real gift is an overflowing. You are so full of your enlightenment that it simply goes on overflowing. It is anybody's to take. And you feel obliged when somebody takes it from you because he unburdens you. When a cloud comes and showers on the earth, it feels thankful to the earth, because the earth has received and the cloud is unburdened. Yes, exactly like that.

When enlightenment is arising, it goes on welling up. You can go on sharing as much as you want, and it goes on again and again coming up, again overflows, again overflows. There is no end to it. You have come to the eternal source. Now you should not be a miser and you should not be motivated and you should not have any idea to get anything in return.

'BECAUSE A BODHISATTVA

WHO GIVES A GIFT

SHOULD NOT BE SUPPORTED BY A THING,

NOR SHOULD HE BE SUPPORTED ANYWHERE.

THE GREAT BEING SHOULD GIVE GIFTS

IN SUCH A WAY

THAT HE IS NOT SUPPORTED BY THE NOTION OF A SIGN.'

He will not think, "This is a gift," and he will not think that "I am the giver and you are the recipient." No, all these ideas and notions should be dropped. There is no giver, no gift, no recipient; it is all oneness. The one you are helping is also you. The one you are giving to is another form of you... as if you are giving from the left hand to the right hand. There is no need to feel great about it. There is no giver, there is no receiver and there is no gift.

'THE GREAT BEING SHOULD GIVE GIFTS

IN SUCH A WAY

THAT HE IS NOT SUPPORTED BY THE NOTION OF A SIGN.

AND WHY?

BECAUSE THE HEAP OF MERIT OF THAT BODHI-BEING,

WHO UNSUPPORTED GIVES A GIFT,

IS NOT EASY TO MEASURE.'

Now this is a problem you will have to face again and again. The problem is, your merit is great if you don't think about it. If you think about it, it disappears. If you desire it you will never get it. If you don't desire it, it goes on showering on you.

On the lower plane, Jesus' statement is right. That statement has been given to ordinary people: "Ask and it shall be given. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened unto you. "But Buddha is speaking to Subhuti, and he is exactly saying, "Ask and it shall not be given. Seek and you will not find. Knock and the doors will turn into a China wall; they will never open." And remember, the difference comes from the audience. Jesus is talking to common people, Buddha is talking to a very uncommon person.

THE LORD CONTINUED:'WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI, CAN THE TATHAGATA

BE SEEN BY THE POSSESSION OF HIS MARKS?'

SUBHUTI REPLIED:'NO INDEED, O LORD. AND WHY?

WHAT HAS BEEN TAUGHT BY THE TATHAGATA

AS THE POSSESSION OF MARKS,

THAT IS TRULY A NO-POSSESSION OF NO-MARKS.'

THE LORD SAID:

WHEREVER THERE IS POSSESSION OF MARKS,

THERE IS FRAUD;

WHEREVER THERE IS NO-POSSESSION OF NO-MARKS,

THERE IS NO FRAUD.

HENCE THE TATHAGATA IS TO BE SEEN

FROM NO-MARKS AS MARKS.'

These will look like puzzles. They are not. They appear to be puzzles but they are not. But on those heights from where Buddha is speaking everything becomes contradictory; contradiction becomes the only expression. One has to be paradoxical on those plenitudes of being. Logic loses all meaning. If one insists on being logical then one cannot move on those plenitudes and one cannot express that truth. That truth is bound to be contradictory.

Buddha asks, "Subhuti, is a tathagata to be seen by the possession of his marks?" Buddhist scriptures say that a Buddha has thirty-two marks of being a superman. Those thirty-two marks, are they to be the deciding factor?

For ordinary human beings it is okay, because you don't have any other eyes; you can see only the outward sign. You live by signs, marks. But for a man like Subhuti, who can see inward, who can see in the Buddha, those marks should not be any more relevant. And moreover, to possess anything is not the quality of a Buddha -- not even those thirty-two marks. They are irrelevant. A Buddha has to be utterly ordinary, because he possesses nothing. That is his real mark, not to possess anything. Not to possess even buddhahood, that is the real mark of buddhahood. This is how things become contradictory.

A real Buddha is one who does not claim even to be a Buddha, because all claims are fraudulent. To claim is to be a fraud. A Buddha claims nothing, he has no claim. He desires nothing. He is not in any way interested in exhibiting. He is not interested in convincing anybody about who he is. He is utterly there -- you can partake of him, you can join him in his dance, you can share his celebration -- but he is not there to prove anything. To prove anything only proves that you have not attained yet. He is not defensive.

And those outer marks can be created by people who may not be Buddhas. Anything can be created. For example, Buddha's breathing is utterly silent, as if he does not breathe at all. But that can be done by any yogi who is not a Buddha. You can practice breathing, you can practice exercises, and you can bring the breathing to almost a halting point. You can defeat Buddha.

His breathing is slow because he has slowed down, not because he has practised any breathing exercises. His breathing is slow because he is not going anywhere, because all desires have disappeared; that's why his breathing is slow, almost invisible. The reason is not that he is a great yogi, no. The reason is that desires dropped, there is no hurry. He is just on a morning walk. He is not going anywhere. He has no future, no worry.

Have you watched? When you are worried your breathing becomes disturbed. When you are angry your breathing becomes violent. When you make love and passion arises, your breathing becomes very very disturbed, feverish. A Buddha's passion has become compassion, his desires have dropped, disappeared... as if ripe leaves have fallen from the tree. And his breathing has slowed down, slowed down, slowed down.

But if this is the sign, then any pretender can show the sign. Buddha sits utterly silently, his posture is unmoving, he remains in one posture. But this can be done by anybody, just a little practice is needed, but by that practice you will not become a Buddha.

So Buddha says...

'WHEREVER THERE IS POSSESSION OF MARKS,

THERE IS FRAUD....'

If somebody claims 'I possess these marks of Buddha. Look, I am a Buddha!' then there is fraud, because the very claim is a proof of fraud.

'WHEREVER THERE IS NO POSSESSION OF NO-MARKS

THERE IS NO FRAUD.

HENCE THE TATHAGATA IS TO BE SEEN

FROM NO-MARKS AS MARKS.'

Why does Buddha suddenly ask this question of Subhuti? A desire must have arisen in Subhuti... mm? -- these are the things to be understood. A desire must have arisen in Subhuti. He is just on the verge of becoming a Buddha. A desire must have arisen: "Soon I will possess thirty-two marks. Soon I will be a Buddha, I will be proclaimed a Buddha. I will have thirty-two marks."

This may have been just an unconscious desire, but a ripple.... Seeing the Buddha and his thirty-two marks, his grace, his beauty, who will not start desiring? And Subhuti is capable now, just on the threshold of buddhahood. While Buddha is talking about giving as if you are not giving, while Buddha is saying that if you can give without the notion of a giver and the gift and the receiver, great will be your merit... listening to this he must have longed. The longing may have been a subtle seed, but he must have longed. "Then with that great merit I will become a Buddha. I will have thirty-two marks -- the same fragrance that surrounds the Buddha, the same grace, the same splendor, the same benediction! Aha!" He must have somewhere created the desire.

Seeing that desire, Buddha says, "What do you think, Subhuti, can the tathagata be seen by the possession of his marks?" Unless you see this undercurrent in Subhuti's consciousness or unconsciousness, you will not understand The Diamond Sutra.

SUBHUTI ASKED:'WILL THERE BE ANY BEINGS IN THE FUTURE PERIOD,

IN THE LAST TIME,

IN THE LAST EPOCH,

IN THE LAST FIVE HUNDRED YEARS,

AT THE TIME OF THE COLLAPSE OF THE GOOD DOCTRINE

WHO, WHEN THESE WORDS OF THE SUTRA

ARE BEING TAUGHT,

WILL UNDERSTAND THEIR TRUTH?'

Now you will be surprised: this is the time Subhuti is talking about, and you are the people. Twenty-five hundred years have passed. Subhuti has asked about you.

Buddha has said that whenever a religion is born, whenever a Buddha turns the wheel of Dhamma, naturally, slowly slowly the wheel starts stopping. It loses momentum. mm? You turn a wheel, it will start moving. Then by and by, by and by, a moment will come when it will stop.

When a Buddha moves the wheel of Dhamma, it takes two thousand five hundred years for it to stop completely. After each five hundred years it goes on losing momentum. So those are the five ages of the Dhamma. After each five hundred years, the Dhamma will be less and less, decreased and decreased and decreased, and after twenty-five centuries the wheel will stop again. It will need another Buddha to turn it for the coming twenty-five centuries.

This is a rare phenomenon. It is really intriguing that Subhuti asked Buddha:

'WILL THERE BE ANY BEINGS IN THE FUTURE PERIOD,

IN THE LAST TIME,

IN THE LAST EPOCH,

IN THE LAST FIVE HUNDRED YEARS,

AT THE TIME OF THE COLLAPSE OF THE GOOD DOCTRINE

WHO, WHEN THESE WORDS OF THE SUTRA

ARE BEING TAUGHT,

WILL UNDERSTAND THEIR TRUTH?'

THE LORD REPLIED: 'DO NOT SPEAK THUS, SUBHUTI!

YES, EVEN THEN THERE WILL BE BEINGS WHO,

WHEN THESE WORDS OF THE SUTRA ARE BEING TAUGHT,

WILL UNDERSTAND THEIR TRUTH.

FOR EVEN AT THAT TIME, SUBHUTI,

THERE WILL BE BODHISATTVAS.

AND THESE BODHISATTVAS, SUBHUTI,

WILL NOT BE SUCH AS HAVE HONORED

ONLY ONE SINGLE BUDDHA,

NOR SUCH AS HAVE PLANTED THEIR ROOTS OF MERIT

UNDER ONE SINGLE BUDDHA ONLY.

ON THE CONTRARY, SUBHUTI, THOSE BODHISATTVAS WHO,

WHEN THESE WORDS OF THE SUTRA ARE BEING TAUGHT,

WILL FIND EVEN ONE SINGLE THOUGHT OF SERENE FAITH,

BE SUCH AS HAVE HONORED

MANY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF BUDDHAS,

SUCH AS HAVE PLANTED THEIR ROOTS OF MERIT

UNDER MANY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF BUDDHAS.

KNOWN THEY ARE, SUBHUTI, TO THE TATHAGATA

THROUGH HIS BUDDHA-COGNITION.

SEEN THEY ARE, SUBHUTI, BY THE TATHAGATA

WITH HIS BUDDHA-EYE.

FULLY-KNOWN THEY ARE, SUBHUTI, TO THE TATHAGATA.

AND THEY ALL, SUBHUTI

WILL BEGET AND ACQUIRE

AN IMMEASURABLE AND INCALCULABLE HEAP OF MERIT.'

Buddha is talking about you. The Sutra is being read to you. Twenty-five centuries have passed. Subhuti has asked about you.

The other day I had told you that many of you will become bodhisattvas, many of you are on the way. It is strange that Subhuti should ask such a question. And more strange is that Buddha says "Those people after twenty-five centuries will not be less fortunate than you but will be more fortunate."

Why? I have been telling you many times that you are ancient ones, that you have walked on this earth many many times, that you are not listening to Dhamma for the first time, that you have come across many Buddhas in your past lives -- sometimes maybe a Krishna and sometimes maybe a Christ and sometimes maybe a Mahavira and sometimes maybe a Mohammed, but you have come across many many Buddhas, many enlightened people.

You are fortunate to know so many Buddhas, and if you become a little alert, all the seeds that have been sown in you by the past Buddhas will start blooming, will sprout. You will start flowering.

Buddha says:

KNOWN THEY ARE, SUBHUTI, TO THE TATHAGATA

THROUGH HIS BUDDHA-COGNITION.

SEEN THEY ARE, SUBHUTI, BY THE TATHAGATA

WITH HIS BUDDHA-EYE.

FULLY-KNOWN THEY ARE, SUBHUTI, TO THE TATHAGATA.

It is very mysterious, but it is possible. A Buddha can have a vision of the future. He can see through the fog of the future. His clarity is such, his vision is such, he can throw a ray of light into the unknown future. He can see. It will look very mysterious that Buddha sees you listening to The Diamond Sutra. From your standpoint it seems almost unbelievable, because you don't know even how to see in the present. How can you believe that anybody can see in the future?

You know only one capacity: that is the capacity to look into the past. You can only look backwards. You are past-oriented. And whatsoever you think about your future is not a vision of the future, it is just a projection of the modified past. It is not future at all. It is your yesterday trying to be repeated as tomorrow.

Something you have tasted yesterday and it was sweet and you want it again tomorrow: this is your future. You have been in love with somebody and you want to make love again in the future: this is your future. It is a repetition of the past. It is not future at all. You don't know what future is at all. You can't know what future is because you can't even know what the present is. And the present is available and you are so blind that you cannot even see into that which is already here.

But then, eyes open, you can see even into that which is not present, that which is going to happen. You can have glimpses of that. The way to see the future is first to see the present. One who can be absolutely in the present becomes capable of looking into the future.

This is ecstatic to even think that Gautama the Buddha had seen you listening to The Diamond Sutra. In The Diamond Sutra you are talked about. That's why I have chosen it. When I came across these words I thought, "This is the thing for my people. They must know that even they have been looked into by Gautama the Buddha; that something about them has been said twenty-five centuries ago; that they have been predicted.'

The wheel that Buddha moved has stopped. The wheel has to be moved again. And that is going to be my and your life-work -- that wheel has to be moved again. Once it starts revolving it will have again twenty-five centuries' life. Once it starts moving it goes on moving for twenty-five centuries at least.

And it has to be done again and again and again because everything loses momentum, everything functions under the laws of nature -- entropy. You throw a stone, you throw with great energy, but it goes a few hundred feet and it falls down. Exactly like that Dhamma has to be made again and again alive. Then it breathes for twenty-five centuries and then dies. Everything that is born has to die.

But Buddha says, "Subhuti, do not speak thus." Subhuti must be thinking, "Only we are fortunate. We have listened to Buddha, lived with Buddha, walked with Buddha. We are fortunate, we are blessed people. What will happen after twenty five centuries when the wheel of Dhamma has completely stopped moving?" He is thinking about you unfortunate people.

Buddha says, "Do not speak thus, Subhuti. Don't start thinking that only you are fortunate." That is a very subtle ego: "We are fortunate, nobody else is so fortunate." Buddha immediately puts his hand on Subhuti's mouth:

'DO NOT SPEAK THUS, SUBHUTI!

YES, EVEN THEN THERE WILL BE BEINGS WHO,

WHEN THESE WORDS OF THE SUTRA ARE BEING TAUGHT,

WILL UNDERSTAND THEIR TRUTH.'

And I know, here are people who understand the truth. Slowly slowly the morning is happening, the dark night is disappearing. Slowly slowly the seed is gaining ground, entering in your heart.

'FOR EVEN AT THAT TIME, SUBHUTI,

THERE WILL BE BODHISATTVAS,'

There are many here who are going to become bodhisattvas. Just a little work more, just a little play more, just a little more effort into meditativeness, just a little more pouring of the energy, just a little more concentration of the energy, avoiding of distractions, and it is going to happen. And it is going to happen to many. And you are the fortunate ones, Buddha says.

'AND THESE BODHISATTVAS, SUBHUTI,

WILL NOT BE SUCH AS HAVE HONORED

ONLY ONE SINGLE BUDDHA,

NOR SUCH AS HAVE PLANTED THEIR ROOTS OF MERIT

UNDER ONE SINGLE BUDDHA ONLY.

ON THE CONTRARY, SUBHUTI, THOSE BODHISATTVAS WHO,

WHEN THESE WORDS OF THE SUTRA ARE BEING TAUGHT,

WILL FIND EVEN ONE SINGLE THOUGHT OF SERENE FAITH...'

If you can even understand a single word of The Diamond Sutra, if you can understand a simple look of my eyes into your eyes, if you can understand a simple gesture of my inner dance....

Buddha says:

'... WILL FIND EVEN ONE SINGLE THOUGHT OF SERENE FAITH,

BE SUCH AS HAVE HONORED

MANY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF BUDDHAS,

SUCH AS HAVE PLANTED THEIR ROOTS OF MERIT

UNDER MANY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF BUDDHAS.

KNOWN THEY ARE, SUBHUTI, TO THE TATHAGATA

THROUGH HIS BUDDHA-COGNITION.

SEEN THEY ARE, SUBHUTI, BY THE TATHAGATA

WITH HIS BUDDHA-EYE.

FULLY-KNOWN THEY ARE, SUBHUTI, TO THE TATHAGATA.

AND THEY ALL, SUBHUTI,

WILL BEGET AND ACQUIRE

AN IMMEASURABLE AND INCALCULABLE HEAP OF MERIT.'

And you are the people Buddha is talking about. And you are the people I am depending on. The wheel of Dhamma has stopped. It has to be turned again.

Enough for today.

The Diamond Sutra

Chapter #4

Chapter title: From the Beyond

24 December 1977 am in Buddha Hall

Archive code: 7712240

ShortTitle: DIAMON04

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 58 mins

The first question:

BELOVED OSHO,

Question 1

WHAT HAS GONE WRONG? WHY IS IT THAT PEOPLE MEET EVERYTHING NEW RELUCTANTLY, AND WITH FEAR, RATHER THAN WITH EAGER JOY?

The new does not arise out of you, it comes from the beyond. It is not part of you. Your whole past is at stake. The new is discontinuous with you, hence the fear. You have lived in one way, you have thought in one way, you have made a comfortable life out of your beliefs. Then something new knocks on the door. Now your whole past pattern is going to be disturbed. If you allow the new to enter you will never be the same again, the new will transform you.

It is risky. One never knows where you will end with the new. The old is known, familiar; you have lived with it for long, you are acquainted with it. The new is unfamiliar. It may be the friend, it may be the enemy, who knows. And there is no way to know. The only way to know is to allow it; hence the apprehension, the fear.

And you cannot remain rejecting it either, because the old has not given you yet what you seek. The old has been promising, but the promises have not been fulfilled. The old is familiar but miserable. The new is maybe going to be uncomfortable but there is a possibility -- it may bring bliss to you. So you cannot reject it either and you cannot accept it; hence you waver, you tremble, great anguish arises in your being. It is natural, nothing has gone wrong. This is how it has always been, this is how it will always be.

Try to understand the appearance of the new. Everybody in the world wants to become new, because nobody is satisfied with the old. Nobody can ever be satisfied with the old because whatsoever it is, you have known it. Once known it has become repetitive; once known it has become boring, monotonous. You want to get rid of it. You want to explore, you want to adventure. You want to become new, and yet when the new knocks on the door you shrink back, you withdraw, you hide in the old. This is the dilemma.

How do we become new? -- and everybody wants to become new. Courage is needed, and not ordinary courage; extraordinary courage is needed. And the world is full of cowards, hence people have stopped growing. How can you grow if you are a coward? With each new opportunity you shrink back, you close your eyes. How can you grow? How can you be? You only pretend to be.

And because you cannot grow you have to find substitute growths. You cannot grow but your bank balance can grow, that's a substitute. It needs no courage, it is perfectly adjusted with your cowardliness. Your bank balance goes on growing and you start thinking that you are growing. You become more respectable. Your name and fame go on growing and you think you are growing? You are simply deceiving yourself. Your name is not you, neither is your fame you. Your bank balance is not your being. But if you think of the being you start shaking, because if you want to grow there then you have to drop all cowardice.

How do we become new? We do not become new of ourselves. Newness comes from the beyond, say from God. Newness comes from existence. Mind is always old. Mind is never new, it is the accumulation of the past. Newness comes from the beyond; it is a gift from God. It is from the beyond and it is of the beyond.

The unknown and the unknowable, the beyond, has ingress into you. It has ingress into you because you are never sealed and set apart; you are not an island. You may have forgotten the beyond but the beyond has not forgotten you. The child may have forgotten the mother, the mother has not forgotten the child. The part may have started thinking, "I am separate," but the whole knows that you are not separate. The whole has ingress in you. It is still in contact with you. That's why the new goes on coming although you don't welcome it. It comes every morning, it comes every evening. It comes in a thousand and one ways. If you have eyes to see, you will see it continuously coming to you.

God goes on showering on you, but you are enclosed in your past. You are almost in a kind of grave. You have become insensitive. Because of your cowardliness you have lost your sensitivity. To be sensitive means the new will be felt -- and the thrill of the new, and the passion for the new and the adventure will arise and you will start moving into the unknown, not knowing where you are going.

Mind thinks it is mad. Mind thinks it is not rational to leave the old. But God is always the new. That's why we cannot use past tense or future tense for God. We cannot say "God was," we cannot say "God will be." We can only use the present: "God is." It is always fresh, virgin. And it has ingress in you.

Remember, anything new coming in your life is a message from God. If you accept it you are religious. If you reject it you are irreligious. Man needs just to relax a little more to accept the new; to open up a little more to let the new in. Give way to God entering you.

That is the whole meaning of prayer or meditation -- you open up, you say yes, you say "Come in." You say, "I have been waiting and waiting and I am thankful that you have come." Always receive the new with great joy. Even if sometimes the new leads you into inconvenience, still it is worth it. Even if sometimes the new leads you into some ditch, still it is worth it, because only through errors one learns, and only through difficulties one grows. The new will bring difficulties. That's why you choose the old -- it does not bring any difficulties. It is a consolation, it is a shelter.

And only the new, accepted deeply and totally, can transform you. You cannot bring the new in your life; the new comes. You can either accept it or reject it. If you reject it you remain a stone, closed and dead. If you receive it you become a flower, you start opening... and in that opening is celebration.

Only the entry of the new can transform you, there is no other way of transformation. But remember, it has nothing to do with you and your efforts. But to do nothing is not to cease to act; it is to act without will or direction or impulse from your past. The search for the new cannot be an ordinary search, because it is for the new. How can you search for it? You don't know it, you have never met it. The search for the new is going to be just an open exploration. One knows not. One has to start in a state of not-knowing, and one has to move innocently like a child, thrilled with the possibilities -- and infinite are the possibilities.

You cannot do anything to create the new, because whatsoever you do will be of the old, will be from the past. But that does not mean that you have to cease to act. It is to act without will or direction or impulse from your past. Act without any will or direction or impulse from the past -- and that is to act meditatively. Act spontaneously. Let the moment be decisive.

You don't impose your decision, because the decision will be from the past and it will destroy the new. You just act in the moment like a child. Utterly abandon yourself to the moment -- and you will find every day new openings, new light, new insight. And those new insights will go on changing you. One day, suddenly you will see you are each moment new. The old no more lingers, the old no more hangs around you like a cloud. You are like a dewdrop, fresh and young.

Remember, a Buddha lives moment to moment. It is as if a wave rises in the ocean, a majestic wave. With great joy and dance it comes up, with hope and dreams to touch the stars. Then the play for the moment, and then the wave disappears. It will come again, it will have another day. It will again dance and again it will be gone. So is God -- comes, disappears, comes again, disappears. So is a Buddha-consciousness. Each moment it comes, acts, responds, and is gone. Again it comes and is gone. It is atomic.

Between two moments there is a gap; in that gap Buddha disappears. I say a word to you, then I disappear. Then I say another word and I am there, and then I disappear again. I respond to you and then I am no more. The response is again there and I am no more. Those intervals, those emptinesses keep one utterly fresh, because only death can keep you absolutely alive.

You die once, after seventy years. Naturally you accumulate seventy years' garbage. A Buddha dies every moment -- no garbage is accumulated, nothing is accumulated, nothing is ever possessed. That's why Buddha said the other day that to possess marks is to be a fraud, because possession is of the past. Not to possess marks is to be a Buddha.

Just think of it -- each moment arising, just like a breath. You breathe in, you breathe out. You breathe in again, you breathe out again. Each breath coming in is life and each breath going out is death. You are born with each incoming breath, you die with each outgoing breath. Let each moment be a birth and a death. Then you will be new.

But this new has nothing to do with your past, your will, your direction, your impulse. It is to act spontaneously. It is not reaction but response. All that is done out of the past is old, so that one can of oneself do nothing new. To see this is to be done with the old and with the past and with yourself. That is all we can do. But it is everything, it is all. Upon the ending of the old, the new may follow, it may not. It does not matter. The very wish for the new is an old wish. Then one is utterly open. Even to ask for the new is an old wish.

A Buddha is not even asking for the new. There is no desire for anything, that "It should be like this." If there is desire you will manage it like that, you will impose yourself upon it. See life desirelessly. See life without any conditions. See life as it is -- YATHA BHUTAM -- And you will be continuously renewed, rejuvenated.

That is the real meaning of resurrection. If you understand this you will be free from memory, psychological memory that is. Memory is a dead thing. Memory is not truth and cannot ever be, because truth is always alive, truth is life; memory is persistence of that which is no more. It is living in a ghost world, but it contains us, it is our prison. In fact, it is us. Memory creates the knot, the complex called 'I', the ego. And naturally this false entity called 'I' is continuously afraid of death. That's why you are afraid of the new.

This 'I' is afraid, not really you. The being has no fear, but the ego has fear, because the ego is very very afraid of dying. It is artificial, it is arbitrary, it is put together. It can fall apart any moment. And when the new enters, there is fear. The ego is afraid, it may fall apart. Somehow it has been managing to keep itself together, to keep itself in one piece, and now something new comes -- it will be a shattering thing. That's why you don't accept the new with joy. The ego cannot accept its own death with joy -- how can it accept its own death with joy?

Unless you have understood that you are not the ego, you will not be able to receive the new. Once you have seen that the ego is your past memory and nothing else, that you are not your memory, that memory is just like a biocomputer, that it is a machine, a mechanism, utilitarian, but you are beyond it.... You are consciousness, not memory. Memory is a content in consciousness, you are consciousness itself.

For example, you see somebody walking on the road. You remember the face but you can't remember the name. If you are the memory you should remember the name too. But you say, "I recognize the face but I don't remember the name." Then you start looking in your memory, you go inside your memory, you look to this side, to that side, and suddenly the name bubbles up and you say, "Yes, this is his name." Memory is your record. You are the one who is looking into the record, you are not the memory itself.

And it happens many times that if you become too tense about remembering something it becomes difficult to remember it, because the very tension, the very strain upon your being does not allow the memory to release its information to you. You try and try to remember somebody's name and it doesn't come, even though you say it is just on the tip of the tongue. You know that you know, but still the name is not coming.

Now this is strange. If you are memory, then who is preventing you and how is it not coming? And who is this who says, "I know, but still it is not coming"? And then you try hard and the harder you try the more difficult it becomes. Then, fed up with the whole thing, you go into the garden for a walk, and suddenly, looking at the rosebush, it is there, it has surfaced.

Your memory is not you. You are consciousness, memory is content. But memory is the whole life-energy of the ego. Memory is of course old, and it is afraid of the new. The new may be disturbing, the new may be such that it may not be digestible. The new may bring some trouble. You will have to shift and reshift yourself. You will have to readjust yourself. That seems arduous.

To be new one needs to become disidentified with the ego. Once you are disidentified with the ego you don't care whether it dies or lives. In fact you know that whether it lives or dies it is already dead. It is a mechanism. Use it but don't be used by it. The ego is continuously afraid of death because it is arbitrary. Hence the fear. It does not arise out of being, it cannot arise out of being, because being is life. How can life be afraid of death? Life knows nothing of death.

It arises out of the arbitrary, the artificial, the somehow put together, the false, the pseudo. And yet it is just such letting-go, just that death that makes a man alive. To die in the ego is to be born into being, into God.

The new is a messenger from God, the new is a message from God. It is a gospel. Listen to the new, go with the new. I know you are afraid. In spite of the fear, go with the new, and your life will become richer and richer and you will be able one day to release the imprisoned splendor.

The second question:

Question 2

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, OSHO, BY SAYING THAT LIFE IS PERFECT?

I mean exactly that. Life is perfect. But I understand why the question has arisen. The question has arisen because you have some ideas about perfection, and life does not fit with your ideas hence you call it imperfect.

When I call life perfect, I don't mean that it fits with my idea of perfection -- I have none. When I call life perfect, I simply mean there is nothing else to compare it with, there is no ideal. This is all there is; it has to be perfect.

Your perfection is always comparison, my perfection is just a simple statement of fact; it is not a comparison. You compare, you say, "Yes, this is perfect, that is not perfect," and you have a criterion of what is perfect.

I have heard about a Sufi master who was talking to a few people in the coffee house and he said an old Sufi saying,"Life is perfect, everything is perfect, everybody is perfect."

A hunchback was listening, he stood up and he said, "Look at me! I am the proof that life is not perfect. Look at me! Is this not enough to disprove your idea that life is perfect? Look at me -- how ugly I am, and in how much difficulty. I am a hunchback."

The Sufi looked and said, "But you are the most perfect hunchback that I have ever seen." The most perfect hunchback....

Once you start seeing life as it is and you have no idea how it should be, everything is perfect. Even imperfection is perfect. What I mean when I say life is perfect is a simple thing: I mean don't bring your ideals to it; otherwise you make life imperfect, because once you bring the ideal then you are creating the imperfection.

If you say man has to be seven feet tall and he is not, there is difficulty. Or if you have the idea that man has to be only four feet tall and he is not, then there is difficulty. Life simply is. Somebody is seven feet tall and somebody is four feet tall. One tree grows to the clouds, another remains small. But all is perfectly well, all is as it should be, because there is no 'should' in my mind. I simply listen and see life as it is. I have no idea how it should be. That's why I say it is as it should be, there is no other life.

The message is drop comparing, drop judging; otherwise you will remain miserable, and just because of your judgments and comparisons. Look at life without being a judge. Who are you to judge? What do you know about life? What do you know even about yourself? Who are you to judge? Judgment comes from the idea that you know, judgment is knowledgeability.

Look at life with a state of not-knowing, through a state of not-knowing, look at life through wonder -- and suddenly all is perfect. Yes, sometimes it is cloudy, but it is perfect. And sometimes it is sunny and it is perfect. And sometimes it rains and sometimes it doesn't rain, but it is perfect. As it is, it is a blessing. To be in tune with this blessing is to be prayerful.

The third question:

Question 3

YOU SOMETIMES SAY ABOUT PEOPLE THAT THEY HAVE MISSED AGAIN OR LIVED IN VAIN. THAT SOUNDS LIKE THERE IS A GOAL OR A POINT WHICH CAN EITHER BE MISSED OR ATTAINED, AND THEN AGAIN YOU SAY THERE ;IS NO GOAL, EVERYTHING JUST IS, SO HOW CAN I POSSIBLY MISS?

Dinesh, you missed again! The moment you ask how, you miss. There is a point, not to be realized but only to be recognized. And there is no 'how' to it because it is already there; you have just to look, you have just to be in a silent space so that you can look. You have to be just in a moment when you are not doing anything, not going anywhere, not trying to improve upon things -- relaxed. In that pause, in that relaxation, it is there. It is a recognition; not a realization but a recognition, because deep down you are already that and you have always been that.

Ask how and you miss again because how means something has to be done about it. No method is needed, no path is needed, no technique is needed. All techniques and all paths and all methods have to be dropped. You have to be in a state of utter silence so that you can hear the still small voice within you. It has been there all along, but you are so noisy with your desires that you cannot listen to your own music.

Don't ask how, and drop all the methods that you have accumulated through asking how. Just fall into a silent space. It is a knack, not a technique. Looking at the morning sun rising, just sit silently and look; what is there to be done? The moon is there in the sky, just lie down on the grass and be there with the moon, and the white clouds floating... just be with them. And the birds are singing and the children playing, and you don't do anything.

Be passive. In your passivity, God comes. Be feminine. In your femininity, God comes. Have you not watched it? Buddha looks very feminine, Krishna looks very feminine. Why? -- because it is simply a metaphor. They have been depicted as feminine, graceful, to show that that is their inner quality -- receptivity .

When you are doing something you are being aggressive. When you are not doing anything you are non-aggressive. And God cannot be conquered; you can only allow him to conquer you.

The fourth question:

BELOVED OSHO,

Question 4

WHAT IS RESPECT TO A MASTER? HOW DO WE RESPECT YOU? ARE RITUALS NEEDED IN HONOR OF YOU? CAN WE JOKE WITH YOU?

IN SUFI DANCING WE WERE TOLD TO THINK OF SOMETHING TO MAKE US GIGGLE. I THOUGHT OF YOU SLIPPING, JUST LIKE SLIPPING ON A BANANA PEEL. IS IT DISRESPECT OR IS IT JUST OKAY?

With me it is perfect. But you have been disrespectful to the banana peel. And remember, bananas are not Buddhas -- they will never forgive you.

The fifth question:

BELOVED OSHO,

Question 5

CAN MEDITATION BE PASSIONATE?

Yes, that is the only way for meditation to exist. Passion is energy, passion is fire, passion is life. If you are doing meditation just so-so, without any passion, without intensity, without fire, nothing will happen. If you are praying just as a formality and it is not love that has arisen in your heart, it is meaningless, it is absurd.

If you are praying to God without passion there will be no connection between you and God. Only passion can become the bridge, the thirst, the hunger. The more thirsty you are, the more is the possibility. If you are utterly thirsty, if you have become just a thirst, your whole being is consumed by your passion, then only something happens -- in that intensity, in that moment of hundred-degree passion.

Don't be lukewarm. People live a lukewarm life. They are neither this nor that, hence they remain mediocre. If you want to get beyond mediocrity, create a life of great passion. Whatsoever you do, do it passionately. If you sing, then sing passionately. If you love, then love passionately. If you paint, then paint passionately. If you talk, then talk passionately. If you listen, then listen passionately. If you meditate, then meditate passionately.

And from everywhere you will start having contact with God -- wherever passion is. If you are painting with utter passion, your painting is meditation. There is no need for any other meditation. If you are dancing with absolute passion so that the dancer disappears and only the dance remains, it is meditation, no other need, nowhere to go, no yoga postures. This is the yoga postures: the dancer has disappeared and the dance is there. It is pure energy -- energy vibrating.

In that state you contact. Why in that state do you contact? -- because when the passion is great, the ego dies. The ego can exist only in mediocre minds; only mediocre people are egoistic. The really great are not egoistic, they cannot be. But their life has a totally different direction, a different dimension -- the dimension of passion.

Have you observed these two words -- passion and compassion? Passion becomes transformed into compassion. There is a quantum leap from passion into compassion -- but the quantum leap happens only when you are boiling at one hundred degrees. Then the water becomes vapor. It is the same energy that exists as passion and one day becomes compassion. Compassion is not antagonistic to passion; it is passion come of age, it is passion bloomed. It is the spring season for passion.

I am all for passion. Do whatsoever you do but be lost into it, abandon yourself into it, dissolve yourself into it. And dissolution becomes salvation.

The sixth question:

Question 6

OSHO,

THIS MORNING, SITTING BY YOUR STAGE AFTER LECTURE, I FELT AS IF I WAS SITTING AT YOUR FEET AND YOU WERE SHARING A BEAUTIFUL STORY OF WATERFALLS AND TREES AND HAPPINESS. YOU WERE SMILING AND THERE WAS SO MUCH JOY AND YET WHEN YOU LEFT ONLY MINUTES EARLIER THERE WAS A STUNNED FEELING OF HAVING BEEN HIT OVER THE HEAD WITH A VERY BIG STICK, HARD.

OSHO, WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO US? ARE YOU TELLING US BEAUTIFUL STORIES OR HITTING US OVER THE HEAD OR WHAT?

Samata, those stories are just a preparation for the hit. I am doing both. First I have to tell stories to you -- beautiful stories of trees and mountains and clouds, beautiful stories about the other shore, beautiful stories of buddhahood and bodhisattvahood. And when I see that now you are lost in the stories and I can hit and you will not be angry, then I hit. The stories only just prepare the ground, but the basic work is a hammer on your head. I have to destroy you.

Naturally the work is such that first I have to persuade. First I have to seduce you to come closer and closer and closer; only then the hammer can descend on you. Otherwise you will escape. Those stories don't allow you to escape, they keep you close to me. Those beautiful stories function like a glue between me and you, and when I see the right time has come I hit -- and when I hit, I hit passionately.

The seventh question:

Question 7

OSHO,

YOU WOULD LIKE US ALL TO BECOME BODHISATTVAS. THAT MEANS ONE HAS TO MAKE THAT FIRM DECISION TO HELP OTHERS TO THE OTHER SHORE. HOWEVER, I DO NOT FEEL ABLE TO MAKE THAT DECISION. SOMETIMES I FEEL LOVE TOWARDS OTHERS, SOMETIMES I AM JUST BUSY WITH MYSELF.

SO SHOULD I WAIT OR IS THE DECISION NOT SUCH A THING AS A STATEMENT BUT RATHER LIKE A FRUIT THAT RIPENS BY ITSELF. AND WHY THEN IS BUDDHA A BUDDHA AND NOT A BODHISATTVA?

First, these three things have to be understood. One, the ordinary state of human mind -- when you cling to the world, to this shore, and the other shore seems to be fictitious. You cannot trust the other shore. You cling so much to this shore that the only problem is how to help you to uncling from it.

Right now, Sandeha, this is not going to help if you start thinking of being a bodhisattva. This is not going to help, this will be dangerous. This will only be a strategy to cling to this shore. You are not yet freed of this shore. This will be a new way to cling to the world again. And this is very tricky -- now it will be in the name of religion, compassion, love for people, service. Now it will have great ideology in it -- "I am here to help people, that's why I am not going to the other shore." And you don't want to go to the other shore, and you don't know that the other shore exists, and you don't even believe that the other shore is. Now you are falling into a very subtle trap.

