[NOTE: This is a partly edited tape transcript of an unpublished early dialogue. It is for reference purposes only.]
AMERICAN WOMAN: I HAVE BEEN SLUMBERING ALL OF MY LIFE, AND AS YOU CAN SEE IT'S BEEN QUITE A LONG TIME. THE OTHER DAY I READ WHO AM I?, PARTICULARLY THE SECTION ON MEDITATION, AND IT WAS QUITE REVEALING, I FELT. VERY REVEALING. I CAME FOR TWO REASONS: TO GET SOME HELP MYSELF, PSYCHOLOGICALLY, AND ALSO TO HELP SOME OTHER PEOPLE, PSYCHOLOGICALLY, SINCE I WORK WITH PEOPLE WHO ARE MENTALLY ILL. NOT MENTALLY DEFICIENT PEOPLE OR MENTALLY RETARDED, BUT MENTALLY DISTURBED. I AM SURE THAT SOME OF YOUR WORK -- WHEN I STUDY IT -- IS GOING TO BE A GREAT HELP. SO I WONDER IF YOU COULD GIVE ME SOME POINTERS ON KEEPING AWAKE. I'VE BEEN SLUMBERING SO MANY YEARS.
OSHO: Mmm hmm. It is not so difficult.
The first thing to be understood is, to be aware of one's unawareness. That is the only beginning possible. If one becomes aware of one's unawareness, then things begin to change. So be attentive of your inattentions.
It is always easy to begin with the body. We are not aware of the body unless it is diseased, then too we become aware of the disease, not of the body. If you have a headache then you become aware, not of the head, but of the headache. So only illness creates a situation for us to be aware of our body, otherwise we are not aware of it. And that is the easier place to begin; mental awareness comes later. When you are walking, be aware of the act. When you are bathing or eating or doing anything with the body, so be aware of the act as you remember it, as it is being done.
The whole thing has become mechanical, it goes on by itself. Our being conscious is not needed at all. It is routine, a habitual rut. It continues and we go on dittoing -- ditto: the same is repeated again and again. This repetitive mechanism is convenient; that is why it becomes arduous to destroy old habits and create new ones, because to destroy an old habit and to create a new one needs attention.
So just be aware in day-to-day routines. In the minor dittos: remember it as it is being done, not afterwards, not as a past memory but as a present happening -- just as I am talking to you. You can listen to me with awareness or without awareness. If it is without awareness then it is only hearing, it is not listening. The mechanism of hearing will work. You can reproduce what I have said and you can feel that you have listened, but that is illusory; you have only heard. Listening means hearing with attention, with awareness. The act of hearing must not go to sleep. You must be focussed in it. You must be here and now -- open, aware, not only listening to me but at the same time conscious that you are listening. Then the act of listening becomes double-arrowed. One arrow is towards me, another arrow is towards you, the listener. Then the act becomes conscious.
So, with the body, first be conscious. The moment you remember that you have gone unconscious, begin again and be conscious. It will come and go. Even for single moments, one can be conscious. That is a revelation: everything becomes quite different.
As a second step, be aware of your breathing. That is going inwards. The body is the outermost part of us. The second body is breathing. So be aware of it: when you are not doing anything, be aware of your breathing. Just see it, watch it; the coming and the going, the incoming and the outgoing -- just be aware of it. And the very awareness creates a distance between you and your body. If you become aware of your body then the distance is between you and the world. There is a gap. You become -- in a sense for the first time -- a person. If you become aware of your breathing then again a new gap is created between your consciousness and your body.
Only after being conscious of breathing, one can become conscious of thoughts -- this is going towards the more subtle. After the body, one should be aware of one's breathing -- as the breath comes in and goes out, one must be aware of it, watchful. Then you can direct your attention towards your thought processes.
In the third step, one should be aware of one's thoughts. But one should not begin with thoughts, one should begin with the body -- then breathing, then thinking -- then it is not difficult. If you begin with thoughts it becomes difficult.
But we always begin with thoughts. Then it becomes difficult because one who is not aware of his body, his breathing, cannot become aware of so subtle a process as thinking. Consciousness cannot be focussed on such a subtle object unless you have fucussed it on more material, substantial objects. Then step by step, it becomes easier -- from one step to another there is no difficulty. But the jump is not possible.
Ordinarily we begin with thought processes but then there is failure: you cannot be aware.
And after thought processes, one should be aware of one's feelings. That is a still more subtle realm of our being. After one has become aware of one's thinking, only then can one become aware of one's feelings. Because feelings are not so articulate. There are not so verbal, they are not so much with form: they are formless. Thought has a form, so still, thought is not so subtle as feeling. Feeling is much more vague and much more liquid -- formless. It carries on, and only when it becomes a thought do you become aware of it.
The first ripple in our being begins with feeling. Then it becomes a thought, then the breath is affected, then the body is influenced.
The first ripple begins from the heart, or from the feeling. And one who has become aware of his feeling can become aware of his being. That is the central force: being is totally formless.
These are five pointers -- first, body; second, breathing; third, thinking; fourth, feeling; fifth, being. These are the five states, the labels of your existence. And one who has become aware of his being can become aware of the ultimate, the divine. Otherwise, our whole talk is nonsense. We go on talking about God and Brahma -- all nonsense. One who is not aware of himself as being cannot become aware of the being of the world -- that is the sixth. After the fifth one can only become aware of the divine. And still there is one more state: the ultimate. Even God is not the ultimate. The seventh is nirvana. The essential existence or: the non-existential existence, the total. It is not even divine. It is the whole which comprehends all the contradictions in it. Existence and non-existence, life and death...
WOMAN: IS IT IMPERSONAL?
A: It is impersonal.
So these are the seven realms. Up to the fifth, the ego will be there. With the sixth, the ego will not be there, but the cosmic ego will come into existence. And beyond the sixth is being -- egolessness is nothingness, what Buddha has called nirvana.
Up to the fifth you are, up to the sixth the divine is. And beyond the sixth is existence, simple and pure, comprehending non-existence also. These are seven concentric circles. Your body is the first, and your nobodyness is the last.
WOMAN: (GIGGLING) YES. QUITE A JOURNEY!
A: (CHUCKLING) Quite a journey! The only journey!
[tape jumps]
A: Hmm? For persons who are mentally ill -- not retarded -- as you say, meditation can be a great help.
In a way, no one is mentally healthy, everyone is ill -- the difference is always of degree. We are normally ill, someone else becomes abnormally ill -- that is the only difference. The root cause of mental disease is unawareness, because unawareness creates contradictory directions in the mind. And the more contradictory a mind, the more tense. To be mentally healthy means to be mentally harmonious.
