[NOTE: This is a partly edited tape transcript of an unpublished early dialogue. It is for reference purposes only.]
A: The mind is now integrated. The moment you are one the will is created. The will means an integrated mind. The willessness comes from disintegration, from fragmentariness, from your mind divided in itself; divided in contradictions, struggling, conflicting in itself. The mind which is unconscious is a willless mind. The mind which is total, one and whole is a mind with a will. The will only means wholeness, total.
FIRST INTERVIEWER: DOES THAT MEAN CONCENTRATION?
A: No, it doesn't mean concentration. Concentration means still. It's a fragmentary attitude. When you are concentrating, you are choosing a particular point excluding all else.
Q: IS THAT WHOLE (ALL?) ?
A: Not whole(?). The will means you are whole within, as well as without. It is a choiceless wholeness. You are not exclusively concentrating, but you are whole. The moment you are whole within, the total without is open to you, you are open to it. It is non-exclusive, it is inclusive of all. When I concentrate upon something, all else is excluded. When I am just whole in me nothing is excluded; everything is included. The whole totalness within, as well as the totalness without is will. To concentrate means to exclude.
FIRST MAN: (INAUDIBLE) AT ONE POINT...
A: Yes, if you are concentrating to one point your whole mind power, there will be two things; First you cannot concentrate on a single point your totalness. Your totalness can only be a response towards the totality. If the without is taken as a whole, only then you can be whole within. You cannot narrow yourself to a point, your whole mind can only be whole when the whole world is taken as one. Concentration is not only excluding something without, it is narrowing yourself also. It is focusing your mind to a particular narrow passage, ultimately to a point.
Q: (SOMETHING LIKE THIS) THEN THE MIND MUST BE...
A: Narrowed
Q: ... NARROWED, DON'T YOU THINK.
A: Yes
Q: SO IT MUST BE STRONG.
A: It can be strong, it can be strong, but it cannot be whole. And a strong mind is always hiding (one word inaudible), but a whole mind is not strong in that sense. The whole mind is whole, it has no weakness. It is as it is. If you are concentrating, a strength will be there, a particular type of strength that comes from narrowing, that comes from focusing, that comes concentration will be there, but behind it there will be weakness. Against that weakness you have created this strength. You as a total being will not be strengthened. A particular moment, a particular exclusive point, a particular fragment of your consciousness will be strengthened against the weakness of your whole mind. So this strength cannot be a conscious strength. It will come and it will go. And the moment it goes you will feel even more weaker. The moment following concentration will be still a more weak moment. You will feel exhausted. And you will feel something has gone out of you. Because this concentration is not of the total. It is only part of your mind which has been narrowed. And this effort of narrowing, exhausts. When I say will, to me will means wholeness. We must be whole within. It is not concentration on something, but it is just to (one word) your fragmentariness. And you be whole only when you respond to the whole, when you are aware to the whole without, (1 word) the without and the within. Being a total response. Only then, the will is there. This will is neither strong nor weak because it is not divided. So no contradictory terminologies can be applied to it. It is natural, it is tao, it is the whole. It is as strong as possible, as weak as possible, simultaneously. It is just like water; humble, weak, and strong. And aggressive. It is not like a stone; strong but hiding weakness within. When a strong stone comes in the way of the humble water passage, -- primarily the stone will seem to be strong and water weak, but then ultimately there will be no stone. And water will be flowing (above?) The water is neither weak nor strong; it is both simultaneously. The strength comes from the wholeness, also the humbleness. So only a strong person, totally strong can be a strong person. His humbleness is not weakness. The total mind is neither male nor female. The total mind is both simultaneously. It is as active as male, it is as passive as female. Both simultaneously. The whole is always both. Because (one word never?) one chooses against the other. So either you can say weak and strong, both active and passive, both alive and death. Or you can say it is neither. It transcends both. The will to be as I will be is a wholeness. It is not a desire, it is not a concentration, it is a not a choice at all. The whole from within responding to the whole without. And the moment the whole responds, there is no within and no without. It is one, it is both. The within and without. All the contradictions, all the paradoxes, all that is taken as opposite is dissolved in it. This will can be said the nature, the tao, the dhamma. And if you are total in this sense, then you are both. The only (1 word) cause and effect and makes them three. Because that too is one of the contradictory oppositions. Cause and effect is a bondage, but bondage to one who is fighting against it. Every type of bondage is built on the fight against it. If I am fighting against my bondage, then it is bondage; if I am at ease in it, co-operating, one with it, then there is no bondage. The bondage comes from the antagonism. The law of cause and effect, the dhamma, is not a bondage for a mind like a Buddha, it is not a bondage. It is bondage for us. It is bondage for us because we are always standing against it, doing something against it, feeling something against it. We have not taken it as our nature. If it becomes our nature, it is. If we understand, can comprehend it, can conceive as our nature, then there is no bondage. Then it becomes leela, then it becomes playfulness.