This is the first stage of the ordinary mind: it clings with the world, it goes on finding more and more new reasons to cling. It is very difficult to uncling. The second stage is of a bodhisattva, one who has come to that unclinging state where he is ready to fly to the other shore, he has no longer any roots in this world. In the first stage it is difficult to uncling, in the second stage it is very difficult to cling.

The Diamond Sutra is for the second stage people, not for the first stage people. First you have to uncling, first you have to destroy all your roots in this world. When you have destroyed all your roots, then only can you be of help to others, otherwise you cannot be of any help. You don't have anything to share. You can go on believing "I love people" but you don't have love yet. Still you desire people to love you. You are still a beggar, you are not yet in that position to share your love for no reason at all, just for the sheer joy of sharing.

First reach to the second stage. First let yourself be utterly egoless. Destroy all your roots in this world, don't be possessive. Only then will what Buddha is saying be relevant to you. Then the problem will arise. First the problem is how to uncling, then the problem arises how to cling a little more.

Buddha says when you have no roots then you are needed here. Then you have something to share. Then you have diamonds to share. Then before leaving, share, and remain here as long as you can. This is the second stage. The third stage is of a Buddha who has reached to the other shore.

Now you ask: "And why then is a Buddha a Buddha and not a bodhisattva?" The third stage is more difficult. To be on the other shore and yet be on this shore is the most difficult thing. To be on the other shore and still go on helping people is the most difficult thing. So these are the three difficulties. First, to uncling from this shore. Second, when the unclinging has happened, to remain on this shore. And third, when you cannot remain on this shore... because a moment comes when it becomes impossible.

Every bodhisattva has to become a Buddha. You cannot cling to this shore, that is illegal. A point comes when you have to leave. A little is possible; at the most one life, not more than that. Then you will have to leave. One life you can cling, because all the roots are destroyed but you have the body, so you can remain in the body. One life you can cling at the most, then you have to leave.

Then comes the third stage -- the Buddha. Buddha is one who has left and yet goes on helping people. But remember, if you have been a bodhisattva, only then will you be able in the third stage to help people, otherwise not.

There are two words to be understood. One is ARHAT, another is bodhisattva. Arhat is one... it is the same state -- the world is destroyed, he has no more attachment, the ego is gone -- but immediately he moves to the other shore. He is called arhat. He does not bother about others, he simply goes to the other shore when he is ready.

The arhat will not be able to help from the other shore because he will not know how to help, he has never been trained for help. A bodhisattva is also in the same state as an arhat. He has known, he has seen, he has become truth, but he stays on this shore a little longer and goes on helping people in whatsoever way he can. He learns the way to help.

If you have been a bodhisattva and then you go to the other shore, on the other shore the arhat will also become a Buddha and the bodhisattva will also become a Buddha -- the other shore is the shore of Buddhahood -- but the one who has been a bodhisattva on this shore will be able to help from the other shore too. He will find ways and means. And the Buddha goes on helping down the centuries.

Even now, if you are open to Buddha, the help will be coming to you. Even now, if you are passionately in love with Buddha, the help will be coming to you. He is still shouting from the other shore, but the shout from the other shore is very far away. You will have to listen very attentively, more attentively than you are listening to me, because the voice will be coming from the other shore.

Sooner or later I will be gone. If you learn how to listen to me attentively, many of you will be able to listen to me from the other shore too.

Buddhahood is the ultimate state of consciousness, but if you pass through bodhisattvahood you will remain available to the world. You will be a window to God forever. If you don't pass through bodhisattvahood, you will disappear into the infinite, but nobody will be helped by you.

The last question:

BELOVED OSHO,

Question 8

WHENEVER YOU TALK ABOUT REALIZING ONE'S BUDDHAHOOD, YOU SAY IT IS SUDDEN, LIKE LIGHTNING, NOT A PROCESS, BUT WHAT I CAN SEE HAPPENING IN ME IS A VERY SLOW PROCESS OF BECOMING MORE CONTENTED, LESS IN THE GRIP OF THE EGO.

CAN YOU CLARIFY THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THAT PROCESS AND THE 'SUDDEN FLASH' THAT HAPPENED TO YOU? IS THERE ANY DANGER IN BECOMING TOO CONTENTED WITH THE SLOW PROCESS?

No, Deepta, there is no danger. The enlightenment is always like lightning. It is in a flash, it is a sudden explosion. It cannot come gradually because it cannot be divided; you cannot have it in bits.

Then what is happening to Deepta? She feels she is becoming slowly contented. This is not enlightenment, this is the ground in which enlightenment happens. The ground can be prepared gradually, in fact has to be prepared gradually. You cannot prepare the ground like lightning, in a flash. Sometimes it takes lives to prepare the ground.

The preparation for buddhahood is gradual, but the actual happening of buddhahood is a sudden explosion in you. So don't be afraid, this is good. You are moving on the right track. Become more and more contented.

The day you are utterly contented, the flash.

Enough for today.

The Diamond Sutra

Chapter #5

Chapter title: The Taste of Enlightenment

25 December 1977 am in Buddha Hall

Archive code: 7712250

ShortTitle: DIAMON05

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 78 mins

VAJRACHCHEDIKA

PRAJNAPARAMITA

SUTRA

OF

GAUTAMA

THE

BUDDHA

AND WHY?

BECAUSE, SUBHUTI, IN THESE BODHISATTVAS

NO PERCEPTION OF A SELF TAKES PLACE,

NO PERCEPTION OF A BEING,

NO PERCEPTION OF A SOUL,

NO PERCEPTION OF A PERSON.

NOR DO THESE BODHISATTVAS HAVE

A PERCEPTION OF A DHAMMA

A PERCEPTION OF A NO-DHAMMA OR

NO PERCEPTION OR

NON-PERCEPTION TAKES PLACE IN THEM.

AND WHY?

IF, SUBHUTI, THESE BODHISATTVAS,

SHOULD HAVE A PERCEPTION OF EITHER A DHAMMA,

OR A NO-DHAMMA,

THEY WOULD THEREBY SEIZE ON A SELF,

ON A BEING, ON A SOUL, ON A PERSON.

AND WHY?

BECAUSE A BODHISATTVA SHOULD NOT SEIZE

ON EITHER A DHAMMA OR A NO-DHAMMA.

THEREFORE THIS SAYING HAS BEEN TAUGHT BY THE TATHAGATA

WITH A HIDDEN MEANING:

"BY THOSE WHO KNOW THE DISCOURSE ON DHAMMA

AS LIKE UNTO A RAFT,

DHAMMAS SHOULD BE FORSAKEN,

STILL MORE SO, NO-DHAMMAS."'

THE LORD ASKED:

'WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI,

IS THERE ANY DHAMMA WHICH

THE TATHAGATA HAS FULLY KNOWN AS

"THE UTMOST, RIGHT AND PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT",

OR IS THERE ANY DHAMMA WHICH

THE TATHAGATA HAS DEMONSTRATED?'

SUBHUTI REPLIED: 'NO, NOT AS I UNDERSTAND

WHAT THE LORD HAS SAID.

AND WHY?

THIS DHAMMA WHICH THE TATHAGATA

HAS FULLY KNOWN OR DEMONSTRATED --

IT CANNOT BE GRASPED,

IT CANNOT BE TALKED ABOUT,

IT IS NEITHER A DHAMMA NOR A NO-DHAMMA.

AND WHY?

BECAUSE AN ABSOLUTE

EXALTS THE HOLY PERSONS.

The Taste of Enlightenment

To recapitulate:

In the last sutra Subhuti asked

'WILL THERE BE ANY BEINGS IN THE LAST EPOCH,

AT THE TIME OF THE COLLAPSE OF THE GOOD DOCTRINE,

WHO WILL BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THE DHAMMA?'

BUDDHA SAID: 'DO NOT SPEAK THUS, SUBHUTI!

YES, EVEN THEN THERE WILL BE BEINGS WHO

WILL UNDERSTAND THE TRUTH.

EVEN ONE SINGLE THOUGHT OF SERENE FAITH

IS ENOUGH TO TRANSFORM A MAN.

KNOWN THEY ARE, SUBHUTI, TO THE TATHAGATA

THROUGH HIS BUDDHA-COGNITION.

SEEN THEY ARE, SUBHUTI, BY THE TATHAGATA

WITH HIS BUDDHA-EYE.

FULLY-KNOWN, SUBHUTI, THEY ARE TO THE TATHAGATA.'

A few things to be understood; then it will be easy to enter into today's sutra. First, the good doctrine, the Dhamma. Buddha calls a doctrine good if it is not a doctrine. If it is a doctrine it is not a good doctrine. Buddha calls a philosophy good philosophy if it is not a philosophy. If it is a philosophy then it is not good philosophy.

A doctrine is a set, fixed phenomenon. The universe is in flux; no doctrine can contain it. No doctrine can be just to it, no doctrine can do justice to existence. All doctrines fall short.

So Buddha says, 'My doctrine is not a doctrine but just a vision. I have not given you any set rules, I have not given you a system.' He says, 'I have only given you an approach towards reality. I have only given you the keys to open the door. I have not said anything about what you will see when you open the door. Nothing can be said about it.'

Just think of a man who has lived always in a dark cave, who knows nothing of light, who knows nothing of color, who has never seen the sun or the moon. How can you tell him about the rainbows? How can you talk to him about stars? How can you describe roses to him? It is impossible. And whatsoever you say to him, if he understands it, it will be wrong. He will create a doctrine and that will be wrong.

So Buddha says, 'I have not given any doctrine to you. I have given you only the key to open the door so that you can come out of the dark cave of your being and you can see yourself what is the case -- YATHA BHUTAM, that which is.' Nothing has been said about it; that's why it is not a doctrine. Buddha is not a philosopher. He is a physician. That's exactly what he has said -- that 'I am a physician, not a philosopher'.

A philosopher is one who goes on talking about color and light to a blind man, and goes on confusing him and confounding him. The blind man is incapable of understanding anything about light. Buddha says, 'I am not going to philosophize about light I will simply give you a medicine, I will try to cure your eyes. Then you can see for yourself.' This is called the good doctrine, this is called Dhamma. This is a totally different vision.

The second thing to understand: Buddha says to Subhuti, Do not speak thus.' Why? Because this idea has been persistently arising in people -- even in people like Subhuti, of the highest spiritual qualities -- that they are special, that their time is special, that their age is special, that never again will people be able to touch such heights. This is an egoistic, a subtle egoistic attitude. It shows much about Subhuti He is still carrying a subtle ego.

Down the ages almost all people have suffered from this disease, they think that their time is something special. No time is special. God is available in all times. In India Hindus say that now nobody can become enlightened because it is Kali Yuga, it is the last, the dirtiest age. Nobody can become enlightened Jainas say that nobody can become enlightened because it is Pancham Kal, the fifth epoch. Even Buddhists, perfectly aware of 'The Diamond Sutra', go on saying that nobody can become enlightened in this age, and even they try to interpret Buddha's words in such a way that it starts appearing as if nobody can become enlightened.

Just the other night I was reading a commentary on 'The Diamond Sutra'. The commentary says 'Yes, Buddha says that people will be there who will be able to understand a little bit of the truth, and great will be their merit -- but merit is not enlightenment. Merit is just the ground.'

So the interpreter, the commentator says, 'In this age nobody can become enlightened; at the most you can attain to some merit. You have to wait for the right age to become enlightened. Your merit will be of great help, it will put the foundation, but you cannot make the shrine right now. This is how people go on.

What Buddha is saying is simply this fact. That all time is similar for the seeker, and so it is for the non-seeker. In Buddha's time there were millions of people who never became enlightened. It is not like spring -- that when spring comes all the trees bloom. If that is the case then all the people in Buddha's time would have become enlightened. Only a few people became enlightened. So it is not like spring, it is not a question of climate, it is not a particular auspicious time that makes people enlightened.

Those who seek and search, they attain. Those who don't seek and search, they will not attain; even if the time is auspicious, it doesn't matter. And the time is the same, the time is neither good nor bad. Time is neither for enlightenment nor against enlightenment. Whatsoever you want your life to become, time gives you the opportunity.

Time is impartial. It does not impose anything on you, it simply gives you freedom. You can become enlightened, as enlightened as you desire, or you can remain as unenlightened as you decide. Existence cooperates with you But this idea arises again and again. I have come across many scriptures of the world, people think 'What will happen to others in the future?'

This idea persists even in ordinary human beings. You can see any old man and he talks about his time. Those beautiful days, those golden days which he had lived were something special, now there is nothing in the world. And remember, when you become old you will tell to your children the same long tales, tall tales, and you will again say, 'Those were the days.'

I have heard about a man who went to Paris when he was eighty with his wife, who was almost seventy-eight. They looked around, the old man said, 'Things have changed, Paris is no more Paris. I had come fifty years ago when I was thirty -- that was the real Paris.'

The woman laughed, and as women are more earthly, more pragmatic, she said, 'My understanding is different. I think you are no more you, that's all Paris is the same. Just look at the young people -- they are enjoying, as much as you must have enjoyed when you were young.'

Now for a man who is eighty, Paris means nothing, Paris is its night-life. For a man who is eighty, it is irrelevant. He is no more so foolish to enjoy it. He is no more that young to be so foolish. Dreams have disappeared. And I think the wife is right -- 'You are not you, Paris is the same.'

It happens to you too. You start thinking that those days of your childhood were beautiful. Now things are not so good. You feel sorry for the kids who are living now. You don't know -- they will feel sorry for other kids again. This has always been so. And every man thinks his time has some special quality, it is revolutionary.

And I have heard, these were the first words uttered by Adam when Adam and Eve were thrown out of the garden of Eden. He told Eve, 'Look, we are living in we are passing through great revolutionary times.' Naturally, being thrown out of the garden of Eden must have been a great crisis, nobody has been through such a crisis again.

Buddha says, 'Do not speak thus, Subhuti.' Why? Because all time has the same quality. Space and time are not corrupted by you, they cannot be corrupted. You cannot even catch hold of time, how can you corrupt it? They are not polluted. You can pollute the air and the sea, but you cannot pollute time, or can you?

How can you pollute time? You cannot even catch hold of it. By the time you catch hold of it, it is gone. By the time you become aware of the moment, the moment is no more It has already become past, it has already become history. You cannot pollute time. Time is one of the most pure things, it is always pure.

That's why Buddha says, 'Do not speak thus, Subhuti. Yes, even then there will be beings who will understand truth,' because truth is not a quality that happens sometimes and does not happen sometimes. Truth is always there. That is what is called truth -- that which is always there.

Truth has nothing to do with time, it is eternal. You can attain to truth in the day, you can attain to truth in the night, you can attain to truth in the marketplace, you can attain to truth in the Himalayas, you can attain to truth being a man or a woman, a child, a young man, an old man. You can attain to truth any moment, any place, because truth is always available, you just have to become available to it.

And Buddha says, 'Even one single thought of serene faith is enough to transform a man. ONE SINGLE THOUGHT OF SERENE FAITH.... What is faith in Buddha's sense of the word? Ordinarily faith is fear, faith is nothing but fear. If you go to the churches and to the temples and the gurudwaras, you will find fearful people, frightened people -- frightened of life and frightened of death and just seeking some shelter in some god; feeling helpless, finding some security somewhere; or missing their father and their mother and projecting some father and mother there in heaven.

They are not mature, they cannot live without their mums and dads. The dad may be dead, the mum may not be any more alive, but they are children. They need some apron to cling to, they need somebody. They cannot live on their own, they cannot trust themselves.

When you are afraid and because of your fear you become religious, this religion is bogus. This religion is a kind of monkey religion, ape religion, imitative. Out of fear arises imitation. What does Buddha mean when he uses the word 'faith'? His word is SHADDHA. The Sanskrit form of SHADDHA is SHRADDHA; it does not really mean faith, it means confidence, faith in oneself. It is a totally different religion. Buddha calls it right religion and the other religion he calls the wrong religion.

If you approach reality out of fear and trembling, you are approaching in a wrong way, and when you are approaching in a wrong way, whatsoever you come to see and feel will be wrong. Your eyes are wrong, your heart is wrong. Truth cannot be known out of fear, truth can only be known out of fearlessness. SHADDHA is needed, a confidence in oneself is needed, a trust in one's own being is needed.

One should approach reality out fo trust not out of fear. The essence of faith or trust is letting-go. The fearful man can never let go. He is always on the defence, he is always protecting himself, he is always fighting, he is always antagonistic. Even his prayer, his meditation, is nothing but a strategy to protect himself.

The man of faith knows how to let go, the man of faith knows how to surrender, the man of faith knows how to flow with the river and not to push it. He goes with the stream wherever it takes him. He has that courage and confidence that he can go with the stream.

This is my experience and observation too. Whenever a fearful person comes to me he is incapable of surrender, although he thinks he is so strong that he cannot surrender. Nobody likes to feel that he is weak, particularly the weaklings never like it. They don't want to come to the realization that they are weak, that they are cowardly. They think they are very strong -- they can't surrender.

My own observation is the stronger the person, the easier is the surrender. Only the strong man can surrender, because he trusts himself, he is confident of himself, he knows that he can let go. He is unafraid. He is ready to explore the unknown, he is ready to go into the uncharted. he is thrilled by the journey of the unknown. He wants to taste it, whatsoever the cost and whatsoever the risk. He wants to live in danger.

A man of faith always lives in danger. Danger is his shelter, insecurity is his security, and a tremendous enquiring quest is his only love. He wants to explore, he wants to go to the very end of existence, or to the very depth of existence, or to the very height of existence. He wants to know what it is -- "What is it that surrounds me? What is it that I go on calling 'I'? Who am I?"

A strong man is ready to surrender. He knows that there is no need to fear. 'I belong to existence, I am not a stranger here. Existence has mothered me, existence can't be inimical to me. Existence has brought me here, I am a product of existence Existence has some destiny to fulfill through me.'

The strong man always feels THAT destiny there, 'I am here to do something that is needed by the existence and nobody else can do it except me, otherwise why should I be created?' So he is always ready to go into the dark, to search, to seek. This Buddha calls shaddha, faith. It is better to translate it as trust.

EVEN ONE SINGLE THOUGHT OF SERENE FAITH. And then he adds another condition to it -- SERENE faith. You can have a kind of trust. It may not be serene, it may be full of turmoil. That won't help, that won't take you far. Faith has to be serene. Faith has to come out of stillness, not out of the noise of the mind. Faith has not to be a belief. Belief is always noisy.

You choose one belief against others. Naturally there is conflict, it is a choice. There are thousands of beliefs around you hankering for your attention: the Christian, the Hindu, the Mohammedan, the Buddhist, the Jaina -- thousands of beliefs. There are three hundred religions on the earth and each religion has many sects. Now they are all competing for you, they want to possess you, and naturally your mind becomes very very shaken and wavering. What to choose, what not to choose, with whom to go?

And even if you choose out of this noise and turmoil, a part of your mind always goes on saying, 'You are not doing right.' And that part will take revenge. Sooner or later that part will assert and will disrupt your being and you will be torn apart.

Buddha says a serene faith is needed. What is serene faith? A faith that does not arise out of choice but out of understanding. Just the other day I received a letter from Chintana. She has been a Christian nun and she is very much torn apart. She cannot decide whether to be with me or to go back to her nunnery. Now whatsoever she will do will be out of chaos. If she decides to be with me, a part of her mind will go on fighting with her. If she decides to go to the nunnery, a part of her mind will go on desiring to be here.

Whatsoever she chooses will be wrong. The choice itself will come out of turmoil, anxiety. It will be a kind of repression If she chooses the nunnery, she will be repressing the love for me. If she chooses me, she will be repressing the desire for the nunnery -- the seclusion, the isolation, the protection, the comfort, the convenience of the nunnery.

Now what will Buddha suggest to Chintana? Buddha will suggest meditate, don't choose. There is no hurry. Be choiceless. Meditate, pray, become more and more silent. One moment will come when out of serenity, the choice. Not that you are choosing against any of your parts,; just out of the serenity it blooms like a lotus. It is a total blooming, your whole being is with it. It is not a choice against any other alternative. It is just your very fragrance. Then you are not torn apart. This Buddha calls serene faith And he says even a single thought of serene faith is enough to transform a man.

This is my suggestion to Chintana too. Today she may be even more worried; it is the twenty-fifth of December -- torn apart she will be. But I will not suggest to her to choose me or to choose the monastery. Don't choose. Wait, have patience. Let God choose for you. You meditate. How can you choose? You are not yet wise enough to choose. Pray, and wait.

And don't play tricks -- because you can play tricks with your own mind. You can have your idea -- you have really chosen -- and then you can wait, and then from the back door you can force your choice and you can believe that this is from God. No, when I am saying don't choose, don't choose. Forget about choosing. How can you choose?

Meditate, become serene, still, silent. One day when there will be no thought in the mind suddenly you will feel something has been decided and you are not the one who has decided it, it is God's decision. Then whatsoever it is, it is good.

KNOWN THEY ARE, SUBHUTI, TO THE TATHAGATA

THROUGH HIS BUDDHA-COGNITION.

SEEN THEY ARE, SUBHUTI, BY THE TATHAGATA

WITH HIS BUDDHA-EYE.

FULLY-KNOWN, SUBHUTI, THEY ARE TO THE TATHAGATA.'

Now these two things have to be understood. One is the word TATHAGATA. It is a very strange word and has two meanings, absolutely opposed to each other, two meanings diametrically opposed to each other. It is a strange word. The first meaning is tath-agata, that means thus came. The second meaning is tatha-gata, it means thus gone. One meaning is thus came, another meaning is thus gone.

A few people have chosen the first meaning -- thus came. Then it means a man who has not come on his own, who has no motive for coming here. Mm? That is what Christians like about Christ -- he's sent by God. He has no motive, no desire to be fulfilled here. He has come as a messenger.

That is what Mohammedans like about Mohammed. They call him Paigamber, the messenger. He has not come for any of his own desires to be fulfilled here. He is utterly contented, he has no cause to be here. Others are here with a cause, they have not just come. They have come because of their desire. They wanted to come, that's why they have come.

Buddha has come, not that he wanted to come, he is sent by existence itself. It is existence that has taken form in him. It is uncaused, unmotivated, no personal desire. That is the first meaning of Tathagata -- thus came.

The second meaning a few people have chosen -- thus gone. That means one who has already gone from here. If you go deep into Buddha you will not find anybody there, he has left the abode. He no more exists in the body, he is no more present in the body. He has become empty. He is well-gone, perfectly gone to the other shore. His real existence is on the other shore, on this shore only a shadow is moving.

But my own choice is both together. I would like to interpret the word 'Tathagata' as 'thus came, thus gone'... like wind. The wind comes for no reason of its own, for no motivation of its own. It is utterly surrendered in existence. Wherever the existence sends it, it comes. Wherever there is need, it comes. It has no goals of its own. It does not say, 'I will go only to the North. I'm not going to the South, I am fed up with the South.' Or, 'I am going only to the East, I am a very religious wind.' Or, 'I am only going to the West, I want to enjoy life.' No, the wind says nothing. Wherever there is the need, the wind goes. 'Thus came, thus gone.'

And when it goes from that place, it doesn't cling there. A wind comes and goes. It does not say, 'Now I have arrived. and I have taken so much trouble to come, I will not go. Now I will remain here. After such a long journey, crossing so many seas and mountains, I have come here. Now I will not go, I will stay here. Otherwise what is the purpose of my coming here?' No, the wind comes and the wind goes.

Buddha is like that wind. Thus came, thus gone. No clinging. His coming and going is mysterious. His coming and going is unpredictable, it is unexplainable, because only motives can be explained and causes can be explained. In that ultimate state of enlightenment, in that purity, on that planitude, things are mysterious, things simply happen. One never knows why, there is no need to ask 'why'. Everything is beautiful and a benediction.

Coming is benediction, going is benediction. To be in the body is benediction, to go out of the body is benediction. To have a being is benediction, to disappear into non-being is benediction. All is benediction.

The taste of enlightenment is of benediction. Whatsoever happens, it makes no difference, it doesn't matter. There is no choice, no motive, no desire. Things happen on their own, they are very mysterious. That's why a Buddha cannot be explained. A Buddha can be experienced, hence the need of disciplehood

Sometimes people come and ask me, 'What is the need of becoming a sannyasin?' The need is that without becoming a sannyasin you will not be able to have the taste of me The need is that without becoming a sannyasin you will never come close to me, you will never have that orgasmic experience that is possible by feeling deep empathy with me.

Sannyas is empathy -- to be totally with me, utterly with me, to drop all defences, to come so close that my nothingness starts overflowing in you, to come so close that there are no more boundaries, that we start overlapping. For that experience, sannyas is needed And a Buddha can be known only that way, there is no other way.

And the other thing to be understood is, he says, 'I have seen through the Buddha-eye, I have known through Buddha-cognition.' What is this Buddha-eye and the Buddha-cognition? What in Yoga is known as the third eye, or Hindus know as SHIVA-NETRA, the eye of Shiva, is known in Buddhist scriptures as the Buddha-eye.

You have two eyes, they are symbolic of duality, you are divided. When you attain to one single sight, when a third vision arises in you which is not divisible, then you start seeing the unity of existence. It is as if you break a mirror and then all those fragments reflect so many faces of you. You have only one face, but those fragments of the mirror reflect a thousand faces. If you put that mirror again together, again one face arises.

Reality is one but we have two eyes, hence everywhere reality becomes divided For example, one thing you call love, another thing you call hate. In fact they are one thing Love and hate are not the right things to describe them. The energy is the same -- it is love-hate. The 'and' has to be dropped. In fact you cannot even put a hyphen between the two, lovehate is one word. Daynight is one word, lifedeath is one word, miserybliss is one word, painpleasure is one word, mattermind is one word. But because we have two eyes, everything is divided in two and then we go on arguing for centuries.

Now for five thousand years man has been arguing whether man is body or soul. There are not two things. The body is nothing but the outermost form of the soul, and the soul is nothing but the innermost core of the body. They are not two. And God and the world are not two either. The creator and the creation are one.

This is called the Buddha-eye -- to come to a point where your two eyes merge and melt and become one. Jesus says, 'If your eyes be like one, then your whole being will be full of light.' That's what enlightenment is.

A few words of Jesus are beautiful, 'When you make the two one, and when you make the inner as the outer, and the outer as the inner, and the above as the below, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male will not be male and the female not be female, then shall you enter the Kingdom.'

Or again, 'It is impossible for a man to mount two horses and to stretch two bows; and it is impossible for a servant to serve two masters, otherwise he will honor the one and offend the other.' 'But if your eyes be like one then your whole being will be full of light.'

In Buddhist tradition that oneness of vision, that unfragmented vision, that total vision, that whole vision, is called Buddha-eye. And whatsoever is seen through Buddha-eye is Buddha-cognition. And when you have the Buddha-eye and you look at life with that one vision, it unites everything, and then you are able to know fully, not before that. Before that, your knowledge is always partial, fragmentary, lopsided.

Now the sutra.

AND WHY?

BECAUSE, SUBHUTI, IN THESE BODHISATTVAS

NO PERCEPTION OF A SELF TAKES PLACE,

NO PERCEPTION OF A BEING,

NO PERCEPTION OF A SOUL,

NO PERCEPTION OF A PERSON.

NOR DO THESE BODHISATTVAS HAVE

A PERCEPTION OF A DHAMMA

OR A PERCEPTION OF A NO-DHAMMA.

NO PERCEPTION OR NON-PERCEPTION

TAKES PLACE IN THEM.

These eight things are known as the eight barriers to wisdom. They have to be understood. First, this is the definition of a Bodhisattva. Who is a Bodhisattva? One who has crossed these eight barriers of wrong attitudes, of wrong approaches towards life.

The first, NO PERCEPTION OF A SELF TAKES PLACE. These four words have to be understood -- they are almost synonymous, but only almost, self, being, soul, person. In the dictionaries they are almost the same, but Buddha gives different colors to them, and they have different colors, slight differences.

First, the self means the ego -- 'my', 'mine', 'I' -- as distinct from the five elements that constitute me. Man is constituted of five elements, just a combination of these five. You take the five apart and man disappears. Buddha says there is nothing else than the five. It is like a chariot. You take parts of the chariot apart, you take the wheels, you take the horses, you take everything else, and if in the end you want to know where the chariot is, the chariot has disappeared, because the chariot was just a combination of those parts.

This is one of the greatest insights of Buddha, no other religion has gone to that height. All other religions have stopped with some idea of self, with some idea of ego. Howsoever refined, howsoever holy, howsoever virtuous, but some idea of the ego has remained. You call it self, you call it soul, you call it ATMA; what you call it doesn't matter. Buddha is very very clear about it -- that your deepest core consists of nothingness. There is no ego.

The word 'I' is only utilitarian, it corresponds to no reality. It is needed even Buddha uses it. It is good as a means to communicate, it designates, but it corresponds to no reality.

So the first, self, means 'I am separate from the constituents'. Buddha says you are not there, only the constituents are there. You are utter emptiness. The second is being -- being means individuality, the idea of being identical with oneself at different times. You say that 'I was once a child, now I am a young man, and soon I will become an old man'. You have some idea as if you persist. One time you were a child, then you became young -- but you are the same. And then you will become old and you will be the same Buddha says each moment you are changing.

He is perfectly in agreement with Heraclitus. You cannot step twice in the same river. The river goes on flowing. When you were a child you were a different individual, now you are a different individual. When you will be old you will be a different individual again. In fact every day you are different, every moment you are different.

Why does this idea persist that 'I am the same'? This persists because the change is so subtle and your vision is not so subtle. It is as if you light a candle in the evening, it burns the whole night, and in the morning you blow it and you say, 'It is the same flame that I am blowing out.' It is not. The flame has been continuously changing, disappearing, new flame arising each moment. But between two flames, one disappearing, another arising, the gap is so subtle, so small, that you cannot see it. That's why this idea of individuality, of being, persists.

Buddha says life is a process, life is not like a thing. It is a continuous move. Life is a river. Buddha says if we want to be true to reality we should drop all nouns from the language, only verbs are true. River is not true, rivering is true. Tree is not true, treeing is true. Love is not true, loving is true. Life consists of verbs, not of nouns.

And the third thing is the soul, the idea of a supra-force abiding in the body, a unifying and vivifying force separate from everything else. That too -- Buddha says there is no supra-force. There is nothing inside abiding in you. It is not that you are the house and there is a host inside, a resident inside. All that resides inside is pure nothingness.

And the fourth is the idea of person, the being. The belief in a permanent entity who would migrate from rebirth to rebirth. That Buddha calls person -- that you will die and your person will immediately be born into some other womb. Continuity is there but there is no person. Continuity is there but there is no self. Continuity is there but there is no individuality. Continuity is there but there is no soul.

This vision of Buddha is so utterly unique that even this country, such a religious country, India, could not swallow it. It was felt as if Buddha had decided to destroy the whole foundation of religion. He was giving a totally new vision, far higher than the ordinary concepts of souls, self, etcetera. Because in those concepts your ego goes on hiding in new ways. They are nothing but ways of the ego to exist and to continue existing.

Buddha says:

AND WHY?

BECAUSE, SUBHUTI, IN THESE BODHISATTVAS

NO PERCEPTION OF A SELF TAKES PLACE.

When a person turns inwards, when your consciousness turns inwards and looks into your own being, nothing is found:

NO PERCEPTION OF A SELF TAKES PLACE,

NO PERCEPTION OF A BEING TAKES PLACE,

NO PERCEPTION OF A SOUL TAKES PLACE,

NO PERCEPTION OF A PERSON TAKES PLACE.

These four things are immediately dissolved.

NOR DO THESE BODHISATTVAS HAVE

A PERCEPTION OF A DHAMMA.

Dhamma means the positive element in life and no-Dhamma means the negative element in life. The positive and negative -- Buddha says even these are not true, they disappear. A perception of a Dhamma does not take place. You don't come upon a positive reality inside, neither do you come upon a negative reality inside. You simply come upon a total nothingness.

And remember, that nothingness should not be thought synonymous with no reality, with negativity. Nothingness simply means no positive, no negative. Both have disappeared, that duality is no more there. This is utter silence. Not finding anything, not even finding yourself, you are freed. Not that you are freed, but you are freed from yourself.

When others speak of freedom they always mean that you will be there, free. When Buddha talks about freedom he says you will be freed, you will not be there. How can you be in freedom? If you are there in freedom there will remain a kind of imprisonment. You are the imprisonment. You can't be free. When you are not, freedom is. When you are, freedom is not.

And seventh, NO PERCEPTION. When there is nothing to see, how can you see it is a perception? No self, no positivity, no negativity -- there is nothing to see. When there is nothing to see, you cannot see that a perception has taken place. A perception needs something to perceive. So, the seventh thing, no perception exists. But then you can say, 'Then does non-perception exist?'

Buddha says when there is nobody to see and nothing to see, how can non-perception exist either? He is destroying all the roots for the ego, all the subtle ways of the ego. These are the eight barriers. When all these have disappeared, a person is a Bodhisattva.

And then the problem arises, 'How to remain on this shore?' Only then.... Then you have something to share -- your nothingness. Then you have something to share your paradise. Then you have something to share -- your utter existence. But now how to remain on this shore? How to linger here a little while more?

And Buddha says:

AND WHY?

IF SUBHUTI, THESE BODHISATTVAS

SHOULD HAVE A PERCEPTION

OF EITHER A DHAMMA OR A NO-DHAMMA,

THEY WOULD THEREBY SEIZE ON A SELF,

ON A BEING,

ON A SOUL,

ON A PERSON.

If you see something inside, remember, you are still outside. If you see something, even Krishna playing on his flute, or Jesus crucified and fresh blood flowing from his hands, or Buddha sitting silently under his Bodhi-tree, if you come across anything inside, remember, you are still outside. That's why Buddha says, 'If you meet me on the way, kill me immediately.'

One has to come to a point where there is nothing to see. When there is nothing to see, the seer also disappears; that is the point to remember. It is very difficult to understand. The seer exists only with the seen. That's why Krishnamurti goes on saying again and again 'the observer is the observed'. When there is nothing to see, how can you be as a seer there? When content disappears, the container also disappears. They exist together, they are two aspects of the same coin.

Buddha says there is no such thing as spiritual experience, all experiences are non-spiritual. Mm? Somebody comes and says, 'My kundalini is rising.' A Gopi Krishna in Kashmir says his kundalini is rising. It is not spiritual, no kundalini is spiritual. It is a physical phenomenon, a worldly phenomenon, and can give you pleasure, just as sex can give you pleasure. It is the same energy moving upwards. It has nothing to do with spirituality, not at least with what Buddha means by spirituality.

And Gopi Krishna says that he has attained because his kundalini has risen. He feels tingling energy moving in his spine. But a spine is a spine. And now he thinks that the kundalini has arisen, it has reached to SAHASRAR, the seventh chakra, and he has become creative. So he has started writing poetry. Those poems are just rubbish. If they prove anything, they simply disprove all kundalini. I have never come across such rubbish poetry -- just like school children. Even sometimes they write more beautiful things.

You can find only one comparison, and that is Shree Chinmoy. He writes poetry. In one night he will write one thousand poems. Even to call them poems is an exaggeration They are not even prose, they don't have anything of poetry in them.

But these people think they have attained to spiritual creativity, because kundalini has arisen. Somebody has seen light in the head and he thinks now enlightenment has happened -- 'Because I have seen light. When I close my eyes there is great light.' And I am not saying that light cannot be seen and I am not saying kundalini does not arise. It arises so easily, you can see here, so many sannyasins are in that state that Gopi Krishna thinks is kundalini. It is nothing to brag about.

Any experience is bound to be outside, because you are the experiencer and the experience is there, facing you. When all experiences disappear, there is spirituality. But then a phenomenon happens, when all experiences disappear, the experiencer also dis-appears. In the wake of it, it disappears, because it cannot exist, it cannot subsist without experiences. It feeds on experiences. When the experience and experiencer are both gone you are a Bodhisattva.

'AND WHY?

BECAUSE A BODHISATTVA SHOULD NOT SEIZE

ON EITHER A DHAMMA OR A NO-DHAMMA.

THEREFORE THIS SAYING HAS BEEN TAUGHT BY THE TATHAGATA

WITH A HIDDEN MEANING:

"BY THOSE WHO KNOW THE DISCOURSE ON DHAMMA

AS LIKE UNTO A RAFT.

DHAMMAS SHOULD BE FORSAKEN,

STILL MORE SO, NO-DHAMMAS."'

Buddha says everything has to be forsaken -- Dhammas, no-Dhammas, experiences, great experiences, spiritual experiences, and finally the experiencer too. Everything has to be forsaken. When nothing remains, not even a trace of anything, not even the idea that now there is nothing....

Even if this idea remains -- that now there is nothing -- everything is there. This idea is enough to contain the whole world. If you say, 'Now nothing is there,' you have missed the point. You cannot even say that -- that nothing is there. Who is there to say? Who is there to observe? There is utter silence, absolute silence.

So Buddha says that the Dhamma, the religion, is like a raft. These are his famous words. Buddha says in 'Majjhima Nikaya': 'Using the figure of a raft, brethren, will I teach you the norm as something to leave behind, not to take with you. If one has crossed with the help of a raft a great stretch of water, on this side full of doubts and fears, on the further side safe and free from fears, one would then not take it on one's shoulders and carry it with one, but though it was of great use to him, he would leave it behind and have finished with it. Thus, brethren, understanding the figure of the raft, we must leave righteous ways behind, not to speak of unrighteous ways.'

