Chapter #21 The Zero Experience #21
Discourse Overview
Main Teaching: Egolessness is perceived as an absence — a sudden gap where the ego always seemed to be, like seeing a chair that has mysteriously vanished. Osho likens the path to two complementary movements: expansion into the cosmic (aham brahmasmi) or contraction into the atomic (I am nothing), both routes of non-ego. Practiced together they squeeze and crush the ego between the enormous and the infinitesimal, producing a higher, synthetic realization. This polarity is ancient, practical, and must be completed in both directions for total perspective. On perceiving egolessness: you do not perceive an object called egolessness but notice the missing presence of the ego — absence is the unmistakeable sign. On the 'atomic state': a tiny, almost-vanishing meditative state can indeed be a step toward egolessness, but it is only half the technique unless balanced by the expansive method. On practice and safety: always return to your ordinary size at the end of the exercise, especially before sleep, because remaining in extremes can lead to disorienting dreams and instability.
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Osho's Commentary
You don't perceive it as a presence, you perceive it as an absence. For example, this chair is here: you look at the chair, mm? Then the chair is gone. One who has not known the chair will not see the absence of the chair, but one who has known the chair will immediately say 'Where is the chair?' Others, those who were not aware of the chair, will not be able to see the absence, but the one who had known that the chair was here will be able to see the absence of it too.
So egolessness is not something; it is simply the absence. Suddenly you say 'Where is that ego?' Not that you see it, not that it is an object there; suddenly something which has been always there is missing. You look around and it is not there, you search around and it is not there. You look in the mind, you look in the memories, you look everywhere but suddenly it is missing.
Egolessness is not something, it is just ego missing. Once you understand this there is no problem.
[The sannyasin replies: When I am meditating I have what I call an 'atomic state' where I am very very small, I disappear almost entirely. It's not black, it's not white, it's nothing, and it can remain for maybe fifteen minutes or more, but afterwards I feel very good.
I was wondering if this space of mine is like an egoless state.]
Yes, it can become a process towards that. You have stumbled upon a meditative technique which is very ancient. In the East we have been using it for thousands of years. But you know only half of it and because it has suddenly happened to you, the other half has also to be done. Then it will be complete and you will have a total perspective of it.
First start from the other end. First imagine that you are becoming bigger, bigger, bigger.
[See'the buddha disease' january 22nd where Osho describes this meditation fully.]
Both states are of non-ego. Either you become so big that the whole existence is in you -- then you are not, because you are the existence -- or you become so small that nothing can be contained in you; again you are not.
These are the only two approaches and all the religions have worked either from one or from the other. For example, Hindus declare, 'aham brahmasmi' -- 'I am god' -- mm? that is the one method: expanding. Buddhists declare, 'I am nothing'; that is another method. And if a person can do both together a higher experience is arrived at... more synthetical. Then you hit on the ego from both sides: the ego is simply crushed between these two viewpoints, the enormous and the small.
Continue it. It will be good if you do it in the night before you go to sleep: just sit in your bed, do it and then go to sleep. But before you go to sleep always come back to your normal size, mm? Otherwise you can have difficult dreams in the night, nightmares, and they can be very disorienting.
So never leave yourself either in the atomic or in the cosmic, never! Come back to your normal size. Always end the meditation with your normal size. Go and look in the mirror and see that you are back to exactly the size that you are, mm? and then go to sleep.