We have rules and regulations even in a play. You cannot play without rules and regulations. You cannot play -- even a play has it's own rules and regulations. But we know that these are to make the play possible, but still it is a play. Rules are there and they are to be followed. And the more you know they are rules of a play, the more you become capable of following them because rules of play cannot be fought. They are to be cooperated. Because they exist. Only when you cooperate with them... A total mind is neither free nor a slave. He is both. He is a slave with his cooperation, he is a slave just as in a play you come under rules and regulations in a play. Games have their rules and the sportsmanship means to be under them. To be freer (clear) and (inaudible) then seriousness and non seriousness become one. The whole thing is if you think life in it's totality, then you become the life. If you take life in it's life, then you become the Dhamma, you become the tao. All that is under cause and effect is not now taken as against it, as against causality; it becomes the causality. It is not me as an individual who is under cause and effect; the cause and effect and my own-ness are one and the same. No one is under anybody else. We are under ourselves. But this realization can come only when the total (inaudible) We are ourself fragmentary and thats why we conceive the world in a segment and the total is just a total; mathematical total, arithmetical total. We have taken our existence in fragments and then arithmetically we have totalled it. This is not the total. This is only fragments added. But fragments added cannot make a total. Because total is always something more than a part. For example, we can take a painting. The arithmetical total will mean this quantity of color, this quantity of canvas, this type of brush, this type of hand, this type of man painting it. So if we can conclude all this, it will be a arithmetical total, but the painting will not be there. The painting is something more than the total of its colors, the total of all its fragments -- it is something more. The whole transcends its parts,. It is not simply an arithmetical total, a total always transcends the parts. It is more than the part. A machine is a more than its parts. You can heap its parts, but that will be an arithmetical total, but it will not work. It will be a dead heap. It will be a total, but a dead heap. But when the machine becomes an organic whole, it is more than its parts, it is more than its fragments totalled arithmetically.
So the living total is always more than the fragments. If we conceive the world not as it exists in its totality, neither we conceive ourselves as we exist in our totality. Our whole conceptions are arithmetical. I have seen something, I have not seen the whole, even then we are seeing there is choice. So different persons nurturing different cultures will see different things. When we are seeing it is a choice. A person comes in this room he will see something else, another person comes he will see something else because both are choosing. Being is so great a thing, that I cannot see it, so we choose. And the descriptions will be different. What we are hearing is a choice; it is not the whole that comes to our ears. It is a choice. Then we accumulate all these chosen things from our senses, and make a picture of the whole. This we call the world, this is not the world; this is your world chosen by you a particular individual. The world is much more. So when I say to be whole, I mean a choiceless existence. You are not choosing, you just are.
By understanding, by understanding this fragmentary attitude, by understanding this fragmentary mind, by understanding this divided (inaudible), by understanding and knowing and becoming aware of the part which you have taken as your mind -- it would be better to say this is not mind, these are minds -- we are not a mind, we are minds. The Mind must come as you become more aware of these minds. The more you become aware of your minds, the Mind is being born. The mind comes in. That awareness will ultimately become your Mind. These minds will lose by and by their existence, their separateness and they will dissolve in the awareness, then you will be just aware. Without any mind, you will be a Mind. We are with mind, that's why we cannot be a Mind with a capital M. We are always of a particular mind. When you see, you see through a mind, when you listen, you listen through a mind. If you can become aware of these minds, these fragments, these conditionings then a mindless Mind begins to arise in you. Then a awareness unconditioned by your past -- these fragments are conditionings from your past. When you become aware of these conditionings, then a Mind which is not of the past, which is to arise, which is to pulsate(?)...
SECOND WOMAN : (INAUDIBLE)
A: Yes. The moment it becomes whole, then there is no difference between the individual and the cosmic. The individual and the cosmic is the difference created by our mind. (Tiny tape break) ... then there is no difference, the difference falls. It is not that the individual mind becomes cosmic, no, we come to know that there is no difference between the individual and the cosmic. It has always been the one. Only the fragmentary mind, minds that we have created through experience, through education, through cultivation, through the path; those fragmentary minds, those crystallizations of past experiences were the dividing barrier. Now when they are not, the division has fallen. It is not that the individual now becomes the cosmic, and neither that the cosmic becomes the individual, no, there is no individual and no cosmic now. It is one and the same. It has always been so. We have lost something which we ourselves have created. The reality has always been so. It has never been known a division. The division was in mental division; creation of our own conditionings. The reality has been always undivided, indivisible. It is still so, it has always been so, it will be so. But we, through our cultivated mind see it as divided. The moment you become whole, the moment you become aware then there is neither individual nor cosmic. Or you can say, this is the cosmic. It makes no difference, but cosmic is not against the individual; cosmic as dissolving all the individual. How this can be achieved? By being aware of your fragmentary mind, of your conception, of your attitude, of your approaches. If you can become aware of your mind which sees, which hears, which chooses, then you are seeing it; a flower -- it is not only that the flower is there, between you and the flower there is a particular mind, a particular attitude about the flower -- that is still between you and the flower. Otherwise there is no barrier. Otherwise you and the flower are two extremes of one existence, two ends of one single moment. The consciousness and the flowering are two extreme points of one process. If your particular mind is not there, if it is there and it is always there, it is not that you are just seeing the flower, your seeing has a method, your seeing has a conception, your seeing has a like or dislike, your seeing has a path. You say, "This a rose." Now there is no rose and the rose itself has never known that it is a rose. It is we who have called it a rose. The moment you say rose, all that is associated with the word rose stands between you and the flower. And much is associated. If your culture says that a rose is beautiful, then the flower becomes beautiful. Your culture is against the rose, then it becomes ugly. If your experience is... of this flowering is associated with pain, with thorns, then the rose becomes different. If your associations are not associated with pain but with play, then the rose becomes different. And the rose is all the time same. You come with a mind to it and your mind destroys that which is real and creates an imaginary, hallucinatory thing. If you have no mind, if you can see this rose with no mind and the seeing is totally innocent, completely refreshed. If the seeing is not something from the past. If you and the rose are in this moment living simultaneously, with no mind on your part -- because there is no mind on roses' part. If you are without mind in this moment, just aware, just existential, then the rose is not known as something separate. Then it is known something as part and parcel of your consciousness. Then the flowering of the rose is your flowering; then the perfume of the rose is your perfume. And your consciousness is roses' consciousness through you. It is rose himself known himself through you; via your consciousness rose has come to know himself. Then the feeling is like this. It cannot be expressed as (inaudible) But either that you have flowered and the rose...
or that the rose has become conscious through you about himself. The feeling is like that.