All methods -- Yoga, Tantra -- all techniques, all meditations and all prayers, are strategies to reach to the other shore. Once you have reached, they have to be left behind. Feel thankful, but don't start carrying them on your shoulders, otherwise you will be a fool.

Or Buddha says again: 'The example of the raft shows Dhammas should be treated as provisional, as means to an end. The same holds good of emptiness too, the negation of Dhammas. This corollary has elsewhere been illustrated by the simile of medicine which can heal any illness. Once a cure has been effected it must be abandoned together with the illness because its further use would only make one ill again.'

Buddha says: 'Just so, when this medicine called emptiness has brought about a cure of the disease of the belief in existence. Attachment to emptiness is a disease as much as attachment to existence. Those who continue to use this medicine of emptiness after they have gained possession of health, only make themselves ill again.'

Remember, first one has to drop everything and become empty, and then one has to drop that emptiness too. That emptiness is just a medicine. Buddha is right when he says, 'I am a physician, not a philosopher'. He does not give you a doctrine to cling to. And whatsoever he gives to you is provisional, arbitrary, and one day it has to be dropped and forgotten.

When all disappears -- the world and God, matter and mind, body and soul, you and I -- when all disappears and finally the idea that all has disappeared also disappears, you have arrived, you have become a Bodhisattva. Then is the problem how to linger on this shore, how to be here even a single moment?

You will have to create a CHITTOPAD, a great decision 'There are others stumbling in darkness. I have attained I have to share it,' Out of that CHITTOPAD, out of the creation of a new mind... because the old mind has gone And with the old mind gone, you cannot stay here. You will have to create a new mind.

Two words to be understood, one is passion, another is compassion. They both have passion in them. Passion is the old mind, the desiring mind, the mind full of desire. When all desires have disappeared and the old mind is gone, you will have to immediately create compassion so that through compassion you can be here. For a little while you can help a few people to raise their eyes to the other shore. For a little while you can direct a few people, you can indicate the way.

THE LORD ASKED:

'WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI?

IS THERE ANY DHAMMA

WHICH THE TATHAGATA HAS FULLY KNOWN AS

"THE UTMOST RIGHT AND PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT"'?

That is one of the methods of Buddha -- he asks his disciples sometimes, 'What do you think, Subhuti? Do you think that I have attained the truth, the Dhamma, or have I preached truth to people? What do you think about it?'

'IS THERE ANY DHAMMA

WHICH THE TATHAGATA HAS FULLY KNOWN AS

"THE ULTIMATE RIGHT AND PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT",

OR IS THERE ANY DHAMMA

WHICH THE TATHAGATA HAS DEMONSTRATED?'

SUBHUTI REPLIED: 'NO.'

It was very easy to fall in the trap of the Buddha, the question was difficult. The question was such that one would tend to say yes. 'Yes, Buddha has attained, otherwise who has attained?' But the very idea of attainment will be unspiritual. And Buddha is saying there is nothing to attain and nobody to attain.

And it would have been very very simple for Subhuti to say, 'Yes, Lord. You have preached as nobody has preached, you have demonstrated as nobody has demonstrated.' But if there is nothing to attain, what can there be to demonstrate? If there is nothing to attain and nobody to attain, who can demonstrate it and what is there to demonstrate?

But Subhuti was not deceived by Buddha's question.

SUBHUTI REPLIED: 'NO, NOT AS I UNDERSTAND WHAT THE LORD HAS SAID.

AND WHY?

THIS DHAMMA WHICH THE TATHAGATA

HAS FULLY KNOWN OR DEMONSTRATED,

IT CANNOT BE GRASPED,

IT CANNOT BE TALKED ABOUT,

IT IS NEITHER A DHAMMA NOR A NO-DHAMMA.'

So first he says, 'No, you have not attained anything, because there is nothing to attain if I understand you rightly. And how can you demonstrate that something which is beyond something is beyond nothing too? How can you demonstrate it? There is no way to grasp it and no way to say it, because it is neither positive nor negative.' Language is capable only of catching hold of the positive and negative, that which transcends both is not graspable.

And again, the final thing he says is:

'AND WHY?

BECAUSE AN ABSOLUTE EXALTS THE HOLY PERSONS.'

The absolute means the beyond, the transcendental, that which is beyond hate and love, that which is beyond life and death, that which is beyond day and night, that which is beyond man and woman, that which is beyond hell and heaven, that which is beyond all dualities, that is the absolute -- and the ABSOLUTE EXALTS THE HOLY PERSONS. An absolute, that absolute, that transcendental, is exalting you.

The Sanskrit word for it is very rich. It is PRABHAVEETA. It means many things, it contains a wealth of meanings. It means 'exalted by', 'glorified by', 'draw their strength from', 'owe their light to'. The moon reflects the light of the sun -- it is PRABHAVEETA, it is just a mirror.

So is a Buddha. A Buddha is an empty mirror. He simply reflects existence as it is -- YATHA BHUTAM. He does not say anything. A mirror says nothing, a mirror has nothing to say, it simply reflects. It does not do anything to that which is, it simply reflects as it is -- YATHA BHUTAM.

In Buddha, existence is reflected. The Absolute exalts, the Absolute is reflected. Buddha is not doing anything.

A real master is just a mirror, he simply reflects that which is. He has no philosophy to preach, no doctrine to propound. Existence is his philosophy, life is his doctrine. He has nothing to grind, he has no motive anywhere. He himself is not, that's how he has become a mirror.

A Bodhisattva is on the point of becoming a mirror. If he creates a new mind, a new route, CHITTOPAD, of compassion, he will linger on this shore a little while. It is very miraculous, because he no more belongs to this world. The world exists in him no more, still it happens, this miracle happens.

The being of a Buddha here on this shore even for a few days or a few years is a miracle, the greatest miracle. A man came to Buddha once and he asked, 'Why don't you show a few 'miracles?' And Buddha said, 'I am the miracle.'

Enough for today.

The Diamond Sutra

Chapter #6

Chapter title: Bodhisattvahood

26 December 1977 am in Buddha Hall

Archive code: 7712260

ShortTitle: DIAMON06

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 81 mins

The first question:

BELOVED OSHO,

Question 1

WHAT IS ALL THIS STUFF ABOUT BODHISATTVAS? I DON'T BELIEVE A WORD OF IT. THERE IS NO SUCH THING.

Yes, Somendra, it is all nonsense. But you will have to understand the word nonsense. It is beyond sense. You need not believe it, you cannot believe it -- you can only experience it. It is a nonsense experience. But it is true, it is absolutely true. It happens. Till it happens there is no way to believe in it, and there is no need either. Buddha is never in favor of any kind of belief. Whatsoever he says, it is experience, it is existential. It is something beyond the mind.

Ordinarily we use the word nonsense for that which is below mind. But there is something beyond mind too -- that too is nonsense. The mind cannot make any sense out of it. Unless your mind disappears you will not be able to see what this bodhi-being is. It is not a thing, true. It is an experiencing.

You know desire, you know passion, you know sex, you know love. Try to explain it to a child in whom the sexual desire has not yet taken form, and he will say it is all nonsense. Just try to explain it to a four-year-old child -- that you have fallen in love -- and he will look at you with unbelieving eyes. What are you talking about? What is this stuff 'love'?

And all your romance and all your poetry and all that is throbbing in your heart is impossible to relate to a child. He has not tasted of that experience yet, he is unaware of it. The desire has not arisen in him. Buddha calls that desire WASANA. That wasana has not arisen in him. And unless it arises there is no way to communicate anything about it.

The same wasana, the same energy that is involved in desire, in sex, in love, one day is freed of desire. One day desire drops. Just as one day it arises, one day it drops too. Anything that is born will die, anything that begins will end. And if life goes very very naturally and spontaneously then there is a certain stage which can be demarked.

Sex arises at the age of fourteen -- sexual maturity -- and the child is thrilled with something unknown and new. The child has got the wind of desire, a great passion and fire is arising in him. Now never again will he be that innocence that was there before this desire. He will never look at things with that innocence again.

If life moves spontaneously, naturally, then exactly fourteen years before your death the desire will disappear; exactly fourteen years before your death sex will become irrelevant. Suddenly again you will find that dream is no more there, that passion has subsided, that storm has disappeared, and there is silence, utter silence. But your energy was involved in the desire, the desire has disappeared, where will the energy go?

You are still creating energy by food, by breathing, by exercise, by living. You go on transforming divine energy into human energy. Where will this energy gO? The old path is no more available; it cannot move into the direction of sexuality. Where will it move? Buddha has another word for it. He calls it KARUNA, compassion.

Passion is no more significant. Energy is available, great energy is available. It needs somewhere to move, because energy cannot be static, its very nature is to be dynamic. It starts overflowing from you in compassion. That is the state of a bodhisattva. When sex disappears, desire disappears, future disappears. When you are suddenly herenow and you have that great energy in you and you cannot contain it, it starts flowing, it starts overflowing your cup. It is compassion.

This is the state of a bodhisattva. It is not a thing. And it does not happen ordinarily because people have become unnatural. That's why in all the languages of the world, when an old man is interested in sex it is thought to be something dirty -- the dirty old man. Why dirty? The young man is not thought to be dirty, but why the old?

The phrase has come down the ages from the ancient past when it used not to happen. It was an ill state of affairs. It was not normal, it was abnormal -- something had gone wrong. Otherwise, before your death the desire has to disappear. Otherwise, what have you been doing in life if you have not even come to that point where desire disappears? You have missed the opportunity of life.

And remember, I am not against desire. I am all for it. When it is time, go into it. And go into it so totally that when the time comes to get out of it, you can get out of it totally too. Only one who goes totally in it will be capable of coming totally out of it. One who goes lukewarm, halfheartedly, partially, in a repressed way, will never be able to get out of the entanglement, will never be able to see the stupidity of it, will never be able to see the illusoriness of it.

So I am not against desire. I am all for passion: go into it, and go totally and wholeheartedly. While it is time, see whatsoever is possible to see. That very seeing will make you free of it, and one day the fruit is ripe to fall down. When the ripe fruit falls down, the tree is unburdened. In that unburdening, what will you do? The energy will still be there -- more so, because before it was involved in so many things; now it is not involved at all. Relaxed, you will become a reservoir of energy. This energy will start overflowing you, for no reason at all.

A bodhisattva is one who has so much that he needs to give it, who has so much that when you accept his love, his being, his enlightenment, you oblige him. He is like a flower full of fragrance... and the fragrance wants to be freed to the winds. Or he is like a cloud full of rainwater... and is searching a thirsty earth which can welcome it, which can absorb it. So is a bodhisattva... a cloud full of rainwater, moving hither and thither in search of a thirsty soul, in search of somebody who will wel-come. The bodhisattva is obliged to you when you accept his gift.

Bodhisattvahood is a state of consciousness. It is nonsense, true. It is not a thing, true, Somendra -- but it happens. It is very illogical. It is illogical, it looks absurd, because it does not relate to your experience yet. But soon many of you are going to enter into that realm. I see many of you just standing on the threshold. You cannot see. I can see that you are on the threshold, getting ready to take the ultimate jump. When it has happened then you will know what Buddha is talking about.

The Diamond Sutra is not preached to the layman, it is preached only to the sannyasins, only to those who are coming to bodhisattvahood or those who have come. In fact it has to be preached before one is coming to bodhisattvahood, because in that moment of bodhisattvahood, if you don't know anything about what to do, if you are not aware that there is a way to unburden -- that you can release your blissfulness, that there is no need to contain it -- if you don't know anything about it, it will be difficult for you, very difficult. Your very blissfulness will become a pain in the chest, will become an ache in the heart. Rather than becoming a dance and a song it will become painful.

Do you know, when bliss becomes very intense it becomes painful. When light is too intense it is too dazzling, and you almost go blind. When love is too much you cannot bear it. When joy is too much, your heart can stop; it can be too painful. And you don't know anything. When bodhisattvahood happens, the joy is such, the magnitude of it, the blissfulness is such, the intensity of it, that you can die just out of it or you can go mad.

Buddhism is the only tradition in the world where bodhisattvas have not been known to go mad. Why? In Sufism they go mad, in Hinduism they go mad, many of them go mad. Sufis have a special name for them -- MASTAS. But there is nothing like that in Buddha's tradition. Why? Buddha is so aware of all the possibilities and is preparing the path so scientifically that he goes on giving you indications, directions, suggestions, for those moments which are going to happen.

Down the ages, in these twenty-five centuries, never a Buddhist saint has been known to go mad, it is rare. In Sufism many go mad, in Hinduism many go mad. The reason is that Sufis and Hindus have nothing compared to bodhisattvahood; no instruction is given. And in the West the problem is even more complicated. Christianity has no idea about it. So in Christianity it has happened that ordinary people who were not in any way saints, have been worshipped as saints. and those who were saints have been declared mad, or possessed by the devil.

In many Western asylums there are people who are not really mad but because of bodhisattvahood they have gone mad. They don't need psychiatric treatment, they don't need electric shocks, they don't need tranquilizers. They don't need unnecessary torture, they don't need psychoanalysis. All that they need is a compassionate Buddha around them. The presence of a Buddha -- all that is needed is that. Just the presence of the Buddha will bring them back, will become a great pull, a magnetic force, and will bring them back to their consciousness. But they are being tortured, they are being put through unnecessary things, because once you think they are mad you start treating them as mad.

Buddhism is one of the most scientific religions of the world. It has all the maps that are needed for the growth of consciousness. And bodhisattvahood is very essential. Before one becomes a Buddha one is bound to pass through bodhisattvahood. But, Somendra, it is nonsense, that is true.

The second question:

BELOVED OSHO,

Question 2

WHERE DOES CARE FOR OTHERS BECOME INTERFERENCE?

The moment ideology enters, care becomes interference, love turns bitter, becomes almost a kind of hatred, and your protection becomes a prison. The ideology makes the difference.

For example, if you are a mother, take care of the child. He needs you, he cannot survive without you. You are a must. He needs food, he needs love, he needs care -- but he does not need your ideology. He does not need your ideals. He does not need your Christianity, your Hinduism, your Islam, your Buddhism. He does not need your scriptures, he does not need your beliefs. He does not need your ideals of how he should be. Only avoid ideology, ideals, goals, ends, and then care is beautiful, then care is innocent. Otherwise care is cunning.

When there is no ideology in your caring -- you don't want to make your child a Christian, you don't want to make your child this or that, communist or fascist, you don't want your child to become a businessman or a doctor or an engineer.... You don't have any ideas for your child. You say, "I will love, and when you grow up, YOU choose -- and be whatsoever is natural for you to be. My blessings... whatsoever you are, my blessings.

"And whatsoever you will be, from my side you are accepted and welcome. Not that only when you become the president of the country will I love you and if you become just a carpenter then there will be no love, then I will feel ashamed of you. Not that only when you bring a gold medal from the university will there be a welcome and if you come a failure I will be ashamed of you. Not that only when you are good, virtuous, moral, this and that, will you be my child and otherwise I am not related to you, you are not related to me."

The moment you bring any idea, you bring poison in the relationship. Care is beautiful, but when care has some idea, then it is cunningness, then it is a bargain, then it has conditions. And all our love is cunning, hence this misery in the world, this hell. Not that care is not there -- care is there, but it is with too much cunningness. The mother cares, the father cares, the husband cares, the wife cares, the brother, the sister -- everybody is caring. I'm not saying that nobody is caring -- people are caring too much, but still the world is hell.

Something is wrong, something is fundamentally wrong. What is that fundamental wrong? Where do things go wrong? Caring has conditions in it: "Do this! Be that!" Have you ever loved anybody with no conditions? Have you ever loved anybody as he or she is? You don't want to improve, you don't want to change; your acceptance is total, utter. Then you know what care is. You will be fulfilled through that care, and the other will be helped immensely.

And remember, if your care has no business in it, no ambitions in it, the person you cared about will love you forever. But if your care has some ideas in it, then the person you cared about will never be able to forgive you. That's why children are incapable of forgiving their parents.

You go and ask the psychiatrists, the psychoanalysts -- all the cases that come to them are the cases of children whose parents cared too much. But their care was businesslike; it was cold, it was calculated. They wanted some of their ambitions to be fulfilled through the child. Love has to be a free gift. The moment there is a price tag on it, it is no more love.

The third question:

BELOVED OSHO,

Question 3

WHY DON'T YOU ALLOW NONVEGETARIAN FOOD IN THE ASHRAM?

The question is from Swami Yoga Chinmaya. There must be some idea in Chinmaya's mind to eat meat. There must be some deep hidden violence. Otherwise the question is coming from a vegetarian and there are thousands of nonvegetarians here. This looks very absurd, but this is how things are. The vegetarian is not a true vegetarian; he is just a repressed one. Desire arises.

But why I don't allow nonvegetarian food in the ashram has nothing to do with religion, it is just pure aesthetics. I am not one who thinks that if you take nonvegetarian food you will not become enlightened. Jesus became enlightened, Mohammed became enlightened, Ramakrishna became enlightened -- there has been no problem about it. You can take nonvegetarian food and you can become enlightened, so there is no religious problem about it.

To me the problem is that of aesthetics. Because Jesus continued to eat meat, I have a feeling that he did not have a great aesthetic sense. Not that he is not religious -- he is perfectly religious, as religious as Buddha, but something is missing in him. Ramakrishna continued to eat fish; just nonaesthetic, it looks a little ugly.

Enlightenment is not at stake, but your poetry is at stake, your sense of beauty is at stake. Your humanity is at stake, not your super-humanity. That's why it is not allowed in my ashram -- and it will not be allowed. It is a question of beauty.

If you understand this many things will be clear to you. Alcohol can be allowed in this ashram but not meat, because alcohol is vegetarian -- fruit juice.... fermented, but it is fruit juice. And sometimes to be a little drunk gives rise to great poetry. That is possible, that has to be allowed. In the new commune we are going to have a bar -- Omar Khayyam. Omar Khayyam is a Sufi saint, one of the enlightened Sufis.

But meat cannot be allowed, that is just ugly. Just to think that you are killing an animal to eat, just the very idea, is unaesthetic. I am not against it because the animal is killed... because that which is essential in the animal will live, it cannot be killed, and that which is nonessential, whether you kill it or not, is going to die. So that is irrelevant, that is not a point for me to consider.

The question is not that you have killed the animal and killing is not good, no. The question is that you have killed the animal -- you. Just to eat? While beautiful vegetarian food is available? If vegetarian food is not available, that's one thing. But the food IS available. Then why? Then why destroy a body? And if you can kill an animal, then why not be a cannibal? What is wrong with killing a man? The meat derived from a human body will be more in tune with you. Why not start eating human beings? That too is a question of aesthetics.

And the animals are brothers and sisters, because man has come from them. They are our family. To kill a man is only to kill an evolved animal, or to kill an animal is just to kill somebody who is not yet evolved but is on the way. It is the same. Whether you kill the child when he is in the first grade or whether you kill the young man when he has come to his last grade in the university, it does not make much difference. The animals are moving towards human beings, and human beings had once been animals. It is only a question of aesthetics. Why not kill your wife and eat her? She is so beautiful and so sweet....

A friend came to a cannibal and the food was prepared and the friend had never tasted anything like it. He had never even dreamed that food could be so tasty, so delicious. When he was leaving he said to the cannibal, "I loved the food. I have never loved food so much. When I come next, prepare the same dishes."

And the cannibal said, "That is difficult, because I only had one mother."

Why can't you eat your mother? Why can't you eat your husband or your child? -- so delicious. The question is not religious, I would like to remind you again, it is a question of aesthetics. An aesthetic man will see that life remains beautiful it does not become ugly and nightmarish.

But the question has arisen in Chinmaya's mind, that shows something. In India people who are vegetarian are not really vegetarian; it is just because they are born in a vegetarian family, so from the very beginning the vegetarianism has been imposed on them. And naturally they are curious, naturally they want to taste other things also, and naturally the idea arises, "The whole world is nonvegetarian; people must be enjoying." The vegetarian feels that somehow he is missing much. That's why the question has arisen.

It has nothing to do with meditation. You can eat meat and you can meditate. You can eat meat and you can love. It has nothing to do with love either. But you will be showing one thing about yourself -- that you are very crude, that you are very primitive, uncultured, uncivilized; that you don't have any sense of how life should be. It was out of an aesthetic sense that vegetarianism was born. It became entangled in religion and got lost. It has been taken out from the religious context.

People come to see me and they ask, a Jaina asked me, "How can you say that Jesus was enlightened? -- because he was a meat-eater...." His question is relevant because he thinks that meat-eaters cannot become enlightened. Meat-eaters can become enlightened, just as people who are not poets can become enlightened. That is not a barrier. People who don't have any sense of beauty, who will not see any beauty in a rose, can become enlightened... who will not see any beauty in the moon, can become enlightened... who will not have any taste for Beethoven's music, can become enlightened. But Jesus shows something crude. Maybe it was not possible, maybe he lived amongst people who were all meat-eaters. It would have been difficult for him to be a vegetarian. It would have been almost impossible for him. But still, that trouble has to be taken.

But remember that here my whole approach is an integrated approach. Meditation is needed, so is poetry, so is aesthetics, so is religion, so is music, so is art. Man should evolve in many dimensions in an integrated way. Then comes the ultimate flowering when all your petals have opened. And you will have greater joy and greater benediction in life.

Saint Francis is far more aesthetic than Jesus. Naturally there are stories about Saint Francis that birds would come and sit on his shoulders, that fishes would jump out of the river to see him. He had a kind of affinity with the animal kingdom. He would talk to trees and would say 'sister' and with birds 'brother' and with the sun and the moon. That would not happen to Jesus, that would not happen to Mohammed. That cannot happen.

And still I say they are enlightened people, but their enlightenment misses one thing -- aesthetic sensibility. Why miss it? Why not have the whole of it. Why not become enlightened in all the possible ways? in your totality?

The fourth question:

BELOVED OSHO,

Question 4

WHAT IS IT TO BE SURRENDERED TO YOU?

Savita, that which you don't have and you think that you have, has to be surrendered to me. You don't really have the ego, the I, the self. You don't have it really. You are living in a kind of illusion that you are separate from existence. That separation is not there. You cannot live for a single split moment as separate. You cannot live like an island. You are part of the whole. The whole goes on participating in your being, the whole goes on showering you with its energy, but you have the idea that "I am separate."

That 'I' has to be surrendered to me. And you don't have it, so you will not be really surrendering something to me, just an illusion. Let me repeat: that which you don't have, I want to take it away from you. And that which you have, I want to give it back to you. Your reality I want to give back to you; you have forgotten about it. And your unreality I want to take away from you.

Remember, when you surrender your ego you don't lose anything, you gain -- you gain reality. It is as if you were sleeping and you were dreaming and then I come and wake you up. Your dream is lost. But have you lost anything? The dream was not there in the first place, it was not a reality. It was a dream, only a dream, and now you open your eyes and it is morning and the sun is rising and the birds are singing and the trees are happy with the new day.

I give you that which is and I take away that which is not. I wake you up. You don't lose anything. And remember, I don't gain anything because of your surrender. So don't be miserly. Don't think that I will be gaining anything out of your surrender -- I don't gain anything. When I wake you up, your dream is lost but I don't get your dream. Otherwise I would never have said to surrender your egos to me; otherwise I will be almost crushed, killed.

A very boring man came to see his friend. The friend was very afraid because of his past experiences with this man. He bored him and bored him and talked and talked, hours and hours, and then when he was leaving he said, "This is strange. When I came I had a headache, now it has gone."

And the sufferer, the victim, said, "Don't be worried about that -- I have got it now. It has not gone anywhere."

When you surrender the ego, I don't get it. When you surrender your headache, I don't get anything out of it. So don't be miserly. Don't think that I must be piling up great treasures because so many people are surrendering to me. I don't get anything. What you surrender is nothing. But you gain much out of the surrender. You get reality, you get your authenticity back.

The fifth question:

BELOVED OSHO,

Question 5

AS I LISTEN TO YOU TALK ABOUT BUDDHA AND SARIPUTRA SUBHUTI, ANANDA, MAHAKASHYAPA, I FEEL MORE AND MORE THAT YOU WERE ACTUALLY THERE WHEN BUDDHA LIVED AND THAT YOU UNDERSTAND AND REVERE HIM NOT ONLY BECAUSE YOU SHARE THE SAME CONSCIOUSNESS, BUT BECAUSE YOU EXPERIENCED HIM DIRECTLY WHEN HE WAS IN THE BODY. IS THIS SO?

Pramod, yes. But don't tell it to anybody. Keep it a secret. And never ask anything about it again.

The sixth question:

Question 6

WHAT DO YOU THINK OSHO? HAVE I THE SLIGHTEST IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT OR WOULD THE SLIGHTEST IDEA BE THE WRONG THING TO HAVE?

Yes, Subhuti.

The seventh question:

Question 7

OSHO,

BUDDHA SAYS THAT ALL WE ARE IS A RESULT OF WHAT WE HAVE THOUGHT. IT IS FOUNDED ON OUR THOUGHTS, IT IS MADE UP OF OUR THOUGHTS. IF A MAN SPEAKS OR ACTS WITH A PURE THOUGHT HAPPINESS FOLLOWS HIM LIKE A SHADOW.

HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO NO-MIND FOR WE CAN THINK PURELY AND CONTROL OUR THOUGHTS, WE CAN OBTAIN HAPPINESS, YET NO-MIND SEEMS TO APPEAR TO BE CONTRADICTORY TO CONTROLLING THOUGHT?

The first thing. There are three minds possible. One: the evil mind, which lives in a destructive way, which thinks of destroying, which enjoys creating suffering for people. To such a mind Buddha says misery will follow like a shadow. If you want to create misery for others you will be creating misery for yourself finally. If you are against existence, existence will be against you -- because existence is a mirror, it echoes you.

If you abuse, abuses will come and fall on you. If you sing a beautiful song, the song will come back and shower upon you. Whatsoever you give comes back to you a thousandfold. Whatsoever you sow you will reap a thousandfold. So the evil mind is followed by misery, the evil mind is followed by hell. The evil mind is one who enjoys torturing, destroying, murdering. Tamurlane, Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin -- these are the evil minds.

Then there is the holy mind -- against the evil mind, just diametrically opposite to it. It is creative, it enjoys seeing people happy. It helps, serves, is a great bestower of happiness on others. It loves to see people happy. Happiness follows like a shadow to this mind -- the holy mind.

But there is one thing more that you are not aware of. If happiness is there, then just beyond it somewhere unhappiness will be present. If unhappiness is there, then somewhere on the boundary happiness will be present. They go together. The evil mind is followed by misery, by hell, but somewhere hell is followed by heaven. The holy mind is followed by happiness, but happiness is followed by unhappiness, because they cannot be separate. They are not two phenomena.

How can you be happy if you cannot be unhappy? If you have forgotten what unhappiness is you will have forgotten happiness too. If you don't know what disease is, illness is, you will not be able to feel your health, wellbeing. It is impossible. To keep alert that you are healthy, sometimes illness is a must.

You cannot write with a white chalk on a white wall. Not that you cannot write -- you CAN write, but nobody will be able to read it, not even you. To write with a white chalk you need a blackboard. The blackboard functions as the background. The white chalk becomes the figure. So is life. Your happiness is like the white chalk: it needs a black background. The holy man lives in happiness but his happiness is a figure and unhappiness is there like a background. Without unhappiness there he will never be able to know what happiness is; without contrast there is no way to know.

So ultimately the holy mind and the evil mind are not two minds, they are two aspects of the same coin. The saint and the sinner exist together. The saint can turn into a sinner any moment and the sinner can turn into a saint any moment. They are not far away, they are not distant neighbors. They live very close by, they are very intimate. Their boundaries meet and merge.

The third mind is no-mind -- neither saint nor sinner, neither happiness nor unhappiness. The duality is dropped. Then there is silence, serenity. Then there is peace, all turmoil is gone.

Remember, even happiness is a turmoil, even happiness is a kind of fever. You like it, that is one thing, but it is fever, it is feverish. Have you not watched it? When you are happy, you start getting tired of it. Once in a while it is okay, but you cannot remain happy for long. Sooner or later you become fed up with it. It is tiring.

If you are too happy you will not be able to sleep in the night. In the same way, if you are too unhappy you will not be able to sleep in the night, you will not be able to relax. Happiness becomes a tension. Both are tiring. When happiness tires you, you move towards unhappiness. When unhappiness tires you, you start moving towards happiness, and that's how the pendulum of life goes on swinging, swaying, from one extreme to another. No-mind is a totally different thing. It has nothing to do with mind, happy or unhappy, holy or unholy.

Do you remember? When Bodhidharma went to China, the Emperor Wu asked him a few questions. One of the questions was, 'I have created many monasteries, made many Buddha temples. I have opened my treasures for the spread of Buddha's message. Don't you think it is holy?'

And Bodhidharma laughed and he said, 'What is holy in it? It is a kind of business. You are planning for the other world, you are hoping for heaven. There is nothing holy in it, it is as unholy as anything else.

What does Bodhidharma mean? He is saying that your so-called holy acts are bound to be followed by unholy things, because deep down the very desire is unholy.

The Emperor was embarrassed, shocked, angry, and he said, 'Then what do you think -- is not Buddha a holy person?'

And Bodhidharma laughed and he said, 'He is neither holy nor a person. He is utter emptiness. How can holiness exist there? It will be a kind of dirt. He is utterly silent, he is emptiness.'

The state of no-mind is neither holy nor unholy. Buddha is neither a saint nor a sinner. He has transcended duality. Buddha is a transcendence.

So please remember, from an evil mind you can become a holy mind but there is not a real transformation. It is only a question of degrees, you have not gone beyond mind yet. Only no-mind can liberate you.

So don't try to become a holy person. Holy persons are unholy. Don't try to become saints because all that effort is nothing but an ego trip -- mind playing a new game, and a very subtle game. Just drop that whole nonsense of being holy or unholy. Saint and sinner, say goodbye to both. Dark and light, say goodbye to both. Heaven and hell, say goodbye to both.

And then arises a totally new world which you have not even dreamed of. Then there is utter serenity, then there is peace, then there is no turmoil, then not even a ripple arises. In that state is Buddha-hood. There is no pain, no pleasure then, because pleasure is not different from pain and pain is not different from pleasure.

Then what is there? Buddha is silent about it, nothing can be said about it, because whatsoever can be said will become part of duality. If you say it is bliss then you will think it is not misery. If you say it is light then you will think it is not dark. If you say it is summer then you will think it is hot winter. If you say it is a kind of flower then you will think it is not a thorn. But you will start thinking in duality.

Buddha keeps absolutely silent about it. The reason is that it can only be expressed in silence. It is silence. How can you express silence through sound?

The seventh question:

Question 8

A FEW YEARS AGO THROUGH YOGA AND MEDITATION I EXPERIENCED SOME PEAKS OF PRAYER. MY WHOLE BEING FELT THE BLISS OF IT -- ALL WAS DIVINE LOVE, AND THANKFULNESS. FOR SOME REASON I CAME OUT OF IT AND NOW I FIND MYSELF BACK IN THE DARK VALLEY. SOMEWHERE THINGS WENT WRONG. IT FEELS GUILTY AND SO ARDUOUS TO STAND UP AGAIN. PLEASE COMMENT.

If your silence and your bliss is caused by anything, it is bound to disappear. That which is caused cannot be eternal. You managed it through Yoga and meditation, but it was not a natural happening. It was artificial, it was arbitrary. It was as arbitrary as you can manage through chemical drugs, but the drug will wear off.

You have taken a certain quantity of LSD and you will fed blissed-out, and all is blissful and all is joy and life has immense beauty and splendor and trees are more green and roses are more red and every face looks radiant. Life is luminous, psychedelic. But the LSD is going to wear off. The next morning you will look and the trees are dusty again; that greenness is not there, that luminosity is not there. They are not illumined from within. You will see people's faces -- those dull, boring faces again. All is dusty, all is ordinary.

The same can happen through Yoga, the same can happen through fasting, the same can happen through any technique whatsoever. Techniques are good to give you a glimpse, but they can only give you a glimpse; it cannot become your state of affairs, it cannot become your consciousness.

So there is not a problem in it, it is simple. It was going to be lost, nothing is wrong with you. The only wrong thing is your attitude. You were think-ing that through yoga and meditation you would be able to create something eternal. That is not possible. The eternal cannot be created. Anything that is created will fall one day or other, sooner or later.

The eternal comes to you uncreated. The eternal happens, is not done. When you have gone beyond techniques and methods, when you have dropped all techniques and all methods, when you have come to see one thing -- that just to be is enough, nothing else is needed, that there is no need to make any arrangement, that all beings are Buddhas from the very beginning.... When you have understood this -- that you are not to grow into something, that you are already there, it is already the case -- then you relax.

And the relaxation should not be a method. You should not relax through a Yoga posture. This very understanding is relaxing, this very understanding is relaxation. You relax, effort disappears. You live your ordinary life -- you chop wood and you carry water from the well and you cook food and you eat and you sleep and you love and you live ordinarily with no hankering and no desire for anything extraordinary.

And then one day it is there, not of your making. One day it is suddenly there. One day you open your eyes and it is there -- and then it never leaves. But it has to come on its own. Otherwise, managed by you, it will come and leave; it will be only a glimpse.

You ask: "A few years ago through yoga and meditation I experienced some peaks of prayer." They were created peaks, they were dreams and imaginations that you managed to have. "My whole being felt the bliss of it." But you were there. You felt the bliss of it but you were there. You had not disappeared. "All was divine." This is an interpretation. The mind was functioning, the mind was saying, "All is divine". You must have heard, you must have read. Your mind was interpreting -- all is divine love and thankfulness. These were ideas floating in the mind.

But you were there, the memory was there, the past was there. Otherwise who would say 'All is divine'? If all is really divine then what is the point of saying all is divine? If all is divine all is divine, there is no need to say even. Saying simply says that you know that all is not divine. Saying simply says that you are posing, imposing.

Yes, there must have been a kind of happiness created by meditation and yoga, there must have been a kind of joy, and on that joy you imposed your whole philosophy -- that this is what God is, that this is divineness, that this is love and thankfulness. And for a few days you enjoyed your dream -- it was a dream.

"For some reason I came out of it." Not for some reason, it is very simple. You had to come out of it, you could not have lived in a dream forever -- nobody can live in a dream forever. A dream is never forever, otherwise what will be the distinction between reality and dream? A dream is only for the moment. Sooner or later you wake up, you open your eyes and the dream is not there and the ordinary life is there.

"I came out of it and now I find myself back in the dark valley." You were there at those sunlit peaks and you are there in the dark valleys. One thing is similar : you. Dark valleys or sunlit peaks, it does not matter; all that matters is you -- the ego is there. The ego is in the dark valley, the ego is at the peak, and the ego goes on creating dreams.

Let me tell you one thing : even the dark valley is your dream and your imposition, your idea. There are no dark valleys. If all is divine, how can there be dark valleys? And if there are dark valleys, how can all be divine? There are neither dark valleys nor sunlit peaks; it is just the game of the ego. It goes on moving in polarities, from one point to another. When you see it -- that the sweet dream is a dream, so is the nightmare, both are dreams -- wake up and drop both the dreams. Then for the first time you have contact with reality.

But remember, in that moment when reality is there, you are not. That is the only criterion to understand, no other criterion exists. The only criterion is, if the experience is of reality you will not be found there, you cannot be found there. You will be utterly absent. Bliss will be there but you will not be there. There will be nobody to say "I am feeling bliss." God will be there but you will not be there. There will be nobody to say "All is divine." Let that be remembered.

And this can happen only, this cannot be done. You cannot produce it. A produced thing is artificial, it goes only so far, then it disappears. A produced thing is cheap. Just think what you are doing. When you do yoga, what are you doing? Standing on your head -- how can standing on your head make you enlightened? How? Just standing on your head? So cheap?

Standing on your head may give a shock to your head, maybe a kind of shock treatment. Too much blood rushing to the head may give you a moment of stoppage -- thinking stops. Too much blood has rushed so suddenly, mm? -- because you are standing on the head so the gravitation is pulling all your blood towards the head. And the head cannot manage it, it is a kind of flood. So for a moment there is a stopping of thinking. In that stopping you will feel, "I am joyous, I am blissful, all is divine." But how long can you stand on your head? And even if you learn to stand a long time, the mind will also learn how to go on continuing thinking with that flood of blood. There is no problem, mind will also learn by and by. Then you can stand on your head and you can go on thinking.

When I was a child I used to stand on my head very very long. It became such a habit that one day I fell asleep. That is almost impossible. When I told one old man, who was a kind of yogi in my village, he said, "This is impossible, this has not even happened to me. To fall asleep standing on your head..." Because for sleep to happen, the head needs less blood flow than ordinarily. That's why we use pillows in the night to put the head a little higher so blood does not go too much in the head; otherwise the head continues functioning. The more intellectual a person is, the bigger the pillow he will need -- two, three, four pillows. Otherwise just a little blood and the thought process starts. So the food supply has to be completely cut.

The old man said, "This is impossible." But it happened to me. Not only did I fall asleep but I fell from my SHIRSHASANA. It had become so habitual. Not only thoughts, but sleep and dream are possible. So if you stand on your head too long you will be accustomed to it and the joy that has happened for the first time will never happen again.