Health means harmony. Your mind is not divided against yourself or against its own other parts. Your mind is not fragmentary, a divided house, but one whole. That wholeness is health. So a person who is mentally ill means a person who is mentally divided, bracketed in fragments contradictory to each other. To say it more accurately: he is not a mind but minds -- wholly psychical, wholly mental. There is not one self, but selves; so many selves in one person... and each self driving the person somewhere which the others are against. This conflict becomes illness, this is dis-ease.
Three things must be done: First, he must be made aware of his fragmentariness, of his contradictory selves. If he becomes aware he is divided into fragments, this very awareness begins to create a new self. This awareness becomes a new self, a new nucleus, a new atom of consolidation. But how to make an ill person aware? He may be so ill that awareness has become impossible.
So with a mentally diseased person, his disease should be exaggerated, only then he can become aware.
For instance, if a person is ill and you feel that he has suppressed something -- obviously there is bound to be suppression, otherwise illness would not be possible -- that suppression will have to be let loose. If he has suppressed anger, then allow him, provoke him to be totally angry. And the group can be very helpful.
WOMAN: GROUP?
A: A group which can provoke him to be angry, totally. So that all that is suppressed becomes expressed. If it comes expressed in its totality, then he can be made aware of it. That which is expressed can only be made an object of awareness; that which is suppressed cannot be made an object of awareness. Our whole society is suppressive, that is why our whole society has turned diseased. The whole society, the whole of our culture is abnormal. We are forcing everybody to be mad.
So a group is needed, a group which is allowing... it doesn't force any suppression -- a group of friends, which allows everything. If you want to weep, we allow you -- the only condition is, weep completely, totally. Be in it, and let it be expressed. Anything which is suppressed, if it can be let loose, it comes with such a force, with such vitality, that anyone can be made aware of it.
Ordinarily if you are angry, you have a cause for your anger, but this therapeutic group is creating a situation which is not a cause: the anger is being provoked so it can be expressed without any cause. If someone wants to do something, let him do it. And when he comes to express it with full force, then let him be reminded, let it be said to him: BE AWARE OF IT, WHAT YOU ARE DOING. You are weeping, be aware of it. You are crying, be aware of it. Don't suppress it, don't evaluate it, don't condemn it -- and the group must allow it. Even in your eyes, there should be no condemnation, no suppression. The patient must feel that the whole group is allowing him to be what he is; that whatsoever he is, is being allowed to be expressed. Not only being allowed, but because he has expressed it, he is loved for it, he is appreciated for it.
Mental illness is basically produced by society, by the community. It is not the person who has become diseased, it is society which has driven him to disease. So mental illness can only be overcome through a community, through a group. No individual treatment is possible. All that can be done individually is making him normal again, as he was previously, and sending him back to the same society to be again pressed, again forced to the same conclusion. It has got no meaning at all.
Group therapy is needed -- a work which can be done very easily. And within a group he becomes healthy in a very short time: two or three weeks are enough, if the group is totally allowing. If he feels at ease -- that he can do whatsoever he likes and is not made responsible for it and is not condemned for it -- then all that is suppressed will be expressed, and the patient goes through a catharsis. And catharsis is needed, because only through catharsis can he be made aware of his own suppression, of his own unconscious, of his own division.
Secondly: If he becomes aware of his division, of his fragmentary mind, and expresses the fragments and is released because of the expression, this still is not enough -- this is simply negative.
Mental disease has a positive aspect also. The negative aspect is concerned with suppression and the positive aspect is concerned with a retarded growth.
Everyone has got the potential to grow in a particular dimension. If that has not happened, if one has not become what one was meant to be, then disease is created. He is longing for something of which he is neither aware nor does there seem to be any possibility to become -- what one's potential is to become. The second thing to be made clear is a positive, creative dimension of growth.
Every diseased person, mentally diseased person, has lost the way towards creativity. He is a person unborn. Somewhere he has missed his way, his potential way; his flowering is retarded. And one can never be at ease with oneself unless one achieves that which is a seed in one and must grow.
So the second thing is to remember that it is not enough that someone is relieved of his tensions, because this cannot be a permanent health. His creative dimensions must be discovered and he must come to a point from where he can begin to grow. So a creative attitude must be given to him. He must create himself, or he must create something through which he can be fulfilled.
WOMAN (LAUGHING): INSTEAD OF GOING THROUGH A LOT OF NONSENSE...
A: The whole life is such nonsense. One goes on living, but there is no fulfillment. We spend our whole life in arrangements: we are always arranging to live, and the moment never comes.- mental tension is bound to be there. Life is slipping by; it is going all the time and one is still preparing for it. One has never lived. We only live in moments when we are creative. When we create something, that is the only living moment. It doesn't matter what is being created, the feeling that you have created something is the only thing. You have become a creator. The moment you feel that you have become a creator -- maybe just a toy, just a painting, just a piece of poetry or anything else -- the moment you feel that you have become a creator, something is fulfilled in you, and something begins to flower.
Disease comes because we have lost creativity; no one is creating anything. And the more we progress, and the more we became civilized, the less grows the possibility to be creative, because everything is given to us. Passivity has become the rule.
In the old days, we used to dance; today we watch someone dance. So it is just a passivity; we are onlookers. And life cannot be a fulfillment if you are just an onlooker -- you must participate. You must be in it richly, you must live it, you must risk yourself in it. But we are onlookers. Someone is singing, someone is dancing, someone is painting -- and we are onlookers. The whole world has become an onlooking world -- non-participating and passive. Passivity kills the spirit. And one can never feel oneself of any worth unless one is a creator.
So to a mentally ill person -- and we are all in a way mentally ill -- a creative life must be given. He must feel worthy; that he is doing something of worth -- not only of utility, but of worth. We are creating things which are of utility, but with them we cannot become creators. Something which is of worth means something which is an end in itself: you have painted something, it is of no utility at all, but that's why it becomes of worth. It becomes an end in itself. It is not a means to anything else.
So if one wants to remain mentally healthy everyone should be creative -- that is the second thing.
And third thing: we are so tense, not only because there are circumstances which make us tense, but basically we have completely forgotten how to relax. So if even if there are no circumstances to make you tense, you will stil be tense. We are tense. We have forgotten completely relaxation, the art of letgo.
This must be taught. Relaxation is the language which is not being taught -- that is the forgotten language. The whole of education, the whole of society is teaching everybody to be tense -- because it pays to be tense.