Q: (INAUDIBLE) IS ALSO SEEING?
A: This is seeing really, this is seeing. This is darshan -- with no mind.
Q: (INAUDIBLE) THIS KIND OF SEEING?
A: I don't know, what he says. I say this is seeing. Only when you are mindless the seeing is there, the knowing is there, the feeling is there. The mind is a destroyer. The mind is a destructive force. Don't try to be whole. You cannot try for it. There can be no effort. Because any type of a effort, is a effort of a particular mind against other minds. That's why the effortlessness of it is to be understood clearly. You cannot achieve it, because every type of achievement is a longing of a particular mind. You can only understand. This is so, this is suchness. The mind is fragmentary and the mind is not one, it is poly-psychic. It is minds. What are these minds? These minds are the experiences of the past with which you have become attached, associated; with which you have created a clinging. Why you have created the clinging? Because to exist mindlessly is dangerous, to exist mindlessly is insecure, to exist mindlessly is to be always in the unknown. That's why all the has become known to us we have made it a part of our consciousness. All that has become an experience, knowledge we have been clinging to it. Against the unknown, against the insecure, against that which is coming, we are clinging with that which has gone. These are our safety measures. So a mind which is longing for security cannot be mindless. This is to be understood. Nothing is to be done. This is just a fact. This is to be understood that a mind which is longing for security can never be mindless, because a mind longing for security will cling with past experiences, past knowledge, past information and will create mind. And will always be (inaudible) both dead minds. And you cannot be alive through dead things. Reasons. First that we have not a single mind, we have minds. Second, these minds are our past experiences.
Third, we are clinging to these minds, because of the fear of the unknown, because of the possibility, infinite possibility of all that is future, of all that is coming. The past is something (inaudible) because it has happened, it is dead. You can do something with it. You cannot do anything with the future. Once you become aware, that these are these bindings; longing for security, this safety with the past, this deadness, this (inaudible) of the past, you can do something with it and the unknown too And the unchartered future. And the infinite possibilities. About which you can never be certain. If you can understand these two things: the certainty of the past and the uncertainty of the future, and if you can understand that life means uncertainty, life means insecurity, life means to be in danger -- only a dead person is out of danger. Now he can not become dizzy, now he cannot die. There is no death for him now, he is at ease. A dead person is always at ease. Everything has become certain. Everything has happened and now nothing is to happen, so there is no danger. But if you understand that life means uncertainty, life means insecurity, life means dangerously, life means the unchartered unknown possibilities. If you understand this, then by and by, minds will drop. By and by they will cease to function, by and by you will become one and whole. And by and by the response will be total. This total response is religiousness. Total response every moment, in every situation. Be total within and dig the total without. The moment this happens, the totalness within and the totalness without they become one. Then there is no barrier. There can never be two perceptions. The moment two perceptions come close, they become one. The wholeness is always one. So they say, there is a saying in the Upanishads, 'If we take the whole out of the whole, the whole remains behind. Nothing is taken out. Because you cannot take anything from the whole. Even if you take the whole, the whole remains behind. You cannot add anything to the whole, if you add the whole, it remains the same. The whole means the one. And there can be no methods to it. All the methods are for the understanding. All the methods are to create a situation, in which you can understand yourself, your fragmentariness, your poly-psychicness, your multiplicity...
SECOND MAN: THIS IS ALSO SEEING
A: Yes.
Q: DIFFERENT KIND OF SEEING, BUT WE ARE SEEING.(INAUDIBLE) THAT IS REALITY
A: Yes.
Q: AND THIS KNOWING OF MINE IS ALSO SEEING?
A: It is also seeing. Not different. It is the same. When you know yourself in its totalness, only then you can know that is without in its totalness.
The first thing to be seen is yourself. Because if you have not seen yourself then no seeing can happen without.
Q: SOMETIMES AFTER THIS MEDITATION METHOD I CAN SEE MYSELF FOR...
A: Yes, you can see. You can see.
Q: SOMETIMES.
A: Sometimes it will come over you. Sometimes when you are whole, the whole will explode over you. And this will go on becoming more natural. It will go on becoming by and by... the gaps will be lesser, the intervals will be less. And then a moment comes, a moment of explosion from which there is no return.
Q: (INAUDIBLE) THIS IS JUST AN OLD WORD, BUT THEY CALL IT WILL OR WHAT?
A: These are all words. They can be used, but the will is the power, is the energy. There is nothing such as will power. Will is the power, will is the energy, will is everything, but by will I mean the wholeness. And those who use the word will power, use it as in a psychic thing. They use it as a power concentration. I am not using that word in that sense. To me will is the whole. The only God is the will. We are never the will, we are desires. Even if a desire is concentrated, it is a desire power. The will is the power. With no desire, it is power with no movement, or a inner movement. It is a power with no direction, or directionless, dimensionless. When we say God is power it doesn't mean God is powerful, it means God is equal power. It is the power. So when I say will is power it is not that will has a power -- will is power, will is energy. It is like energy. And you can only attain to it, when you have lost yourself. Until you are there, desire will be there and the power will only be a desire power, fragmentary, created by concentration, by narrowing it, by exclusion. This power cannot be your life. You will have moments of powerlessness also. This potency is always against your impotency. This will come and go. But when the will comes, now nothing is to go, everything is. Even the flexibility is powerful. Even the impotence becomes a potency. Thats why, I would like to say the word 'Tao' is better than the word 'will,' than the word 'dharma,' than the word 'law,' tao is better. Because tao is both; the (inaudible) the (inaudible), the darkness the light, the potency and the impotency; it is both.