And what do you do when you meditate? How can you manage enlightenment through meditation and yoga and fasting and dieting? No, the thing is far beyond -- beyond the stars. All these small things are very earthly. Yes, they can purify you, cleanse you, but they cannot give you enlightenment. They can give you a few moments of joy, but that joy is not to be interpreted as bliss, because you are there. They can sometimes fill you with great light, but that light is not the eternal light. For the eternal you can only be feminine, you cannot be a doer. You have to be in a kind of inactivity, passivity. You have to wait patiently. Be ordinary and wait

And I am not saying don't do yoga exercises; they ARE good for the body. And I am not saying don't do meditations; they are perfectly good and cleansing. But don't think that by yoga and meditation you will produce God. God cannot be produced. But you will be cleansed, and there will be more possibility for God to happen.

But God happens only when you are unawares. When you are not even looking for him, when you are simply sitting, not doing anything and there is no desire -- not even a small fragment of desire in the mind to be anything else, to be somebody else, to become enlightened and all that -- when you are just there, sitting and doing nothing, suddenly it happens. It is always sudden. It descends on you. But then you are no more, enlightenment is and you are not. God is and you are not.

The last question:

Question 9

OSHO,

FOR TWO MONTHS I LIVED IN THE COMMUNE AA AND FOR TWO YEARS IN SOME COMMUNES IN FRANCE. THEY HAVE ALL FAILED -- HATE BECOMING STRONGER THAN LOVE.

I FELT THAT I COULD BE MORE TOTALLY MYSELF LIVING IN A GROUP WITH COLLECTIVE DECISIONS AND PROPERTY AND FREE SEXUALITY. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE WAY OF LIVING IN COMMUNES?

The problem is not where you live, the problem is you. You can go to a commune and you will carry all your problems with you. And others who have come to live in the commune have also come just like you, with all their problems. Sooner or later those problems will surface. These outer things cannot help. They are distractions.

The real change has to happen in you, commune or no commune. The real change has to happen in the deepest core of your being. If it happens there only then will life be different, otherwise it will not be different.

You say: "They have all failed." They have failed because you are the same. They have not failed really. Their failure only proves that you are frustrated, they have not fulfilled your expectations. And what were your expectations? You were thinking that just living in a commune would do. And your problems would be solved.

Neither can a commune help, nor can going to the Himalayas and living in a cave help. Life has to be tackled very realistically. You have to see into your problems, you have to go to their very roots, you have to burn the very seed of those problems, and only then -- then it can happen anywhere.

You were searching for a heaven, mm? That's what people have been doing down the ages. They don't change themselves, they hanker for a heaven, but wherever they go they will create hell. They ARE hell -- it is not a question of finding heaven somewhere. Unless you have it already in you, you will not find it anywhere.

Anubodhi has sent me a beautiful parable:

Once I knew a man who had won an all-expenses-paid trip to both heaven and hell. He was asked where he would like to go first. "I would like to visit hell first," he replied, and so it was arranged.

Upon arriving in hell a great sight met his eyes. He found himself in a large banquet hall in which long tables were laden with every imaginable kind of food. The people sat along the tables, forks poised above the food, which steamed deliciously and filled the air with the most tempting smells, but no one was eating.

The man was puzzled, but when he looked closer he noticed that the people were all suffering from a strange paralysis of the elbow. Try as they might, they just could not get the food to their mouths.

"So this is hell," the man thought. "To live in a bounteous universe, abundant with all that one could need or desire, but to starve in the midst of plenty, unable to feed oneself."

Turning away, the man asked to be transported to heaven. In heaven he saw the same large banquet hall, filled with the same long tables, laden with the same delectable food. Looking closer he noticed that the people were all suffering from the same paralysis of the elbow. "This is heaven," he cried, almost aloud. But upon even closer inspection he noticed one difference. He saw that between heaven and hell there was one small difference which made all the difference. What he saw was that in heaven they were feeding each other.

They were paralyzed just the same, but they were feeding each other. It was impossible to bring the food to their own mouths but it was possible to feed the other, and the other was feeding them.

This is the only difference, but the difference is inside -- compassion has arisen. Unless you are a bodhisattva, wherever you are you will be in hell. When passion is transformed into compassion....

Then, wherever you are, you are in heaven. That is the only paradise there is.

Enough for today.

The Diamond Sutra

Chapter #7

Chapter title: A Dweller in Peace

27 December 1977 am in Buddha Hall

Archive code: 7712270

ShortTitle: DIAMON07

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 75 mins

VAJRACHCHEDIKA

PRAJNAPARAMITA

SUTRA

OF

GAUTAMA

THE

BUDDHA

THE LORD THEN SAID:

'YES, SUBHUTI, FOR THE TATHAGATA HAS TAUGHT

THAT THE DHAMMAS SPECIAL TO THE BUDDHAS

ARE JUST NOT A BUDDHA'S SPECIAL DHAMMAS.

THAT IS WHY THEY ARE CALLED

"THE DHAMMAS SPECIAL TO THE BUDDHAS".'

THE LORD ASKED:

'WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI,

DOES IT OCCUR TO THE STREAMWINNER,

"BY ME HAS THE FRUIT OF A STREAMWINNER

BEEN ATTAINED"?

SUBHUTI REPLIED: 'NO INDEED, O LORD.

AND WHY?

BECAUSE, O LORD, HE HAS NOT WON ANY DHAMMA.

THEREFORE IS HE CALLED A STREAMWINNER.

NO SIGHT-OBJECT HAS BEEN WON,

NO SOUNDS, SMELLS, TASTES, TOUCHABLES,

OR OBJECTS OF MIND.

THAT IS WHY HE IS CALLED A "STREAMWINNER".

IF, O LORD, IT WOULD OCCUR TO A STREAMWINNER,

"BY ME HAS A STREAMWINNER'S FRUIT BEEN ATTAINED,"

THEN THAT WOULD BE IN HIM A SEIZING ON A SELF,

SEIZING ON A BEING,

SEIZING ON A SOUL,

SEIZING ON A PERSON.'

THE LORD ASKED:

'WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI,

DOES IT THEN OCCUR TO THE ARHAT,

"BY ME HAS ARHATSHIP BEEN ATTAINED"?'

SUBHUTI: 'NO INDEED, O LORD.

AND WHY?

BECAUSE NO DHAMMA IS CALLED "ARHAT".

THAT IS WHY HE IS CALLED AN ARHAT.

AND WHY?

I AM, O LORD, THE ONE WHOM THE TATHAGATA

HAS POINTED OUT AS THE FOREMOST OF THOSE

WHO DWELL IN PEACE.

I AM O LORD, AN ARHAT FREE FROM GREED.

AND YET, O LORD, IT DOES NOT OCCUR TO ME,

"AN ARHAT AM I AND FREE FROM GREED."

IF, O LORD, IT COULD OCCUR TO ME

THAT I HAVE ATTAINED ARHATSHIP,

THEN THE TATHAGATA WOULD NOT HAVE DECLARED OF ME

THAT "SUBHUTI, THIS SON OF GOOD FAMILY,

WHO IS THE FOREMOST OF THOSE

WHO DWELL IN PEACE,

DOES NOT DWELL ANYWHERE;

THAT IS WHY HE IS CALLED

A DWELLER IN PEACE, A DWELLER IN PEACE".'

A Dweller in Peace

The Diamond Sutra will appear to most of you as absurd, as mad. It is irrational but not anti-rational. It is something beyond the reason, that's why it is so difficult to express it in words.

Once a whisky-drinking, chainsmoking and popcorn-munching American priest was staying with me. Roaming in my library, accidentally he found The Diamond Sutra. For just ten to fifteen minutes he looked into it here and there, then he came to me and said, "This man Buddha must have been mad. And not only was he mad, he had mad followers too.'

I can understand his statement. Buddha will look mad to you too, because he is trying to say that which cannot be said. He is trying to catch hold of something which is essentially elusive. Hence all these strange sayings -- they ARE strange. They are strange because the way they are put, the way they are expressed, is not logical. It does not make any sense, not at least on the surface.

And if you have not felt something of the beyond, it is very difficult for you to understand what Buddha is trying to do. We can understand only that which we have experienced, if not in toto then at least in part. Otherwise our understanding remains rooted in our experience.

It happened:

Charlie had been to school that morning for the first time. When he came home his mother said, "Well, Charlie, how do you like school?"

"I like it well enough, but I have not got my present yet."

"Your present?" queried the mother. "What do you mean?"

"Teacher said, when she saw me, 'You may sit here for the present, little man.' I sat there all morning and didn't get a thing!"

Now, a small child's understanding is a small child's understanding. And that's how you are -- small children as far as Buddha is concerned, as far as his statements are concerned. His statements are of the ultimate experience. You will have to be very very patient, only then something will start dawning in your consciousness. They are of utter significance. Even if a single statement is understood, that will prove radical, that will change you from your very roots.

A father took his young son to an opera for the first time. The conductor started waving the baton and the soprano began her aria. The boy watched everything intently and finally asked, "Why is he hitting her with his stick?"

"He is not hitting her with the stick," the father explained.

"Then why is she screaming?"

In your mind many times these ideas will come: What is Buddha saying? It looks so utterly mad, it doesn't make sense. It is beyond sense. You will have to gather yourself together to climb to something higher than you. You will have to stretch your hands towards the beyond. Even if you can touch just a fragment of these sayings, your life will not be the same again.

But it is difficult. We live rooted in the earth. We are like trees rooted in the earth. Buddha is a bird on his wings in the sky. Now these trees rooted in the earth are trying to understand the message of the bird who has no roots in the earth any more, who is flying in the sky, who knows the vastness, the infinity of the sky. He has a different understanding, a different vision. And the distance is immense.

Only very few can have a few glimpses of what Buddha is trying to do. Something of absolute value is being conveyed to you. If you cannot understand then remember that you cannot understand. Don't say, like that whisky-drinking, chainsmoking, popcorn-munching priest, that Buddha is mad. Don't say that, beware of that. It is easier to say that Buddha is mad. Then you are freed of the responsibility of understanding; then you can close The Diamond Sutra and forget all about it.

If you say, "It is beyond me," then there is challenge. When you say, "Maybe I am very childish, juvenile. I cannot understand, I have to grow into my understanding. How can Buddha be mad?" then there is a challenge and you start growing.

Always remember that: never decide about the other. Even if Buddha is mad, take it as a challenge. You will not lose anything. If he is mad, then too you would have gone beyond your boundaries just in the effort to understand him. If he is not mad then you have met with something precious, then you have stumbled upon a great treasure.

The sutras:

THE LORD THEN SAID:

'YES, SUBHUTI, FOR THE TATHAGATA HAS TAUGHT

THAT THE DHAMMAS SPECIAL TO THE BUDDHAS

ARE JUST NOT A BUDDHA'S SPECIAL DHAMMAS.

THAT IS WHY THEY ARE CALLED

"THE DHAMMAS SPECIAL TO THE BUDDHAS".'

Now look at the absurdity -- but it is significant, it is very meaningful. What are the Dhammas of the Buddhas, the special characteristics of a Buddha? His special characteristic is that he has no characteristics, that he is utterly ordinary, that if you come across him you will not recognize him.

He is not a performer, he is not a politician, he is not an actor. He has no ego to perform. He is not there to convince anybody about his importance. He is utterly absent. That is his presence. That's why these absurd statements.

His characteristic is that he lives as if he is dead; that he walks and yet nobody walks in him, that he talks yet nobody talks in him... there is utter silence, never broken.

Zen monks say Buddha never uttered a single word, and Buddha spoke for forty-five years continuously. If anybody can surpass him, that is me, nobody else can surpass him. And I say to you I have also not uttered a single word. Zen people are right. I agree with them with my own experience. I go on saying things to you and yet deep inside there is absolute silence, not disturbed by what I say. When I am speaking, the silence is there, not even a ripple arises in it.

I am here, in a way utterly present, in another way absolutely absent, because there is nothing arising in me which says 'I'. Not that I don't use the word; the word has to be used, it is utilitarian -- but it connotes to no reality. It is just a utility, a convenience, a strategy of language; it corresponds to no reality.

When I say 'I', I am simply using a word to indicate towards me, but if you look into me you will not find any 'I' there. I have not found. I have been looking and looking and looking. The more I have looked in, the more the 'I' has evaporated. The 'I' exists only when you don't look inwards. It can exist only when you don't look. The moment you look, the 'I' disappears.

It is just like when you bring light in a dark room, darkness disappears. Your look inwards is a light, a flame. You cannot find any darkness there -- and your 'I' is nothing but condensed darkness.

The basic characteristic of a Buddha, the Buddha Dhamma, his unique quality, is that he is not, that he has no attributes, that he is indefinable, that whatsoever definition you put upon him will be unjust because it will demark him, it will limit him, and he is not limited. He is pure void. He is a nobody.

Buddha is so ordinary that if you come across him you will not recognize him. You can recognize a king, you know the language how to recognize a king, and the king knows what language you recognize. He prepares for it, he rehearses for it. He is bent upon proving to you that he is special. Buddha has nothing like that. He is not trying to prove anything to anybody. He is not trying to be recognized by you. He has no need to be recognized. He has come home. He does not need your attention.

Remember, attention is a psychological need. It has to be understood. Why do people need so much attention? Why in the first place does everybody want people to pay attention to them? Why does everybody want to be special? Something is missing inside. You don't know who you are. You know yourself only by others' recognition. You don't have any direct approach into your being, you go via others.

If somebody says you are good, you feel you are good. If somebody says you are not good, you feel very very depressed -- so you are not good. If somebody says you are beautiful you are happy. If somebody says you are ugly you are unhappy. You don't know who you are. You simply live on opinions of others, you go on collecting opinions. You don't have any recognition -- direct, immediate -- of your being. That's why you gather a borrowed being. Hence the need for attention.

And when people are attentive to you, you feel as if you are being loved, because in love we pay attention to each other. When two persons are in deep love they forget the whole world. They become engaged into each other's being absolutely. They look into each other's eyes. For those moments all else disappears, exists not. In those pure moments they are not here. They live on a plenitude somewhere high in the sky, or in heaven, and they are absolutely pouring their attention into each other.

Love is attentive -- and everybody has missed love. Very rare people have attained to love, because love is God. Millions live without love because millions live without God. Love has been missed. How to substitute that gap? The easier substitute is to get people's attention. That will befool you, deceive you that they love you.

That's what happens to a political leader: he becomes the prime minister of the country or a president of the country and of course the whole country has to pay attention to him. He feels good. It is a vicarious way of feeling loved, and nobody loves him. Once he is out of the post, nobody is going to care where he is.

Who cares about Richard Nixon, whether he is alive or dead -- who bothers? You will know about him only when he dies. Then newspapers will have to say something about him. Then suddenly you will know, "So he was alive?" Who cares about a politician who is not in power? But when he is in power people pay attention. They pay attention to power, but the politician thinks the attention is being paid to him.

And the politician is one who is searching for love and has not been able to love and has not been able to be loved. The search is for love; it has taken a very very subtle change and turn. Now it has become a search for attention. He wants to see his picture every day in the newspaper. If one day his picture is not there in the newspaper he feels neglected.

He is fulfilling his love-desire, but it cannot be fulfilled that way. Love, whenever it happens, brings attention with it like a shadow, but attention does not bring love. Attention can come in a thousand ways. You can create some mischief and people will pay attention to you. The need of the politician and the criminal is the same.

The criminal also wants the same thing -- attention. He murders and then his picture is in the newspapers, his name is on the radio, he is on the TV. He feels good. Now everybody knows who he is, now everybody is thinking about him -- that he has become a name in the world. The famous and the notorious both seek the same thing.

Buddha is absolute love. He has loved existence, existence has loved him. That's what samadhi is, when you are in an orgasmic relationship with the total. He has known the total orgasm -- the orgasm which is not of the body and not of the mind either, but of totality, not partial. He has come to know that ecstasy. Now there is no need to ask for any attention from anybody.

He will pass you on the road and you will not be able to recognize him because you recognize only politicians, criminals and people like that. You can recognize a madman on the road because he will be creating mischief, but you will not recognize a Buddha. Buddha will pass so silently, without a whisper.

That is his chief characteristic, to be as if he is not. But if that is the chief characteristic -- to be as if one is not -- then he has no characteristics.

That's what Buddha means when he says:

'YES, SUBHUTI, FOR THE TATHAGATA HAS TAUGHT

THAT THE DHAMMAS SPECIAL TO THE BUDDHAS

ARE JUST NOT A BUDDHA'S SPECIAL DHAMMAS.

THAT IS WHY THEY ARE CALLED

"THE DHAMMAS SPECIAL TO THE BUDDHAS".'

The extraordinariness of a Buddha is his utter ordinariness. His ordinariness is his extraordinariness. To be ordinary is the most extraordinary thing in the world.

Just the other night I came across a very beautiful story about Saint Francis, a Buddha.

Saint Francis of Assisi lay on his deathbed. He was singing, and singing so loudly that the whole neighborhood was aware. Brother Elias, a pompous but prominent member of the Franciscan order, came close to Saint Francis and said, 'Father, there are people standing in the street outside your window.' Many had come. Fearing that the last moment of Francis' life had come, many who loved him had gathered together around the house.

Said this brother Elias, "I am afraid nothing we might do could prevent them from hearing you singing. The lack of restraint at so grave an hour might embarrass the order, Father. It might lower the esteem in which you yourself are so justly held. Perhaps in your extremity you have lost sight of your obligation to the many who have come to regard you as a saint. Would it not be more edifying for them if you would, er, die with more Christian dignity?"

"Please excuse me, Brother," Saint Francis said, "but I feel so much joy in my heart that I really can't help myself. I must sing!"

And he died singing. In the whole Christian history, he's the only one who has died singing. Many Zen people have died singing, but they don't belong to Christianity. He is the only Zen master amongst Christian saints. He didn't care a bit about Christian dignity.

Now what happened? This brother Elias wants to prove to people that Saint Francis is a saint. Now he is afraid that people will not think that he is a saint; they may think he is mad or something. A saint has to be sad by the very definition. Christians believe only in sad saints. They cannot believe that Jesus ever laughed. That is below Christian dignity. Laughter? -- so human, so ordinary? They know only one thing, to put Jesus there high above humanity -- but then all that is human has to be taken out of him. Then he becomes just a dead, bloodless thing.

This brother Elias is worried. This is the last moment, Francis is dying, and he will leave a bad name behind him. People will think either he was not a saint or he was mad. He is worried because he wants to prove. In fact he is not worried about Saint Francis, he is worried about himself and the order: "It will be very embarrassing for us later on. How are we going to answer these people? What happened in the last moments?" He is worried about himself. If the master is mad then what about the disciple? He is a disciple.

But see two different planes, two different dimensions together. Elias is concerned with public opinion. He wants to prove his master to be the greatest master, to be the greatest of saints, and he knows only one way to prove it -- that he should be serious, that he should take life seriously, that he should not laugh and should not sing, should not dance. They are too human, they are too ordinary. Ordinary mortals can be forgiven, but not a man of the stature of Saint Francis.

But Saint Francis has a different vision -- he is just ordinary. He says, "Please excuse me, Brother, but I feel so much joy in my heart that I really can't help myself. I must sing!" In fact, it is not that Francis is singing, Francis has become the song. That's why he cannot help, he cannot control. There is nobody left to control it.

If the song is happening it is happening. It is not within control, it can't be, because the controller has disappeared. The self, the ego, no more exists. Saint Francis does not exist as an individual. There is absolute silence inside. Out of that silence this song is born. What can Francis do? That's why he says, "I can't help it. I must sing!"

And he died singing. And there can be no other better death. If you can die singing, that proves that you lived singing, that your life was a joy and death became the crescendo of it, the culmination.

Saint Francis is a Buddha. The characteristic of a Buddha is that he is ordinary, that he has no ideas about himself of how he should be, that he simply is spontaneous, that whatsoever happens, happens. He lives on the spur of the moment, that is his authenticity.

You can call it his characteristic, but what kind of characteristic is this? It is simply that he has no character, he has no strait-jacket of a character around himself, he has no armor, he does not live from the past, that he does not know what Christian dignity is. He lives in the moment like a child.

'YES, SUBHUTI, FOR THE TATHAGATA HAS TAUGHT

THAT THE DHAMMAS SPECIAL TO THE BUDDHAS

ARE JUST NOT A BUDDHA'S SPECIAL DHAMMAS.

THAT IS WHY THEY ARE CALLED

"THE DHAMMAS SPECIAL TO THE BUDDHAS".'

Ordinariness is his extraordinariness, nobodiness is his somebodiness, absence is his presence, death is his life.

THE LORD ASKED:

'WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI,

DOES IT OCCUR TO THE STREAMWINNER,

"BY ME HAS THE FRUIT OF A STREAMWINNER

BEEN ATTAINED"?

SUBHUTI REPLIED: 'NO INDEED, O LORD.

AND WHY?

BECAUSE, O LORD, HE HAS NOT WON ANY DHAMMA.

THEREFORE IS HE CALLED A STREAMWINNER.

NO SIGHT-OBJECT HAS BEEN WON,

NO SOUNDS, SMELLS, TASTES, TOUCHABLES,

OR OBJECTS OF MIND.

THAT IS WHY HE IS CALLED A STREAMWINNER.

IF, O LORD, IT WOULD OCCUR TO A STREAMWINNER,

"BY ME HAS A STREAMWINNER'S FRUIT BEEN ATTAINED,"

THEN THAT WOULD BE IN HIM A SEIZING ON A SELF,

SEIZING ON A BEING,

SEIZING ON A SOUL,

SEIZING ON A PERSON.'

Buddha had talked about four stages of the seeker. The first he calls the streamwinner. Streamwinner means one who has entered into the buddhafield, one who has become an initiate, one who has become a sannyasin.

Why is he called the streamwinner? -- because he is no more standing on the shore, he is no more static, he has started moving with the stream of life. He is no more fighting with the river. That ego that used to fight with the river and that ego that used to go upstream is no longer there.

Now again you will feel it is absurd. The stream has won, that's why he is called a streamwinner. He has dropped all conflict. He has surrendered, that's why he has become victorious, that's why he is called a streamwinner. Strange words.

First he was trying to win the stream. That's what all are doing in the world -- trying to have a life according to their own desires and plans and projections, trying to impose a pattern of their own making, of their own dreams, of their own desires, upon life Everybody is trying to go upstream, everybody is trying to fight with life, with nature, with God. The ordinary human life is the life of conflict.

But with whom are you fighting? You are fighting with your own source. With whom are you fighting? With yourself. And the fight is going to lead you into deeper and deeper frustrations because you cannot win, that is not the way to win. You will be defeated, because you are only a small part and the existence is vast, is enormous. You cannot win against it. You can win only with it.

You cannot win against it, you can win only through it. If it supports you, you can win. If it doesn't support you, you can go on believing but you will be defeated. It is only a question of time. Sooner or later you will be tired, frustrated, exhausted by the fight, and then you will drop -- but then you drop in defeat. And then in that defeat there is no joy. How can there be joy in defeat? The people of understanding know that before defeat comes, if you can surrender there will be joy.

Surrender and defeat are so different and so alike. The defeated also seems to be surrendered, and the surrendered seems to be defeated but that is just apparent, only on the surface. Deep down they are worlds apart. The defeated is feeling angry, in rage, in frustration, he is in hell. The surrendered, the one who has surrendered, has no misery. He is elated, he is ecstatic. He has understood that the whole fight was meaningless, that the whole fight was destined to fail, doomed to fail.

It is as if my left hand starts fighting with my right hand. It is as if my fingers start fighting with my body. How can they win? It is foredoomed. The man of understanding surrenders. He says, "Let God be. Let thy will be done. Let thy kingdom come." He says, "I am no more. Flow through me. Let me be just a hollow bamboo, a reed flute. Sing through me if you wish so. If you don't wish so, let silence pass through me." He becomes just a passage. He starts moving with the stream. He says, "Let life's stream take possession of me. I will not fight. I will not even swim. I will float, I will go with the wind."

To enter into such an understanding with life is called 'becoming a Streamwinner'. But it is a strange word. surrender is called winning -- because fighting leads to failure and defeat. Surrender leads to conquest, to victory.

This life is paradoxical. What can Buddha do? Life is paradoxical. Those who have surrendered prove themselves to be the winners and those who go on fighting, one day find they have lost all their energy in fight and there is no sign of any victory anywhere.

Remember, Alexander has failed, not Francis. Napoleon has failed, not Jesus. Genghis Khan and Tamurlane have failed, not Buddha. The real history should not be bothered with failures -- Genghis Khan, Tamurlane, Alexander. The real history should think more of Buddha, Jesus, Francis -- the real people who have won. But their winning came out of their surrender.

Just think of it, just think of the beauty and benediction of it, when you are not fighting, when you are just going down the river with it. It takes you to the ocean, it is going to the ocean. You are unnecessarily making much fuss. It is going already. You simply go with it and you will reach to the ocean, to the ultimate, to the infinite. This utter surrender to existence Buddha calls the fruit of the streamwinner.

The second stage is called once-returner and the third, never-returner and the fourth, arhat. The streamwinner forsakes three fetters. The first is ego, individuality, the idea of a separate self. Naturally that is the whole root cause of fighting.

Second, living by mere rule and ritual. There are so many religious people but they live only by rule and ritual. They know nothing of religion. Ritual is not religion, rule is not religion. Religion is a totally different kind of life -- a life of awareness, life of love, life of compassion. But if you look around the world you will see millions of people going to the churches, temples, mosques, gurudwaras, praying, doing this and that, and it is all ritual, and religion is nonexistential.

I have heard an ancient Indian story:

A man was doing the traditional SHRADDH ceremony to honor his just-departed father.

Shraddh is a ceremony that when somebody's father dies you pray for his journey, you pray for him.

During the ceremony the family dog wandered into the prayer room. Afraid of defiling the occasion the man hastily got up and tied his dog to a post outside on the verandah.

Years later, when he died, his son performed the shraddh ceremony in his turn. Anxious to follow it in every detail he had to catch hold of a dog from the neighborhood, because he remembered that it must be very important. "My father had got up in the middle of his prayers to do it, and when he had tied the dog to the post then he was so happy and he went again and prayed." And he was not going to miss anything, the ceremony had to be perfect.

By this time it happened that the family had no dog so he had to run in the neighborhood to find a stray dog. He caught hold of one, tied it carefully to a post on the verandah, then finished the ceremony with a satisfied conscience. In that family, down the centuries, the rule is still followed. In fact, the sacred dog ritual has become the most important item in the ceremony.

That's how things move. People live in unconsciousness. Your fathers were doing something, their fathers and their fathers were doing something. It takes on an aura of sacredness. You just go on repeating it, you don't care what the meaning of it is.

Jesus called God 'my Father -- Abba.' You go on calling him father but it is meaningless. You don't have that heart, the ritual is just superficial. You don't have that heart that can call God Abba. The word abba is not meaningful, but the feeling in the heart. If that feeling is there, there is no need even to say that word, feeling will do. But if the feeling is not there then it is a dead ritual.

I have heard:

After the four-year-old girl was tucked in bed, she folded her hands and started praying. By mistake she started saying her table-prayers. Realizing what she had done, she looked upward with a big smile and said, "Erase that, Jesus." Then she proceeded with her bedtime prayer.

Rituals are like that. They don't grow in you, they are just imposed from the outside. You go on repeating, they become mechanical.

Buddha says that a few things have to be dropped by the streamwinner. One is ego, the second is living by mere rule and ritual, and the third is doubt, perplexity.

A doubting mind cannot relax. A doubting mind cannot surrender. A doubting mind can never be total; a part goes on fighting, a part goes on saying no. A doubting mind cannot say an absolute yes, and that is the fundamental of becoming a streamwinner -- to say yes to life, to say yes unconditionally, to say yes simply, with your whole being. That is prayer enough. If you can simply sit silently and can say yes to existence, enough -- nothing more is needed, no ritual.

These three things have to be dropped by a streamwinner. Then the second stage is called once-returner. Once-returner means one who will die and come once more. He has to forsake greed, sensuality and ill-will. But he will come once more.

The third stage is called never-returner, one who will not come again. He has to forsake lust for life, lust for the other life, lust to be. And the fourth stage is called the state of arhat, one who is absent, nobody, nothingness. He has become a Buddha.

Buddha asked Subhuti about these four. He asks:

'DOES IT OCCUR TO THE STREAMWINNER

"BY ME HAS THE FRUIT OF A STREAMWINNER

BEEN ATTAINED"?'

A simple question, but very significant.

SUBHUTI REPLIED: 'NO INDEED O LORD. AND WHY?

BECAUSE O LORD, HE HAS NOT WON ANY DHAMMA.'

If you say, "I have surrendered," then you have not surrendered, because how can YOU surrender? You have to BE surrendered. The 'I' has to be surrendered. You cannot say, "I have surrendered." If it is something of your doing then it is not surrender.

People come to me and they ask, "How can we surrender to you?" And I say, "You cannot. You are the barrier in surrender. You just get out of the way and there is surrender."

Surrender is not something that has to be done or that can be done, it is not a doing. Surrender is an understanding. 'I' is always in a fighting mood. 'I' can never be without fight, it exists through fight, it survives through fight, it depends on fight. Either you will be fighting with others, or if you change that you will start fighting with yourself. That's what your monks go on doing in the monasteries. They don't fight in the world, they don't fight with anybody, they have renounced the world; now they start fighting with themselves.

The body says, "I am hungry," and they say, "No." Now this is fight. Now ego has arisen in a new way. The ego says, "Look, I control my body so beautifully. I am the master and the body is the slave." Your eyes are tired and they say, "We want to go to sleep," and you say, "No. I have decided to stay awake the whole night. This is my meditation. I am on a particular meditation, I cannot sleep." And you feel good. Now you are fighting.

Your body wants a little comfort and you sleep on the stones, your body wants a little shelter and you stand in the hot sun, your body wants a few clothes and you stand naked in the cold. These are ways of fighting. Now you don't have the world to fight with so you have divided yourself in two.

The ego lives through friction, any kind of friction will do. The husband fights with the wife, the wife fights with the husband. These are nothing but ways of feeding the ego. The more you fight, the more the ego becomes strong and the greatest strength the ego gets is from fighting with yourself, because that is the hardest fight.

To kill somebody else is one thing; to kill yourself slowly, continuously, for many years, is a difficult job, it is a slow suicide, and the ego feels very good. That's why the so-called religious monks have great egos; you will not find such great egos in the ordinary people in the marketplace. If you want really great egos, if you want to see how they are, go to the Himalayas and in the caves you will find them.

The man who has surrendered cannot claim that "I have surrendered," he can only say surrender has happened.

'NO, INDEED, O LORD. AND WHY?

BECAUSE, O LORD, HE HAS NOT WON ANY DHAMMA.

THEREFORE HE IS CALLED A STREAMWINNER.'

Because you have dropped the 'I', that's why you are called a surrenderer. You cannot claim that "I have surrendered." If you claim you have missed the whole point.

'NO SIGHT-OBJECT HAS BEEN WON, NO SOUNDS,

SMELLS, TASTES, TOUCHABLES, OR OBJECTS OF MIND.

THAT IS WHY HE IS CALLED A STREAMWINNER.'

He has not won anything like an object. In fact, rather than winning anything he has dropped the very idea of winning. That's why he is called a streamwinner. He has dropped the whole fight, the whole war, that he was doing for many many lives. He has dropped the whole project, he is no longer interested in it.

He cannot show you anything and say, "I have won this. See! This is my victory." He cannot show you his kingdom that he has won. He has not won anything visible. In fact, rather than winning anything visible he has dropped his ego. But in that losing of the ego is great victory. But that victory is such it cannot be claimed.

'IF O LORD,

IT WOULD OCCUR TO A STREAMWINNER,

"BY ME HAS A STREAMWINNER'S FRUIT

BEEN ATTAINED,"

THEN THAT WOULD BE IN HIM

A SEIZING ON A SELF

SEIZING ON A BEING,

SEIZING ON A SOUL,

SEIZING ON A PERSON.

The moment you think, "I have won, I have surrendered," again you have created a new 'I', again a self has arisen, again you have started seeing in the ways of the ego. Again you have perceived the self.

The English word perception is beautiful. It comes from PER-CAP and CAPIO, meaning to take hold of, to seize, to grasp, to capture. The moment you perceive that you are there in any way, you have captured again the ego and the ego has captured you. Again you are back into the old rut. The whole point is lost, you are no more a streamwinner.

This way Buddha asks about once-returner and never-returner, but because it is the same I have dropped it, I have not taken it into the sutra. Finally:

THE LORD ASKED:

'WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI,

DOES IT THEN OCCUR TO THE ARHAT,

"BY ME HAS ARHATSHIP BEEN ATTAINED"?'

SUBHUTI: 'NO INDEED, O LORD.

AND WHY?

BECAUSE NO DHAMMA IS CALLED "ARHAT".

THAT IS WHY HE IS CALLED AN ARHAT.

AND WHY?

I AM, O LORD, THE ONE WHOM THE TATHAGATA

HAS POINTED OUT AS THE FOREMOST OF THOSE

WHO DWELL IN PEACE.

I AM O LORD, AN ARHAT FREE FROM GREED.

AND YET, O LORD, IT DOES NOT OCCUR TO ME,

"AN ARHAT AM I AND FREE FROM GREED".

IF, O LORD, IT COULD OCCUR TO ME

THAT I HAVE ATTAINED ARHATSHIP,

THEN THE TATHAGATA WOULD NOT HAVE DECLARED OF ME

THAT "SUBHUTI, THIS SON OF GOOD FAMILY,

WHO IS THE FOREMOST OF THOSE

WHO DWELL IN PEACE,

DOES NOT DWELL ANYWHERE;

THAT IS WHY HE IS CALLED

A DWELLER IN PEACE, A DWELLER IN PEACE".'

Simple once you get the idea. The idea is that when you start moving into the world of truth, you cannot be a claimer. Your claim will be a disclaim.

Once a man came to Buddha and asked, "Have you attained?" and Buddha said, "I cannot claim because I have attained."

Just see the beauty of it. He says, "I cannot claim BECAUSE I HAVE attained. If I claim, that will be a sure sign that I have not attained." But see the difficulty too. If Buddha says, "I have not attained," then he is saying a lie. If he says, "I have attained," that is not possible because there is no 'I' in that attainment. That attainment is such that it happens only when the 'I' has gone. You see the difficulty, how language becomes impotent.

BUDDHA ASKED:

'WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI,

DOES IT THEN OCCUR TO THE ARHAT,

"BY ME HAS ARHATSHIP BEEN ATTAINED"?'

Now arhatship is not a state. It is not something like an object. You cannot catch hold of it, you cannot possess it, you cannot hoard it. It is a freedom, not a thing to be possessed. It is a freedom. You simply go on dropping your chains. One day all chains have disappeared -- even the last chain of the idea of 'I' has disappeared. Then there is nobody present. That consciousness is called arhat.

Buddha asks, "Does it occur to the arhat 'I have attained arhatship'?"

'THAT IS WHY HE IS CALLED ARHAT.

AND WHY? I AM, O LORD,

THE ONE WHOM THE TATHAGATA HAS POINTED OUT

AS THE FOREMOST OF THOSE

WHO DWELL IN PEACE.'

Now Subhuti takes himself as an example. He says "You have declared of me that I have attained. You have declared of me that I have become an arhat. You have declared that I dwell in peace." This is a special way of Buddha of saying that there is nobody inside -- dwelling in peace.

Dwelling in peace means there is nobody, because if there is somebody, peace is not possible. If there is somebody some turmoil will continue. The house is silent only when there is nobody in the house. Even if somebody is there a little bit, turmoil will continue. Even if one person is there he will put things from here to there, he will do something. Even if he is fast asleep he will snore. Something is bound to happen. When there is nobody at all then there is peace.

Buddha calls the state of arhathood when there is absolute peace, so much that there is not anybody to be found there. When Buddha used to say, "Now Subhuti, you dwell in peace," he is saying, "Now Subhuti, you are no more." It is the same.

Subhuti says, "You have declared that Subhuti dwells in peace, you have declared that Subhuti has become an arhat, and you must be true, Lord. How can you be untrue? But I cannot say, it does not occur to me, 'An arhat am I and free from greed.' If it occurs to me, then you are wrong.

"If it occurs to me that I am an arhat, then ego has arisen, then a self is seized, then again I am caught in the old trap. If it arises in me that I dwell in peace then the peace is lost because the 'I' has come back, the dweller is back." Then you cannot dwell in peace, then something is bound to happen -- some misery, some dream, some desire, and the world, the whole world starts.

The ego is the seed of the world. The small seed contains the whole world. Just feel "I am" and the whole world comes following immediately.

SUBHUTI SAYS: 'IT DOES NOT OCCUR TO ME,

"AN ARHAT AM I AND FREE FROM GREED."

IF, O LORD, IT COULD OCCUR TO ME

THAT I HAVE ATTAINED ARHATSHIP,

THEN THE TATHAGATA WOULD NOT HAVE DECLARED OF ME

THAT "SUBHUTI, THIS SON OF GOOD FAMILY,

WHO IS THE FOREMOST OF THOSE

WHO DWELL IN PEACE,

DOES NOT DWELL ANYWHERE;

THAT IS WHY HE IS CALLED

A DWELLER IN PEACE, A DWELLER IN PEACE".'

When one has disappeared, when the dweller is no more, then the peace is attained.

Nothingness is the taste of Buddha's message. One has to come to that point when one is not, when only absence prevails, but then nobody can claim, then nobody can come and say and brag about it.

To understand Buddha you will need a few glimpses of nonbeing. Just linguistically you can understand what he is saying, but that won't help much, that won't take you far into it You will have to have a few glimpses of it -- and they are possible.

