Entering the doorway of the divine is not as difficult as it seems. Everything we haven’t yet done appears difficult. The unfamiliar, the unknown, looks hard. That with which we have never been in relationship—how could we relate to it? We cannot even imagine it.
One who does not know how to swim is astonished to see another moving easily in water. He thinks, This must be very difficult—surely a matter of life and death.
Yet what could be simpler than swimming! In truth, swimming is not an art; it is simply the fruit of the courage to fall into water. The first time one falls in, one flails arms and legs, a bit chaotically. After a few days, a little order arises. That is what we start calling “swimming.” And once you can swim, you know well it was hardly something to be learned at all!
That is why no one ever forgets how to swim. Whatever is learned can be forgotten. But swimming cannot be forgotten. In fact, we do not learn it; we already know it. Only courage is needed for its unveiling. Whatever is learned—“that which is learned can be unlearned.” But swimming is such that once you know it, even if you haven’t swum for fifty years and someone throws you into water, you will swim. You cannot forget it. There is no way to forget it.
If it had been learned, it could be forgotten. It is not learned; everyone knows how to flail arms and legs. With a little courage, if one jumps into the water, the flailing happens. Then within a few days courage grows, the fear of death diminishes, and one becomes orderly.
Exactly so is meditation. Until you know it, it seems very difficult. But there is nothing to learn—only courage is needed, the courage to jump in. You will flail a little; in a few days it becomes orderly. And when it becomes orderly you cannot forget it again. And once it happens, you are amazed: such a simple thing—why did it take so many lifetimes?
But we suffer from a great lack of courage.
I have heard that the first time Mulla Nasruddin went to learn swimming at the riverbank, he slipped by accident and fell into the water. Before his teacher could even begin to instruct him, he had already gone under a couple of times. He was pulled out. Standing on the bank, he swore, “Until I have learned to swim, I will not set foot near water.”
Then swimming will not happen for lifetimes—because even to learn swimming you must set foot in water. Someone may say, “First I will learn to swim; only then will I step into the river.” It sounds logical that if you don’t know how to swim you should avoid water, and never go near it until you know. But to learn swimming you must enter the water itself. So remember: even one who cannot swim must still go into the water in order to learn. And if you make the rule that you will first learn and only then enter, you will neither learn to swim nor ever enter the water.
A friend came yesterday and said, “First I will practice sannyas. Later, I will take sannyas.”
How will you practice sannyas without taking sannyas? Will you learn to swim in river sand? Even before practice, a leap is needed—only then can practice happen. Somewhere, at some point, the leap must be taken. Let me tell you what a leap means.
A leap means this: your mind has a continuity, a chain up to now. If you add a link that merely joins onto that chain, it is not a leap. “That is simply a continuity of the old.” The old mind had counted to ten; you add an eleventh step. It is the same sequence—no leap in it. But a person who breaks the old mind—its logic, its arrangement—and takes a step his mind was not willing to take, a step the mind insisted was absolutely wrong, a step into the dark, into the unknown, while the mind cries, “Listen to me!”—to take precisely that step, against every obstruction the mind can raise, is what is called a leap. A leap means: “discontinuous”—no continuity, no chain with your old mind.
Meditation is a leap. Your mind will raise every kind of obstacle, every kind of hindrance, based on its old experience. And the arguments it gives will be of this sort—I have heard that one day Mulla Nasruddin sat in his sitting room from morning onward. By noon, no patient came. No one came to meet him. Once or twice he said to his servant, Mahmood, “What’s the matter today? Has the village run out of patients? This never happens! There isn’t even a sign of a visitor, a client, not even someone looking for satsang.”
Evening came; still no one. Night fell; still no one. At midnight Mulla said to his servant, “Go and close the front door. Waiting any longer is useless; let’s go to sleep.”
The servant went out and returned in a moment. Nasruddin said, “So quickly you’ve closed the door?”
The servant said, “It seems we forgot to open it this morning. The door is still shut.”
All day it never occurred to him that the door might be closed. He kept thinking why no one had come. He thought, Perhaps no one fell ill today—just a coincidence. He thought all sorts of things. But that the door could be shut!
The mind we are sitting in has its door closed toward the divine. We keep inventing reasons why the experience has not happened till now. We think: perhaps we have done evil deeds, committed sins; perhaps it is not in our fate; perhaps his grace is absent. People sit and think the world’s worth of arguments, but they never get up to see whether the door itself—the very door through which he could enter—might be shut!
We have devised thousands of arguments to hide the fact that the door is closed. However many sins you may have committed, you can never commit so many that you are deprived of the divine’s grace. A human being does not have the power to sin that much. No one can ever commit sins worthy of exclusion from his grace. His grace always exceeds your capacity to sin. So do not remain in the illusion that because of many sins the meeting is not happening. Do not remain in the illusion either that it is not in your destiny. Because if anything is fixed in your destiny—if there is any inevitability—it is union with the divine. Everything else is accidental.
A house may or may not be built, money may or may not come, honor may or may not be received—these are all accidental. One thing is destiny, and it will come to pass—even if you postpone it for lifetimes—still it will happen: meeting with the Lord.
So there is no obstacle in your fate; there is only one difficulty: you never look toward the door that is closed.
Meditation is precisely to open that closed door. And that door has been closed for so long it will take a few shoves. It has rusted; it has been shut for lifetimes. Perhaps the door itself has forgotten that it can open. And perhaps you have forgotten that this is a door. For what has never been seen opening—what difference is there between it and a wall? So a few pushes will be needed. A little effort must be made. A deep, intense endeavor will be needed. This is exactly what we are doing here in this small experiment. It is a small experiment if you do not do it; it will become a great experiment if you do.