SIDE TWO (starts after 1 min 33 secs empty tape)
... only then power becomes absolute. But will power as ordinarily used, is only power created by conflict, power created by concentration; that is not power. This is just creating a conflict in you and making your one mind stand against the other. And because of this encountering a certain energy, a certain force is created -- you can use it, but there will be moments following it of depression, of powerlessness. But when there is no direction, when there is no desire you are power. Undirected to any goal. You are energy, you are life. Then there is no shadow. Then you exist without shadow. Then you exist without the opposite following (inaudible) Thats why it is said, "God is shadowless." He is, but there is no shadow to him. (nice chuckles)
[Next question in Hindi. The English translation is omitted here as much of the Hindi was inaudible]
3RD MAN: (INAUDIBLE)
A: It is a very symbolic experience. The moment you transcend the body the extension comes. The body is the only limitation. It is not that the tree is other, it is not that the flower is the other, it is only the body that makes them look as other. The moment you become bodyless, the moment you feel that you are not body, then everything is one, because now there is no barrier-barrier to the extension, to the extending consciousness. That is the reality, this is the falsehood. You looking me as the other, I looking you as the other this is the falsehood. Falsehood created because of the identification of myself with my body. If the identification drops, then there is no barrier, then you are me, then I am you. That is a very strange phenomenon, to mate for the first time, it is the most strange phenomenon.
3RD MAN: NOW I REALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT( ?)
A: Yes.
3RD MAN: I THINK I UNDERSTAND WHAT IT MEANS NOW. (OSHO LAUGHS) I (INAUDIBLE) (?) 4TH MAN: (INAUDIBLE) BEFORE THAT JUST BETWEEN ZAZEN IS OFFERED FOR SUDDEN ENLIGHTENMENT, BUT ZAZEN IS SOTTO(?) SOTTO IS GRADUAL, CHI IS SUDDEN AND SOTTO IS GRADUAL, BUT IF YOU SAY ZAZEN IS SOTTO, IT'S FOR SUDDEN ENLIGHTENMENT.
A: Yes. But in sotto they use the word zazen, but they are not just sitting. Only the word is there. They are doing something. That is what we were talking. They are doing something, they are meditating, they are contemplating, they are concentrating, they are not just sitting; so only the word is of sotto, they look as if they are just sitting, but they are all the time engaged in doing something. The word zazen means not doing anything just sitting. Sitting only.
Really there is no sect and there is not any possibility of there being any sect. Who can practice zazen? Individuals have been there, a Buddha just sitting. A Bodhidharma just sitting. Whenever we come to them we go to them we ask what to do? Then they (how come?) and the just sitting is dropped. And the Buddha is forced to answer us. If we sit just go and sit, then it is no answer for us because we were asking how? It is irrelevant, we were asking how to sit and he is saying just sit and the thing will happen. So two (inaudible) will look we have been sitting all the time, it has not happened. Though we have not sat in that way, just sitting is the most difficult thing. Whenever we come to a person like a Buddha; his all these teachings are these teachings of just sitting. But when we to a temple and see a Buddha we will say he is meditating, he is in a asan, he is in siddhasan, he is in padmasan, he is meditating, he is in a dhyan... this is all nonsense. He is just sitting, he is not doing anything, neither... not even dhyan! He is not doing it. He is in dhyan. And in dhyan, in meditation means not doing meditation. So there has not been any effect, there have been claims, there have been word, but the moment a sect is created the how comes in. All those who will come they will ask how to do it and I go on telling them just go and sit. So (more and more?) come and there will be no sect. Because they ask how and I say there is no how, just sit as you like, but just sit. It becomes meaningless to them. A sect is created the moment how is answered. And the moment how is answered, there is no possibility of Zazen. The Sotto use it, but it is not there. The zen says that you must be effortless, but they make all the effort. They say the meditation must be effortless, then they develop methods to achieve this effortlessness, they become(?)) efforts. A pure religious sect is an impossibility. Only absurd religious sect is a possibility. A religious sect is to be in existence, must be absurd in contradictory. He cannot be consistent. If the religion is pure then it evaporates, you cannot catch it. If it becomes impure you catch it, then it is not religion.
4TH MAN: IF CHI(?) AND ZEN ARE NOT TWO, BUT ONE...
A: No, no they are all not two, the difference is only of the how. The difference is always of the how, and how is basically absurd. The achievement, the realization is always in effortlessness. The knowing comes only in the moment when the doing is not. The being reveals when the doing has ceased. So this is the purest concept, this is the purest thing possible to say, but when I say to you, you will ask how to be in such a position, how to be in such a situation. Then I must, I am compelled to speak in contradiction. I will go on telling you that just sitting is the only real thing, and at the same time, showing you methods which are not of just sitting. But doing these methods a moment comes when you yourself become aware of the absurdity; what you are doing? You cannot go to the being through doing. The doing must cease. But through doing you can become aware that this is all absurd. The moment meditation becomes absurd, you realize meditation. The moment there is no need of any dhyan, the samadhi is achieved.