WOMAN: IT'S WHAT THEY WOULD IDENTIFY AS BEING ALERT. DO YOU THINK THIS IS BEING ALERT?
A: No, it is not being alert. Tension is not attention. Attention is always relaxed; tension is always pointing towards the future. Attention is never towards the future, it is always for the present. And you can only be relaxed in the present moment. If you are tense, you must be tense either against the past or against the future. In the present it is impossible to be tense.
Animals are not tense, trees are not tense, birds are not tense because there is no future for them. The present is the only tense, the present is the only time, there is neither past nor future. So they cannot be tense, they are relaxed. This art must be taught: to be in the present and to be relaxed.
Relaxation can be taught: it is an art, and not very difficult. If even relaxation is difficult, then what will be easy? But when we think about relaxation, because we are tense, we make a science out of it, not an art. And there are books with the headings "You Must Relax!" The 'must' is quite contradictory: a mind with a must can never relax.
WOMAN: WE WORK AT IT.
A: You cannot work at it.
Relaxation is an art. And there are so many ways.... Any activity that becomes absorbing, becomes relaxing.
So you must create groups which completely engage themselves in activities, and let the ill person, the mentally ill, be with the group. The group goes to a river... just begins to play with the water and the sand, and everybody is playing -- play is relaxation, it is not work, nothing has to be achieved out of it; it itself is the end.... But only children play, we never play. Even if we play, it becomes a game. Game is work -- to be done and to be won; but then it creates a tension again. Someone has to be defeated so the thing becomes serious. Play means no one is defeated. Even defeat is just a play, it is not something serious.
So we must create non-serious atmospheres -- and they can be created. So play non-serious play. A group playing non-seriously, just like children, with no end in view... and the mentally ill can be placed in this group. He will feel relaxed. You cannot attack relaxation directly, you cannot be aggressive about it. It is a by-product; it comes indirectly, as a consequence, as a shadow. It follows something else. A non-directive mind is followed by relaxation. And we can invent new play -- without any rules, regulations... otherwise rules and regulations will again bring in the disease of seriousness.
There can be so many psychological forms of play -- it will be better to call them psychic dramas -- and they create such great situations to be relaxed in. Psychic dramas can be played. Just as we are sitting here: we all, for example, play a drama, a drama in which nothing meaningful should be asserted. Everyone should say something meaningless -- completely. (LAUGHTER) Then we begin to play.
Everyone says something completely meaningless because with meaning is seriousness. But with meaninglessness is relaxation. Then everybody begins to laugh, because we cannot think that such a serious person would say such a nonsense thing -- meaningless. Or we begin to play a drama in which every one acts something absurd -- someone begins to dance, someone begins to cry... then the seriousness is gone. Or we can group together and just begin to stare into one another's eyes. (LAUGHTER) Then laughter will follow, then much will happen and everyone will be relaxed. Undirected, unregularized, non-serious things will happen in the atmosphere of the group.
WOMAN: THAT WAY THE THERAPIST CAN RELAX TOO.
A: Yes, if you can do these three things, it can prove of much help, and not only to them, it will be a help to yourself also. It will be so revealing.
WOMAN: EVENTUALLY THE QUESTION ARISES.... WHO IS GOING TO BE A THERAPIST IF WE ARE ALL SICK, AS YOU ARE SAYING?
A: We are all sick! So the group is the therapist. No one is the therapist -- the group is a therapeutic group. No one is sick and no one is trying to help others, but the whole group creates a situation.
WOMAN: LIKE A PSYCHOLOGICAL COLLECTIVE.
A: A psychological collectivity. It helps a lot.... But unnecessary psychoanalysis for so long a time....
WOMAN:... AND ALL THE WHILE, THE PATIENT GETS MORE ILL.
A: More ill! The whole process is ill! And it is so lengthy -- he becomes bored. And just because of boredom, he says, "I'm okay!" (LAUGHTER) [tape jumps]
MAN: IT IS OFTEN SAID THAT WE SHOULD WATCH SEX, ANGER, ETC. DOES IT REALLY WORK? IF ONE COMES TO ANY UNBURDENING EXPERIENCE THROUGH THAT WATCHING, IS THAT A LASTING THING? OTHERWISE, WHAT IS THE USE OF WATCHING? WOULD NOT SEX, ANGER, ETC. OVERPOWER ONE AGAIN? -- IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE TO THE INTELLIGENCE. KRISHNAMURTI SAYS THE SAME. IN YOUR BOOKS ALSO I HAVE READ THE SAME.
[Translation from the Hindi, edited and adaptated from here on]
A: Experiment and see. There is no need for it to make sense to your intelligence. What have you done in life that made sense to the intelligence? Has anger made sense to the intelligence? -- is that why you have been angry?
MAN: No.
A: No, it just came up at the time. Then why in this case particularly do you want it to make sense to the intelligence? Have you noticed how whatever we have done in our whole life, we have never bothered whether it makes sense to the intelligence? On the contrary, we have done it even if it does not make sense. But when it comes to meditation, we emphasise that it should make sense to the intelligence. But in your whole life you have never imposed that condition.... If you had, there would be no need for meditation today. (LAUGHTER)
You haven't imposed that condition your whole life, so I don't understand why your mind comes in when it is about meditation. These are the tricky ways, these are the cunningnesses to escape. Just do it and see. Do it and then if it doesn't happen, then you can think about it. First do it. Experiment for three months, that you will move into anger with watchfulness. I do not say to not be angry, so I am not taking anything away from you. You are given total freedom to be angry -- be as angry as you want. But know it. Do an experiment for three months!
MAN: DOES THIS APPLY TO SEX ALSO?
A: It applies to everything. There is nothing wrong in sex. At least it is a better thing than anger. It is much better than anger because at least it serves nature's purpose. It has some relation to biology, to nature, to life. But your anger has none. If we think about sex, sex is a very creative sickness, whereas anger is a very destructive sickness. Anger is a very stupid thing.
There is no problem with sex. If your father hadn't gone into sex, you wouldn't be here. But if your father had been less angry, you would have been a better man. But in this country, sex is supposed to be the worst thing. We are in a great difficulty! Your sex is not harming anything that badly. No harm is happening. But anger is deeper. And it is significant that the more a person represses sex, the angrier he becomes. Because the things that were to be released through sex are stopped, so where will they go? Now they will be released through anger. That's why the so-called [traditional] sannyasins turn into angry people.
Q: YES, SANNYASINS LOOK VERY ANGRY.
A: They will become angry. They will. Because how will it be released? The energy that has been repressed will start releasing itself through anger.