Sometimes just sitting silently, doing nothing, keep quiet; not even a mantra to disturb you, not even the name of God, not even a special yoga posture to sit in, not even to contemplate, not even to meditate -- just sitting silently in your room or by the side of a tree or by the side of the river, lying in the grass, looking at the stars or with closed eyes. Just being there, just a pool of energy going nowhere -- and glimpses will start coming to you. For a moment you will feel you are and you are not.

You are, utterly you are, and still you are not. You are not and for the first time you are. Then you will see why Buddha is so paradoxical. You are only when you are not. When all is absent there is great presence. When the ego has completely disappeared, you are the whole, you are the all. You disappear as the drop and you become the ocean. On one side you have disappeared and on another side you have appeared and for the first time.

Enlightenment is a death and a resurrection. And they both happen together, simultaneously. Here happens death and immediately it is followed by resurrection. But you will have to taste, you will have to savor it. These words are not mere words, these are not just doctrines and philosophies; they are existential experiences.

I understand your difficulty. Many questions have come to me that "When you talk on Sufis our hearts dance, but this Diamond Sutra and our hearts are not dancing." This is higher, this is more rarified.

Sufis you can understand, they are close to you. They talk about love. At least you have heard about the word love, you have some ideas what love is. You may not understand the Sufis' love, what they mean, but at least you know something about love, you know at least what you mean, and when hearing about love your heart starts melting. But these words of Buddha are far superior.

But it is not so with everybody. A few questions have come to me that they are thrilled. It depends. You can ask Prasad, his heart is dancing so much with The Diamond Sutra that he is almost having a heart attack. Or you can ask Pradeepa.

Remember one thing: here I am speaking for so many people. They are different, their approaches are different. Sometimes it will fit with you, sometimes it may not fit with you. When it doesn't fit you have to keep patience, because when it fits with you it will not fit with somebody else. He has to keep patience. I am speaking for many people -- and not only am I speaking with you and for you, I am speaking for millions who are not here, to whom these words will reach.

Sometimes if you feel the thing is too difficult for you or unapproachable for you, be patient. Listen. Maybe your heart is not dancing, maybe it is higher or deeper than the heart. There are things of the head, there are things of the heart, and there are things which are beyond. This is of the beyond. And the beyond is very difficult. You know something of the head, you know something of the heart but you know nothing of the beyond.

But these words are rare. This Diamond Sutra is a diamond, the most valuable diamond that exists in the world literature. Nobody has spoken like that, nobody has taken such flights. But if you feel that you cannot fly so high, don't close yourself. Make efforts. Even if you can go a little further than you can go right now, even if you can take a few steps towards the unknown, that will be enriching to you.

Enough for today.

The Diamond Sutra

Chapter #8

Chapter title: Already Home

28 December 1977 am in Buddha Hall

Archive code: 7712280

ShortTitle: DIAMON08

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 82 mins

The first question:

BELOVED OSHO,

Question 1

WHY HAVE ALL THE GREAT MASTERS COME FROM THE EAST?

Because humanity has yet not been total. The East is introvert, the West is extrovert. Man is split, mind is schizophrenic. That's why all the great masters have come from the East and all the great scientists have come from the West. The West has developed science and has completely forgotten about the inner soul; is concerned with matter, but has become oblivious of the inner subjectivity. The whole focus is on the object. Hence all the great scientists are born in the West.

The East has become too much concerned with the inner soul and has forgotten objectivity, matter, the world. Great religious masters developed out of this, but this is not a good situation, this should not be so. Man should become one. Man should not be allowed to be lopsided anymore. Man should be a fluidity, neither extrovert nor introvert. Man should be capable of being both together. The inner and the outer, if balanced, give the greatest ecstatic experience.

The person who is neither leaning towards the inner too much nor towards the outer too much is the person of equilibrium. He will be a scientist and a mystic together. That is something that will happen, that is something that is going to happen. We are preparing the field for it. I would like to see a man who is neither Eastern nor Western, because to be Eastern as against Western is ugly. To be Western as against Eastern is again ugly. The whole earth belongs to us and we belong to the whole earth. A man should be just man, a man should be just human -- total, whole. And out of that wholeness will arise a new kind of health.

The East has suffered, the West has suffered. The East has suffered; you can see it all around -- the poverty, the starvation. The West has suffered, you can see inside the Western mind -- tension, anxiety, anguish. The West is very poor inwardly, the East is very poor outwardly. Poverty is bad. Whether it is inner or outer makes no difference, poverty should not be allowed. Man should be rich, inner, outer, both. Man should have all-dimensional richness.

Just think of a man who is an Albert Einstein and a Gautam Buddha both. Just meditate on that possibility -- that IS possible. In fact if Albert Einstein had lived a little longer, he would have turned into a mystic. He had started thinking about the inner, he was becoming interested in the inner mystery. How long can you remain interested in the outer mystery? If you are really interested in mystery then sooner or later you will stumble upon the inner too.

My concept is of a world which is neither Eastern nor Western, neither inner nor outer, neither extrovert nor introvert -- which is balanced, which is whole.

But this has not been the case in the past. That's why your question is relevant. You ask: "Why have all the great masters come from the East?" Because the East has been obsessed with the inner as against the outer. Naturally, when down the centuries you have been obsessed with the inner, you will create a Buddha, a Nagarjuna, a Shankara, a Kabir. It is natural.

If you are obsessed with the outer as against the inner, you will create an Albert Einstein, an Eddington, an Edison, that's natural. But this is not good for the totality of human beings. Something is missing. The man who has inner growth and has not grown outwardly remains juvenile in the outside, remains stupid outside. And the same is the case with the man who has grown much, who has become mature, very mature, as far as mathematics goes and physics goes and chemistry goes, but who inside has not been even born yet, who is still in the womb.

This is my message to you: drop these hemispheres -- East and West -- and drop these hemispheres of inner and outer. Become fluid. Let movement, flow, be your very life. Remain available to the outer and to the inner both.

That's why I teach love and meditation. Love is the passage to go out, meditation is the passage to go in. And a man who is in love AND meditative is beyond schizophrenia, is beyond all kinds of split. He has become one, he is integrated. In fact, he has soul.

The second question:

BELOVED OSHO,

Question 2

DON'T YOU GET BORED, BORED AND FED UP, DAY AFTER DAY ANSWERING THE SAME QUESTIONS, WHILE WE SIT THERE WITH EARS BLOCKED, EYES TIGHT, MOUTH SEALED, NEVER EVER GETTING THE MESSAGE -- THAT THERE ARE NO ANSWERS? YOU CONTINUALLY ASTOUND ME IN YOUR DEWDROP FRESHNESS IN THE EARLY MORNING LIGHT, AND STILL I AM BLIND, DEAF AND LAME, CUT OFF FROM SHARING IN YOUR RADIANCE EXCEPT FOR BRIEF MOMENTS.

The first thing: I am not, so I cannot be bored and fed up. First you have to be to be bored. The more you are the more you will feel bored. The less you are the less bored. That's why children are less bored than old people. Have you not observed it? Children are almost not bored. They go on playing with the same toys, they go on running after the same butterflies, they go on collecting the same seashells. They are not bored.

Have you ever told a story to a child? After listening to it he says, "Tell it again... and again." And whenever you will meet him again he will say, "Tell me that story. I loved it." Why is a child not bored? -- because he is not. Or he is in a very rudimentary way; the ego has not evolved yet. The ego is the factor that creates boredom.

Animals are not bored, trees are not bored, and what novelty is there in the life of animals and trees? The rosebush goes on producing the same roses year in, year out, and the bird goes on singing the same song every morning and every evening. The cuckoo knows not many notes, just a single note. It goes on repeating it; it is monotonous. But not a single animal is bored, not a single tree is bored. Nature knows nothing of boredom. Why? -- because nature has no ego yet.

A Buddha is not bored, a Jesus is not bored, because they have dropped the ego again. Nature has not evolved it yet, Buddha has dropped it. Buddha and nature are almost the same. I say almost because there is only one difference -- of great significance, but only one difference. The difference is that of awareness. Nature is without ego but unaware, Buddha is without ego but aware.

Once you know you are not there, who is going to be bored? who is going to be fed up? That's why I can come every morning and go on answering your questions. I am not bored. I cannot be bored. For almost twenty-five years I have not tasted boredom. I have started forgetting the very taste of it, how it feels.

The second thing: the questions are not the same. They cannot be -- they come from different people, how can they be the same questions? Yes, sometimes the words may be the same, but the questions are not the same. Two persons are so different from each other -- how can they ask the same question? Even if the words are the same, even if the construction of the question is the same, yet I would like you to be reminded -- they can't be the same.

Now this question is asked by Anand Shaila; nobody else can ask it. Nobody else upon this big earth can ask it. To ask this question a Shaila will be needed. And Shaila is only one; there are not many Shailas.

So remember, each individual has such uniqueness. To call those questions the same is disrespectful. I respect your questions. They are not the same. They have nuances of their own, colors of their own, but you need very penetrating eyes to see the difference, otherwise you may not be able to see.

When you look around and you see all the trees are green, do you think it is the same green? Then you don't know how to look at color. Then bring a painter, then ask the painter and he will say, "They are all different greens. There are thousands of types of greens -- different shades, different nuances. No two trees are the same green." Just look around and you will see -- yes, each green is a different green.

So are questions. And even if the same person asks the question again and again, then too it cannot be the same, because you go on changing. Nothing is static. You cannot step in the same river twice, and you cannot meet the same person again. Shaila cannot ask this question tomorrow, because there will be no more the same person tomorrow. The Ganges will have flowed, much water will have gone down. This moment it is relevant, tomorrow it may not be relevant, something else may surface in the consciousness.

No two persons can ask the same question, and not even the same person can ask the same question again, because the person goes on changing. A person is like a flame, constantly changing. But again you have to look very deep. I have never come across the same questions. I am always thrilled by your questions. I always wonder how you manage to ask.

"Don't you get bored, bored and fed up, day after day answering the same questions while we sit here with ears blocked, eyes tight, mouths sealed, never ever getting the message that there are no answers?"

Just because you sit there "ears blocked, eyes tight, mouth sealed, never ever getting the message," it becomes a challenge to me. It is a great adventure. You persist, I also persist. The question is: Who is going to win? Whether you will remain always closed or some day you will take pity on me and you will listen... open your ears, your heart, a little bit? It is a struggle. It is wrestling that goes on between the master and the disciple -- a constant fight.

And the disciple cannot win. It has never been heard that he can win. He can postpone, he can delay, but he cannot win. And the more you delay the more your defeat becomes certain. I am encroaching on your being in different ways. You just go on sitting there with your closed ears and closed eyes and closed heart -- you just remain there, that's all. You just be here. Sooner or later, one day, you will have heard the message.

How long can you go on remaining closed? They say if a man persists in his folly he becomes wise. You persist. Some day, in spite of you, you will have heard. That's why I go on speaking every morning, every evening, year in, year out.

And you say, "... never ever getting the message -- that there are no answers." You will get that message only when there are no questions in your mind, never before that. How can you get the message that there are no answers if you have questions yet? The very question presupposes an answer. The question is the search for the answer. The question has taken it for granted that the answer exists, otherwise how will the question exist? The question cannot exist on its own, it depends on the answer or at least on the possibility of the answer.

The day you realize that there are no longer any questions in you, only that day will the message be heard that there are no answers. And that day you will see that neither you have asked nor I have answered. There has been utter silence. All that questioning and answering has been like a dream.

But because you question, I have to answer. That is the only way to help you to get rid of your questions. Remember, my answers are not answers but only devices. My answers are not answering your questions, because I know perfectly well that there are no questions. All questions are false. You have dreamed about them. But when you ask, I respect you. I answer. My answer is just a respect to you, and my answer is a device. It will help you to see that the question by and by disappears.

One day suddenly you will be awake with no questions. That day you will see that I have not answered a single thing. Nothing can be answered because there is not a single question in existence. Existence exists without any questions. It is a mystery -- not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be loved, a mystery to be lived.

And Shaila says: "You continually astound me in Your dewdrop freshness in the early morning light and still I am blind, dead, lame, cut off from sharing in Your radiance except for brief moments."

Those brief moments will do. Those brief moments are the hope. In those brief moments I will enter in you. Those brief moments will become bigger and bigger slowly. One day you will find those brief moments have won over you. Even if for a single moment there is a contact between me and you, it is enough, it is more than enough. Even that small insight will become a fire in you. That small spark is going to burn your whole mind utterly, to the very roots, root and all.

The third question:

Question 3

OSHO,

I DON'T ENJOY THESE BUDDHA SUTRAS. THEY ARE DRY, DIFFICULT AND COMPLICATED. IS NOT TRUTH SIMPLE?

Truth is simple and truth is difficult. In fact it is difficult because it is simple. It is so simple and your minds are so complicated that you cannot understand it, you go on missing it. It is so simple that it gives no challenge to you. It is so simple that you pass by the side of it remaining completely unaware that you have passed truth.

Truth is simple because truth is obvious. But simple does not mean easy. The simplicity is very complex. If you enter in it you will be lost, you may never be able to get out of it. That simplicity has depth in it, it is not shallow. And to attain to that simplicity you will have to lose many things -- and to lose those things is difficult.

For example, why do these Buddha sutras look difficult to you? -- because they are illogical. If you can lose your logic, they will be simple. The difficulty is coming from your mind, not from Buddha's sutras. He is a very simple man. He is simply stating a fact. But the problem arises from you, because you cannot accept that simple fact. You have your ideas. Those ideas interfere.

You say, "How can this be? If this man is right then my whole logic is wrong." And that you cannot accept -- your whole education, training, has been of logic. And he goes on stating illogical things. He is helpless. At that height, at that plenitude logic does not exist. What can he do? At that plenitude everything is paradoxical. At that plenitude, opposites meet, contradictories become complementaries. What can he do? He has to assert them. The problem is arising from you -- because you want those truths to be translated according to your logic.

Suppose a boy in a high school physics class were to object, "I don't approve of Albert Einstein's formula."

"No?" says the teacher. "Why not?"

"Well, firstly it is boring, and whenever you explain it I inevitably fall asleep. Secondly, it is unbalanced. Look at it! E = mc2. He has put one figure all by itself on one side of the equation, and three others all together on the other side. It is unartistic. Why didn't he move one of those figures to the left side to make the formula more symmetrical? That's why I hate it."

Now he is raising beautiful questions. It is not symmetrical, "What kind of equation is this? Both sides are not equal. It is unartistic Just by putting one figure on the other side, things would have been far better, more symmetrical."

The boy is completely unaware of what he is talking about, but whatsoever he is saying looks logical. But the Einsteinian formula is not there to entertain you. It is to express reality. If you are bored with it, that simply shows that you are very dull witted, that you cannot understand that penetrating insight. It is said that only twelve persons used to understand Einstein's theory of relativity. All around the earth, only twelve?

The truth is simple, but when you go into its details, when you start penetrating into its reality, it becomes difficult. For example, Saint Augustine is reported to have said, "Everybody knows what time is. I know what time is, but when somebody asks me 'What is time? Try to explain it to me,' then I am at a loss."

You know what time is, you live according to time. Six o'clock in the morning you get up, eleven o'clock in the night you go to bed, one o'clock you take your lunch. You go to the office, you come home. You use time, you know what time is, but can you explain it? The moment you try to explain, it becomes elusive. You have never seen it, you have never seen it in your hand. You cannot grasp it. What is it?

Augustine is right -- that the problem arises when you try to explain it. Light is so simple, it is all around, dancing on the trees, the whole sky is full of light. Try to explain it to a blind man and he will be bored and he will say, "Stop all this nonsense." First, you will find it very difficult to put it into words.

Or, drop the question of light. It is a scientific question, you may not be interested in it. You have loved, you know what love is. You must have loved -- at least you must have loved your mother, your father, your sister, some woman, your wife, your husband, your children. Can you explain what love is? Then you become dumb. Then suddenly you lose all intelligence -- as if somebody has simply struck you dead. You become paralyzed. What is love? Can you define it?

Love is everybody's experience, more or less, but nobody can define it. Nirvana is not everybody's experience -- once in a while nirvana happens -- and Buddha is trying to explain to you what nirvana is.

Truth is simple, but the moment you try to explain it, it becomes difficult.

But remember, you are not here only to be entertained. And I am not against entertainment either -- it is good in its own time. But something more than entertainment is needed, only that will become your enlightenment. Entertainment is a very lower need. Enlightenment is the highest need. If you simply go on from one entertainment to another you will remain shallow, you will never grow, you will remain immature. You have to sometimes go into the depths of life and love and light and God. Sometimes you have to fly into eternity to have a taste of it. Only that will make you mature.

I understand your difficulties. You say: "I don't enjoy these Buddha sutras." Then learn how to enjoy. Then learn how to enjoy higher things. There are higher things. If you want to enjoy classical Indian music you will have to learn. You cannot just go and enjoy it, it needs a certain preparation in you, it needs a certain receptivity in you. It is not vulgar. It needs a certain understanding in you... a deep understanding of sounds and silence -- because music consists of sound and silence. It is not only sound, it contains silence in it.

The music becomes higher and deeper when it contains more silence in it. When it provokes your silence, when it penetrates your heart and releases your inner silence, when listening to it your mind disappears, your thoughts stop.... But then you will have to learn, you will have to go through a certain discipline, you will have to become more meditative. One day you will be able to enjoy it. But if you want to enjoy it right now and you are not ready for it, don't blame it.

Don't say that Buddha's sutras are boring, just say that you are not capable yet of understanding that plenitude, that you are not capable of looking to that height, that you are not capable enough to climb the Everest of consciousness. Buddha is talking from the highest peak. You will have to move from your dark hole a little bit. You will have to climb the mountains, only then you will understand those sunlit sutras.

It is a difficulty because for that understanding we are not prepared at all, hence sometimes you may feel bored. But fight with boredom, destroy your boredom, pull yourself out of it. You have to go with the Buddha, you have to see what he has seen. Seeing it, you will be fulfilled.

The fourth question:

BELOVED OSHO,

Question 4

IS THE ONLY THING THAT KEEPS US FROM COMING HOME THE DOUBT THAT WE ARE NOT ALREADY HOME, WHICH IS REINFORCED BY EVERYONE AROUND US?

Yes, Shobha. The doubt is the only thing that prevents -- the doubt that we are not as we should be, the doubt that God cannot be within us. How can God be within us? -- because you have been taught God is there in the seventh heaven sitting on his golden throne, surrounded by his angels playing on their harps, singing hallelujah.

He is not here, he is far away. He is big, he is huge, he is eternal, he is this and he is that. How can he be in your heart? Such a tiny heart you have. And how can he be in your heart? -- you are so ugly and you are so horrible and you condemn yourself in a thousand and one ways continuously. How can he be there? If God is there in you, then where will the devil live? The doubt....

And when somebody says that God is within you, you cannot accept it. You have heard it many times, Jesus saying to people, "The kingdom of God is within you." But even Christians don't listen, even the followers. Even Jesus' intimate followers, immediate followers, go on asking about God who is in heaven and Jesus goes on saying, "He is within you," and they go on talking about the God who is in heaven, and they go on saying, "When we all will die, how will we live in paradise? Who will be at the right hand of God? What will be our position there? Who will be who? What will be the hierarchy?" And Jesus goes on saying, "He is within you," but nobody believes it, because you have not been taught to trust yourself.

From your very birth you have been distracted from your being. Everybody has condemned you -- your parents, your teachers, your priests, your politicians. Everybody has condemned you. Everybody has said, "You! You are not right as you are. You have to become right. You have to attain to some perfection."

Goals have been given to you, and because of those goals and those perfectionist ideals you remain condemned and crushed. How can you receive the message that God is within you, that you are already home, that you have never left it in the first place, that all is okay as it is? Just relax and it is yours. Not that you have to search and seek, but just relax into it and it is yours.

Doubt arises: "God within me? And my father was saying, 'You are the ugliest kid in the town.' And my mother was saying, 'Why didn't you die? You are a condemnation to the family, you are a blame to the family. We are sorry that we have given birth to you.'" And your teacher was saying that you are a fool, that you are stupid, that you are idiotic. And the priest was saying that you are bound for hell, that you are a sinner.

Just the other night I was reading about an Indian mystic who was invited into a Christian church. After the talk the Christian priest shouted loudly to the congregation: "All you sinners! Now kneel down and pray! Kneel down in prayer!"

They all knelt down except the mystic, the Hindu mystic. The priest looked at him, he said, "Aren't you going to participate with us in prayer?"

He said, "I was going to participate, but I am not a sinner. And I don't see that anybody else here is a sinner. I was going to participate in the prayer, but now you have made it impossible for me. I cannot kneel down. I am not a sinner. God is within me. I cannot be that disrespectful to God. I can pray only because God is within me. And I am not praying for anything -- my prayer is my thankfulness, my gratitude for all that he has already given to me. My thankfulness is that he has chosen me as his abode, that he has honored me, that I am part of him, that he belongs to me. I am ready to pray, I am ready to kneel down, but not as a sinner, because that is not true."

You have been taught that you are sinners, that unless Jesus saves you, you are bound to go to hell. You have been condemned so much that when this Eastern message bursts forth in your being you start doubting: "This is not possible. I? And I have never left home? Maybe it is true about Buddha, maybe it is true about Jesus, but I? -- I am a sinner."

Nobody is a sinner. Even while you are in the darkest hole of your life you are still divine. You cannot lose your divinity, there is no way to lose it. It is your very being. It is the stuff you are made of.

Shobha has asked: "Is the only thing that keeps us from coming home the doubt that we are not already home, which is reinforced by everyone around us?"

Yes, it is reinforced by everyone around you. That's why I say love is only when somebody accepts you as divine. He reinforces the truth that you are divine. If anybody reinforces the untruth that you are not divine, it is not love. She may be your mother, he may be your father, it doesn't matter. If anybody gives you a self-condemnatory idea, he is poisoning you. If anybody says that you are not accepted as you are, that God will love you only if you fulfill certain conditions, then he is destroying you, he is your enemy -- beware of him.

The fifth question:

Question 5

OSHO,

THE OTHER DAY I CAME THROUGH THE GATES WITH AN INDIAN SANNYASIN AND HE WAS TURNED AWAY BY THE GUARD WITH NO REASON GIVEN. WHEN I SPOKE TO LAXMI ABOUT IT, SHE MORE OR LESS TOLD ME TO MIND MY OWN BUSINESS. WHENEVER I SEE PEOPLE BEING UNJUSTLY TREATED, MY IMMEDIATE REACTION IS TO GO TO THEIR ASSISTANCE. IS IT REALLY NONE OF MY BUSINESS WHAT HAPPENS TO OTHER PEOPLE?

The question is from Ma Deva Tulika.

This is significant for everybody present here, and everybody who is going to be in any way related to me. Whatsoever happens in this commune happens according to me. I know who was turned from the gate. And the man who has been turned away knows why he has been turned from the gate. And it is none of your business to come into it.

This you have to understand absolutely, that whatsoever happens here... I may not come out of my room, I never come out except in the morning and the evening, and I never go around the ashram -- but whatsoever happens here is perfectly known to me, is happening according to me. Please don't interfere.

There are a few other people also like Tulika who are continuously interfering with the work. You are nobody to judge what is right and what is wrong. If you know it already you are not needed here, you have become enlightened -- you go home.

This is none of your business to decide what is just and what is unjust. This is not an ordinary place so ordinary things won't apply here. Some extraordinary experiment is on. I know what is somebody's need. If I feel that somebody has to be rejected from the gate, he has to be rejected. If I feel that no reason has to be given, then no reason has to be given. That's my device for his life and for his work.

Now you should not come into it. If you start coming into it you will only lose your opportunity for growth. Guards have their duties, they know what they are doing. And I am in contact with them, with what they are doing. You simply bypass.

It is not an ordinary place. Everything is looked after, and if somebody needs a hit on the head, he is given. You should not prevent it, otherwise you will be coming into his growth too, you will hinder him, and you will be hindering yourself. And you can get unnecessarily excited about it.

There are a few people -- Padma Sambhava is one. They go on writing to me that this has happened and somebody has done this and this should not be. Here you are nobody to decide what should be and what should not be. The moment you become part of my commune you leave everything to me; otherwise work will be impossible.

Now I know the man who has been rejected and I know why he is rejected -- and he also knows why he has been rejected. There is no reason to give any reason. If reasons have to be given for each and every thing, then my whole work will be simply to go on supplying reasons. There are thousands of people coming, and everybody has to be given reasons and explanations about everything? Laxmi is right.

And always remember that Laxmi never does anything on her own. She is a perfect vehicle. That's why she has been chosen for that work. Now I cannot choose Tulika for work, because she has her own idea what is right and what is wrong. Laxmi has no idea. She simply listens and does. Whatsoever is said, she does.

And you have to learn these ways, because soon we will be becoming a bigger commune and thousands of people will be coming, and these things have to be settled. You should not bring them again and again. Again and again you go on writing questions: "Somebody has done this...." That is for me to look to, and if I think that it is not right it will be prevented. You need not bring it to my notice even. You waste my time.

And you get so excited.... There are some foolish people who have renounced their sannyas because they saw something unjust was being done. Now they're just losing their opportunity. It was not their business. You have come here for your own growth. This acceptance has to be total, only then work is possible, only then I can help you. Please don't give suggestions to me. The moment you give me a suggestion, you are disconnected from me.

This is not going to be a democracy. You are not to be asked what should be done and what should not be done. This should be remembered from the very beginning -- that this is not going to be a democracy. Your votes will never be taken. You become part of it with that knowledge, that whatsoever I decide is absolute. If you don't choose that way you are perfectly happy to leave.

People are prevented from entering but nobody is prevented from leaving. You can leave. Have you seen anybody being prevented from leaving? Leaving is perfectly free -- you are free, that is your decision. If you want to be here you have to be totally here. If you feel that this is not the place for you, that your ideas are not being fulfilled, that it is not according to you, you are free to leave.

This place will never be according to you. This place is to change you, it is not to be according to you. This place is going to be a transformation for you. And these are the beginnings. Who are you to know what is right and what is wrong? And who are you to ask for the reason? How do you come in?

The Indian who has been prevented, if he feels like asking he will come and ask. He has not asked because he knows, he has been told why he is being prevented. He has been a nuisance around here. But these things are not to be inquired about by everybody. And this is not good, that everybody should be told about this nuisance. This is disrespectful to him. He has been told, and he understands because he knows what he has been doing.

Now YOU suddenly jump in. You think you are doing some great work, some great service. You think you are saving some person from some injustice. You don't know the whole story. And you need not know the whole story, because who is sitting there to tell you all the stories about everybody? You decide only about your own self.

This is a place where many things will never be according to you. You have to fall in tune with things. If you think that that is not possible for you, you are free to leave.

And let this be the last question. Many questions have been coming to me. Somebody participates in a group and writes, "Why is there so much violence in the encounter group?" And that comes from a groupleader, a woman who has been a groupleader. She participated for one or two days in the Encounter group and dropped out.

And she had asked for it. I was not going to give her the encounter group, I was giving her some other groups, but she asked, "I want to do the encounter." So I said "Okay." But when I say, "Okay," you should understand what I mean. I mean that then it is for you to decide.

She thinks she knows because she is a groupleader. She has been leading groups so she thinks she knows. And I knew that very moment that she would not be able to go through it, because the encounter group that is going on here is the best in the world at this moment. Nowhere else is such absolute freedom allowed.

In the West the encounter group has limitations, because the encounter groupleader has limitations. He can go only so far. When he sees that things are becoming difficult, that now he may not be able to control, that things may go too far, that he may not be able to bring them back, then he prevents. Here we don't believe in any boundaries.

I send people to the encounter group only when I see that now they understand that they have to go beyond all boundaries -- boundaries of sex, boundaries of violence, anger, rage. They have to break all boundaries. That is breakthrough -- when all those boundaries break down.

Now the woman became very much afraid, now she is against the group. Now she is asking me, "Why do you allow such violence?" That is not your business. If you are not capable of going into it, you are not required to go into it, mm? You can do some non-violent group -- Zazen, Vipassana. We have all kinds of toys around here. Mm? you can choose.

But don't go on writing to me. Whatsoever happens here is happening with my knowledge. Not a single thing happens here which is not known to me, so you need not inform me about things, I know them already. It is a sheer wastage of time.

And the moment you surrender and become an initiate, a sannyasin, that surrender has to be total. Just live a few months in that total surrender and you will see -- it is alchemical, it transforms you.

New people come and they think, "What is the matter? The old sannyasins don't interfere. Somebody is prevented by the guard and the old sannyasins simply go by. What has happened to these people? Do they understand or not that this is not right? Have they become apathetic, indifferent?"

No, they have learned, and they have learned just like you. Slowly slowly they have learned that whatsoever happens is happening according to a plan, a device. There is some hidden pattern in it. And nobody except me knows what that hidden pattern is. So you cannot go to Laxmi, she does not know. She simply asks me what is to be done and she does it. You cannot ask Sant on the gate, "What are you doing?" He simply does what he is told to do.

If you are to be a part of this commune you have to understand this. You have to relax, you have to stop judging. Soon, after a few months of relaxation and acceptance, you will be able to understand. That's what has happened to the older sannyasins -- now they understand.

The sixth question:

Question 6

OSHO,

I HAVE ALWAYS FELT THE NEED FOR LITTLE REWARDS AT THE END OF THE DAY -- A FEW BEERS, CIGARETTES OR DRUGS. NOW NONE OF THESE THINGS BRING ANY SATISFACTION, YET THE DESIRE FOR SOMETHING, SOME FORM OF GRATIFICATION, CONTINUES. WHAT IS THIS LONGING AND WHAT WILL SATISFY IT?

Nothing will satisfy it. There is a subtle mechanism of desire to be understood. Desire functions in this way, desire places a condition on your happiness. "I will be happy if I can get this car, this woman, this house." Fulfillment of the desire removes that condition on your happiness. In your relief you feel good. Actually all you have done is remove a quite unnecessary obstruction to your happiness, but it is not long before you find yourself thinking, "If I can create that obstruction again, then remove it all over again, the relief I felt in removing it the last time will feel as good as it did then." And so it is that desires, even when we fulfill them, lead again and again to the creation of new desires.

Do you follow it? First you make a condition. You say, "Unless I get this woman I am not going to be happy. I can be happy only with this woman." Now you start striving to get this woman. The more difficult it is the more you become enthusiastic, feverish.

The more difficult it is the more you are challenged. The more difficult it is the more you put all your being at stake; you are ready to gamble. And of course more hope arises and more desire to possess the woman. It is so hard, it is so difficult. It must be something great, that's why it is so hard, that's why it is so difficult. You chase and chase and chase and one day you get the woman.

The day you get the woman the condition is removed: "If I get the woman then I will be happy." You had put that condition in the first place. Now you get the woman, you feel relief. Now there is no more chasing, you have arrived, the result is in your hands, you feel good -- good because of the relief.

One day I saw Mulla Nasruddin walking, swearing and in great pain. I asked him, "What is the matter? Is your stomach aching or do you have a headache or something? What is the matter? You look in such agony."

He said, "Nothing. The shoes that I am wearing are too small."

"But then why are you wearing them?"

He said, "This is the only relief that I get at the end of the day -- when I take my shoes off. God, it is such... then I enjoy. But this is the only joy I have, so I cannot drop these shoes. They are one size too small. It is really hell, but in the evening it gives heaven. When I go home and I take my shoes off and I fall on my sofa, I say I have arrived. It's so beautiful!"

That's what you are doing. You create pain, you create anguish, chasing, fever, and then one day you come home and take the shoes off and you say, "Great, this is great. So I have arrived!" But how long can it last? The relief lasts only a few moments. Then again you are hankering.

Now this woman is useless because you have got her. You cannot make a condition again. You can never say again, "If I get this woman I will be happy," because she is already with you. Now you start looking around at somebody else's woman, "If I get that woman..." Now you know one trick -- that first you have to put a condition on your happiness, then you have to follow the condition desperately, then one day relief comes. Now this is futile. A man of understanding will see that there is no need to put any condition, you can be unconditionally happy. Why go on walking in small shoes and suffer just to get relief in the end? Why not have the relief all the time? But then you will not feel it, that is the problem. To feel it you need contrast. You will be happy but you will not feel it.

And that is the definition of a really happy man: a really happy man is one who does not know anything about happiness, who has never heard about it, who is so happy, so unconditionally happy, that how can he know that he is happy? Only unhappy people say, "I am happy, things are going great." These are unhappy people. A happy person knows nothing about happiness. It is simply there, it is always there. It is like breathing.

You don't feel very happy about breathing -- then just do one thing, close your nose. Do some yoga exercises and repress your breath inside and go on repressing and go on repressing. Now the agony arises. And you go on repressing. Be a real yoga disciple -- go on repressing. And then it bursts forth and there is such great joy. This is foolish -- but this is what everybody is doing. That's why you wait for the result in the evening.

Happiness is herenow, it needs no condition. Happiness is natural. Just see the point of it. Don't make conditions on your happiness. Remain happy for no reason at all. There is no reason to find some cause to be happy. Just be happy.

Trees are happy and they will not get any beer in the evening and any cigarettes, and they are perfectly happy. Look! ... And the wind blowing is happy, and the sun is happy, and the sands are happy and the seas are happy, and everything is happy except man -- because nobody is making any conditions. Just be happy.

If you cannot be happy, then don't make such impossible conditions -- that it is difficult. Then Mulla is right -- such a small thing. I understand. He is far more intelligent than you understand him to be. Such a simple device -- wearing one size smaller shoes -- such a small device, nobody can prevent you from it, and by the evening time you are happy. Just small devices, create small devices, and be as happy as you want.

But you say, "I will be happy only when this great house is mine." Now you are making a big condition. It may take years, and you will be tired and exhausted, and by the time you reach to the palace of your desires you may be close to death. That's what happens. And you wasted your whole life and your great house will become your grave. You say, "Unless I have a million dollars, I am not going to be happy." And then you have to work and waste your whole life. Mulla Nasruddin is far more intelligent: make small conditions and have as much happiness as you want.

If you understand then there is no need to put any conditions. Just see the point of it -- that conditions don't create happiness, they only give relief. But the relief cannot be permanent, no relief can ever be permanent. It lasts only for a few moments. Have you not watched it again and again? You wanted to purchase a car; the car is in your porch and you are standing there, very very happy. How long does it last? Tomorrow it is this old car, one day old. Two days after it is two days old, and all the neighborhood has seen it and they all have appreciated it, and finished! Now nobody talks about it. That's why car companies have to go on putting out new models every year, so that you can have new conditions.

People go on hankering after things just to get relief, and relief is available.

Have you heard the story? A beggar was sitting under a tree and a rich man's car broke. The driver was fixing it and the rich man came out and the beggar was having a good rest under the tree. It was breezy and sunny and beautiful, and the rich man also came and he sat by the side of the beggar and he said, "Why don't you work?"

The beggar asked, "For what?"

And the rich man said, "If you work, you can earn money."

The beggar asked, "For what?"

The rich man felt a little annoyed and he said, "When you have money you can have a big balance in the bank."

But the beggar again asked, "For what?"

The rich man was even more annoyed. He said, "For what? Then you can retire in your old age and rest."

"But," the beggar said, "I am resting now! Why wait for old age? And do all this nonsense? -- earn money and make a bank balance and then finally rest. And can't you see? -- I am resting now! Why wait?"

Why wait for the evening? And why wait for the beer? Why not drink water and enjoy it while you are drinking it?,

You have heard Jesus' story that he turned water into wine? Christians have missed it. They think he really turned it into wine. That is not true. He must have taught the secret that I am teaching you to his disciples. He must have told them, "Drink it so joyously that water becomes wine."

You can drink water so joyously that it almost intoxicates you. Try! Just water can intoxicate you. It depends on you. It does not depend on the beer or the wine. And if you don't understand it, ask some hypnotist, ask our Santosh. He knows. Even if water is given to somebody who has been hypnotized and told under hypnosis that this is wine, he will become intoxicated -- with water.

Now doctors know about placeboes, and sometimes the results are very puzzling. In one hospital they were doing some experiments. To one group of twenty patients with the same disease medicine was given and to the other twenty with the same disease just water was given -- just to see whether water can work. Neither the doctors nor the patients know which is water and which is medicine, because if the doctor knows then even his behavior will change. Giving water he will not give it that seriously and that will make some suspicion arise in the patient. So neither the doctor nor the patient -- nobody knows. The knowledge is kept in a vault, locked.

And the miracle is that the same number of patients are helped by water as are helped by medicine. Out of twenty, seventeen persons are healthy by the second week, from both the groups. And the more miraculous thing is, those who were kept on water remained healthy longer than those who were kept on medicine. The people who were kept on real medicine started coming back soon, after a few weeks.

What happened? Why did water help so much? The idea that it is medicine helps, not the medicine. And because water is pure water, it cannot harm. Medicine will harm. That's why the people who had been given real medicine started coming back. They started creating some new desire, some new disease, some new problems... because no medicine can go without affecting your system in some way or other. It will have its reactions. Water cannot have any reaction. This is pure hypnosis.

You can drink water with such zest, with such prayer, that it becomes wine. You see the Zen people drinking tea with such ceremony and ritual, with such awareness. Then even tea becomes something phenomenal. Ordinary tea is transformed. Ordinary acts can be transformed -- a morning walk can be intoxicating. And if a morning walk cannot be intoxicating then something is wrong with you. Just watching a roseflower can be intoxicating. And if it cannot intoxicate you, then nothing can intoxicate you. Just looking in the eyes of a child can be intoxicating.