Osho's Commentary
A: The mind is now integrated. The moment you are one the will is created. The will means an integrated mind. The willessness comes from disintegration, from fragmentariness, from your mind divided in itself; divided in contradictions, struggling, conflicting in itself. The mind which is unconscious is a willless mind. The mind which is total, one and whole is a mind with a will. The will only means wholeness, total.
FIRST INTERVIEWER: DOES THAT MEAN CONCENTRATION?
A: No, it doesn't mean concentration. Concentration means still. It's a fragmentary attitude. When you are concentrating, you are choosing a particular point excluding all else.
Q: IS THAT WHOLE (ALL?) ?
A: Not whole(?). The will means you are whole within, as well as without. It is a choiceless wholeness. You are not exclusively concentrating, but you are whole. The moment you are whole within, the total without is open to you, you are open to it. It is non-exclusive, it is inclusive of all. When I concentrate upon something, all else is excluded. When I am just whole in me nothing is excluded; everything is included. The whole totalness within, as well as the totalness without is will. To concentrate means to exclude.
FIRST MAN: (INAUDIBLE) AT ONE POINT...
A: Yes, if you are concentrating to one point your whole mind power, there will be two things; First you cannot concentrate on a single point your totalness. Your totalness can only be a response towards the totality. If the without is taken as a whole, only then you can be whole within. You cannot narrow yourself to a point, your whole mind can only be whole when the whole world is taken as one. Concentration is not only excluding something without, it is narrowing yourself also. It is focusing your mind to a particular narrow passage, ultimately to a point.
Q: (SOMETHING LIKE THIS) THEN THE MIND MUST BE...
A: Narrowed
Q: ... NARROWED, DON'T YOU THINK.
A: Yes
Q: SO IT MUST BE STRONG.
A: It can be strong, it can be strong, but it cannot be whole. And a strong mind is always hiding (one word inaudible), but a whole mind is not strong in that sense. The whole mind is whole, it has no weakness. It is as it is. If you are concentrating, a strength will be there, a particular type of strength that comes from narrowing, that comes from focusing, that comes concentration will be there, but behind it there will be weakness. Against that weakness you have created this strength. You as a total being will not be strengthened. A particular moment, a particular exclusive point, a particular fragment of your consciousness will be strengthened against the weakness of your whole mind. So this strength cannot be a conscious strength. It will come and it will go. And the moment it goes you will feel even more weaker. The moment following concentration will be still a more weak moment. You will feel exhausted. And you will feel something has gone out of you. Because this concentration is not of the total. It is only part of your mind which has been narrowed. And this effort of narrowing, exhausts. When I say will, to me will means wholeness. We must be whole within. It is not concentration on something, but it is just to (one word) your fragmentariness. And you be whole only when you respond to the whole, when you are aware to the whole without, (1 word) the without and the within. Being a total response. Only then, the will is there. This will is neither strong nor weak because it is not divided. So no contradictory terminologies can be applied to it. It is natural, it is tao, it is the whole. It is as strong as possible, as weak as possible, simultaneously. It is just like water; humble, weak, and strong. And aggressive. It is not like a stone; strong but hiding weakness within. When a strong stone comes in the way of the humble water passage, -- primarily the stone will seem to be strong and water weak, but then ultimately there will be no stone. And water will be flowing (above?) The water is neither weak nor strong; it is both simultaneously. The strength comes from the wholeness, also the humbleness. So only a strong person, totally strong can be a strong person. His humbleness is not weakness. The total mind is neither male nor female. The total mind is both simultaneously. It is as active as male, it is as passive as female. Both simultaneously. The whole is always both. Because (one word never?) one chooses against the other. So either you can say weak and strong, both active and passive, both alive and death. Or you can say it is neither. It transcends both. The will to be as I will be is a wholeness. It is not a desire, it is not a concentration, it is a not a choice at all. The whole from within responding to the whole without. And the moment the whole responds, there is no within and no without. It is one, it is both. The within and without. All the contradictions, all the paradoxes, all that is taken as opposite is dissolved in it. This will can be said the nature, the tao, the dhamma. And if you are total in this sense, then you are both. The only (1 word) cause and effect and makes them three. Because that too is one of the contradictory oppositions. Cause and effect is a bondage, but bondage to one who is fighting against it. Every type of bondage is built on the fight against it. If I am fighting against my bondage, then it is bondage; if I am at ease in it, co-operating, one with it, then there is no bondage. The bondage comes from the antagonism. The law of cause and effect, the dhamma, is not a bondage for a mind like a Buddha, it is not a bondage. It is bondage for us. It is bondage for us because we are always standing against it, doing something against it, feeling something against it. We have not taken it as our nature. If it becomes our nature, it is. If we understand, can comprehend it, can conceive as our nature, then there is no bondage. Then it becomes leela, then it becomes playfulness.