Anything there is in life... there are two aspects to it; whatever you do, do with awareness and whatever is worthless in it will drop on it's own, and whatever is meaningful will remain. The meaningful should remain. The meaningful is not going to be destroyed by your awareness. In your unawareness you do things that are wrong, but in awareness that won't be possible -- what is right will go on happening. As to what remains and what dropsy, that too you will come to know only by doing. Don't go on thinking about it, experiment with it.
Q: DOUBT STARTS COMING TO ME.
A: There is nothing wrong in doubting; doubt is not wrong. But if one has to doubt then one should strech it over one's whole life. There's nothing wrong in it.
Q: DOES ANY GROWTH HAPPEN THROUGH THAT TOO?
A: Yes, all growth happens. But then you should doubt over your whole life. You have been angry so many times, what did you gain out of it? -- no one questions that doubts that. Your whole life has passed doing all these things, but doubt has not arisen about them so far -- that they are all useless.
There is nothing wrong in doubting -- doubt, certainly. And if you only doubted then too the work would be over. But you don't do that either.
One goes on doing what one has been doing. One brings in doubt and all these things only when there is a possibility of change, then one starts doubting if it is right. This is our whole problem.
Just as an experiment try this. There is no reason to doubt it becouse you are just trying it out as an experiment -- that somebody has said, let us try this out for three months. And if it is right, you yourself will be able to see it; and if it is not right, you will just get out of it. Otherwise this doubt will continue and you will gain nothing from it.
Q: WHAT KRISHNAMURTI CALLS AWARENESS....
A: No, no. Ask Krishnamurti about what he says....
MAN: ABOUT AWARENESS WHAT IS YOUR OPINION ? CAN ONE BE AWARE DAY AND NIGHT CONTINUOUSLY?
A: If it is a question of what Krishnamurti says then ask him. I do not take responsibility for his statements.
MAN: I WON'T MENTION KRISHNAMURTI. I'LL ASK DIRECTLY. IT'S ABOUT AWARENESS.... CAN ONE BE AWARE FROM DAWN TO DUSK -- TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY?
A: Try it at least for a minute or two! What will you do with around-the-clock awareness? If you could remain aware twenty-four hours a day, then you would be a god! -- you would not remain a human being! Just do it for a minute or two. Even if you can manage it for one minute, it is so blissful that it is beyond description.
And if it can be possible for one minute, why can't it be possible twenty-four hours a day? But you don't have twenty-four hours all at once, you only have a second at a time. You have only one second in your hand. When one second is gone, the next one comes, when that is gone, then the third one comes. If you can be aware for one second, you have caught hold of the secret: now you can become aware for all the seconds -- because you have not got twenty-four hours all together.
If I can fill one spoon with water, then it's enough. I have only one spoon in my hand anyway, and what would I want to do with more? There is no question whether I can fill the whole ocean in my spoon.
If you can be aware in one moment, it is enough! No one has got more than a moment; no one gets two moments together. Try to be in one moment. And if you can be in one moment, then you can be at any time. Because the whole thing is about the art of being. If you mastered that -- and it is blissful -- then why would you want to lose it in the next moment?
Awareness is not work -- as we normally think. But that is why the question arises: "How can one be aware twenty-four hours a day?" How do you breathe twenty-four hours a day? You don't eat twenty-four hours a day -- that would be work -- but you breathe twenty-four hours a day and you have never thought about how you are able to do this. But you are breathing, because it isn't work. In the same way consciousness, awakening, awareness isn't work. It looks like work now, but once you start getting glimpses of it you will come to know that this is your nature. There is nothing of work in it -- that something has to be done for it; it is your nature, just as you breathe.
In the same way awareness is the present. And if you are asleep, then too it will continue. It isn't as if, "How can I do two things at one time -- sleeping and breathing separatelY?" No, you keep on breathing while you are asleep. In the same way awareness will also remain.
But start the experiment, don't continue to think about it. The whole of life passes in thinking; one should start being experimental with things. Whatever one feels may have some meaning in it, one should try doing it, that's all. Then one starts evolving as a seeker. Otherwise one keeps on listening to this person and that person, and your whole life is wasted in nonsense. That is futile.
[Tape jump. Commentary continues mid-way in English, probably to someone else.]
A: ... When the moment comes when you see that someone else is doing this; the body is dancing, the body is weeping or crying, or doing anything that is absurd, that you could not do consciously... it is doing something so that you cannot be with the body -- this has become a certainty, that I am not this -- then there is no question of asking, who are you? Now the question must be allowed, not be put: if this is not I and this is becoming certain that this is not I -- this movement, this crying, this is not myself I am not doing it -- then who am I? Who am I? This is not I... So the question must be in words: then who am I? This moment I am not. This is quite different, as if someone else is doing it, so this is not me. Now WHO AM I? This body is not me, then who am I? This crying is not me, then who am I?
This question in this particular situation is not to be allowed in words. You go on asking WHO AM I? WHO AM I? Go deep and deep and deep, and there is a possibility that an I will drop. It will drop, but it will drop itself. Then it is possible that you may be asking WHO? WHO? because now there is no question of you and I, but just WHO? The first question -- WHO ARE YOU? -- can only lead you towards the other. The second question -- WHO AM I? -- can lead you towards the ego.
The question WHO? leads you to the cosmic; it leads you to the universal. The world is divided into you and I. Ultimately even the who drops away. Then there is no question, but just quest. Then there is no question -- no one is asking -- but there is a quest, there is pure inquiry. It is not verbalized now -- the words have lost meaning -- you are! And the question is silently working in you. When the question becomes silent, only then is there an answer. Because the answer cannot come in words; the answer must come in silence. So only when your questioning becomes silent, when your whole existence becomes a question -- not a verbal question, because a verbal question cannot be your whole existence....
A verbal question is just your intellect asking. It can ask deeply, but it cannot ask totally. A moment comes when your whole body, your whole mind, your whole sight, your whole ego, your spirit -- all that you are becomes a question. In that silent questioning, is the answer. Rather, the silence is the answer. No answer comes to you, your silence itself becomes the answer.
[Tape break]
The jump is possible, the jump is possible. You can jump in it, but our mind cannot conceive it, so it is better to go. And my message is basically different from Subhud. I would not suggest Subhud to anyone. Sometimes there is a possibility that the thing will happen, but that is not certain. And quite the contrary can happen. So the method of Subhud is a "perhaps" method.
Q: (INAUDIBLE)
A: The fourth dimension too, is part of our world. The spiritually non-dimensional; it is not the fourth, it is always the beyond. These three dimensions are of space. This world is three dimensional, this world of space.