Learn how to live the moment joyously. Don't look for results, there are none. Life is not going anywhere, it has no ends. Life is not a means to any end, life is just herenow. Live it. Live it totally, live it consciously, live it joyously -- and you will be fulfilled.

Fulfillment should not be postponed, otherwise you will never be fulfilled. Fulfillment has to be now -- now or never.

The last question:

Question 7

PEOPLE THINK I AM MEAN, BUT I FEEL I AM ONLY MISERLY. WHAT DO YOU SAY, OSHO?

I will tell you one anecdote.

A young man was overjoyed one morning to learn that he had won fifty thousand pounds on the football pools. He lived with his mother and father, both elderly and not too well off, and when he told them about his win they too were overjoyed.

"Naturally," he said, "I want you to share in my good fortune, so I am going to make you a present of ten pounds each."

There was silence for a moment and then the old man spoke. "Well, son," he said, "we have done a lot for you, mother and I, and you have never gone short of anything over the years, but now that you are able to stand on your own two feet, I think you should know that, well, your mother and I were never legally married."

"What!" exclaimed the young man. "Do you mean to say that I am a...?"

"Yes, you are," said the old man. "And a ruddy mean one at that!"

Enough for today.

The Diamond Sutra

Chapter #9

Chapter title: Pure Land Paradise

29 December 1977 am in Buddha Hall

Archive code: 7712290

ShortTitle: DIAMON09

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 65 mins

VAJRACHCHEDIKA

PRAJNAPARAMITA

SUTRA

OF

GAUTAMA

THE

BUDDHA

THE LORD ASKED:

WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI, IS THERE ANY DHAMMA WHICH THE TATHAGATA HAS LEARNED FROM DIPANKARA?' SUBHUTI REPLIED: 'NOT SO, O LORD, THERE IS NOT.'

THE LORD SAID:

IF ANY BODHISATTVA WOULD SAY, "I WILL CREATE HARMONIOUS BUDDHAFIELDS," HE WOULD SPEAK FALSELY. AND WHY? THE HARMONIES OF BUDDHAFIELDS, SUBHUTI, AS NO-HARMONIES HAVE THEY BEEN TAUGHT BY THE TATHAGATA. THEREFORE HE SPOKE OF "HARMONIOUS BUDDHAFIELDS."'

THE LORD SAID:

'AND AGAIN, SUBHUTI, SUPPOSE A WOMAN OR A MAN WERE TO RENOUNCE ALL THEIR BELONGINGS AS MANY TIMES AS THERE ARE GRAINS OF SAND IN THE RIVER GANGES; AND SUPPOSE THAT SOMEONE ELSE, AFTER TAKING FROM THIS DISCOURSE ON DHAMMA BUT ONE STANZA OF FOUR LINES, WOULD DEMONSTRATE IT TO OTHERS. THEN THIS LATTER ON THE STRENGTH OF THAT WOULD BEGET A GREATER HEAP OF MERIT, IMMEASURABLE AND INCALCULABLE.'

THEREUPON THE IMPACT OF DHAMMA MOVED THE VENERABLE SUBHUTI TO TEARS. HAVING SHED TEARS, HE THUS SPOKE TO THE LORD: 'IT IS WONDERFUL, O LORD, IT IS EXCEEDINGLY WONDERFUL, O WELL-GONE, HOW WELL THE TATHAGATA HAS TAUGHT THIS DISCOURSE ON DHAMMA. THROUGH IT COGNITION HAS BEEN PRODUCED IN ME, AND IT IS INDEED NO PERCEPTION. AND WHY? BECAUSE THE BUDDHAS, THE LORDS, HAVE LEFT ALL PERCEPTIONS BEHIND.'

THE LORD SAID:

'SO IT IS SUBHUTI. MOST WONDERFULLY BLEST WILL BE THOSE BEINGS WHO, ON HEARING THIS SUTRA, WILL NOT TREMBLE, NOR BE FRIGHTENED, OR TERRIFIED.' 'MOREOVER, SUBHUTI, THE TATHAGATA'S PERFECTION OF PATIENCE IS REALLY NO PERFECTION. AND WHY? BECAUSE, SUBHUTI, WHEN THE KING OF KALINGA CUT MY FLESH FROM EVERY LIMB, AT THAT TIME I HAD NO PERCEPTION OF A SELF, OF A BEING, OF A SOUL, OR A PERSON. AND WHY? IF, SUBHUTI, AT THAT TIME I HAD HAD A PERCEPTION OF SELF, I WOULD ALSO HAVE HAD A PERCEPTION OF ILL-WILL AT THAT TIME.' 'AND FURTHER, SUBHUTI, IT IS FOR THE WEAL OF ALL BEINGS THAT A BODHISATTVA SHOULD GIVE GIFTS IN THIS MANNER. AND WHY? THIS PERCEPTION OF A BEING, SUBHUTI, THAT IS JUST A NON-PERCEPTION. THOSE ALL-BEINGS OF WHOM THE TATHAGATA HAS SPOKEN, THEY ARE INDEED NO-BEINGS. AND WHY? BECAUSE THE TATHAGATA SPEAKS IN ACCORDANCE WITH REALITY, SPEAKS THE TRUTH, SPEAKS OF WHAT IS, NOT OTHERWISE. A TATHAGATA DOES NOT SPEAK FALSELY.'

TATHAGATA, SUBHUTI, IS SYNONYMOUS WITH TRUE SUCHNESS.'

THE LORD ASKED:

WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI?

IS THERE ANY DHAMMA

WHICH THE TATHAGATA HAS LEARNED FROM DIPANKARA?'

SUBHUTI REPLIED: 'NOT SO, O LORD, THERE IS NOT.'

Dipankara is an ancient Buddha. Gautama Buddha, in his past life when he was not enlightened, had gone to Dipankara. He wanted to be accepted as a disciple, but Dipankara laughed and he said, "There is nothing to be learned." Truth cannot be learned. Yes, something has to be understood, but nothing has to be learned. Truth has to be recognized. It is already there in your being, it has to be uncovered. But there is nothing to learn.

Truth is not new, truth is your very being. You have to become aware. Not that you have to become more knowledgeable, in fact the more knowledgeable you are the less aware you will be. The more you think you know the more you will be covered with ignorance. Knowledge is ignorance. The knowledgeable person is covered with dark clouds of memory, information, scripture, philosophy.

Dipankara said to Gautama, "You need not think in terms of learning. Truth is already in you. Truth cannot be transferred." Not only this, but when Gautama touched the feet of Dipankara, Dipankara bowed down and touched the feet of Gautama. Gautama was not enlightened in those days. He was very puzzled, embarrassed too.

There was a great assembly of monks; nobody could understand what was happening, what was going on. Dipankara had never done that to anybody else. And Gautama said, "What have you done? Why have you touched my feet? I am a sinner, an ignorant person. To touch your feet is right, but you touching my feet is absurd. Have you gone mad?"

And Dipankara laughed again and he said, "No, Gautama. You are puzzled because you don't know your future. I am not mad. I can see it happening -- you will be a Buddha soon. Just to honor that fact I have touched your feet. And moreover, for one who is enlightened all are enlightened. It is only a question of time. It doesn't matter much. I have become enlightened today, you will become enlightened tomorrow, somebody else will become enlightened the day after tomorrow -- it doesn't matter. Enlightenment is going to happen to everybody, to every being. You can go on delaying it, that is up to you. The moment you stop delaying, the moment you stop postponing, it is there. It has always been waiting for you to recognize it."

It is one of the most beautiful stories -- that Dipankara touched the feet of Gautama. And Gautama was an unknown man. After centuries, nearly three thousand years afterwards, Gautama became enlightened. The first thing that he did was he bowed down to Dipankara. Then there was no Dipankara, but he bowed down and he laughed and he said, "Now I understand why you touched my feet. Now I can touch everybody's feet. Now I know that the whole existence is going to be enlightened."

Enlightenment is a natural happening. If we don't hinder it, it is bound to happen. It is not that you have to achieve it, all that you have to do is not to hinder it. You hinder it in a thousand and one ways. You don't allow it to happen. When it starts to happen you become frightened. When it takes possession of you, you cannot give that much possession -- you shrink back, you withdraw. You come back in your tiny cell of the ego. There you feel protected, defended, secure.

Enlightenment is the open sky of insecurity. It is vastness, it is uncharted ocean. The journey is from one unknown to another unknown. There is nothing that can be known. Knowledge, the very idea of knowledge, is part of human stupidity. Life is such a mystery it cannot be known. And if it cannot be known how can it be taught? And if it cannot be taught, what is the point of being a master and a disciple?

Just a few days ago there was a question: "Why have you declared yourself to be the Blessed One?' It is a drama. I have decided to play the part of the Blessed One and you have decided to play the part of disciples -- but it is a drama. The day you will become aware you will know, there is no master and no disciple. The day you will understand, you will know that it was a dream -- but a dream which can help you to come out of all your other dreams, a thorn which can help to pull out your thorns from your flesh, it can be instrumental -- but a thorn all the same. A poison which can help you to drop your other poisons -- but a poison all the same. Use it as a raft. That's why I say it is a drama.

Your being a disciple and my being a master is a drama. Play it as beautifully as possible. To you it is a reality, I know. To me it is a drama. From your side it is a great reality, from my side it is a game. One day you will also understand that it is a game. That day will be the day of your enlightenment.

Dipankara was simply saying to Gautama, when he touched his feet, that this is just a game. You touch my feet or I touch your feet -- it makes no difference. We are all enlightened, we are all gods. Not that I am god and you are not god -- ALL is divine. Trees are gods, so are animals, so is everything, even rocks!

God is fast asleep in the rocks. He has become a little alert in the trees, a little more alert in the animals, a little more alert in you. In a Buddha he has come perfectly to absolute alertness. But the difference is not of quality, the difference is only of quantity. And if you are this much aware, you can become that much aware too.

Buddha says:

THE LORD ASKED:

'WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI, IS THERE ANY DHAMMA WHICH THE TATHAGATA HAS LEARNED FROM DIPANKARA?'?

He is asking, "Have I learned anything from Dipankara?" There is nothing to learn. Truth is a given fact. Whatsoever you learn will be lies. Truth need not be learned. Truth has not to be invented but only discovered, or more right will be to say it has only to be rediscovered.

And the word learning is dangerous. Learning is accumulating information. The more you accumulate information the deeper your reality goes into the unconscious. You become burdened, you become too top-heavy. Your head starts clamoring with knowledge, becomes very noisy, and then you cannot hear the still small voice of your heart. That silence is lost in the noise of knowledge.

That's why even sinners achieve but scholars miss -- because the sinner can be humble but the scholar cannot be humble. The sinner can cry and weep, but the scholar knows. He is adamant in his knowledge, he is egoistic in his knowledge. He is hard, he cannot melt. He is not open, he is closed. All his windows and doors are blocked by his knowledge, his scriptures that he has accumulated.

To come to truth means unlearning rather than learning. You have to unlearn that which you have known. It is not a becoming but an unbecoming, it is not a learning but an unlearning. To unlearn is the way. If you can unbecome then you will be capable of becoming. If you are capable of unlearning, if you can drop all knowledge utterly, unconditionally, without any clinging, you will become innocent -- and that innocence brings you home.

SUBHUTI REPLIED: 'NOT SO, O LORD, THERE IS NOT.'

Between a master and a teacher what is transferred? Not truth, not knowledge -- then what is transferred? In fact, nothing is transferred. In the presence of the master something arises in the deepest core of the disciple, not that it is transferred. Nothing travels from the master to the disciple, nothing at all, but the presence of the master, the very presence of the master, and something that was deep inside starts surfacing. The presence of the master calls forth the being of the disciple -- not that something is given or transferred. Just the very presence of the master becomes a catalytic presence and the disciple starts changing.

Of course, a disciple will think that something is being done by the master. Nothing is being done. No real master ever does anything. All his doing consists of is being present to you, is being available to you. All his work consists of one simple thing -- that he should be there, just like the sun.

The sun rises in the morning and buds open and become flowers. Not that the sun gives them something, not that the sun comes and opens the buds -- nothing is done by the sun, just the presence of the light and the bud starts opening. The opening comes from the bud itself... and the flowering and the fragrance -- it all comes from the bud itself. The sun has not added anything to it, but the presence has been catalytic. Without the sun being present there the bud would find it almost impossible to open. It would not know that opening is possible. It would never become alert of its possibilities and potential.

A master simply makes you aware of your potential. If he has achieved, you can achieve. He is just like you -- the blood and the bones and the body. He is just like you. If something is possible in his being, if his bud can become a flower, then why can't you become? This very idea sinks deep into the heart, stirs your whole being, and energies start surfacing, your bud starts opening.

This is called SATSANGA in the East -- to be in the presence of the master. And the real disciple is one who has come to know how to be present to the master. The master is present, but how to be present to the master?

Have you seen the sunflower? That is the symbol for the disciple. Wherever the sun moves, the sunflower moves that way. It is always present to the sun. In the morning it is facing East, in the evening it is facing West. It has moved with the sun. Wherever the sun is, the sunflower moves. The sunflower is the symbol, the metaphor for the disciple.

Buddha is asking, "Do you think, Subhuti, I have learned anything from Dipankara?" Subhuti says, "Not so, O Lord" -- because there is nothing to learn. Does it mean Buddha is ungrateful to Dipankara? No, not at all. When he became enlightened, the first gratitude was towards Dipankara who had disappeared into the infinite long long ago, not even a trace was left behind. He exists only in the memory of Buddha, nowhere else.

About Dipankara there exists no scripture. Maybe in those days scriptures were not written. There exists no other reference about him. Buddha is the only sole reference. Three thousand years have passed, nobody knows anything about Dipankara, but when Buddha became enlightened, the first gratitude, the first thankfulness, was towards Dipankara.

Why? -- because it was in his presence that the longing became a passion -- to become a Buddha. It was in his presence that the great desire to become a Buddha arose. It was in his presence that the bud of Gautama started dreaming of becoming a flower. It was in his presence that the dream unfolded. It took three thousand years to drop the hindrances, the obstacles, but what are three thousand years in the eternity of time? Nothing... just a few moments.

Why is Buddha asking Subhuti? So that Subhuti can understand that there is nothing to be learned from Buddha. Buddha himself has not learned anything from Dipankara, so "There is nothing, Subhuti, to learn from me. Be with me, don't think in terms of learning. The moment you think in terms of learning you are not with me."

Here also there are two types of people -- the disciples and the students. The students are those who are in search of learning something. They are here to gather something so that they can brag and say that they know this and they know that. They are just collecting colored stones while diamonds are available.

The disciple is one who is not interested in knowledge, who is interested in being, who is interested just to be here with me, for no other reason, for no other motive. His heart has been touched, his dream has started unfolding, a great intense desire is arising in him.

Just the other night Saroj was here and she was saying that she becomes very afraid of death. I asked her, "Why? Why do you become so much afraid?" And her answer was beautiful. She said, "Not because of death, Osho, but because I have not yet known anything, not yet realized anything. I have not yet felt anything. I am afraid that I might die without knowing the truth, that is my fear."

A disciple is one who has become immensely interested in being -- in truth itself, not knowing about it. She is not afraid of death, she is afraid death may come in and may disturb the intimacy that is arising between me and her. Death may come and may disrupt the presence that she is drinking, the presence that is going into her being and changing a thousand and one things in her soul -- that is the fear.

A disciple is one who does not bother about knowing but is interested in being. Not that he wants to know something about God, but that he wants to taste God, to drink out of that reservoir called God, to become part of that oceanic energy.

Remember, if you are a student here you are not very wise. To be a student here is to be unintelligent. This is not a school. Life is available here -- but you have to be a disciple. To be a disciple means to be courageous enough to come close to a master, whatsoever the cost. The disciple means the one who can take the risk of being close to a master. It is a risk -- a risk because you will die. The bud will die, only then the flower can come. The seed will die, only then the tree can come. You will have to die, only then God can bloom in you.

THE LORD SAID:

'WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI, IS THERE ANY DHAMMA WHICH THE TATHAGATA HAS LEARNED FROM DIPANKARA?'

A great seeker has written, "I went to the wise for answers. There were many wise men, each one with his answer. It was by that that I came in time to see that they betrayed themselves. But there were also a few I happened upon who were otherwise, one or two, who sat with a serene vitality, who smiled at my questions, and in face of my insistence for answers, generously gave me further questions.

"There were moments with them that I forgot all about wisdom and smiled as carelessly as fools and children only can. I got no answers from the truly wise. It was lack of wisdom that had sent me to the wise. How then could I have understood anything wise, even if it was sayable, even if it was said? The truly wise were too true to give wise answers."

The truly wise gives you his being, gives himself. The truly wise simply makes himself available to you, and if you are courageous you can drink and eat out of his being. That's what Jesus means when he says to his disciples: "Eat me! Drink me!" The master has to be eaten. The master has to be absorbed, digested, only then will you stumble upon your own truth. There is nothing to learn -- no Dhamma to learn, no doctrine to learn, no philosophy to learn.

THE LORD SAID:

'IF ANY BODHISATTVA WOULD SAY,

"I WILL CREATE HARMONIOUS BUDDHAFIELDS,"

HE WOULD SPEAK FALSELY.

AND WHY?

THE HARMONIES OF BUDDHAFIELDS, SUBHUTI,

AS NO-HARMONIES HAVE THEY BEEN TAUGHT BY THE TATHAGATA.

THEREFORE HE SPOKE OF "HARMONIOUS BUDDHAFIELDS".'

The word buddhafield is of tremendous importance. You have to understand it, because that is what I am doing here -- creating a buddhafield. It is just to create a buddhafield that we are moving away from the world, far away, so that a totally different kind of energy can be made available to you.

Buddhafield means a situation where your sleeping Buddha can be awakened. Buddhafield means an energy field where you can start growing, maturing, where your sleep call be broken, where you can be shocked to awareness -- an electric field where you will not be able to fall asleep, where you will have to be awake, because shocks will be coming all the time.

A buddhafield is an energy field in which a Buddha matures beings, a pure land, an unworldly world, a paradise on earth, which offers ideal conditions for rapid spiritual growth. A buddhafield is a matrix.

The word MATRIX comes from Latin; it means the womb. From that word we get the words matter, mother, etcetera. The womb offers three things to a newly forming life: a source of possibility, a source of energy to explore that possibility, and a safe place within which that exploration can take place.

That's what we are going to do. The new commune is going to be a great experiment in buddhahood. Energies have to be made available to you, possibilities have to be made clear to you. You have to be made aware of your potential, and you have to be given a safe place from where you can work: a place where you are not distracted by the world, a place where you can go on without any disturbance from the crowd, a place where ordinary things, taboos, inhibitions, are put aside, where only one thing is significant -- how to become a Buddha; where everything else simply disappears from your mind -- money and power and prestige; where all else becomes insignificant, when all else becomes exactly what it is -- a shadow world -- and you are no longer lost in the apparent.

MAYA is to be caught up in the apparent. That is the greatest illusion in the world. The apparent holds such sway on our minds. A buddhafield is a place where you are taken away from the apparent.

In the silence of a commune, in the uninhibited, untabooed atmosphere of a commune, the master and the disciple can enact the drama totally. The ultimate is when the master can touch the feet of the disciple, when the master and disciples are lost into one reality.

THE LORD SAID:

'IF ANY BODHISATTVA WOULD SAY,

"I WILL CREATE HARMONIOUS BUDDHAFIELDS,"

HE WOULD SPEAK FALSELY.

AND WHY?

THE HARMONIES OF BUDDHAFIELDS, SUBHUTI,

AS NO-HARMONIES HAVE THEY BEEN TAUGHT

BY THE TATHAGATA.

THEREFORE HE SPOKE OF "HARMONIOUS BUDDHAFIELDS".'

Now understand: if somebody says, "I will create the buddafield," and the emphasis is on 'I', then the statement is false, because a person who has the 'I' still alive cannot create a buddhafield. Only a person who has no 'I' within him can create a buddhafield. In fact then to say he creates is not right; language is inadequate.

The Sanskrit word for creation is far better. The Sanskrit word is NIRPADAYATI. It means many things. It can mean to create, it can mean to accomplish, it can mean to ripen, it can mean to mature it can simply mean to trigger into existence. That's exactly the meaning.

A Buddha does not create, he triggers. Even to say he triggers is not good; in his presence things happen, in his presence things are triggered, processes start. Just his presence is a fire, a spark, and things start moving and one thing leads to another, and a great chain is created.

That's how we have been going on. I simply sit in my room doing nothing, and seekers from all over the world have started pouring in. I don't even write a letter... just the presence. One comes, another comes, and the chain is created. Now the time has come when a buddhafield is needed, a matrix is needed, because you don't know -- thousands more are on the way. They have already moved, they are already thinking of coming.

And the more people are there, the bigger the buddhafield will be there, and the more powerful it will be. The possibility is that we can create one of the greatest and the most powerful buddhafields ever created in the world, because never before was there such search, because never before was man in such a crisis.

We are on the threshold of something new that is going to happen to humanity. Either humanity will die and disappear, or we will take a jump, a leap, and a new being will be formed. We are exactly at the same point as millions of years ago when monkeys came down from the trees and humanity started and a new being was born. Again the moment is coming very close. It is a very dangerous moment, because there is every possibility....

It was possible that the monkey may not have survived on the earth, he may have died on the earth, but a few monkeys took the risk. And they must have been thought of as fools by other monkeys, mm? who had always lived on the trees and were perfectly happy. They must have thought, "These people are going mad, crazy. Why in the first place are you going to live on the earth? Why create unnecessary trouble for yourselves? Our fathers and their fathers and their fathers have all lived on the trees."

Again the same situation is going to happen. Man has lived a long time the way he has lived. By the end of this century a critical quantum leap is possible. Either man will die in a third world war or man will take the jump and will become a new man. Before that happens, a great buddhafield is needed -- a field where we can create the future.

But a bodhisattva cannot say, "I will create the harmonious buddhafields." If the emphasis is on 'I' then the person is not yet a Bodhisattva. Even Buddhas use the word 'I' but they insistently emphasize that it corresponds to no reality, that it is just a language use, that it is utilitarian.

And Buddha says, "Those harmonious buddhafields are not even harmonious." Why? -- because harmony means conflict is still alive. Harmony means the conflicting parts are there but they are no longer conflicting. Buddha says the real harmony is when the conflicting parts have dissolved into one unity. But then you cannot call it harmony, because harmony needs many, harmony means that there are many fragments in a harmonious whole. Buddha says the real harmony is when those many are no longer there; they have become one.

So a harmony, a real harmony, cannot even be called harmony. The real harmony is simple unity. There is no conflict and no friction, because all the fragmentary parts have disappeared, dissolved.

'AND WHY?

THE HARMONIES OF BUDDHAFIELDS, SUBHUTI,

AS NO-HARMONIES HAVE THEY BEEN TAUGHT

BY THE TATHAGATA.

THEREFORE HE SPOKE OF "HARMONIOUS BUDDHAFIELDS".'

Remember again and again; it is a question of the inadequate language. That's why Buddha goes on insisting again and again to remind you so that you don't become a victim of inadequate language expressions.

THE LORD SAID:

'AND AGAIN, SUBHUTI, SUPPOSE A WOMAN OR A MAN

WERE TO RENOUNCE ALL THEIR BELONGINGS

AS MANY TIMES AS THERE ARE GRAINS OF SAND

IN THE RIVER GANGES;

AND SUPPOSE THAT SOMEONE ELSE,

AFTER TAKING FROM THIS DISCOURSE ON DHAMMA

BUT ONE STANZA OF FOUR LINES,

WOULD DEMONSTRATE IT TO OTHERS.

THEN THIS MATTER ON THE STRENGTH OF THAT

WOULD BEGET A GREATER HEAP OF MERIT,

IMMEASURABLE AND INCALCULABLE.'

It is said that Hui Neng, one of the greatest Zen masters, the sixth patriarch in the Zen tradition, became enlightened by hearing four lines of The Diamond Sutra. And he was just passing by in a marketplace. He had gone to purchase something, he was not even thinking of enlightenment, and somebody by the side of the road was reading The Diamond Sutra. That man had been reading The Diamond Sutra for his whole life -- he must have been a kind of scholar, or a parrot -- and it was his usual thing, his ritual, to read the sutra every morning, every evening.

It was evening and the market was just closing and people were going home and Hui Neng was passing. He heard just four lines. He was struck dumb. He stood there, it is said, for the whole night. The Diamond Sutra finished, the market closed, the man who was chanting it went, and Hui Neng was standing there and standing there and standing there. By the morning he was a totally different man. He never went home, he went to the mountains. The world became irrelevant. Just hearing? Yes, it is possible if you know how to hear. This Hui Neng must have been of a very very innocent mind. He was a wonderful man.

Buddha says that even if somebody demonstrates one stanza of four lines from The Diamond Sutra, his merit is more, his merit is immeasurable and incalculable, more than the merit of a man or a woman who were to renounce their belongings as many times as there are grains of sand in the river Ganges.

Renunciation does not help, understanding helps. Renouncing the world is not going to take you anywhere, you have to understand. Renunciation is a stupid effort. Only stupid people renounce, the wise tries to understand what the case is. The wise is never an escapist. Only the stupid people are escapists, because they cannot face life, they cannot encounter life, and they cannot take its challenge. They don't have the guts.

They move to the Himalayas, they escape to Tibetan monasteries or somewhere else. They run away from the world. These are the cowards. And religion is possible only if you have courage -- immense courage is needed.

Buddha says these sutras are so valuable that if you can listen totally, with an open heart, if you are vulnerable to them, they can transform your life. Even sometimes a single word can be such a transforming force.

I have heard about a man, he must have been like Hui Neng. He was very old, sixty-five or seventy. He had gone for a morning walk, and some woman must have been waking her son, or somebody else, inside a hut. The old man was on the road and the woman was saying, "It is time to get up. It is morning! It is no longer night!"

The old man heard these words. Mm? -- It was not even The Diamond Sutra, it was just a woman telling somebody, "Get up! It is enough! You have slept long. It is no longer night. The sun has risen, it is morning," and the old man heard. He must have been in some receptive state of mind -- the early morning, the birds singing and the sun and the cool breeze -- and those words struck hard, like arrows in the heart: "It is morning and you have slept too long and it is no longer night." He never went home.

He went outside the town, sat in a temple meditating. People came to know about him, and the family came rushing and they said, "What are you doing here?"

He said, "It is morning. It is no longer night, and I have already slept enough. Enough is enough! Excuse me. Leave me alone. I have to wake up. Death is coming -- I have to wake up."

And whenever he would pass the door of that woman -- he had never seen that woman -- he would go and bow down at the door. That was his temple and that woman was his master. He had never seen the woman, and the woman was an ordinary woman.

Sometimes a few words, even uttered by ordinary people, can fall in the right soil of the heart and can bring great transformation. What to say about words of a Buddha?...

THEREUPON THE IMPACT OF DHAMMA

MOVED THE VENERABLE SUBHUTI TO TEARS.

HAVING SHED TEARS, HE THUS SPOKE TO THE LORD: 'IT IS WONDERFUL, O LORD,

IT IS EXCEEDINGLY WONDERFUL, O WELL-GONE,

HOW WELL THE TATHAGATA HAS TAUGHT

THIS DISCOURSE ON DHAMMA.

THROUGH IT COGNITION HAS BEEN PRODUCED IN ME,

AND IT IS INDEED NO PERCEPTION.

AND WHY?

BECAUSE THE BUDDHAS, THE LORDS,

HAVE LEFT ALL PERCEPTIONS BEHIND.'

It is very rare that a man of the qualities of Subhuti will cry and weep and tears will come to him. But when such compassion, when such love from Buddha is showering on him, when such diamond words are falling on him like rain... he was overwhelmed.

THEREUPON THE IMPACT OF DHAMMA

MOVED THE VENERABLE SUBHUTI TO TEARS.

Remember, there is no deeper way to relate your gratitude than tears, there is no higher way to pray than tears. Just a few days ago Geet Govind had come from Esalen. He could not say a single word to me -- tears and tears. And he started feeling a little embarrassed. He wanted to say something, but nothing was coming.

Those tears were beautiful. And since then he has been crying here. For all these two or three weeks that he has been here he has been crying, and he has been writing to me: "Osho, what to do? How to stop these tears? They go on and on." The impact.... He has made contact with me, hence the tears. He has seen me, hence the tears. His eyes are showing gratitude, hence the tears. The eyes are fulfilled, hence the tears.

Never be afraid of tears. The so-called civilization has made you very afraid of tears. It has created a kind of guilt in you. When tears come you start feeling embarrassed. You start feeling, "What will others think? And I am a man and I am crying! It looks so feminine and childish. It should not be so." You stop those tears -- and you kill something which was growing in you.

Tears are far more beautiful than anything that you have with you, because tears come from the overflow of your being. And tears are not necessarily of sadness; sometimes they come out of great joy and sometimes they come out of great peace and sometimes they come out of ecstasy and love. in fact they have nothing to do with sadness or happiness. Anything that stirs your heart too much, anything that takes possession of you, anything that is too much, that you cannot contain and it starts overflowing -- that brings tears.

Accept them with great joy, relish them, nourish them, welcome them, and through tears you will know how to pray. Through tears you will know how to see. Tear-filled eyes are capable of seeing truth. Tear-filled eyes are capable of seeing the beauty of life and the benediction of it.

THEREUPON THE IMPACT OF DHAMMA

MOVED THE VENERABLE SUBHUTI TO TEARS.

HAVING SHED TEARS, HE THUS SPOKE TO THE LORD: 'IT IS WONDERFUL, O LORD,

IT IS EXCEEDINGLY WONDERFUL, O WELL-GONE,

HOW WELL THE TATHAGATA HAS TAUGHT

THIS DISCOURSE ON DHAMMA.

THROUGH IT COGNITION HAS BEEN PRODUCED IN ME....'

He says, "Your presence, your compassionate words, your love, your grace, has produced cognition in me. It has given me an insight, a vision, of what is truth, AND IT IS INDEED NO PERCEPTION." Still Subhuti says, "But let me remind you, it is no perception because there is nobody to perceive it. It is pure cognition."

Knowing has arisen but there is nobody who knows and there is nothing that is known, only knowing has arisen. It is pure knowing. The division is not there of the knower and the known and the knowing. It is just knowing.

'AND WHY?

BECAUSE THE BUDDHAS, THE LORDS,

HAVE LEFT ALL PERCEPTIONS BEHIND.'

"And now I know why it is said that the Buddhas have left all perception behind, because perception needs the perceiver and the perceived, observation needs the observer and the observed. All these dualities have been dropped. There is only oneness."

It is very difficult -- to say it. Michael Adam's words will be helpful: "It has taken all these words to tell, but what is there to tell? Here and now, what is there? A wind in the trees; it blows and they bend. I have spoken in many words. It is cause for smiling now, for truth is only a word. Life is a word, death is a word, happiness is a word, God is a word. The wind and the tree, the robin and the seal, the child and the sun are real. The rest is only words.

"Words about the sun lack even the reality of shadows and are colder by far. What the sun is the clamoring mind and the seeking heart cannot know, for the sun is of another kind, makes no sound and does not strive. But this still and silent earth would seem to understand, all without effort the earth would seem to know what the sun is. Beneath this semblance of death, under the shroud of snow, in the very midst of the winter, the open quiet earth well knows what the sun is."

The disciple has to become like thirsty earth -- the thirsty earth knows what the cloud is. The disciple has to become like open, vulnerable earth. The vulnerable earth knows what the sun is. It cannot say it, it cannot express it, but it knows.

That's what Subhuti means when he says, "Cognition has arisen in me. I cannot say, I am not there to capture it, I am not there to seize it, I am just an emptiness -- but perception has arisen, cognition has arisen, darshan has arisen. I have seen, and there is no seer."

THE LORD SAID:

'SO IT IS, SUBHUTI.

MOST WONDERFULLY BLEST WILL BE THOSE BEINGS WHO,

ON HEARING THIS SUTRA,

WILL NOT TREMBLE, NOR BE FRIGHTENED, OR TERRIFIED.'

These sutras are deathlike, they are crucifixion -- you will have to die. Only through death will you know what life is. Resurrection is possible but only through crucifixion. That's why Buddha said these sutras are dangerous and

'MOST WONDERFUL BLEST WILL BE THOSE BEINGS WHO,

ON HEARING THIS SUTRA,

WILL NOT TREMBLE, NOR BE FRIGHTENED, OR TERRIFIED.'

MOREOVER, SUBHUTI,

THE TATHAGATA'S PERFECTION OF PATIENCE

IS REALLY NO PERFECTION.

AND WHY? BECAUSE, SUBHUTI,

WHEN THE KING OF KALINGA CUT MY FLESH FROM EVERY LIMB,

AT THAT TIME I HAD NO PERCEPTION OF A SELF,

OF A BEING, OF A SOUL,

OR A PERSON.

AND WHY? IF, SUBHUTI,

AT THAT TIME I HAD HAD A PERCEPTION OF SELF,

I WOULD ALSO HAVE HAD A PERCEPTION

OF ILL-WILL AT THAT TIME.'

He reminds Subhuti of his old experience of a past life, when the king of Kalinga had cut his limbs. He says, "At that time when my limbs were cut, my hands were cut, my legs were cut, and my tongue and my eyes were taken away, I was watching and I could not see any 'I' arising in me. There was nobody who was seeing it, there was nobody who was hurt by it."

"If any perception of 'I' had arisen at that time, then it would have been followed by ill-will. Then I would have been angry with the king who was killing me and destroying me, but I was not angry. There was no anger."

The ego brings anger. Anger is the shadow of the ego. The ego brings aggression, violence. Once the ego disappears all violence disappears. A man becomes love only when the ego has completely disappeared.

'AND FURTHER, SUBHUTI,

IT IS FOR THE WEAL OF ALL BEINGS

THAT A BODHISATTVA SHOULD GIVE GIFTS IN THIS MANNER.

AND WHY?

THIS PERCEPTION OF A BEING, SUBHUTI,

THAT IS JUST A NON-PERCEPTION.

THOSE ALL-BEINGS OF WHOM THE TATHAGATA HAS SPOKEN,

THEY ARE INDEED NO-BEINGS.

AND WHY?

BECAUSE THE TATHAGATA SPEAKS IN ACCORDANCE WITH REALITY, SPEAKS THE TRUTH, SPEAKS OF WHAT IS, NOT OTHERWISE. A TATHAGATA DOES NOT SPEAK FALSELY.' 'TATHAGATA, SUBHUTI, IS SYNONYMOUS WITH TRUE SUCHNESS.'

Buddha says, "I have said only that which is -- YATHA BHUTAM. I have not said anything else. That's why my statements are so paradoxical, so illogical, because truth is illogical. To understand truth, you will have to drop logic."

Enough for today.

The Diamond Sutra

Chapter #10

Chapter title: Utter Emptiness

30 December 1977 am in Buddha Hall

Archive code: 7712300

ShortTitle: DIAMON10

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 83 mins

The first question:

BELOVED OSHO,

Question 1

EVEN IN MY RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU, WORDS BECOME LESS IMPORTANT ALL THE TIME. WHY SHOULD A BUDDHA AND A BODHISATTVA NEED TO TALK AT ALL?

What are you talking about, about what talk? It never happened. Nobody has said anything and nobody has heard anything. The Diamond Sutra has no sutras in it, Mahasattva, that's why it is called The Diamond Sutra. It is an utter emptiness. If you get caught in the words you will miss the message.

The Diamond Sutra is absolutely empty, there is no message in it. There is nothing to read and nothing to hear. It is utter silence. If you read something in The Diamond Sutra you have missed it. If you find some doctrine in it, some philosophy in it, then you must be imagining, it must be your dream. Buddha has not talked anything, neither has Subhuti heard anything.

In that non-talking and non-hearing, something has happened -- something which is beyond words. Ananda has tried to capture that for you in words, but it was not delivered in words. It was a communion between two emptinesses.

You just go to the sea and you see the morning, and the fresh air and the sunrays and the waves, and you come home and you relate to somebody what you have seen. Then you relate only words. The word sea is not the sea and the word sun is not the sun and the word freshness is not freshness. How do you commune? You have come back from the beach and your beloved asks, "What happened?" You bring all that has happened into words, knowing perfectly well that it cannot be brought into words, it cannot be reduced into words. Words are so pale.

Something has certainly happened between Buddha and Subhuti, something which is transcendental. Maybe they had just looked into each other's eyes. Something was triggered in the consciousness of Subhuti by Buddha's presence. Ananda is trying to report it for you. You are blind. You cannot see light, you can only hear the word light.

So remember: The Diamond Sutra is not a sutra at all, that's why it is called The Diamond Sutra, the most precious, because it contains no philosophy, no system, no theory. It contains no words, it is an empty book.

If you can forget the words and you can go deeper into the gaps between the words, if you can forget the lines and can go deeper between the lines, in the intervals, in the pauses, then you will find what has happened. It is not a verbal communication.

I am also talking to you, but still I would like to remind you to remember that my message is not in my words. You will have to step upon the words to get it. Use the words as a staircase, as stepping stones. Remember, stepping stones can become hindrances if you don't know how to step over them.

You have to listen in silence to silence.

Mahasattva, Buddha has not said a single word, neither has Subhuti heard a single word. It is the compassion of Ananda to make a few maps for you. Those maps are not the countries. If you have a map of India, that map is not India, it cannot be. How can it be? But it can be of some limited help to you; it can lead you to the real India. It is like the arrow on the milestone by the side of the road, it points towards something.