We have rules and regulations even in a play. You cannot play without rules and regulations. You cannot play -- even a play has it's own rules and regulations. But we know that these are to make the play possible, but still it is a play. Rules are there and they are to be followed. And the more you know they are rules of a play, the more you become capable of following them because rules of play cannot be fought. They are to be cooperated. Because they exist. Only when you cooperate with them... A total mind is neither free nor a slave. He is both. He is a slave with his cooperation, he is a slave just as in a play you come under rules and regulations in a play. Games have their rules and the sportsmanship means to be under them. To be freer (clear) and (inaudible) then seriousness and non seriousness become one. The whole thing is if you think life in it's totality, then you become the life. If you take life in it's life, then you become the Dhamma, you become the tao. All that is under cause and effect is not now taken as against it, as against causality; it becomes the causality. It is not me as an individual who is under cause and effect; the cause and effect and my own-ness are one and the same. No one is under anybody else. We are under ourselves. But this realization can come only when the total (inaudible) We are ourself fragmentary and thats why we conceive the world in a segment and the total is just a total; mathematical total, arithmetical total. We have taken our existence in fragments and then arithmetically we have totalled it. This is not the total. This is only fragments added. But fragments added cannot make a total. Because total is always something more than a part. For example, we can take a painting. The arithmetical total will mean this quantity of color, this quantity of canvas, this type of brush, this type of hand, this type of man painting it. So if we can conclude all this, it will be a arithmetical total, but the painting will not be there. The painting is something more than the total of its colors, the total of all its fragments -- it is something more. The whole transcends its parts,. It is not simply an arithmetical total, a total always transcends the parts. It is more than the part. A machine is a more than its parts. You can heap its parts, but that will be an arithmetical total, but it will not work. It will be a dead heap. It will be a total, but a dead heap. But when the machine becomes an organic whole, it is more than its parts, it is more than its fragments totalled arithmetically.
So the living total is always more than the fragments. If we conceive the world not as it exists in its totality, neither we conceive ourselves as we exist in our totality. Our whole conceptions are arithmetical. I have seen something, I have not seen the whole, even then we are seeing there is choice. So different persons nurturing different cultures will see different things. When we are seeing it is a choice. A person comes in this room he will see something else, another person comes he will see something else because both are choosing. Being is so great a thing, that I cannot see it, so we choose. And the descriptions will be different. What we are hearing is a choice; it is not the whole that comes to our ears. It is a choice. Then we accumulate all these chosen things from our senses, and make a picture of the whole. This we call the world, this is not the world; this is your world chosen by you a particular individual. The world is much more. So when I say to be whole, I mean a choiceless existence. You are not choosing, you just are.
By understanding, by understanding this fragmentary attitude, by understanding this fragmentary mind, by understanding this divided (inaudible), by understanding and knowing and becoming aware of the part which you have taken as your mind -- it would be better to say this is not mind, these are minds -- we are not a mind, we are minds. The Mind must come as you become more aware of these minds. The more you become aware of your minds, the Mind is being born. The mind comes in. That awareness will ultimately become your Mind. These minds will lose by and by their existence, their separateness and they will dissolve in the awareness, then you will be just aware. Without any mind, you will be a Mind. We are with mind, that's why we cannot be a Mind with a capital M. We are always of a particular mind. When you see, you see through a mind, when you listen, you listen through a mind. If you can become aware of these minds, these fragments, these conditionings then a mindless Mind begins to arise in you. Then a awareness unconditioned by your past -- these fragments are conditionings from your past. When you become aware of these conditionings, then a Mind which is not of the past, which is to arise, which is to pulsate(?)...
SECOND WOMAN : (INAUDIBLE)
A: Yes. The moment it becomes whole, then there is no difference between the individual and the cosmic. The individual and the cosmic is the difference created by our mind. (Tiny tape break) ... then there is no difference, the difference falls. It is not that the individual mind becomes cosmic, no, we come to know that there is no difference between the individual and the cosmic. It has always been the one. Only the fragmentary mind, minds that we have created through experience, through education, through cultivation, through the path; those fragmentary minds, those crystallizations of past experiences were the dividing barrier. Now when they are not, the division has fallen. It is not that the individual now becomes the cosmic, and neither that the cosmic becomes the individual, no, there is no individual and no cosmic now. It is one and the same. It has always been so. We have lost something which we ourselves have created. The reality has always been so. It has never been known a division. The division was in mental division; creation of our own conditionings. The reality has been always undivided, indivisible. It is still so, it has always been so, it will be so. But we, through our cultivated mind see it as divided. The moment you become whole, the moment you become aware then there is neither individual nor cosmic. Or you can say, this is the cosmic. It makes no difference, but cosmic is not against the individual; cosmic as dissolving all the individual. How this can be achieved? By being aware of your fragmentary mind, of your conception, of your attitude, of your approaches. If you can become aware of your mind which sees, which hears, which chooses, then you are seeing it; a flower -- it is not only that the flower is there, between you and the flower there is a particular mind, a particular attitude about the flower -- that is still between you and the flower. Otherwise there is no barrier. Otherwise you and the flower are two extremes of one existence, two ends of one single moment. The consciousness and the flowering are two extreme points of one process. If your particular mind is not there, if it is there and it is always there, it is not that you are just seeing the flower, your seeing has a method, your seeing has a conception, your seeing has a like or dislike, your seeing has a path. You say, "This a rose." Now there is no rose and the rose itself has never known that it is a rose. It is we who have called it a rose. The moment you say rose, all that is associated with the word rose stands between you and the flower. And much is associated. If your culture says that a rose is beautiful, then the flower becomes beautiful. Your culture is against the rose, then it becomes ugly. If your experience is... of this flowering is associated with pain, with thorns, then the rose becomes different. If your associations are not associated with pain but with play, then the rose becomes different. And the rose is all the time same. You come with a mind to it and your mind destroys that which is real and creates an imaginary, hallucinatory thing. If you have no mind, if you can see this rose with no mind and the seeing is totally innocent, completely refreshed. If the seeing is not something from the past. If you and the rose are in this moment living simultaneously, with no mind on your part -- because there is no mind on roses' part. If you are without mind in this moment, just aware, just existential, then the rose is not known as something separate. Then it is known something as part and parcel of your consciousness. Then the flowering of the rose is your flowering; then the perfume of the rose is your perfume. And your consciousness is roses' consciousness through you. It is rose himself known himself through you; via your consciousness rose has come to know himself. Then the feeling is like this. It cannot be expressed as (inaudible) But either that you have flowered and the rose...
or that the rose has become conscious through you about himself. The feeling is like that.