Osho's Commentary
AMERICAN WOMAN: I HAVE BEEN SLUMBERING ALL OF MY LIFE, AND AS YOU CAN SEE IT'S BEEN QUITE A LONG TIME. THE OTHER DAY I READ WHO AM I?, PARTICULARLY THE SECTION ON MEDITATION, AND IT WAS QUITE REVEALING, I FELT. VERY REVEALING.
I CAME FOR TWO REASONS: TO GET SOME HELP MYSELF, PSYCHOLOGICALLY, AND ALSO TO HELP SOME OTHER PEOPLE, PSYCHOLOGICALLY, SINCE I WORK WITH PEOPLE WHO ARE MENTALLY ILL. NOT MENTALLY DEFICIENT PEOPLE OR MENTALLY RETARDED, BUT MENTALLY DISTURBED. I AM SURE THAT SOME OF YOUR WORK -- WHEN I STUDY IT -- IS GOING TO BE A GREAT HELP. SO I WONDER IF YOU COULD GIVE ME SOME POINTERS ON KEEPING AWAKE. I'VE BEEN SLUMBERING SO MANY YEARS.
OSHO: Mmm hmm. It is not so difficult.
The first thing to be understood is, to be aware of one's unawareness. That is the only beginning possible. If one becomes aware of one's unawareness, then things begin to change. So be attentive of your inattentions.
It is always easy to begin with the body. We are not aware of the body unless it is diseased, then too we become aware of the disease, not of the body. If you have a headache then you become aware, not of the head, but of the headache. So only illness creates a situation for us to be aware of our body, otherwise we are not aware of it. And that is the easier place to begin; mental awareness comes later. When you are walking, be aware of the act. When you are bathing or eating or doing anything with the body, so be aware of the act as you remember it, as it is being done.
The whole thing has become mechanical, it goes on by itself. Our being conscious is not needed at all. It is routine, a habitual rut. It continues and we go on dittoing -- ditto: the same is repeated again and again. This repetitive mechanism is convenient; that is why it becomes arduous to destroy old habits and create new ones, because to destroy an old habit and to create a new one needs attention.
So just be aware in day-to-day routines. In the minor dittos: remember it as it is being done, not afterwards, not as a past memory but as a present happening -- just as I am talking to you. You can listen to me with awareness or without awareness. If it is without awareness then it is only hearing, it is not listening. The mechanism of hearing will work. You can reproduce what I have said and you can feel that you have listened, but that is illusory; you have only heard. Listening means hearing with attention, with awareness. The act of hearing must not go to sleep. You must be focussed in it. You must be here and now -- open, aware, not only listening to me but at the same time conscious that you are listening. Then the act of listening becomes double-arrowed. One arrow is towards me, another arrow is towards you, the listener. Then the act becomes conscious.
So, with the body, first be conscious. The moment you remember that you have gone unconscious, begin again and be conscious. It will come and go. Even for single moments, one can be conscious. That is a revelation: everything becomes quite different.
As a second step, be aware of your breathing. That is going inwards. The body is the outermost part of us. The second body is breathing. So be aware of it: when you are not doing anything, be aware of your breathing. Just see it, watch it; the coming and the going, the incoming and the outgoing -- just be aware of it. And the very awareness creates a distance between you and your body. If you become aware of your body then the distance is between you and the world. There is a gap. You become -- in a sense for the first time -- a person. If you become aware of your breathing then again a new gap is created between your consciousness and your body.
Only after being conscious of breathing, one can become conscious of thoughts -- this is going towards the more subtle. After the body, one should be aware of one's breathing -- as the breath comes in and goes out, one must be aware of it, watchful. Then you can direct your attention towards your thought processes.
In the third step, one should be aware of one's thoughts. But one should not begin with thoughts, one should begin with the body -- then breathing, then thinking -- then it is not difficult. If you begin with thoughts it becomes difficult.
But we always begin with thoughts. Then it becomes difficult because one who is not aware of his body, his breathing, cannot become aware of so subtle a process as thinking. Consciousness cannot be focussed on such a subtle object unless you have fucussed it on more material, substantial objects. Then step by step, it becomes easier -- from one step to another there is no difficulty. But the jump is not possible.
Ordinarily we begin with thought processes but then there is failure: you cannot be aware.
And after thought processes, one should be aware of one's feelings. That is a still more subtle realm of our being. After one has become aware of one's thinking, only then can one become aware of one's feelings. Because feelings are not so articulate. There are not so verbal, they are not so much with form: they are formless. Thought has a form, so still, thought is not so subtle as feeling. Feeling is much more vague and much more liquid -- formless. It carries on, and only when it becomes a thought do you become aware of it.
The first ripple in our being begins with feeling. Then it becomes a thought, then the breath is affected, then the body is influenced.
The first ripple begins from the heart, or from the feeling. And one who has become aware of his feeling can become aware of his being. That is the central force: being is totally formless.
These are five pointers -- first, body; second, breathing; third, thinking; fourth, feeling; fifth, being. These are the five states, the labels of your existence. And one who has become aware of his being can become aware of the ultimate, the divine. Otherwise, our whole talk is nonsense. We go on talking about God and Brahma -- all nonsense. One who is not aware of himself as being cannot become aware of the being of the world -- that is the sixth. After the fifth one can only become aware of the divine. And still there is one more state: the ultimate. Even God is not the ultimate. The seventh is nirvana. The essential existence or: the non-existential existence, the total. It is not even divine. It is the whole which comprehends all the contradictions in it. Existence and non-existence, life and death...
WOMAN: IS IT IMPERSONAL?
A: It is impersonal.
So these are the seven realms. Up to the fifth, the ego will be there. With the sixth, the ego will not be there, but the cosmic ego will come into existence. And beyond the sixth is being -- egolessness is nothingness, what Buddha has called nirvana.
Up to the fifth you are, up to the sixth the divine is. And beyond the sixth is existence, simple and pure, comprehending non-existence also. These are seven concentric circles. Your body is the first, and your nobodyness is the last.
WOMAN: (GIGGLING) YES. QUITE A JOURNEY!
A: (CHUCKLING) Quite a journey! The only journey!
[tape jumps]
A: Hmm? For persons who are mentally ill -- not retarded -- as you say, meditation can be a great help.
In a way, no one is mentally healthy, everyone is ill -- the difference is always of degree. We are normally ill, someone else becomes abnormally ill -- that is the only difference. The root cause of mental disease is unawareness, because unawareness creates contradictory directions in the mind. And the more contradictory a mind, the more tense. To be mentally healthy means to be mentally harmonious.