This whole Diamond Sutra points towards silence. Hence so many contradictions in it, because only through contradictions can silence be created. Each word has to be contradicted by its opposite immediately it is uttered so that they destroy each other and in the wake, silence is felt.

The second question:

BELOVED OSHO,

Question 2

THE DEEPER INTO MYSELF, THE MORE ALONE I FEEL. THERE IS ONLY NOTHINGNESS. AND SOMETIMES, LOOKING INTO YOUR EYES, I GET THE SAME FEELING OF A VAST EMPTINESS.

IF IT IS NATURAL -- IF BEING ALONE IS BASIC, THE VERY ESSENCE OF MY BEING -- THEN HOW COULD THE ILLUSIVE IDEA OF BECOMING ONE, OF FALLING IN LOVE WITH SOMEBODY ETERNALLY, COME INTO BEING IN THE FIRST PLACE? AND WHY IS IT SO PAINFUL TO BECOME AWARE THAT IT IS AN ILLUSION? PLEASE CLEAR MY DOUBTS.

You are the doubter and you are the doubt. There is no other doubt. First, when you say, "The deeper I fall into myself, the more alone I feel," if you have really been falling deeper you will feel aloneness but you will not feel "I am alone," because then there are two things, I and aloneness. Then you are not alone. Then there is the experiencer and the experienced, the observer and the observed. Then you are not alone; the other is there -- the experience is the other.

When you really fall deep into yourself, you will not find yourself; that is the whole thing to understand. It is only on the surface that the waves exist. If you go deeper into the ocean you will not find waves, or can you? How can you find waves in the depth? They exist only on the surface, they can exist only on the surface. They need winds to exist.

The 'I' can exist only on the surface because it needs thou, the wind of the thou to exist. When you go deeper into yourself the winds are no longer there, thous are no longer there. How can there be 'I'? I and thou exist in a pair, they are never divorced. Yes, you will find aloneness, but not I-ness. And aloneness is beautiful. Let me remind you again, the word alone means all one. That's how it is constructed -- all one. On the surface you are separate from all. In fact on the surface you are lonely because you are separate from the all. In the depth, when you have disappeared, there is no distinction between you and all. All is one, you are no longer, aloneness is.

You say, "The deeper I fall into myself the more alone I feel." You must be imagining that you are falling deeper into yourself. The mind can go on playing games. It can play the game of being alone, it can play the game of being in prayer, it can play the game of being in meditation, but if 'I' remains then you can be certain it is a game, nothing real has happened. That's why again the desire for the other will arise.

The 'I' cannot exist alone. It needs the other to support it, to feed it, to nourish it. It will bring you back to the other. That's why when you are lonely you start thinking of your beloved, of your friend, of your mother, father, this and that, a thousand and one things. You create imaginary 'thous'. If a man is put in isolation for more than three weeks he starts talking to himself. He creates the whole dialogue. He himself is divided in two -- I and thou. He becomes two so the game call be played. 'I' cannot exist separate from 'thou'.

"The deeper I fall into myself, the more alone I feel."

No, you must be feeling lonely. Never use these two words as synonymous. Loneliness is negative, aloneness is positive. Loneliness simply means you are missing the other. The other is absent, there is a gap in you. Aloneness means you are present, there is no gap in you. You are full of presence, you are utterly there. Loneliness is the absence of the other, aloneness is the presence of your eternal being.

You say "there is only nothingness." No, if there is only nothingness then there is no problem. If there is only nothingness and nobody to know it, nobody to feel it, then there is no problem. Then from where comes the doubt? How can the doubter arise? No, you are there. That nothingness is bogus because you are there. How can it be nothingness? It is just your idea.

This used to happen in my family when I was a child. I was so lazy -- I am still -- I was so lazy, utterly lazy, that my family lost all hope with me. By and by they started forgetting about me, because I would never do anything. I would sit in the corner and just sit, either with closed eyes or with open eyes, but I was so absent to them that by and by they became oblivious to me.

Sometimes it would happen that my mother would need something from the market, vegetables or something, and I would be sitting in front of her and she would say, "Nobody seems to be present here." She was just sitting in front of me and talking to me, "Nobody seems to be here. I want somebody to go and fetch vegetables from the market." And I was sitting in front of her and she said, "Nobody is here."

I was counted as nobody. Even if a stray dog would enter in the house I would allow it. I was sitting at the gate and the dog would enter and I would watch. And my mother would come rushing out and she would say, "nobody is here to prevent this dog" -- and I was sitting there!

By and by they had accepted that I was as if not. But that does not make much difference; I was there. I had seen the dog coming, I was hearing their words. I knew I could manage to go to the market-place and fetch vegetables for her. And I would laugh at the whole idea -- that she went on saying that nobody was there.

That's what is happening to you. You are there, and you say nothingness is. You are oblivious of yourself, you don't take note of yourself, otherwise you are there. If you are not there, who is saying that nothingness is? Then there is nothingness when you are not there, then there is pure nothingness. In that purity is nirvana, enlightenment. That is the most valuable place to be, the most spacious place to be. It is the space everybody is searching for, because it is unlimited, infinite. And its purity is absolute. It is not polluted by anything; even you are not there. There is light and there is consciousness, but there is no 'I'. 'I' is like ice, frozen consciousness. Consciousness is like melted ice, liquid, or, even better, even the water has evaporated, has become invisible.

And you say: "And why is it so painful to become aware that it is an illusion?" -- the other. It is painful because the I starts dying. To recognize the other as the illusion, to recognize love as illusion, is very hard, because then the I starts dying. If you drop the you, the I cannot exist. And you don't know the beauty of dropping the I.

And you ask: "If it is natural -- if being alone is basic, the very essence of my being -- then how could the illusive idea of becoming one, of falling in love with somebody eternally, come into being in the first place?"

It came only because of that -- because aloneness is basic, essential. The Hindu scriptures say that God was alone. Just think, just visualize God alone and alone and alone for eternity. He became fed up with his aloneness, it was monotonous. He wanted to have a little play. He created the other and started playing hide-and-seek.

When you are tired of the play, when you become fed up with the play, you become a Buddha again. You again drop your toys. They are created by you, the value is imagined by you; you have put the value on them. The moment you withdraw your value they disappear, you are again alone.

The Hindu concept is tremendously valuable, significant. It says God was alone, it became monotonous, and he created the world, the other, just to have a little chitchat with the other, to have a little dialogue. Then again and again one comes and feels tired and bored with the other, disappears into oneself, again reaches to one's nothingness and becomes a god.

You are all gods who are deceiving themselves. It is your choice. The day you choose not to be this way you will be free. It is your dream. Because of aloneness, because aloneness is the essential quality of your being, the other has been created.

You just try it, go for a few weeks to the mountains and sit alone and you will feel very good. Everybody is tired of relationship and fed up and bored. Go to the mountains and sit silently and you will feel so beautiful, but after three or four days, five days, seven days, three weeks, you will start thinking of the other. Your woman again starts being attractive to you. You forget all the nastiness and all the nagging. You forget all that she has been doing to you, you completely forget all. She is again beautiful, she is again lovely, she is again fantastic, mm? -- you put value again.

Then you have to come down from the mountains to the plains, and for two or three days with the woman things are going beautifully -- a new honeymoon and after two or three days things become difficult again, and again you start thinking how to meditate, how to be silent. This is how you go on. Just watch your consciousness and its fluctuations and through it you will know the whole process of existence, because you are a miniature existence.

The pendulum of consciousness goes on swinging between meditation and love, between aloneness and togetherness. And because all the religions of the world up to now have been either of love or of meditation, they were fragmentary, they were not total. I am giving you the total religion. I am not choosing.

For example, Buddha had chosen meditation. He gives you the love for meditation, no other love. He teaches you only to be alone, absolutely alone and nothing else. It is good, it is tremendously good for people who are tired and fed up with the world.

He was tired and fed up with the world. He was a king, he was not a beggar. He was tired of women. His father had brought all the beautiful girls from the kingdom for him. He had one of the most beautiful harems. If you get all the beautiful women of the world in your house, how long will you be able to live there? Just think of it: one is more than enough. Now all the beautiful women of the kingdom were there. It must have been maddening. If he escaped, it is no wonder. All the pleasures were arranged for him, every kind of pleasure was arranged for him. If he became fed up, it is no wonder. He moved to the other pole. The other was too much. He escaped into the jungle, he became alone.

There are religions which are religions of meditation -- Buddhism, Jainism. There are religions which are religions of love -- Christianity, Mohammedanism. And this has to be understood. Jesus is a poor man, so is Mohammed. This can't be accidental. Mahavira is a king, so is Buddha. The two kings have given to the world the religion of meditation, and the two poor people of the world have given the religion of love.

The poor cannot be fed up with the other. The poor has not had that much of the other. The poor hankers for the other. The other may be the woman or money or power or prestige or God; it makes no difference -- the other is needed.

Christianity and Islam are both religions of prayer, love -- love for God, prayer for God. In Buddhism, in Jainism, there is no place for God at all because there is no place for the other. Aloneness is enough. In Jainism and in Buddhism there is no existence of anything like prayer, the word has not been heard; they know only of meditation. Christianity knows nothing of meditation. These are not accidental things, they show something about the founders.

I am giving you a total religion, a religion which allows both. When you are feeling tired with the other, move into meditation, swing into meditation. When you are feeling tired of aloneness, swing into love. Both are good. Both are contradictory, but through contradiction great joy arises. If you have only one you will not have that kind of richness. The one can give you silence or can give you great joy, but both can give you something infinitely precious, incomparable. Both together, they can give you a silent ecstasy, a peaceful joy. At the innermost core you remain utterly silent, and on the periphery, the dance. And when silence dances or silence sings, that is the richest, the peakest of peaks. Hence my insistence for both.

George Bernard Shaw once at a party was sitting alone at the edge of the room. His hostess came over to him and inquired solicitously, "Aren't you enjoying yourself?"

Shaw replied, "That's all I am enjoying."

He has hit upon a great truth, a great insight is there: one's self is all anyone can enjoy. Life starts taking the quality of silence. But if you can enjoy only yourself and never the other then you will miss the other dimension. One should be capable of enjoying oneself and the other too. That's what I call the whole man, the holy man.

The third question:

Question 3

OSHO,

WHEN I HEAR YOUR DISCOURSES AND AT OTHER TIMES, I KNOW THAT I KNOW ALL THAT IS NEEDED TO BE ENLIGHTENED. AT THOSE TIMES AM I ENLIGHTENED? PLEASE COMMENT ON HOW THIS OBVIOUSLY SUPERFICIAL 'KNOWING' CAN PENETRATE AND BECOME BEINGNESS. IT SEEMS THAT THIS KNOWING IS ROBBING ME OF INNOCENCE AND MORE COMPLETE EXPERIENTIAL REALIZATION, THAT KNOWLEDGE HAS FAR OUTSPACED THE GROWTH OF MY BEING, AND YET, KNOWING THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MY BEING, I DON'T FEEL WHOLLY MOTIVATED TOWARDS GROWING ONE.

The first thing, you say: "When I hear your discourses and at other times I know that I know all that is needed to be enlightened."

Nothing is needed to be enlightened, so how can you know all that is needed to be enlightened? Nothing is needed to be enlightened. Enlightenment is your natural state; it is not something that has to he produced, manufactured, created. If you are manufacturing something new, then many things will be needed. If you are not manufacturing anything new, what is needed? You are enlightened. How can anything be needed? Nothing is needed.

So your idea that you think "I know that I know all that is needed to be enlightened" is barring your way. Nothing is needed to be enlightened and nothing is needed to be known to be enlightened. Enlightenment is already there, is already the case. It is not a realization, it is only a recognition. It is not that you have to make efforts to bring it; all that you need is not to make any effort. Drop all efforts -- and suddenly it is there. You cannot see it because you are continuously making efforts to see it. Your very effort to see it is functioning as a barrier.

And you say: "At those times am I enlightened?" You are enlightened all the time, not when you hear me, not when you read something from The Diamond Sutra -- not only in those moments. You are all the time enlightened. From the very beginning to the very end, you remain enlightened. You can go on deceiving yourself that you are not enlightened as long as you want, but all the same you are enlightened.

It is like a man who is pretending to be a woman in a drama. He is all the time a man. He can go on pretending, sometimes even he may forget. If he is a good actor, a really good actor, he may get into the idea and forget about it. For a few moments he may think that he is a woman, but again and again he will know that he is a man.

It is a miracle that you forget that you are enlightened, that you go on forgetting it, but you ARE enlightened. Remember, enlightenment is not a quality that is going to happen to you in some future. You have brought it from the very beginning. It is in your breathing, it is in your heartbeat. It is the stuff you are made of.

"At those times am I enlightened?" No, if you think that sometimes you are enlightened and sometimes not, then you are not enlightened. The day you know, the moment you know you are always enlightened, then you are enlightened. Once you have felt enlightenment, it is always there surrounding you like an aroma.

Still you can go on playing a thousand and one games. I am playing, Buddha is playing, but that doesn't make any difference. Then it is with full awareness that the game is played. It does not entangle, it does not imprison.

Once you play a game knowing that it is a game, then there is no problem. Then you can be in the world, then you can be whatsoever you enjoy to be, but deep down you know you are not that. Deep down you remain far away. You become a lotus flower -- in the water and yet the water touches you not.

"At those times am I enlightened?" you ask. "Please comment on how this obviously superficial knowing can penetrate and become beingness."

Superficial knowing can never become beingness. Even deep and profound knowing can never become beingness. Knowledge itself is the obstacle. Knowing can never become being -- superficial or profound. Don't make these distinctions. These are tricks of the mind again. It is the knowledgeable mind.

The knowledgeable mind can say to you, "It is right, superficial knowledge cannot give you enlightenment, but what about profound knowledge?" This is again a trick played upon you. Profound? Then certainly you are caught again in the same net. Profound or not profound, knowledge as such is superficial. The profoundest knowledge is superficial, to know is superficial. To be is to be in that profoundness you are talking about.

You will have to be aware. Mind is very cunning. It can accept many things and again bring them back from the back door. It can say, "Right, I perfectly agree with you. How can superficial knowledge give you enlightenment? That is not possible. I will show you the way how to get profound knowledge."

What will you do to get profound knowledge? It will be superficial knowledge again because knowledge is superficial. At the most you will have more superficial knowledge, the quantity will grow, and through the quantity you will have the illusion that you are becoming profound.

You may go into deeper details, but details don't lead you to depth. You can know one thing about one thing or a thousand things about that one thing; it makes no difference -- knowledge is about and about. It never hits the point, it never reaches the target.

The target is reached only by being, and to be, knowledge has to be dropped absolutely, totally, with no conditions, with no choice that "This is good, keep it, and that is bad, drop it. This is profound, keep it, and that is not profound, drop it." If you keep anything of knowledge, you will remain unenlightened. And the wonder of wonders is that you are enlightened and you go on remaining unenlightened.

The question is from Chipper Roth. He must be a newcomer to this place, he must be an outsider. Be here. We will take away your knowledge slowly slowly. My whole work consists of making people ignorant. Ignorance has depth, ignorance has innocence, ignorance is profound -- not knowing has no limits to it. Knowing is always limited. How can it be profound? Howsoever great your knowledge, it will have a limit, a boundary to it. Only ignorance has no boundary.

They say that science is an effort to know more about less and less. If you go on and on with this approach -- to know more and more about less and less -- what will be the end? The end will be that you know all about nothing. That will be the logical conclusion.

I would like to say that religion is just the opposite approach: to know less and less about more and more. And what will be the ultimate result? One day... you go on knowing less and less about more and more; one day you know nothing about all. And that is the experience -- to know nothing about all. That's what I call ignorance.

Roth, please be here a little longer, hang around.

The fourth question:

BELOVED OSHO,

Question 4

I AM ENJOYING THE PLAY VERY MUCH THESE DAYS. A VERY MASTERFUL PERFORMANCE THIS MORNING. EVERY MORNING I WAIT EAGERLY WONDERING WHAT THE CURTAIN'S RISE WILL BRING. I OVERFLOW WITH YOU BUT IT BRINGS LAUGHTER, NOT TEARS. WHERE ARE THE TEARS?

Sucheta, they are in your laughter.

Laughter and tears are not different. There are two types of people, the tear people and the laughter people. There are always two kinds everywhere, the whole existence is divided into duality -- man and woman, yin and yang, positive/negative, day/night, life/death. So there is this division, the laughter people and the tear people.

The tear people are introverts, they are easily ingoing. And when you go in, the deeper you go in the more and more your eyes will be filled with tears. Sucheta is an extrovert, she is a laughing Buddha. Geet Govind is a tearful Buddha. She is an extrovert, outgoing, a real American. So when something overwhelms her she will laugh.

And remember always, never imitate anybody. If Geet Govind tries to imitate Sucheta he will be in difficulty. His laughter will be very poor and it will look phony. If Sucheta tries to imitate Geet Govind it will be very difficult to bring tears, and even if she can manage with some artificial aid they will not be true, they will be false.

Extroverts should follow their way. In their life, laughter will be their overflowing energy. Love will be easier for them, meditation will be a little difficult. For the introverts, meditation will be easier, love will be a little difficult; tears will be easier, laughter will be a little difficult.

Never imitate anybody, just go on your own way, and by and by you will see a transformation coming when you have touched the extreme. For example, if you go on laughing... for example, if Sucheta goes on laughing to the utter extreme, tears will come. There will come a moment in laughter when the laughter will start disappearing and tears will come. If Geet Govind goes on crying and crying and crying in tears and tears and tears to the very end, suddenly he will find a change happening: laughter will arise. The revolution is only from the extreme.

Once I was talking to a council of Buddhists. Now to say to Buddhists that the revolution is from the extreme, or that truth is only at the extreme, is very difficult because they believe in the middle way, the golden mean. Buddha's path is known as MAJJHIMA NIKAYA, the middle way.

I forgot that they were Buddhists. I talked about the extreme and I told them that the revolution happens only from the extreme, from the utter extreme. Unless you reach to the utter extreme there is no truth. Truth is at the extreme, this or that -- but at the extreme. Either love at the extreme or meditation at the extreme.

They were patient -- Buddhists are patient; they are not like Mohammedans, they will not start fighting -- but still, patience has a boundary. One Buddhist could not tolerate, it although Buddha has said to tolerate. He stood up. He said, "This is too much. Have you forgotten completely that Buddha's path is known as the middle path?"

Then I remembered and I said, "True, I know, but unless you are at the extreme middle there is no truth." I was talking about the extreme, it had nothing to do with the middle. "If you are at the extreme middle, exactly the middle, then again truth. Truth happens only with the extreme."

From the extreme the pendulum swings towards the other polarity. So, good Sucheta. Laugh, laugh to the extreme. One day you will see your laughter is bringing beautiful tears.

The sixth question:

Question 5

OSHO,

CANNOT ONE DECLARE THAT ONE HAS EXPERIENCED GOD?

If you have experienced, your very existence will be the declaration, you need not declare. At least you need not ask. If the declaration comes it comes, what can you do? One who has experienced God will not decide anything, not even this -- whether he has to declare or not. One who has experienced God has dropped the mind. Now whatsoever happens he will be into it, he will be totally into it. If declaration comes it comes.

It came to Mansoor. He declared, "ANA'L-HAQ, I am God." His master, Junnaid, told him, "Mansoor, this is not right. You will get into trouble. I also know but I have never declared because you know these Mohammedans who are all around -- they will kill you."

But Mansoor said, "What can I do? When he declares what can I do? Suddenly he catches hold of me and declares."

Junnaid was so afraid that he expelled Mansoor from his school. He said, "You go away, go somewhere else. You will get into trouble, and you will also get me into trouble."

But Mansoor said, "What can I do? If he wants to get into trouble himself, what can I do?" And he got into trouble. But it was true that he could not do anything. He declared at the last moment also from the cross: "ANA'L-HAQ, I am God" -- and laughed.

Somebody asked from the crowd, "If you can still deny, if you can still say that you were wrong in declaring yourself God, there is still hope that you can be forgiven."

He laughed and he said, "But what can I do? He declares."

And you are asking me: "Cannot one declare that one has experienced God?" If God declares, good. If God is not declaring, you please keep quiet, leave it to him.

J. Donald Walters writes:

A few years ago I met a man who was holding forth, somewhat drunkenly, and with massive self-importance, on his version of how the universe ought to be run. I forget how it came about, but I happened to mention that I thought I had met perhaps six people in my life who knew God. My companion held out a huge, hairy paw. "Shake!" he cried hoarsely. "Ya just met the seventh."

Donald Walters writes that he could not believe that this man had experienced God, because he thinks how, if you have experienced God, will you declare so blatantly, "Shake! Ya just met the seventh."

But that it not my opinion. It is possible. Because sometimes God is hoarse, sometimes very polite and sometimes very hoarse. God comes in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes his hands are very very smooth and sometimes very hairy. He comes in all the ways. His ways are mysterious.

So if he wants to declare through you, go to the housetops and let him declare. But if he does not want to declare and you declare on your own, you will get into trouble. If he wants to get into trouble that is his business, but don't decide on your own otherwise it will be just an ego trip.

Reading this story of Donald Walters, I felt very much for the man who said, "Shake! Ya just met the seventh."

Walters writes condemningly. He thinks this is not the way. Who will decide what is the way? No one should decide. Who am I to tell you that you should not declare? If he wants to declare, who am I to tell you? Let his will be done.

But remember always, it should not be your decision. If you decide to declare, that simply means you have not known. Then the mind is playing the greatest megalomaniac trick. Then the mind is going mad.

The seventh question:

Question 6

OSHO,

A DEAR FRIEND OF MINE SENT A LETTER TO YOU FROM THE WEST ASKING FOR A SANNYAS NAME AND THEN CAME HERE BEFORE SHE RECEIVED AN ANSWER AND TOOK SANNYAS HERE. THE NAME SHE WAS GIVEN BY LETTER WAS A TOTALLY DIFFERENT KIND OF NAME FROM THE ONE YOU GAVE HER HERE. I WAS VERY DISTURBED WHEN I HEARD ABOUT THIS BECAUSE I HAVE ALWAYS THOUGHT OF MY NAME AS MY PATH. I HAVE USED IT TO DIRECT ME WHEN I HAVE BEEN CONFUSED. WHAT REALLY IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NAME YOU GIVE TO US.

Veera, all holy cow dung. Don't be deceived by the names. You are always hankering to catch hold of something, to make something big out of nothings. The names I give you are just like lovers' sweet nothings. Don't make much fuss about them.

In fact, once I have given you the name, never come and ask me about its meaning again because I forget. It is in that moment that I create the meaning around it. Then how am I supposed to remember? I must have given thirty thousand names or more.

A name is just a name. You are nameless. No name confines you, no name can confine you. They are just labels to be used -- utilitarian, nothing spiritual in it. But because I pay so much attention to your name and I explain it to you, you get hooked with it. That is just my way of showering my attention on you, nothing else; just my way of showing my love to you, nothing else.

BELOVED OSHO,

Question 7

WHY DO I ALWAYS FALL ASLEEP IN DISCOURSE? SOMETIMES I CAN'T HELP COMPARING MYSELF TO THOSE PEOPLE WHO SIT ABSOLUTELY STILL, JUST IMBIBING YOU, AND THAT MAKES ME FEEL LIKE I HAVE SO FAR TO GO, ESPECIALLY EVERY TIME WHEN PEOPLE COME UP TO ME AFTER THE LECTURE AND SAY, "WASN'T IT AMAZING TODAY?"

MAYBE MORE WOULD COME THROUGH TO ME IF I JUST ACCEPT THAT DISCOURSE IS A GOOD PLACE FOR ME TO SLEEP.

It is the perfect place. Don't be worried about those people who come and tell you, they must be joking. You sleep well. They must be trying to disturb you, they must be trying to create some jealousy in you. They must be really jealous of you -- that you are sleeping so well and snoring, and those poor people are just sitting. They want to disturb you. Don't be worried. Go on sleeping. You have to go far, but in sleep, nowhere else.

The game was drifting off into total boredom when a man in the crowd suddenly burst into a round of applause. The man next to him said, "Why did you do that?"

"Sorry," he replied. "I was trying to keep myself awake."

You don't know how much difficulty people are having in keeping themselves awake. You just go into your sleep, relax into it. If you can accept it totally, that will become a great experience.

The mind always creates conflict. If you don't sleep, the mind says, "I am feeling like it would be good if I could sleep." If you sleep, the mind says, "You have missed something, you should not do this." The mind always creates conflict, friction. It is never happy with anything. Drop that mind. If sleep comes naturally, then allow it. In that very acceptance and the disappearance of the mind, you will be hearing The Diamond Sutra.

Patanjali says sleep is just next to samadhi. A good sleep, a deep sleep, and samadhi, are different only in one sense: samadhi has awareness, sleep has no awareness. But awareness can happen in sleep. Don't make trouble for yourself, don't divide yourself.

If sleep is not coming, perfectly good, keep awake, but then it will not be an effort. If sleep is coming then fall asleep, then don't try to keep yourself awake. And I am not saying that if sleep is not coming you have to try to go to sleep. Accept whatsoever is the case. Accept reality as it happens in a certain moment. Be totally in the moment.

That's my whole message, to be utterly with the moment. This is desire: "I should not be asleep." Why? This is not spiritual -- to sit in a discourse and fall asleep. Why? Sleep is a perfectly spiritual activity, a great spiritual activity. It is as good as sitting there and thinking, dreaming is as good. Dreaming is just a primitive form of thinking, more colorful. Others are thinking, you are dreaming. What is the difference? Dream well, sleep well, relax.

One day, out of this relaxation you will start becoming aware and alert, but that alertness will have a different quality to it. It will not be forced, it will not be manipulated by you, it will come. One day suddenly in the middle of the discourse you will open your eyes, fresh, young, from the deep sleep, and something, just a word, may go into your being and will transform you.

The whole Diamond Sutra was not needed when Hui Neng heard four lines -- that was enough. Sometimes a single word from a Buddha is enough. It just goes like an arrow and pierces your heart and you are no longer the same.

So don't be worried. Relax well. And if you have relaxed well and you open your eyes, some time it is possible -- there may happen the meeting between you and me. And you will be so fresh from sleep, unthinking, not knowing who you are....

Don't you know? Sometimes it happens in the morning when you wake, it takes a few seconds for you to recognize who you are, the mind takes time to come back. Sometimes you cannot even recognize where you are. Suddenly awakened in the middle of the night, everybody will wonder who he is, where he is. He will take a little time to gather himself together.

So it is possible, sleeping, one day in the middle you hear my shouting. Suddenly you wake up and you don't know where you are. That is the right moment I can enter in you.

So don't be worried. Whatsoever happens is good. All is accepted here. I accept you as you are. I have no 'shoulds' for you.

The last question:

Question 8

OSHO,

WHY CAN'T PEOPLE UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER'S RELIGIONS?

WHY IS THERE ALWAYS SO MUCH CONFLICT?

The ego. It has nothing to do with religions, just the ego. Whatsoever is yours has to be the best in the world. Whatsoever is others' cannot be the best, cannot be allowed to be the best in the world.

Your wife is the most beautiful woman, your husband is the most beautiful person. You are the greatest man in the world. You may not say so, but you say it in a thousand and one ways. And whatsoever belongs to you has to be the best. People are just like small children. Small children go on fighting, "My daddy can lick your daddy any time."

A small boy was telling another boy, "My mother is a great orator. She can speak on any subject for hours."

The other said, "That's nothing. My mother is such a great orator she can speak without any subject for hours. Nobody knows what she is speaking."

People go on bragging about their things, about everything, about religion too.

Mulla Nasruddin's son asked him, "Pop, if a Mohammedan leaves his religion and becomes a Hindu or a Christian, what would you call him?"

The Mulla became very angry and he said, "He is a traitor! He should be shot. This is the greatest sin in the world -- to change your religion, to betray your religion. He is NAMAK HARAM -- he has betrayed his salt."

Then the boy asked, "Then Pop, if a Hindu or a Christian becomes a Mohammedan?"

Mulla was all smiles, Jimmy Carter smiles. He said, "That is great. That man is wise. That man should be welcomed and respected and honored. He knows what is truth and he is courageous. He is a convert, my son!"

Now the thing has changed. If a Mohammedan becomes a Hindu or a Christian he is a traitor; if a Hindu or a Christian becomes a Mohammedan he is a convert and he is a great man and he should be honored and respected. He is wise because he has recognized what is the real religion.

That's how our egos function. That's why religions, rather than bringing peace to the world, have been the cause of bloody wars. Many more people have been killed in the name of religion than in any other name. Not even politicians have been able to surpass the so-called religious people in murder. The greatest murderers have been the churches and the mosques and the temples.

In the future this ugliness has to be dropped; it should be immediately dropped. A religion is a personal choice. If somebody does not like the roseflower, you don't kill him and you don't say that he is ugly, you don't say that he is wrong. You say that that is his liking. He does not like the roseflower, it is finished. I like the roseflower. But it is a question of liking. There is no question of truth in it, there is no question of arguing about it and there is no reason to prove why I don't like the rose. If I don't like, I don't like. If you like, you like. There is no conflict. Religion should be like that.

Somebody likes Jesus -- perfectly beautiful. Somebody likes Buddha, somebody likes Krishna -- likings. A religion should not have anything to do with birth. It should be a pure liking. Then there will be no conflict, then there will be no unnecessary arguing which goes on and on down the centuries. Rather than praying, people have been arguing. The whole energy that they have put to argument, if it would have been put into prayer they would have known what God is. But they go on arguing, great debates continue, and nothing is ever proved because nothing can ever be proved.

If you like Jesus, it is just like when you fall in love with a woman. You cannot prove anything. Why? ... And whatsoever you prove will look foolish to others. If you say to others, "Look at her nose -- how long, how beautiful," people will say "That looks ugly, it is out of shape, it is too big, the face is not in proportion." If you say, "Look at the eyes -- so big, so beautiful," then somebody will say, "They look frightening. I cannot stay with that woman in the night. Those two big eyes... I am scared. And they are too big and not symmetrical!"

There is no way to prove your liking. Somebody likes Jesus and somebody likes Buddha. This is falling in love -- you need not prove it. And if you prove it you will look a fool to others. That's how it looks. Hindus think people who are in love with Jesus are foolish: What is there in this man? You ask the Hindus? -- they have a beautiful theory of karma. They say you suffer only if you have done wrong in your past lives. Why was Jesus crucified? He must have done great sins; otherwise why? Krishna is not crucified, Rama is not crucified -- why is Jesus crucified? He must have been a sinner.

Now the whole perspective changes. Now you ask a Christian about Krishna playing upon the flute. It looks so beautiful and Jesus on the cross looks so sad, and he will say, "What are you talking about? This world is in such misery, this man Krishna must have been of a very stony heart. He is playing on the flute and people are dying and people are in misery and there is death and disease and this man is playing on the flute. He must have a very very rocklike heart. He has no heart. If he had any heart he would have sacrificed himself for the downtrodden, for the oppressed, for those who are in misery. Look at Jesus -- he is the savior. He died for us so that we can be redeemed. This Krishna looks shallow."

But ask the Hindu who follows Krishna. He will say, "What are you talking about? There is no misery. All misery is illusion. And if people are suffering they are suffering for their sins. Nobody else can redeem them. And the only redeemer that can be of any help is one who brings joy into the world. Only joy is the healing force. How can you redeem?"

Hindus say if somebody is crying and you sit by the side and you also cry, can you redeem him? Crying is doubled. Somebody is ill and you fall in sympathy and lie down by their side -- how are you helping? To help you have to be healthy. You need not fall ill. Krishna is healthy, Krishna is joy. The world is so in misery, that's why he brings his flute. Crosses everybody is carrying already -- what is there in carrying a cross? Everybody is carrying a cross. A flute is needed. Now these are the ways and everybody can go on arguing for and against.

To me, religion is a love affair. It has nothing to do with intellect, it has nothing to do with reason. It is falling in love. With whomsoever you have fallen in love, that is your way. Go through it -- that is your door.

Love is the door, it is irrelevant with whom you have fallen in love. Love redeems, neither Jesus, nor Krishna. Love redeems. Fall in love. Love is the only redeeming force. Love is the savior. But your egos....

Meditate over this beautiful story:

Patrick the First, the Irish pope, was sitting in his office in the Vatican one day, reading the CATHOLIC HERALD, when a small article in the Irish section entitled "Record Births" caught his attention.

"Holy Mary Michael!" said the pope to his secretary, Cardinal Fitz-Michael. "Do you see this, bejaisus!"

"And what is that, Monseigneur," said Michael, jumping up from his paperwork.

"It says the wife of Paddy O'Flynne from Dublin has just presented him with his fifty-sixth child," said the pope.

"The saints be praised, sir," said Michael. "Some miracle indeed, is it not?"

"The Lord's work, to be sure," cried the pope, "and should be commemorated in some way for the unity of the Catholic church, world faith in general, and the Emerald Isle in particular."

"Indeed sir, what exactly do you have in mind?"

"No mind, Michael," replied the pope excitedly, "Action! Go this very moment to the workshop, have a golden madonna stuck up, top priority job, then run around to the travel agents and book me a first class return flight to Dublin on Aer Lingus. I myself personally will take the madonna as a little gift and present it to the O'Flynnes. I could do with a little holiday in the old country."

The next morning sharp, Pope Pat, clutching the madonna, the HERALD, and a bottle of Irish whiskey for the flight, boarded the plane for Dublin. On arrival he went straight to O'Flynne's home whereupon he was taken to the local pub by one of the family to where the main celebrations were taking place.

"Someone to see you, Dad," yelled the kid to the roomful of drinkers.

"Tell him to grab a Guinness and come over!" a voice replied.

The pope grabbed a Guinness and pushed his way, madonna first, into the center of the high-spirited group of inebriates. Some hours and many Guinnesses later, the pope finally staggered up to Paddy and, thrusting the madonna at him slurred, "I would like to offer my sincere congratulations to you."

"And who do I have the honor of addressing, sir?' said Paddy, beholding the drunken cleric, Guinness in one hand, madonna in the other.

"Well, you don't know me personally, Paddy, but in fact I am the pope."

"The pope!" exclaimed Paddy. "And you are in a dangerous place to be sure. Will you have another little Guinness?"

"I will indeed," said the pope, "if you will just promise me one thing before I do."

"For a drinking man," said Paddy, "it will be hard to refuse."

"I would like you to accept this madonna as a little gift from us all at the Vatican and take it and put it on the altar of your local Catholic church."

"Ah now, sir," said Paddy. "I will take the madonna, sir, to be sure, and very grateful I am, but put it on the altar of me local catholic church I cannot do."

"And why ever not," said the pope in amazement, "as a gift to Mother Mary?"

"Well, the truth is, sir," said Paddy, "I am not a Catholic, I am a Protestant."

"What!" screamed the pope. "You mean to say I have come all this way to present me golden madonna to a fucking sex maniac!"

Enough for today.

The Diamond Sutra

Chapter #11

Chapter title: The Fully Enlightened One

31 December 1977 am in Buddha Hall

Archive code: 7712310

ShortTitle: DIAMON11

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 82 mins

VAJRACHCHEDIKA

PRAJNAPARAMITA

SUTRA

OF

GAUTAMA

THE

BUDDHA

THE LORD ASKED:

'WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI, DOES IT OCCUR TO THE TATHAGATA, "BY ME HAS DHAMMA BEEN DEMONSTRATED"? WHOSOEVER, SUBHUTI, WOULD SAY, "THE TATHAGATA HAS DEMONSTRATED DHAMMA," HE WOULD SPEAK FALSELY, HE WOULD MISREPRESENT ME BY SEIZING ON WHAT IS NOT THERE. AND WHY?

'BECAUSE NOT EVEN THE LEAST DHAMMA IS THERE FOUND OR GOT AT. THEREFORE IS IT CALLED UTMOST, RIGHT AND PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT. FURTHERMORE, SUBHUTI, SELF-IDENTICAL IS THAT DHAMMA, AND NOTHING IS THEREIN AT VARIANCE. THEREFORE IS IT CALLED UTMOST, RIGHT AND PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT. SELF-IDENTICAL THROUGH THE ABSENCE OF A SELF, A BEING, A SOUL, OR A PERSON, THE UTMOST, RIGHT AND PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT IS FULLY KNOWN AS THE TOTALITY OF ALL THE WHOLESOME DHAMMAS.'

'WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI, DOES IT OCCUR TO A TATHAGATA, "BY ME HAVE BEINGS BEEN SET FREE"? NOT THUS SHOULD YOU SEE IT, SUBHUTI! AND WHY? THERE IS NOT ANY BEING WHOM THE TATHAGATA HAS SET FREE.'

FURTHER THE LORD TAUGHT ON THAT OCCASION THE FOLLOWING STANZAS: 'THOSE WHO BY MY FORM DID SEE ME,

AND THOSE WHO FOLLOWED ME BY VOICE

WRONG THE EFFORTS THEY ENGAGED IN,

ME THOSE PEOPLE WILL NOT SEE.' 'FROM THE DHAMMA SHOULD ONE SEE THE BUDDHAS, FROM THE DHAMMA-BODIES COMES THEIR GUIDANCE. YET DHAMMA'S TRUE NATURE CANNOT BE DISCERNED, AND NO ONE CAN BE CONSCIOUS OF IT AS AN OBJECT.'

