Chapter #21 The Open Secret #21
Discourse Overview
Main Teaching: The question of God's existence is misplaced — like a blind man asking whether light exists; what matters is developing darshan, the inner capacity to see the divine. Osho uses a growth metaphor — rock, plant, animal, human — to show increasing layers of interiority: existence, life, consciousness, self-consciousness, and finally witnessing. Witnessing or pure subjectivity is the flowering of latent potential that allows one to transcend ego and become the adequate instrument to perceive God. Cultivation of alertness, awareness and inner-centering gradually awakens that capacity so the world changes because you are no longer the same. On God: God is not a problem of external proof but a reality perceived when inner adequacy matures; asking whether God exists is a category error if your instruments are blind. On capacity: Every person carries darshan as potential and must develop alertness, clarity and inner orientation to actualize that potential. On evolution: The kingdoms of nature illustrate incremental interiority and spiritual growth is the movement from objecthood toward the pure subject of Christ/Buddha consciousness. On witnessing: True religion is the cultivation of witnessing consciousness — steady, observing awareness beyond ego through which the divine is seen.
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Osho's Commentary
And always remember, we can see only that for which we have adequate instruments to see with; we can feel only that for which we have the right instrument. For example a blind man cannot see light. Not that the light is not; light is there but the blind man cannot see it, he doesn't have adequate means to see it. A deaf person cannot hear music. It is there but for him it is not.
So is the case with God. People go on asking where God is; that is not the right question. They should ask: 'Where is the capacity in me to see God? How to develop that capacity to see God?' To ask whether God exists or not is stupid. It is as stupid as a blind man asking whether light exists or not.
God will need a special capacity in you; only then can you see. The Tibetan, the Chinese, the Indian, all the old eastern philosophies are not philosophies in the western sense; they are called darshanas. They don't think about God, they try to see God. And what is one supposed to do? One has to develop a certain vision in oneself, a certain grounding, centering, a certain clarity in oneself. When the clarity is there, suddenly you start seeing things which you have never seen before. The world is no more the same because you are no more the same.
In the ancient western tradition there is a word for it, 'adecacio' -- adequateness. You can see only that for which you have adequate capacity. There are many things in existence of which we are not aware at all. Each according to his capacity.... The rock knows only a little bit. When it rains maybe it feels a little bit; when it is hot, maybe.... The tree feels more, the animal feels still more, man feels still more, but even man as he exists ordinarily, naturally, is not adequate enough, has not that 'adecacio' to know God. A few more capacities have to be developed, and they are lying there dormant. Everybody has come with the capacity but it is not actual yet; it is just potential. It has to be developed.
So start becoming more and more alert, more and more aware, more and more inner-oriented. The rock has no inner being, it has no soul. It just exists like an object, mm? -- that is the mineral kingdom. The tree has a little bit of feeling. It gropes, searches for water through the roots, it gropes for the light. If it is surrounded by many trees, it tries to reach higher. That's why African trees go the highest, otherwise they will not survive. They have to go higher than other trees to absorb light, sunrays. A little effort is there, a little interiority has happened in the tree, in the vegetable kingdom.
The animal is far more inner than the tree; it has a kind of rudimentary soul. It reacts, responds, remembers, maybe also thinks a little bit, ponders over things, dreams. You can sometimes see a dog sitting and dreaming or a cat dreaming. You can feel that the dog is dreaming because sometimes in his dream he shakes himself or suddenly becomes alert or tries to catch a fly which may be just a dream fly. A little bit of interiority is happening in the animal kingdom. Then in the human kingdom a little bit more, but even human beings are not really interior. The subjectivity is not yet grown up perfectly, that's why they are not aware of God; more awareness is needed.
The mineral kingdom is simply existence, the vegetable is existence plus life, the animal kingdom is existence plus life plus consciousness. The human kingdom is existence plus life plus consciousness, plus self-consciousness... but even self-consciousness is not enough. Witnessing has to be grown; that will be the fifth and the final stage of growth. That's what happens in a Buddha, in a Christ. Call it Christ consciousness or call it Buddha consciousness; it is the same. One goes beyond self and the ego, one becomes purely conscious. The rock is purely object, Christ is purely subject, and we are somewhere in between. One has to go from the rock to the Christ.
When you are in that state of witnessing, awareness, observation, mindfulness, then you have the adequate means by which to know what God is. That is called darshana, the vision....