Health means harmony. Your mind is not divided against yourself or against its own other parts. Your mind is not fragmentary, a divided house, but one whole. That wholeness is health. So a person who is mentally ill means a person who is mentally divided, bracketed in fragments contradictory to each other. To say it more accurately: he is not a mind but minds -- wholly psychical, wholly mental. There is not one self, but selves; so many selves in one person... and each self driving the person somewhere which the others are against. This conflict becomes illness, this is dis-ease.
Three things must be done: First, he must be made aware of his fragmentariness, of his contradictory selves. If he becomes aware he is divided into fragments, this very awareness begins to create a new self. This awareness becomes a new self, a new nucleus, a new atom of consolidation. But how to make an ill person aware? He may be so ill that awareness has become impossible.
So with a mentally diseased person, his disease should be exaggerated, only then he can become aware.
For instance, if a person is ill and you feel that he has suppressed something -- obviously there is bound to be suppression, otherwise illness would not be possible -- that suppression will have to be let loose. If he has suppressed anger, then allow him, provoke him to be totally angry.
And the group can be very helpful.
WOMAN: GROUP?
A: A group which can provoke him to be angry, totally. So that all that is suppressed becomes expressed. If it comes expressed in its totality, then he can be made aware of it. That which is expressed can only be made an object of awareness; that which is suppressed cannot be made an object of awareness. Our whole society is suppressive, that is why our whole society has turned diseased. The whole society, the whole of our culture is abnormal. We are forcing everybody to be mad.
So a group is needed, a group which is allowing... it doesn't force any suppression -- a group of friends, which allows everything. If you want to weep, we allow you -- the only condition is, weep completely, totally. Be in it, and let it be expressed. Anything which is suppressed, if it can be let loose, it comes with such a force, with such vitality, that anyone can be made aware of it.
Ordinarily if you are angry, you have a cause for your anger, but this therapeutic group is creating a situation which is not a cause: the anger is being provoked so it can be expressed without any cause. If someone wants to do something, let him do it. And when he comes to express it with full force, then let him be reminded, let it be said to him: BE AWARE OF IT, WHAT YOU ARE DOING. You are weeping, be aware of it. You are crying, be aware of it. Don't suppress it, don't evaluate it, don't condemn it -- and the group must allow it. Even in your eyes, there should be no condemnation, no suppression. The patient must feel that the whole group is allowing him to be what he is; that whatsoever he is, is being allowed to be expressed. Not only being allowed, but because he has expressed it, he is loved for it, he is appreciated for it.
Mental illness is basically produced by society, by the community. It is not the person who has become diseased, it is society which has driven him to disease. So mental illness can only be overcome through a community, through a group. No individual treatment is possible. All that can be done individually is making him normal again, as he was previously, and sending him back to the same society to be again pressed, again forced to the same conclusion. It has got no meaning at all.
Group therapy is needed -- a work which can be done very easily. And within a group he becomes healthy in a very short time: two or three weeks are enough, if the group is totally allowing. If he feels at ease -- that he can do whatsoever he likes and is not made responsible for it and is not condemned for it -- then all that is suppressed will be expressed, and the patient goes through a catharsis. And catharsis is needed, because only through catharsis can he be made aware of his own suppression, of his own unconscious, of his own division.
Secondly: If he becomes aware of his division, of his fragmentary mind, and expresses the fragments and is released because of the expression, this still is not enough -- this is simply negative.
Mental disease has a positive aspect also. The negative aspect is concerned with suppression and the positive aspect is concerned with a retarded growth.
Everyone has got the potential to grow in a particular dimension. If that has not happened, if one has not become what one was meant to be, then disease is created. He is longing for something of which he is neither aware nor does there seem to be any possibility to become -- what one's potential is to become. The second thing to be made clear is a positive, creative dimension of growth.
Every diseased person, mentally diseased person, has lost the way towards creativity. He is a person unborn. Somewhere he has missed his way, his potential way; his flowering is retarded. And one can never be at ease with oneself unless one achieves that which is a seed in one and must grow.
So the second thing is to remember that it is not enough that someone is relieved of his tensions, because this cannot be a permanent health. His creative dimensions must be discovered and he must come to a point from where he can begin to grow. So a creative attitude must be given to him. He must create himself, or he must create something through which he can be fulfilled.
WOMAN (LAUGHING): INSTEAD OF GOING THROUGH A LOT OF NONSENSE...
A: The whole life is such nonsense. One goes on living, but there is no fulfillment. We spend our whole life in arrangements: we are always arranging to live, and the moment never comes.- mental tension is bound to be there. Life is slipping by; it is going all the time and one is still preparing for it. One has never lived. We only live in moments when we are creative. When we create something, that is the only living moment. It doesn't matter what is being created, the feeling that you have created something is the only thing. You have become a creator. The moment you feel that you have become a creator -- maybe just a toy, just a painting, just a piece of poetry or anything else -- the moment you feel that you have become a creator, something is fulfilled in you, and something begins to flower.
Disease comes because we have lost creativity; no one is creating anything. And the more we progress, and the more we became civilized, the less grows the possibility to be creative, because everything is given to us. Passivity has become the rule.
In the old days, we used to dance; today we watch someone dance. So it is just a passivity; we are onlookers. And life cannot be a fulfillment if you are just an onlooker -- you must participate. You must be in it richly, you must live it, you must risk yourself in it. But we are onlookers. Someone is singing, someone is dancing, someone is painting -- and we are onlookers. The whole world has become an onlooking world -- non-participating and passive. Passivity kills the spirit. And one can never feel oneself of any worth unless one is a creator.
So to a mentally ill person -- and we are all in a way mentally ill -- a creative life must be given. He must feel worthy; that he is doing something of worth -- not only of utility, but of worth. We are creating things which are of utility, but with them we cannot become creators. Something which is of worth means something which is an end in itself: you have painted something, it is of no utility at all, but that's why it becomes of worth. It becomes an end in itself. It is not a means to anything else.
So if one wants to remain mentally healthy everyone should be creative -- that is the second thing.
And third thing: we are so tense, not only because there are circumstances which make us tense, but basically we have completely forgotten how to relax. So if even if there are no circumstances to make you tense, you will stil be tense. We are tense. We have forgotten completely relaxation, the art of letgo.
This must be taught. Relaxation is the language which is not being taught -- that is the forgotten language. The whole of education, the whole of society is teaching everybody to be tense -- because it pays to be tense.
WOMAN: IT'S WHAT THEY WOULD IDENTIFY AS BEING ALERT. DO YOU THINK THIS IS BEING ALERT?