'WHOSOEVER SAYS THAT THE TATHAGATA GOES OR COMES, STANDS, SITS OR LIES DOWN, HE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF MY TEACHING. AND WHY? "TATHAGATA" IS CALLED ONE WHO HAS NOT GONE ANYWHERE, NOR COME FROM ANYWHERE. THEREFORE IS HE CALLED THE TATHAGATA, THE ARHAT, THE FULLY ENLIGHTENED ONE.

To recapitulate:

THE LORD SAID:

'THE TATHAGATA SPEAKS IN ACCORDANCE WITH REALITY,

SPEAKS THE TRUTH,

SPEAKS OF WHAT IS,

NOT OTHERWISE.

TATHAGATA, SUBHUTI,

IS SYNONYMOUS WITH TRUE SUCHNESS.'

The word suchness is of immense importance in Buddha's approach towards reality. The word suchness is as important in Buddhism as God is in other religions.

The Buddhist word for suchness is TATHATA. It means, "Seeing things are such, don't take any attitude, don't make any opinion, don't judge or condemn." The Buddhist meditation consists of suchness. The method is very practical and very deep-going. Buddha has said to his disciples, "Just watch things as they are, without interfering." For example, you have a headache. The moment you note it, immediately the opinion enters that "this is not good. Why should I have a headache? What should I do not to have it?" You are immediately worried, you have taken an opinion, you are against it, you have started repressing it. Either you have to repress it chemically, through an aspro or novalgin, or you have to repress it in the consciousness -- you don't look at it, you put it aside. You get involved in something else, you want to be distracted in something else so you can forget it. But in both ways you have missed suchness.

What will Buddha suggest? Buddha says take note twice, "Headache, headache." Don't feel inimical towards it, neither friendly nor antagonistic. Just take a simple note, as if it has nothing to do with you: "Headache, headache." And remain undisturbed, undistracted, uninfluenced by it, without any opinion.

See the point. Immediately, ninety percent of the headache is gone... because a headache is not a real headache, ninety percent arises out of the antagonistic opinion. Immediately you will see that the greater part of it is no longer there.

And another thing will be noted: sooner or later you will see that the headache is disappearing in something else -- maybe you are now feeling anger. What happened? If you repress the headache you will never come to know what its real message was. The headache was there just as an indicator that you are full of anger in this moment and the anger is creating a tension in the head, hence the headache.

But you watched, you simply took note of it -- "Headache, headache" -- you remained impartial, objective. Then the headache disappears. And the headache gives you the message that "I am not a headache, I am anger."

Now Buddha says take note again, "Anger, anger." Now don't become angry with anger, otherwise again you are trapped and you have missed suchness. If you say, "Anger, anger," ninety percent of the anger will be gone immediately. This is a very practical method. And the ten percent that will be left will release its message. You may come to see that it is not anger, it is ego. Take note again: "Ego, ego." And so on and so forth. One thing is connected with another, and the deeper you move the closer you come to the original cause. And once you have come to the original cause, the chain is broken -- there is no beyond it.

A moment will come when you will take note of the last link in the chain, and then nothingness. Then you are released from the whole chain, and there will arise great purity, great silence. That silence is called suchness.

This has to be practiced continuously. Sometimes it may happen that you forget, and you have made an opinion unconsciously, mechanically. Then Buddha says remember again, "Opinion, opinion." Now don't get distracted by this -- that you have made an opinion. Don't get depressed that you have missed. Just take note, "Opinion, opinion," and suddenly you will see -- ninety percent of the opinion is gone, ten percent remains, and that releases its message to you. What is its message? The message is that there is some inhibition, some taboo; out of that taboo the opinion has arisen.

A sex desire comes in the mind and immediately you say, "This is bad." This is opinion. Why is it bad? -- Because you have been taught it is bad, it is a taboo. Take note, "Taboo, taboo," and go on.

Sometimes it will also happen that you have judged -- not only judged, you have made an opinion; not only made an opinion, you have become depressed that you have missed. Then take note again, "Depression, depression," and go on.

Whenever you become conscious, at whatsoever point, from there take note -- just a simple note -- and leave the whole thing. And soon you will see the entangled mind is no longer as entangled as it has always been. Things start disappearing, and there will be moments of suchness, tathata, when you will be simply there and the existence is there and there is no opinion between you and existence. All is undisturbed by thought, unpolluted by thought. Existence is, but mind has disappeared. That state of no-mind is called suchness.

Buddha says A TATHAGATA IS SYNONYMOUS WITH SUCHNESS. Synonymous -- not that he has the quality of suchness, he is suchness.

And Buddha says A TATHAGATA SPEAKS IN ACCORDANCE WITH REALITY. He cannot do otherwise. It is not that he chooses to speak in accordance with reality -- there is no choice. Whatsoever is real is spoken through him. It is not that he chooses, "This is real and I should speak this, and that is unreal and I will not speak that." If that choice has arisen, you are not a Buddha yet.

A Tathagata speaks out of choicelessness. So it is not that the Tathagata speaks truth. In fact it should be said in this way, that whatsoever is spoken by a Tathagata is truth. HE SPEAKS IN ACCORDANCE WITH REALITY. In fact, reality speaks through him. He is just a medium, a hollow bamboo. The reality sings its song through him, he has no song of his own. All his opinions have disappeared and he himself has disappeared. He is pure space. Truth can pass through him into the world, truth can descend through him into the world.

HE SPEAKS THE TRUTH, HE SPEAKS OF WHAT IS.

YATHA BHUTAM.

Whatsoever is the case, he speaks. He has no mind about it, he never interferes. He does not drop a thing, he does not add a thing. He is a mirror: whatsoever comes in front of the mirror the mirror reflects. This reflectiveness is suchness.

'A TATHAGATA, SUBHUTI,

IS SYNONYMOUS WITH TRUE SUCHNESS.'

And why does he say TRUE suchness? Is there some untrue suchness too? Yes. You can practice. You can practice, you can cultivate a certain quality called suchness, but that will not be true. The true suchness has not to be cultivated, it comes.

For example, what do I mean when I say you can cultivate? You can decide, "I will only speak the truth, whatsoever the consequence. Even if I have to lose my life I will speak the truth." And you speak the truth -- but this is not true suchness, it is your decision. The untruth arises in you. You go on pushing down the untruth. You say, "I have decided that even if my life is at stake I am going to be true."

It is effort. Truth has become your prestige. Deep down you are longing to be a martyr. Deep down you want to let the whole world know that you are a truthful man, that you are ready to sacrifice your life also for it; you are a great man, a mahatma. And you sacrifice your life, but it is not true suchness.

True suchness knows nothing of choice. You are simply an instrument of reality. You don't come in, you don't stand in between, you simply have withdrawn yourself. The mirror docs not decide, "This man is standing in front of me. I am going to show him his real face, whatsoever the consequence. Even if he throws a stone at me -- because he is so ugly, he may get angry -- but I am going to show him his real face."

If a mirror thinks that way then the mirror is no longer a mirror -- mind has come in. It is not mirroring, it is his decision. The purity is lost. But a mirror is simply there, it has no mind. So is a Buddha. That's why Buddha uses the word TRUE suchness.

This Buddhist meditation of taking note -- try it, play with it. I cannot say practice it, I can only say play with it. Sitting, walking, sometimes remember it -- just play with it. And you will be surprised that Buddha has given to the world one of the greatest techniques to penetrate into your innermost core.

Psychoanalysis does not go that deep. It also depends on something like this -- free association of thoughts -- but it remains superficial, because the other's presence is a hindrance. The psychoanalyst is sitting there; even if he is sitting behind a screen, but you know he is there. That very knowledge that somebody is there hinders. You cannot be a real mirror, because the presence of the other cannot allow you to open totally. You can open totally only to your own self.

Buddha's method is far more deep-going because it is not to be told to anybody else. You have just to take note inside. It is subjective and yet objective. The phenomenon has to happen in your subjectivity, but you have to remain objective.

Just take note, and go on taking note as if it is none of your business, as if it is not happening to you, as if you have been appointed to do some job: "Stand on this corner of the road and just take note of whosoever passes by. A woman, a woman. A dog, a dog. A car, a car." You have nothing to do, you are not involved. You are absolutely aloof, distant.

It can take you from one thing to another. And one moment comes when you have reached to the very cause of a certain chain. And there are many chains in your being, thousands of threads have got intertwined into each other. You have become a mess. You will have to follow each thread, slowly slowly, and you will have to come to the end of each thread. Once the end is reached, that chain disappears from your being. You are less burdened.

Slowly slowly, one day it happens -- all threads have disappeared, because you have looked into all causes that were causing them. They were effects. One day, when all causes have been looked into, you have observed everything -- all the games of the mind that it goes on playing with you, all the tricks and cunningnesses of it, all the deceptions and mischiefs -- the whole mind disappears, as if it has never been there.

There is a famous sutra which Buddha has said about the mind, about life, about existence. The sutra is one of the most golden ones. He says:

Think about the mind

As stars, a fault of vision, as a lamp,

A mock show, dewdrops, or a bubble,

A dream, a lightning flash, or a cloud,

So should one view what is conditioned.

Mind is a conditioned phenomenon. It is the effect of some causes. You cannot destroy the effects directly, you will have to go to the causes. You cannot destroy a tree just by cutting its branches and leaves and foliage; you will have to go to the roots -- and roots are hidden underneath.

So are the roots in you. These things have to be understood. Buddha says, "Think of your mind as stars." Why? Stars exist only in darkness. When the morning comes and the sun rises they disappear.

So is your mind; it exists only in unconsciousness. When the sun of consciousness rises it disappears -- just like stars. Don't fight with the stars. You will not be able to destroy them, they are millions. Just become more aware and they will disappear on their own accord.

A FAULT OF VISION. Your eye is ill, it has some fault.

Then you see things which are not there. For example, you may be seeing double or you may be seeing patterns, because your eye is not as it should be. If your liver is not good your eyes will start seeing things which are not there; a weak liver, and eyes will see patterns in the air, bubbles, designs, patterns. They are not really there, they are caused by your eye itself. You cannot fight with them, you cannot destroy them, because they don't exist. All that is needed is that you will have to go to a physician. Your eye needs treatment, your eye needs to be cured.

Buddha used to say, "I am not a philosopher, I am a physician. I don't give you a doctrine, I doctor you. I don't give you a theory, I simply give you a medicine. I don't talk about what light is, I only help you open your eyes so you yourself can see it."

The blind man cannot be helped by definitions of light and color and rainbows. The only help possible is that his eyes have to be brought back. You cannot explain to a deaf person what music is. Only when he can hear will he know. The experience is the only explanation.

Third, Buddha says think of the mind as a lamp. Why as a lamp? The lamp burns only while the oil in it lasts. Once the oil is finished the flame disappears. So is the mind -- and the oil is the desire. If there are desires in the mind, the mind will remain alive. Don't fight with the flame, just don't go on pouring fuel on it. Desire is the fuel.

Desire means that which is, you are not satisfied with it, you want something else. You are not living in suchness -- that's what desire means. Desire means you want things to be other than they are. You don't want them the way they are. You have your own ideas, you have your private dreams to impose upon reality. You are not contented with reality as such, you want to change it according to your heart's desire. Then mind will remain. Mind exists because you are not contented with reality.

So many people come to me and they ask, "How to stop the thoughts?" They want to stop the thoughts directly. They cannot be stopped. Thoughts exist because desires exist. Unless you understand desire and drop desire, you will not be able to drop thoughts -- because thoughts are by-products.

First the desire comes in. You see a beautiful car passing by and a desire arises. Buddha will say, "Say, 'Car, car.' Finished. If a desire has arisen in you, say again, 'Desire, desire,' and be finished". But you have seen a beautiful car, and a dream, a desire, takes possession of you.

Now so many thoughts will arise -- "How can I manage to purchase this car. Should I sell my house? Should I go to the bank? Should I earn more money, legal/illegal? What should I do? This car has to be possessed." Now how can you stop thoughts?

A politician used to come to me and he wanted to stop thoughts, he wanted to meditate. I said, "First you drop your politics, otherwise how can you stop? You are so ambitious."

First he was an M.L.A. He was very ambitious, he became a deputy minister. But he was again ambitious, he became a minister. Now he was trying to become the chief minister of a state. And he said, "But I have come only for this, that if you can help me to relax, to meditate, I will be more capable of fighting, of giving a good fight to my competitors. And you are saying drop politics? That I cannot do."

But if you don't drop desire, how can you stop thinking? Thinking comes as a help. You want to be the chief minister, the mind starts spinning and weaving. The mind says, "Now I have to look into things, into how it should be managed." Now there are a thousand and one problems to be solved, only then can your desire be fulfilled. Thinking is a device of desire to fulfill itself. You cannot stop thinking directly.

Buddha says desire is like oil in a lamp. If the oil is no more, the flame will disappear on its own. Think of mind as a lamp, think of mind as a mock show, a magic show. Nothing is substantial there, it is a kind of hypnotic state. The hypnotist has hypnotized you and he says, "Look -- the animal, the camel is coming." And there arises a form of a camel in your mind, and you start looking at the camel and the camel is there -- for you. Everybody is laughing, because nobody is seeing the camel but you are seeing it.

Your mind is a magic-box, that's what Buddha has said again and again. It goes on creating phantoms, imaginations, which have no substance in them -- but if you want to believe in them, they will become real. Your mind is a great mock show. In fact the English word magic comes from the Indian word MAYA. Maya means illusion.

Illusions can be created, and you all create illusions. You see a woman, but you never see YATHA BHUTAM -- as she is. That's why there is so much frustration afterwards. You start seeing things which are not there, which are only projections of your mind.

You project beauty, you project a thousand and one things on the poor woman. When you come closer, when you are able to live with the woman, those phantoms will start wearing out. Those imaginations cannot persist against reality for long, the woman's reality will assert. And then you will feel cheated and you will think she has cheated you.

She has not done a thing. She herself is feeling cheated by you, because she has also projected something on you. She was thinking you are a hero, an Alexander or something, a great man, and now you are just a mouse and nothing else. And she was thinking you are a mountain -- you are not even a molehill! She feels cheated. You both feel cheated, you both feel frustrated.

I have heard:

A woman walked into the Missing Persons Bureau. "My husband disappeared last night," she reported.

"We'll do our best to find him," the officers assured her. "Kindly give us a description of the man."

"Well," she waited a little and then said, "he's about five feet tall, wears thick glasses, has a bald head, drinks a lot, has a red nose, has a high squeaky voice...." And then she stopped and thought for a moment, and said, "Oh, just forget the whole thing!"

If you see the reality, that is how it is. You will say, "Oh, forget the whole thing." But you don't see. You go on projecting.

One day Mulla Nasruddin said to me, "My uncle lived in Italy for years. He died from wine, women and song."

I said to him, "Nasruddin, I had never thought that your uncle was so Omar Khayyamic. Tell me something more about your uncle. I am interested."

Mulla Nasruddin said, "Actually it is not as romantic as it sounds. And I will not hide the real thing from you. I will tell you the truth, Osho. He was singing this rude song under a married bird's window and her husband came out and brained him with a chianti bottle. He died of wine, women and song."

That's how we go on and on.

Reality is never frustrating, reality is always fulfilling. Frustrations come because we impose our illusions on reality.

Buddha says it is a mock show. Be aware -- your mind is a magician. It shows you things which are not there, which have never been there. It deludes you, it creates an unreal world around you, and then you live in that unreal world.

This world of trees and birds and animals and mountains is not unreal! But the world that your MIND creates is unreal.

When you hear people like Buddha talking about the unreality of the world, don't misunderstand them. They don't mean that the trees are unreal, they don't mean that the people are unreal. They mean that whatsoever you have been thinking about reality is unreal -- your mind is unreal. Once mind is dropped, all is real. Then you live in suchness, then you become tathata, then you are suchness.

The professor was telling his 8 a.m. class, "I have found that the best way to start the day is to exercise for five minutes, take a deep breath of air and then finish with a cold shower. Then I feel rosy all over."

A sleepy voice from the back of the room responded, "Tell us more about Rosy!"

The mind is ready to jump upon anything, to project. Be very careful with the mind. That's what meditation is all about -- being careful, being not deceived by the mind.

The fifth thing: think of the mind as dew drops. Very fragile.... Just for the moment the dewdrops exist. Comes the morning sun and they evaporate. Comes a little breeze and they slip and are gone. So is the mind. It knows nothing of reality, knows nothing of eternity. It is a time-phenomenon. Think of it as dewdrops. But you think of it as pearls, diamonds -- as if it is going to stay.

And you need not believe in Buddha, you just watch your mind. It is not the same even for two consecutive moments. It goes on changing, it is a flux. One moment it is this, another moment it is that. One moment you are in deep love, another moment you are in deep hate. One moment you are so happy, and another moment you are so unhappy. Just watch your mind!

If you cling with this mind you will always remain in a turmoil, because you will never be able to remain in silence -- something or other will go on happening. And you will never be able to have any taste of eternity and only that taste fulfills. Time is constant change.

And sixth: think of your mind as a bubble. Like bubbles, all mind experiences burst sooner or later and then nothingness is left in the hands. Go after the mind -- it is a bubble. And sometimes the bubble looks very beautiful. In the sunrays it may look like a rainbow, it may have all the colors of the rainbow, and it looks really enchanting, majestic. But go rushing for it, catch hold of it, and the moment you catch hold of it, it is no longer there.

And that's what happens every day in your life. You go on rushing after this and that, and the moment you catch hold of something it is no longer the same. Then all beauty is gone -- that beauty was only in your imagination. Then all joy is gone -- that joy was only in your hope. Then all those ecstasies that you were thinking were going to happen, do not happen -- they were only in your imagination, they were only in the waiting.

Reality is totally different than these bubbles of your imagination -- and they all burst. Failure frustrates, so does success. Success also frustrates, ask the successful people. Poverty is frustrating, so is richness, ask the rich people. Everything, good or bad, is frustrating because all are mind-bubbles.

But we go on chasing the bubbles -- not only chasing, we want to make them bigger and bigger and bigger. There is a great mania in the world to make every experience bigger.

There is a story to the effect that a group of students from different nations were asked to write individual essays on the elephant. A German student wrote on the uses of the elephant in warfare. An English student, on the elephant's aristocratic character. A French student, on lovemaking among the elephants. An Indian, on the elephant's philosophical attitude. And an American chose for his subject, how to make bigger and better elephants.

The mind is continuously thinking. The mind is American, how to make things bigger -- a bigger house, a bigger car, everything has to be bigger. And naturally, the bigger the bubble becomes the closer it comes to bursting. Small bubbles may float a little longer on the surface of the water; bigger bubbles cannot even float that much. Hence the American frustration. Nobody is as frustrated as the American.

The American mind has succeeded in making the bubble very big; now it is bursting from everywhere. Now there seems to be no possibility to protect it, to save it; it is exploding. And nobody is at fault, because nobody thinks, "It is our deepest desire and we have succeeded in it." Nothing fails like success.

Seventh: Buddha says think of the mind as a dream. It is imagination, subjective, one's own creation. You are the director, you are the actor and you are the audience. All that goes on in your mind is a private imagination. The world has nothing to do with it. The existence has no obligation to fulfill it.

A doctor had just finished giving a patient, who was quite a bit more than middle-aged, a thorough physical examination. "I can't find a thing wrong with you, sir," the doctor said. "But I recommend you give up about half of your love life."

The old man stared at the doctor for a moment and then said, "Which half -- thinking about it or talking about it?"

Mind is insubstantial -- thinking or talking. It knows nothing of the real. The more mind you have the less reality you will have; the less mind you have the more reality. The no-mind knows what reality is, tathata. Then you become a tathagata -- one who has known suchness.

Or think of the mind as a lightning flash, says Buddha. Don't cling to it, because the moment you cling to it you will create suffering for yourself. The lightning is only for the moment there, and it is gone. Everything comes and goes, nothing remains, and we go on clinging. And by clinging we go on creating misery.

Watch your mind, how ready it is to cling to anything, how afraid the mind is of the future, of change. It wants to make everything stable, it wants to cling to everything that happens. You are happy, you want this happiness to remain. You will cling with it. And the moment you cling you have crushed it already, it is no more there.

You have met a man, a woman, you are in love, and you cling and you want this love to stay forever. In that very moment -- when you desire that the love should stay forever -- it has disappeared. It is no longer there. All mind experiences are like lightning, they come and they go.

Buddha says: "You simply watch." There is not time enough to cling! You simply watch, take note: "Headache, headache." "Love, love." "Beauty, beauty." Just take note. That is enough. It is such a small moment that nothing more can be done. Take note and become aware.

Awareness can become your eternity -- nothing else.

And the last thing, the ninth: Buddha says think about mind experiences as clouds, changing forms, fluxes. You look at the cloud; sometimes the cloud is like an elephant, and immediately it starts changing and becomes a camel or a horse, and so many things. It goes on changing. It is never static, so many forms arise and disappear. But you are not worried. What does it matter to you whether the cloud looks like an elephant or it looks like a camel? It does not matter, it is just a cloud.

So is the mind a cloud around your consciousness. Your consciousness is the sky and the mind is the cloud. Sometimes it is an anger cloud, sometimes it is a love cloud, sometimes it is a greed cloud -- but these are forms of the same energy. Don't choose, don't become attached. If you become attached with the elephant in the cloud you will be miserable. Next time you will see that the elephant is gone and you will cry and you will weep. But who is responsible? Is the cloud responsible? The cloud is simply following its nature. You just remember -- a cloud is there to change, so is the mind.

Watch from your inner sky and let the clouds float. Become just a watcher. And remember, clouds will come and go, you can remain indifferent.

Buddha has given indifference very great value. He calls it UPEKSHA. Remain indifferent, it doesn't matter.

Two astronauts, a man and a woman, were visiting the planet Mars, where they found the Martians very hospitable and eager to show them around. After a few days the astronauts decided to pose a pressing question to their hosts, "How is life reproduced on Mars?"

The Martian leader proceeded to take the astronauts to a laboratory where he showed them how it was done. First he measured some white liquid into a tube, and then carefully sprinkled a brown powder on top, stirred the mixture and set it aside. In nine months, the astronauts were told, this mixture would develop into a new Martian.

Then it was the turn of the Martians to ask how life was reproduced on earth. The astronauts, a bit embarrassed, eventually gathered courage to give a demonstration, and began to make love. They were interrupted, however, by the hysterical laughter of the Martians.

"What is so funny?" the astronauts asked. "That," replied the Martian leader, "is how we make Nescafe."

All forms. One need not be worried about these forms. Just watch. Think of mind

As stars, a fault of vision, as a lamp,

A mock show, dewdrops, or a bubble,

A dream, a lightning flash, or cloud,

So should one view what is conditioned.

And then the conditioning disappears and you come to the unconditioned. That unconditioned is suchness, truth, reality. YATHA BHUTAM.

Now the sutras.

THE LORD ASKED:

"WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI,

DOES IT OCCUR TO THE TATHAGATA,

"BY ME HAS DHAMMA BEEN DEMONSTRATED"?

WHOSOEVER, SUBHUTI, WOULD SAY,

"THE TATHAGATA HAS DEMONSTRATED DHAMMA",

HE WOULD SPEAK FALSELY,

HE WOULD MISREPRESENT ME

BY SEIZING ON WHAT IS NOT THERE.

AND WHY? 'BECAUSE NOT EVEN THE LEAST DHAMMA

IS THERE FOUND OR GOT AT.

THEREFORE IS IT CALLED

UTMOST, RIGHT AND PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT.

FURTHERMORE, SUBHUTI,

SELF-IDENTICAL IS THAT DHAMMA,

AND NOTHING IS THEREIN AT VARIANCE.

THEREFORE IS IT CALLED

"UTMOST, RIGHT AND PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT".

SELF-IDENTICAL THROUGH THE ABSENCE OF A SELF,

A BEING,

A SOUL,

OR A PERSON,

THE UTMOST, RIGHT AND PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT

IS FULLY KNOWN AS THE TOTALITY

OF ALL THE WHOLESOME DHAMMAS.

Buddha says:

'WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI,

DOES IT OCCUR TO THE TATHAGATA,

"BY ME HAS DHAMMA BEEN DEMONSTRATED"?'

It cannot occur to a tathagata, because there is no more a person inside. Personality is a form of the mind, the idea of 'I' is a form in the clouds. To a tathagata, clouds have disappeared, there is only pure sky indefinable, infinite. There arises no idea of 'I'.

So a tathagata cannot say, "I have demonstrated the Dhamma." In the first place, he is not. In the second place, because he has disappeared, now he knows nobody is.

For example, you all fall asleep tonight and you all start dreaming. Somebody starts saying something and somebody starts groaning and somebody is shouting and a man who is awake, what will he think? He will laugh at you -- because he knows dreams are just dreams, they are not realities.

One is groaning, one is crying, one is shouting, or one is very ecstatic and one is laughing -- and he knows all is false. Neither is there any cause to laugh, nor is there any cause to weep. All is false. People are asleep. He will not go to the person who is crying and console him, "Don't cry," and he will not feel happy because somebody is laughing. He knows that they are dreaming.

That is the situation of a tathagata, of a Buddha. One who has known his inner sky now knows that everybody is that sky, but everybody is clouded. And those clouds are false, imaginary. And if those clouds are false and imaginary then there are no beings. To whom can the tathagata demonstrate the Dhamma? There is nobody, there is pure sky. The moment you disappear, all beings disappear. Then there are no longer separate beings, it is all one. There is nobody like a master and nobody like a disciple.

That's why I said to you the other day that this is a game, a great drama that we are enacting here. It is the ancient drama, enacted many times -- enacted with Buddha and his disciples, Christ and his disciples, Krishna and his disciples. The same drama is being enacted. From your side it is a very real thing, from my side it is just a drama. From your side it is a serious thing to be a disciple, from my side it is neither serious nor nonserious, it is simply a cloud. And my whole effort here will be to help you to see that it is just a cloud, a formation in the clouds.

And the day you become awakened you will laugh, because there is nothing to be achieved -- nothing to lose, nothing to achieve. All is as it has always been since the very beginning, to the very end, it remains the same. Do you think the sky changes when clouds gather in the rainy season? Do you think the sky changes when it is summer and the clouds disappear? Do you think there is any change in the sky? The sky remains the same, clouds come and go.

So is SAMSARA -- so is the world, the mind.

Buddha says:

'WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI,

DOES IT OCCUR TO THE TATHAGATA,

"BY ME HAS DHAMMA BEEN DEMONSTRATED"?

WHOSOEVER, SUBHUTI, WOULD SAY,

"THE TATHAGATA HAS DEMONSTRATED DHAMMA",

HE WOULD SPEAK FALSELY, HE WOULD MISREPRESENT ME

BY SEIZING ON WHAT IS NOT THERE.'

There is neither I nor you, there is neither the master nor the disciple. And there is nothing to demonstrate, all is as it is. There is nothing to teach, there is nothing to learn.

'BECAUSE NOT EVEN THE LEAST DHAMMA

IS THERE FOUND OR GOT AT.

THEREFORE IS IT CALLED

UTMOST, RIGHT AND PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT.'

Buddha says: That's why we call it perfect enlightenment. There are other religions in the world whose idea of enlightenment cannot be called perfect. For example, the Christian idea of trinity -- God, the Son and the Holy Ghost. It means that at the very ultimate end also there remain three distinctions, divisions. That means some cloud has been retained, some form has been retained, some formality has been retained. The world continues a little bit still, mind has not been dropped utterly.

The Hindu idea is a little better. Only two remain: the God and the soul. Better than three, but still the two, the duality. All duality is of mind. It is mind that separates things, it is mind that defines. So this too cannot be perfect enlightenment.

In the Jaina concept only one remains, the soul. This is far better -- better than Christianity, better than Hinduism. only one remains, the soul. But Buddha says that too is not perfect enlightenment, because to think of one, it will be necessary to think of two and three and four and five. Just to say 'one' is enough to bring in the whole train. The one cannot be defined without bringing the two in.

What will you mean by 'one'? You will have to say not two. So the one will need the other at least for its definition. The other will remain somewhere hidden it has not disappeared completely. If I am there, then you will be there. It cannot disappear completely. The 'I' will need the 'you'; just for its own sheer existence the 'you' will be needed. 'I' exists only in the pair with 'thou'. They are together:; I-thou is one reality.

So Buddha says 'I' has also to disappear. Then the whole trinity is gone. In the ultimate experience there are neither three nor two nor one. It is pure sky -- nothingness, no being, no entity. It is zero, SHUNYATA. That's why Buddha says this is

'... UTMOST, RIGHT AND PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT.

FURTHERMORE, SUBHUTI,

SELF-IDENTICAL IS THAT DHAMMA,

AND NOTHING IS THEREIN AT VARIANCE.

THEREFORE IS IT CALLED

UTMOST, RIGHT AND PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT.

SELF-IDENTICAL THROUGH THE ABSENCE OF A SELF,

A BEING,

A SOUL,

OR A PERSON....'

All forms have disappeared. That's why the sky remains identical with itself. There are no longer any forms arising, disappearing, no longer any change, no movement. All dreams have disappeared.

It is morning and the sun has risen and one is awake. There is awareness, but there is nobody who can say, "I am aware." There is teaching, but nobody can say, "I am the teacher." There is a path, but almost pathless. Methods -- but they cannot be called methods. The master and the disciple -- but only from the side of the disciple; from the side of the master all has disappeared.

'WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI,

DOES IT OCCUR TO A TATHAGATA,

"BY ME HAVE BEINGS BEEN SET FREE"?

NOT THUS SHOULD YOU SEE IT, SUBHUTI!

AND WHY?

THERE IS NOT ANY BEING WHOM

THE TATHAGATA HAS SET FREE.'

How can that idea arise in a tathagata -- that "I have set many beings free"? In the first place, nobody is unfree. So if you ask, "Is Buddha a savior?" Buddha will say, "No, I am not a savior -- because nobody needs to be saved. There is nobody to be saved." And freedom is everybody's nature. Freedom is there, it need not be brought. One has to just become alert of what is already there. So Buddha says:

'THERE IS NOT ANY BEING WHOM

THE TATHAGATA HAS SET FREE.'

FURTHER THE LORD TAUGHT ON THAT OCCASION

THE FOLLOWING STANZAS:

'THOSE WHO BY MY FORM DID SEE ME,

AND THOSE WHO FOLLOWED ME BY VOICE

WRONG THE EFFORTS THEY ENGAGED IN,

ME THOSE PEOPLE WILL NOT SEE.'

If you see Buddha as the form, as the body, then you miss. If you only hear the word of the Buddha and don't hear his silence, you miss. If you see only his face and you don't see his inner sky, you miss.

Buddha speaks only to utter silence. Buddha is there in the form only to express the formless. Remember this stanza. I can also say to you the same:

'THOSE WHO BY MY FORM DID SEE ME,

AND THOSE WHO FOLLOWED ME BY VOICE

WRONG THE EFFORTS THEY ENGAGED IN,

ME THOSE PEOPLE WILL NOT SEE.'

'FROM THE DHAMMA SHOULD ONE SEE THE BUDDHAS....'

From the standpoint of the sky, not from the standpoint of the cloud.

'FROM THE DHAMMA SHOULD ONE SEE THE BUDDHAS,

FROM THE DHAMMA-BODIES COMES THEIR GUIDANCE,

YET DHAMMA'S TRUE NATURE CANNOT BE DISCERNED,

AND NO ONE CAN BE CONSCIOUS OF IT AS AN OBJECT.'

This is saying in words that which cannot be said -- AVACHYA, unspeakable. Buddha is saying: From where comes the Buddha's guidance? Not from himself but from the eternal, from the sky. Buddha is just a passage, the eternal floats through him.

Don't be too much obsessed by the words that he uses, listen to his silence. Don't be too much concerned by the body he lives in, don't be concerned with the house in which he resides. Think of the inner presence, think of his being. See deep.

And how to see deep in a Buddha? The only way to see deep in a Buddha is not with open eyes but with closed eyes. To see deep into yourself is the only way to see deep into a Buddha. If you become acquainted with your own inner sky, you will be acquainted with the Buddha's -- all the Buddhas of all the ages, past, present and future too. Descend into your own being.

'WHOSOEVER SAYS

THAT THE TATHAGATA GOES OR COMES,

STANDS, SITS OR LIES DOWN,

HE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND THE MEANING

OF MY TEACHING.

AND WHY?

"TATHAGATA" IS CALLED

ONE WHO HAS NOT GONE ANYWHERE,

NOR COME FROM ANYWHERE.

THEREFORE IS HE CALLED THE TATHAGATA,

THE ARHAT, THE FULLY ENLIGHTENED ONE.'

When clouds come, do you think the sky has gone somewhere? When the clouds go, do you think the sky has come back? The sky remains. Your innermost nature remains.

Once you were a rock. That was a cloud that had taken the form of a rock; you lived in the mineral world. Then you became a tree, you changed your form; you became a rosebush or a pine or a cedar of Lebanon. But the inner nature remained the same. Now the form of the cloud changed, you lived in the vegetable kingdom. Then you became an animal -- maybe a lion, a tiger, a crocodile, a deer, a dog. Only the form changed, but the inner sky remains the same. Then you became a man or a woman -- again the form is changing. You can become an angel in the heaven -- only the form will change.

You can go on moving from one form to another, you can go on dying in one form and being born into another form. This is called samsara: getting caught in one form, then getting caught in another, moving from one form to another form, from one prison to another prison.

What is buddhahood? Becoming aware of the inner sky that was in the rock, in the animals, in the trees, in man and in woman. Once you become aware of that inner sky, you are released from all forms. That is freedom. Not that you become free, because in that freedom you don't exist, you can't exist.

"You become free" simply means you become free from yourself. All selves are forms. The rock has a self, a soul. The tree has a self, the animal has a self. The Buddha has no self -- he is utter freedom. That's why Buddha says:

'WHOSOEVER SAYS

THAT THE TATHAGATA GOES OR COMES....

Certainly he goes and comes -- this Diamond Sutra started with that. See the beauty of it: The Diamond Sutra started with it -- that Buddha goes to beg, then he comes back, puts down his bowl, cleanses his feet, sits, looks in front of him, and Subhuti asks.

The sutra started with the form and the sutra is ending on the formless.

That is the beginning. You cannot listen to my silence first; first you will have to listen to my words. You cannot see my inner sky directly, first you will have to see this cloud that surrounds me. Only then, slowly slowly, will you start falling in tune with the innermost. First, naturally, you come to the outer. First you see the house and then you will see the dweller.

It is natural, nothing is wrong in it, but don't cling to the house. Move from the house, from the dwelling to the dweller. This is the beauty of this sutra -- it starts with Buddha's body -- how he walks, how he sits, how he looks, what he does. And now it ends on this strange sentence:

'WHOSOEVER SAYS

THAT THE TATHAGATA GOES OR COMES,

STANDS, SITS OR LIES DOWN,

HE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND THE MEANING

OF MY TEACHING.

AND WHY?

"TATHAGATA" IS CALLED

ONE WHO HAS NOT GONE ANYWHERE,

NOR COME FROM ANYWHERE.

THEREFORE IS HE CALLED THE TATHAGAT,

THE ARHAT, THE FULLY ENLIGHTENED ONE.'

Who is called the fully Enlightened One? One who has come to know the sky that never moves, one who has come to know the eternal which is beyond time, one who has come to know truth.

Truth is always the same -- dreams change, truth is always the same. Be acquainted with Buddha's words but don't remain there. That is just an introduction -- move from there.

What I say to you, listen to it but don't become obsessed with it -- move from there. By and by, fall in tune with my silence. By and by, forget me -- forget the cloud, and enter the sky. Then you are really in tune. Then you have started moving into truth itself.

Words are about truth, they are not truth themselves. The word God is just a word, it is not God. The word love is just a word, it is not love. Use the word, then throw it away. It is the container, not the content.

With the master, don't become too much attached with his body. That attachment will become a barrier. Love the master, but go deeper. Slowly slowly, step by step, penetrate his innermost core. And you will be surprised -- because the innermost is the same. In the innermost, the disciple and the master meet. In the innermost there is no distinction.

Kabir has said a very strange sentence: "The moment has come when the master touches the feet of the disciple." Then there is no distinction. Who is the master and who is the disciple -- there is no distinction.

When Rinzai was with his master -- the master was a very very hard master, as Zen masters are -- Rinzai was beaten so many times, was thrown, and the master would jump on him and beat him. Then one day Rinzai was going on a journey, a pilgrimage, and the master called him and started beating him. Rinzai said, "But I have not even said a single word! And I have not done anything."

The master said, "l know, but you are going on this pilgrimage and my feeling is that when you come back you will be enlightened and I will never have any chance to beat you again. That's why -- this is the last chance."

And when Rinzai came back, yes, it had happened. The master bowed his head and said, "Now you can beat me." Not that Rinzai has beaten the master, but the master says, "Now you can beat me. Now you enjoy -- I have enjoyed beating you so much. You have arrived home."

At the innermost core there is no distinction.

Buddha is saying don't be too much concerned with the words. Use them as steps, stepping-stones. Don't be too much concerned with Buddha's movements, bodily movements. People are there, imitative people, who will start walking like the Buddha, who will start talking like the Buddha, who will start using the same words, the same gestures. Buddha is saying those are not the real things. The real thing is beyond forms. It cannot be imitated.

Don't imitate the master. Only then one day will you be able to become the master. Love, listen, but always remember that you have to go far in. You have to transcend all clouds.

Enough for today.