Friends who have come merely to watch—there are chairs for you. The chairs are placed for this very purpose. Those who have come to watch, please move to the chairs. Go sincerely...
Osho's Commentary
One who does not know how to swim is astonished to see another moving easily in water. He thinks, This must be very difficult—surely a matter of life and death.
Yet what could be simpler than swimming! In truth, swimming is not an art; it is simply the fruit of the courage to fall into water. The first time one falls in, one flails arms and legs, a bit chaotically. After a few days, a little order arises. That is what we start calling “swimming.” And once you can swim, you know well it was hardly something to be learned at all!
That is why no one ever forgets how to swim. Whatever is learned can be forgotten. But swimming cannot be forgotten. In fact, we do not learn it; we already know it. Only courage is needed for its unveiling. Whatever is learned—“that which is learned can be unlearned.” But swimming is such that once you know it, even if you haven’t swum for fifty years and someone throws you into water, you will swim. You cannot forget it. There is no way to forget it.
If it had been learned, it could be forgotten. It is not learned; everyone knows how to flail arms and legs. With a little courage, if one jumps into the water, the flailing happens. Then within a few days courage grows, the fear of death diminishes, and one becomes orderly.
Exactly so is meditation. Until you know it, it seems very difficult. But there is nothing to learn—only courage is needed, the courage to jump in. You will flail a little; in a few days it becomes orderly. And when it becomes orderly you cannot forget it again. And once it happens, you are amazed: such a simple thing—why did it take so many lifetimes?
But we suffer from a great lack of courage.
I have heard that the first time Mulla Nasruddin went to learn swimming at the riverbank, he slipped by accident and fell into the water. Before his teacher could even begin to instruct him, he had already gone under a couple of times. He was pulled out. Standing on the bank, he swore, “Until I have learned to swim, I will not set foot near water.”
Then swimming will not happen for lifetimes—because even to learn swimming you must set foot in water. Someone may say, “First I will learn to swim; only then will I step into the river.” It sounds logical that if you don’t know how to swim you should avoid water, and never go near it until you know. But to learn swimming you must enter the water itself. So remember: even one who cannot swim must still go into the water in order to learn. And if you make the rule that you will first learn and only then enter, you will neither learn to swim nor ever enter the water.
A friend came yesterday and said, “First I will practice sannyas. Later, I will take sannyas.”
How will you practice sannyas without taking sannyas? Will you learn to swim in river sand? Even before practice, a leap is needed—only then can practice happen. Somewhere, at some point, the leap must be taken. Let me tell you what a leap means.
A leap means this: your mind has a continuity, a chain up to now. If you add a link that merely joins onto that chain, it is not a leap. “That is simply a continuity of the old.” The old mind had counted to ten; you add an eleventh step. It is the same sequence—no leap in it. But a person who breaks the old mind—its logic, its arrangement—and takes a step his mind was not willing to take, a step the mind insisted was absolutely wrong, a step into the dark, into the unknown, while the mind cries, “Listen to me!”—to take precisely that step, against every obstruction the mind can raise, is what is called a leap. A leap means: “discontinuous”—no continuity, no chain with your old mind.
Meditation is a leap. Your mind will raise every kind of obstacle, every kind of hindrance, based on its old experience. And the arguments it gives will be of this sort—I have heard that one day Mulla Nasruddin sat in his sitting room from morning onward. By noon, no patient came. No one came to meet him. Once or twice he said to his servant, Mahmood, “What’s the matter today? Has the village run out of patients? This never happens! There isn’t even a sign of a visitor, a client, not even someone looking for satsang.”
Evening came; still no one. Night fell; still no one. At midnight Mulla said to his servant, “Go and close the front door. Waiting any longer is useless; let’s go to sleep.”
The servant went out and returned in a moment. Nasruddin said, “So quickly you’ve closed the door?”
The servant said, “It seems we forgot to open it this morning. The door is still shut.”
All day it never occurred to him that the door might be closed. He kept thinking why no one had come. He thought, Perhaps no one fell ill today—just a coincidence. He thought all sorts of things. But that the door could be shut!
The mind we are sitting in has its door closed toward the divine. We keep inventing reasons why the experience has not happened till now. We think: perhaps we have done evil deeds, committed sins; perhaps it is not in our fate; perhaps his grace is absent. People sit and think the world’s worth of arguments, but they never get up to see whether the door itself—the very door through which he could enter—might be shut!
We have devised thousands of arguments to hide the fact that the door is closed. However many sins you may have committed, you can never commit so many that you are deprived of the divine’s grace. A human being does not have the power to sin that much. No one can ever commit sins worthy of exclusion from his grace. His grace always exceeds your capacity to sin. So do not remain in the illusion that because of many sins the meeting is not happening. Do not remain in the illusion either that it is not in your destiny. Because if anything is fixed in your destiny—if there is any inevitability—it is union with the divine. Everything else is accidental.
A house may or may not be built, money may or may not come, honor may or may not be received—these are all accidental. One thing is destiny, and it will come to pass—even if you postpone it for lifetimes—still it will happen: meeting with the Lord.
So there is no obstacle in your fate; there is only one difficulty: you never look toward the door that is closed.
Meditation is precisely to open that closed door. And that door has been closed for so long it will take a few shoves. It has rusted; it has been shut for lifetimes. Perhaps the door itself has forgotten that it can open. And perhaps you have forgotten that this is a door. For what has never been seen opening—what difference is there between it and a wall? So a few pushes will be needed. A little effort must be made. A deep, intense endeavor will be needed. This is exactly what we are doing here in this small experiment. It is a small experiment if you do not do it; it will become a great experiment if you do.
Friends who have come merely to watch—there are chairs for you. The chairs are placed for this very purpose. Those who have come to watch, please move to the chairs. Go sincerely...