A: No, it is not being alert. Tension is not attention. Attention is always relaxed; tension is always pointing towards the future. Attention is never towards the future, it is always for the present. And you can only be relaxed in the present moment. If you are tense, you must be tense either against the past or against the future. In the present it is impossible to be tense.
Animals are not tense, trees are not tense, birds are not tense because there is no future for them. The present is the only tense, the present is the only time, there is neither past nor future. So they cannot be tense, they are relaxed.
This art must be taught: to be in the present and to be relaxed.
Relaxation can be taught: it is an art, and not very difficult. If even relaxation is difficult, then what will be easy? But when we think about relaxation, because we are tense, we make a science out of it, not an art. And there are books with the headings "You Must Relax!" The 'must' is quite contradictory: a mind with a must can never relax.
WOMAN: WE WORK AT IT.
A: You cannot work at it.
Relaxation is an art. And there are so many ways.... Any activity that becomes absorbing, becomes relaxing.
So you must create groups which completely engage themselves in activities, and let the ill person, the mentally ill, be with the group. The group goes to a river... just begins to play with the water and the sand, and everybody is playing -- play is relaxation, it is not work, nothing has to be achieved out of it; it itself is the end.... But only children play, we never play. Even if we play, it becomes a game. Game is work -- to be done and to be won; but then it creates a tension again. Someone has to be defeated so the thing becomes serious. Play means no one is defeated. Even defeat is just a play, it is not something serious.
So we must create non-serious atmospheres -- and they can be created. So play non-serious play. A group playing non-seriously, just like children, with no end in view... and the mentally ill can be placed in this group. He will feel relaxed. You cannot attack relaxation directly, you cannot be aggressive about it. It is a by-product; it comes indirectly, as a consequence, as a shadow. It follows something else. A non-directive mind is followed by relaxation. And we can invent new play -- without any rules, regulations... otherwise rules and regulations will again bring in the disease of seriousness.
There can be so many psychological forms of play -- it will be better to call them psychic dramas -- and they create such great situations to be relaxed in. Psychic dramas can be played. Just as we are sitting here: we all, for example, play a drama, a drama in which nothing meaningful should be asserted. Everyone should say something meaningless -- completely. (LAUGHTER) Then we begin to play.
Everyone says something completely meaningless because with meaning is seriousness. But with meaninglessness is relaxation. Then everybody begins to laugh, because we cannot think that such a serious person would say such a nonsense thing -- meaningless. Or we begin to play a drama in which every one acts something absurd -- someone begins to dance, someone begins to cry... then the seriousness is gone. Or we can group together and just begin to stare into one another's eyes. (LAUGHTER) Then laughter will follow, then much will happen and everyone will be relaxed. Undirected, unregularized, non-serious things will happen in the atmosphere of the group.
WOMAN: THAT WAY THE THERAPIST CAN RELAX TOO.
A: Yes, if you can do these three things, it can prove of much help, and not only to them, it will be a help to yourself also. It will be so revealing.
WOMAN: EVENTUALLY THE QUESTION ARISES.... WHO IS GOING TO BE A THERAPIST IF WE ARE ALL SICK, AS YOU ARE SAYING?
A: We are all sick! So the group is the therapist. No one is the therapist -- the group is a therapeutic group. No one is sick and no one is trying to help others, but the whole group creates a situation.
WOMAN: LIKE A PSYCHOLOGICAL COLLECTIVE.
A: A psychological collectivity. It helps a lot....
But unnecessary psychoanalysis for so long a time....
WOMAN:... AND ALL THE WHILE, THE PATIENT GETS MORE ILL.
A: More ill! The whole process is ill! And it is so lengthy -- he becomes bored. And just because of boredom, he says, "I'm okay!" (LAUGHTER)
[tape jumps]
MAN: IT IS OFTEN SAID THAT WE SHOULD WATCH SEX, ANGER, ETC. DOES IT REALLY WORK? IF ONE COMES TO ANY UNBURDENING EXPERIENCE THROUGH THAT WATCHING, IS THAT A LASTING THING? OTHERWISE, WHAT IS THE USE OF WATCHING? WOULD NOT SEX, ANGER, ETC. OVERPOWER ONE AGAIN? -- IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE TO THE INTELLIGENCE.
KRISHNAMURTI SAYS THE SAME. IN YOUR BOOKS ALSO I HAVE READ THE SAME.
[Translation from the Hindi, edited and adaptated from here on]
A: Experiment and see. There is no need for it to make sense to your intelligence. What have you done in life that made sense to the intelligence? Has anger made sense to the intelligence? -- is that why you have been angry?
MAN: No.
A: No, it just came up at the time. Then why in this case particularly do you want it to make sense to the intelligence? Have you noticed how whatever we have done in our whole life, we have never bothered whether it makes sense to the intelligence? On the contrary, we have done it even if it does not make sense. But when it comes to meditation, we emphasise that it should make sense to the intelligence. But in your whole life you have never imposed that condition.... If you had, there would be no need for meditation today. (LAUGHTER)
You haven't imposed that condition your whole life, so I don't understand why your mind comes in when it is about meditation. These are the tricky ways, these are the cunningnesses to escape. Just do it and see. Do it and then if it doesn't happen, then you can think about it. First do it. Experiment for three months, that you will move into anger with watchfulness. I do not say to not be angry, so I am not taking anything away from you. You are given total freedom to be angry -- be as angry as you want. But know it. Do an experiment for three months!
MAN: DOES THIS APPLY TO SEX ALSO?
A: It applies to everything. There is nothing wrong in sex. At least it is a better thing than anger. It is much better than anger because at least it serves nature's purpose. It has some relation to biology, to nature, to life. But your anger has none. If we think about sex, sex is a very creative sickness, whereas anger is a very destructive sickness. Anger is a very stupid thing.
There is no problem with sex. If your father hadn't gone into sex, you wouldn't be here. But if your father had been less angry, you would have been a better man. But in this country, sex is supposed to be the worst thing. We are in a great difficulty! Your sex is not harming anything that badly. No harm is happening. But anger is deeper. And it is significant that the more a person represses sex, the angrier he becomes. Because the things that were to be released through sex are stopped, so where will they go? Now they will be released through anger. That's why the so-called [traditional] sannyasins turn into angry people.
Q: YES, SANNYASINS LOOK VERY ANGRY.
A: They will become angry. They will. Because how will it be released? The energy that has been repressed will start releasing itself through anger.