Q: (INAUDIBLE) IS ALSO SEEING?
A: This is seeing really, this is seeing. This is darshan -- with no mind.
Q: (INAUDIBLE) THIS KIND OF SEEING?
A: I don't know, what he says. I say this is seeing. Only when you are mindless the seeing is there, the knowing is there, the feeling is there. The mind is a destroyer. The mind is a destructive force. Don't try to be whole. You cannot try for it. There can be no effort. Because any type of a effort, is a effort of a particular mind against other minds. That's why the effortlessness of it is to be understood clearly. You cannot achieve it, because every type of achievement is a longing of a particular mind. You can only understand. This is so, this is suchness. The mind is fragmentary and the mind is not one, it is poly-psychic. It is minds. What are these minds? These minds are the experiences of the past with which you have become attached, associated; with which you have created a clinging. Why you have created the clinging? Because to exist mindlessly is dangerous, to exist mindlessly is insecure, to exist mindlessly is to be always in the unknown. That's why all the has become known to us we have made it a part of our consciousness. All that has become an experience, knowledge we have been clinging to it. Against the unknown, against the insecure, against that which is coming, we are clinging with that which has gone. These are our safety measures. So a mind which is longing for security cannot be mindless. This is to be understood. Nothing is to be done. This is just a fact. This is to be understood that a mind which is longing for security can never be mindless, because a mind longing for security will cling with past experiences, past knowledge, past information and will create mind. And will always be (inaudible) both dead minds. And you cannot be alive through dead things.
Reasons. First that we have not a single mind, we have minds.
Second, these minds are our past experiences.
Third, we are clinging to these minds, because of the fear of the unknown, because of the possibility, infinite possibility of all that is future, of all that is coming. The past is something (inaudible) because it has happened, it is dead. You can do something with it. You cannot do anything with the future. Once you become aware, that these are these bindings; longing for security, this safety with the past, this deadness, this (inaudible) of the past, you can do something with it and the unknown too And the unchartered future. And the infinite possibilities. About which you can never be certain. If you can understand these two things: the certainty of the past and the uncertainty of the future, and if you can understand that life means uncertainty, life means insecurity, life means to be in danger -- only a dead person is out of danger. Now he can not become dizzy, now he cannot die. There is no death for him now, he is at ease. A dead person is always at ease. Everything has become certain. Everything has happened and now nothing is to happen, so there is no danger. But if you understand that life means uncertainty, life means insecurity, life means dangerously, life means the unchartered unknown possibilities. If you understand this, then by and by, minds will drop. By and by they will cease to function, by and by you will become one and whole. And by and by the response will be total. This total response is religiousness. Total response every moment, in every situation. Be total within and dig the total without. The moment this happens, the totalness within and the totalness without they become one. Then there is no barrier. There can never be two perceptions. The moment two perceptions come close, they become one. The wholeness is always one. So they say, there is a saying in the Upanishads, 'If we take the whole out of the whole, the whole remains behind. Nothing is taken out. Because you cannot take anything from the whole. Even if you take the whole, the whole remains behind. You cannot add anything to the whole, if you add the whole, it remains the same. The whole means the one. And there can be no methods to it. All the methods are for the understanding. All the methods are to create a situation, in which you can understand yourself, your fragmentariness, your poly-psychicness, your multiplicity...
SECOND MAN: THIS IS ALSO SEEING
A: Yes.
Q: DIFFERENT KIND OF SEEING, BUT WE ARE SEEING.(INAUDIBLE) THAT IS REALITY
A: Yes.
Q: AND THIS KNOWING OF MINE IS ALSO SEEING?
A: It is also seeing. Not different. It is the same. When you know yourself in its totalness, only then you can know that is without in its totalness.
The first thing to be seen is yourself. Because if you have not seen yourself then no seeing can happen without.
Q: SOMETIMES AFTER THIS MEDITATION METHOD I CAN SEE MYSELF FOR...
A: Yes, you can see. You can see.
Q: SOMETIMES.
A: Sometimes it will come over you. Sometimes when you are whole, the whole will explode over you. And this will go on becoming more natural. It will go on becoming by and by... the gaps will be lesser, the intervals will be less. And then a moment comes, a moment of explosion from which there is no return.
Q: (INAUDIBLE) THIS IS JUST AN OLD WORD, BUT THEY CALL IT WILL OR WHAT?
A: These are all words. They can be used, but the will is the power, is the energy. There is nothing such as will power. Will is the power, will is the energy, will is everything, but by will I mean the wholeness. And those who use the word will power, use it as in a psychic thing. They use it as a power concentration. I am not using that word in that sense. To me will is the whole. The only God is the will. We are never the will, we are desires. Even if a desire is concentrated, it is a desire power. The will is the power. With no desire, it is power with no movement, or a inner movement. It is a power with no direction, or directionless, dimensionless. When we say God is power it doesn't mean God is powerful, it means God is equal power. It is the power. So when I say will is power it is not that will has a power -- will is power, will is energy. It is like energy. And you can only attain to it, when you have lost yourself. Until you are there, desire will be there and the power will only be a desire power, fragmentary, created by concentration, by narrowing it, by exclusion. This power cannot be your life. You will have moments of powerlessness also. This potency is always against your impotency. This will come and go. But when the will comes, now nothing is to go, everything is. Even the flexibility is powerful. Even the impotence becomes a potency. Thats why, I would like to say the word 'Tao' is better than the word 'will,' than the word 'dharma,' than the word 'law,' tao is better. Because tao is both; the (inaudible) the (inaudible), the darkness the light, the potency and the impotency; it is both.