Anything there is in life... there are two aspects to it; whatever you do, do with awareness and whatever is worthless in it will drop on it's own, and whatever is meaningful will remain. The meaningful should remain. The meaningful is not going to be destroyed by your awareness. In your unawareness you do things that are wrong, but in awareness that won't be possible -- what is right will go on happening. As to what remains and what dropsy, that too you will come to know only by doing.
Don't go on thinking about it, experiment with it.
Q: DOUBT STARTS COMING TO ME.
A: There is nothing wrong in doubting; doubt is not wrong. But if one has to doubt then one should strech it over one's whole life. There's nothing wrong in it.
Q: DOES ANY GROWTH HAPPEN THROUGH THAT TOO?
A: Yes, all growth happens. But then you should doubt over your whole life. You have been angry so many times, what did you gain out of it? -- no one questions that doubts that. Your whole life has passed doing all these things, but doubt has not arisen about them so far -- that they are all useless.
There is nothing wrong in doubting -- doubt, certainly. And if you only doubted then too the work would be over. But you don't do that either.
One goes on doing what one has been doing. One brings in doubt and all these things only when there is a possibility of change, then one starts doubting if it is right.
This is our whole problem.
Just as an experiment try this. There is no reason to doubt it becouse you are just trying it out as an experiment -- that somebody has said, let us try this out for three months. And if it is right, you yourself will be able to see it; and if it is not right, you will just get out of it. Otherwise this doubt will continue and you will gain nothing from it.
Q: WHAT KRISHNAMURTI CALLS AWARENESS....
A: No, no. Ask Krishnamurti about what he says....
MAN: ABOUT AWARENESS WHAT IS YOUR OPINION ? CAN ONE BE AWARE DAY AND NIGHT CONTINUOUSLY?
A: If it is a question of what Krishnamurti says then ask him. I do not take responsibility for his statements.
MAN: I WON'T MENTION KRISHNAMURTI. I'LL ASK DIRECTLY. IT'S ABOUT AWARENESS.... CAN ONE BE AWARE FROM DAWN TO DUSK -- TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY?
A: Try it at least for a minute or two! What will you do with around-the-clock awareness? If you could remain aware twenty-four hours a day, then you would be a god! -- you would not remain a human being! Just do it for a minute or two. Even if you can manage it for one minute, it is so blissful that it is beyond description.
And if it can be possible for one minute, why can't it be possible twenty-four hours a day? But you don't have twenty-four hours all at once, you only have a second at a time. You have only one second in your hand. When one second is gone, the next one comes, when that is gone, then the third one comes. If you can be aware for one second, you have caught hold of the secret: now you can become aware for all the seconds -- because you have not got twenty-four hours all together.
If I can fill one spoon with water, then it's enough. I have only one spoon in my hand anyway, and what would I want to do with more? There is no question whether I can fill the whole ocean in my spoon.
If you can be aware in one moment, it is enough! No one has got more than a moment; no one gets two moments together. Try to be in one moment. And if you can be in one moment, then you can be at any time. Because the whole thing is about the art of being. If you mastered that -- and it is blissful -- then why would you want to lose it in the next moment?
Awareness is not work -- as we normally think. But that is why the question arises: "How can one be aware twenty-four hours a day?" How do you breathe twenty-four hours a day? You don't eat twenty-four hours a day -- that would be work -- but you breathe twenty-four hours a day and you have never thought about how you are able to do this. But you are breathing, because it isn't work. In the same way consciousness, awakening, awareness isn't work. It looks like work now, but once you start getting glimpses of it you will come to know that this is your nature. There is nothing of work in it -- that something has to be done for it; it is your nature, just as you breathe.
In the same way awareness is the present. And if you are asleep, then too it will continue. It isn't as if, "How can I do two things at one time -- sleeping and breathing separatelY?" No, you keep on breathing while you are asleep. In the same way awareness will also remain.
But start the experiment, don't continue to think about it. The whole of life passes in thinking; one should start being experimental with things. Whatever one feels may have some meaning in it, one should try doing it, that's all. Then one starts evolving as a seeker. Otherwise one keeps on listening to this person and that person, and your whole life is wasted in nonsense. That is futile.
[Tape jump. Commentary continues mid-way in English, probably to someone else.]
A: ... When the moment comes when you see that someone else is doing this; the body is dancing, the body is weeping or crying, or doing anything that is absurd, that you could not do consciously... it is doing something so that you cannot be with the body -- this has become a certainty, that I am not this -- then there is no question of asking, who are you? Now the question must be allowed, not be put: if this is not I and this is becoming certain that this is not I -- this movement, this crying, this is not myself I am not doing it -- then who am I? Who am I? This is not I... So the question must be in words: then who am I? This moment I am not. This is quite different, as if someone else is doing it, so this is not me. Now WHO AM I? This body is not me, then who am I? This crying is not me, then who am I?
This question in this particular situation is not to be allowed in words. You go on asking WHO AM I? WHO AM I? Go deep and deep and deep, and there is a possibility that an I will drop. It will drop, but it will drop itself. Then it is possible that you may be asking WHO? WHO? because now there is no question of you and I, but just WHO? The first question -- WHO ARE YOU? -- can only lead you towards the other. The second question -- WHO AM I? -- can lead you towards the ego.
The question WHO? leads you to the cosmic; it leads you to the universal. The world is divided into you and I. Ultimately even the who drops away. Then there is no question, but just quest. Then there is no question -- no one is asking -- but there is a quest, there is pure inquiry. It is not verbalized now -- the words have lost meaning -- you are! And the question is silently working in you. When the question becomes silent, only then is there an answer. Because the answer cannot come in words; the answer must come in silence. So only when your questioning becomes silent, when your whole existence becomes a question -- not a verbal question, because a verbal question cannot be your whole existence....
A verbal question is just your intellect asking. It can ask deeply, but it cannot ask totally. A moment comes when your whole body, your whole mind, your whole sight, your whole ego, your spirit -- all that you are becomes a question. In that silent questioning, is the answer. Rather, the silence is the answer. No answer comes to you, your silence itself becomes the answer.
[Tape break]
The jump is possible, the jump is possible. You can jump in it, but our mind cannot conceive it, so it is better to go. And my message is basically different from Subhud. I would not suggest Subhud to anyone. Sometimes there is a possibility that the thing will happen, but that is not certain. And quite the contrary can happen. So the method of Subhud is a "perhaps" method.
Q: (INAUDIBLE)
A: The fourth dimension too, is part of our world. The spiritually non-dimensional; it is not the fourth, it is always the beyond. These three dimensions are of space. This world is three dimensional, this world of space.
Q : INAUDIBLE
A: No, only of space...