SIDE TWO (starts after 1 min 33 secs empty tape)
... only then power becomes absolute. But will power as ordinarily used, is only power created by conflict, power created by concentration; that is not power. This is just creating a conflict in you and making your one mind stand against the other. And because of this encountering a certain energy, a certain force is created -- you can use it, but there will be moments following it of depression, of powerlessness. But when there is no direction, when there is no desire you are power. Undirected to any goal. You are energy, you are life. Then there is no shadow. Then you exist without shadow. Then you exist without the opposite following (inaudible) Thats why it is said, "God is shadowless." He is, but there is no shadow to him.
(nice chuckles)
[Next question in Hindi. The English translation is omitted here as much of the Hindi was inaudible]
3RD MAN: (INAUDIBLE)
A: It is a very symbolic experience. The moment you transcend the body the extension comes. The body is the only limitation. It is not that the tree is other, it is not that the flower is the other, it is only the body that makes them look as other. The moment you become bodyless, the moment you feel that you are not body, then everything is one, because now there is no barrier-barrier to the extension, to the extending consciousness. That is the reality, this is the falsehood. You looking me as the other, I looking you as the other this is the falsehood. Falsehood created because of the identification of myself with my body. If the identification drops, then there is no barrier, then you are me, then I am you. That is a very strange phenomenon, to mate for the first time, it is the most strange phenomenon.
3RD MAN: NOW I REALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT( ?)
A: Yes.
3RD MAN: I THINK I UNDERSTAND WHAT IT MEANS NOW. (OSHO LAUGHS) I (INAUDIBLE) (?)
4TH MAN: (INAUDIBLE) BEFORE THAT JUST BETWEEN ZAZEN IS OFFERED FOR SUDDEN ENLIGHTENMENT, BUT ZAZEN IS SOTTO(?) SOTTO IS GRADUAL, CHI IS SUDDEN AND SOTTO IS GRADUAL, BUT IF YOU SAY ZAZEN IS SOTTO, IT'S FOR SUDDEN ENLIGHTENMENT.
A: Yes. But in sotto they use the word zazen, but they are not just sitting. Only the word is there. They are doing something. That is what we were talking. They are doing something, they are meditating, they are contemplating, they are concentrating, they are not just sitting; so only the word is of sotto, they look as if they are just sitting, but they are all the time engaged in doing something. The word zazen means not doing anything just sitting. Sitting only.
Really there is no sect and there is not any possibility of there being any sect. Who can practice zazen? Individuals have been there, a Buddha just sitting. A Bodhidharma just sitting. Whenever we come to them we go to them we ask what to do? Then they (how come?) and the just sitting is dropped. And the Buddha is forced to answer us. If we sit just go and sit, then it is no answer for us because we were asking how? It is irrelevant, we were asking how to sit and he is saying just sit and the thing will happen. So two (inaudible) will look we have been sitting all the time, it has not happened. Though we have not sat in that way, just sitting is the most difficult thing. Whenever we come to a person like a Buddha; his all these teachings are these teachings of just sitting. But when we to a temple and see a Buddha we will say he is meditating, he is in a asan, he is in siddhasan, he is in padmasan, he is meditating, he is in a dhyan... this is all nonsense. He is just sitting, he is not doing anything, neither... not even dhyan! He is not doing it. He is in dhyan. And in dhyan, in meditation means not doing meditation. So there has not been any effect, there have been claims, there have been word, but the moment a sect is created the how comes in. All those who will come they will ask how to do it and I go on telling them just go and sit. So (more and more?) come and there will be no sect. Because they ask how and I say there is no how, just sit as you like, but just sit. It becomes meaningless to them. A sect is created the moment how is answered. And the moment how is answered, there is no possibility of Zazen. The Sotto use it, but it is not there. The zen says that you must be effortless, but they make all the effort. They say the meditation must be effortless, then they develop methods to achieve this effortlessness, they become(?)) efforts. A pure religious sect is an impossibility. Only absurd religious sect is a possibility. A religious sect is to be in existence, must be absurd in contradictory. He cannot be consistent. If the religion is pure then it evaporates, you cannot catch it. If it becomes impure you catch it, then it is not religion.
4TH MAN: IF CHI(?) AND ZEN ARE NOT TWO, BUT ONE...
A: No, no they are all not two, the difference is only of the how. The difference is always of the how, and how is basically absurd. The achievement, the realization is always in effortlessness. The knowing comes only in the moment when the doing is not. The being reveals when the doing has ceased. So this is the purest concept, this is the purest thing possible to say, but when I say to you, you will ask how to be in such a position, how to be in such a situation. Then I must, I am compelled to speak in contradiction. I will go on telling you that just sitting is the only real thing, and at the same time, showing you methods which are not of just sitting. But doing these methods a moment comes when you yourself become aware of the absurdity; what you are doing? You cannot go to the being through doing. The doing must cease. But through doing you can become aware that this is all absurd. The moment meditation becomes absurd, you realize meditation. The moment there is no need of any dhyan, the samadhi is achieved.