How can a realization be preserved in its original state?

Invocation

HE KNOWS IT WHO KNOWS IT NOT, AND HE KNOWS IT NOT WHO KNOWS IT. TO THE MAN OF TRUE KNOWLEDGE IT IS THE UNKNOWN, WHILE TO THE IGNORANT IT IS THE KNOWN. INDEED, HE ATTAINS IMMORTALITY WHO REALIZES IT IN AND THROUGH EVERY BODH -- PULSATION OF KNOWLEDGE AND AWARENESS. THROUGH THE ATMAN HE OBTAINS STRENGTH AND VIGOR AND THROUGH ITS KNOWLEDGE, IMMORTALITY. FOR ONE WHO REALIZES IT HERE, IN THIS WORLD, THERE IS TRUE LIFE. FOR ONE WHO DOES NOT SO REALIZE IT, GREAT IS THE LOSS. DISCOVERING THE ATMAN IN EVERY SINGLE BEING, THE WISE ONES, DYING TO THIS WORLD OF SENSE-EXPERIENCE, BECOME IMMORTAL. This is the mystery of religious knowing. The more you know it, the more it becomes unknown -- the more you feel how impossible it is to know, how difficult it is to know. The more you know the impossibility of this, the…

Now, a blind man can become a philosopher about light. He can think much about light. He can go on making great systems of thought about light. He can imagine, and he has much more freedom to imagine than the person who has eyes, because the person who has eyes knows what light is; he cannot imagine something contrary to reality. The blind man can imagine in every direction, in every possible way. He can be very imaginative and he can be very logical; he can make a systematic, logical philosophy about light out of his blindness, but it will be about light. And beware of the word 'about'. Unless somebody sees light, all that he is saying is nonsense. The mystics have always said that philosophy is nonsense because it is thinking. It is like a thirsty man thinking about water.

Osho, what insights allow us to drop the past and not repress it?

And that happens to individuals, that happens to countries, to societies, to nations too. For example, a young country like America thinks of the future; its golden age is yet to come. A country like India, very ancient, old, thinks of the past; its golden age has passed. In the days of Rama it has been; it is already a gone thing. It is simply an indication that the country is very very old and cannot conceive any future. In the future is death. But to be a child is to miss; and to be old is to miss. The meditator is exactly in the middle: he has something of eternal youth in him. You will be surprised to know that in the East we have never depicted any enlightened person old; we have always depicted them young. You have not seen any picture of Buddha as old, or Mahavira,…

To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality; to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality. The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander from the truth. Stop talking and thinking, and there is nothing you will not be able to know.

Akbar, the great Moghul emperor, drew a line on the wall, and he told his wise men not to touch it and yet make it smaller. They were puzzled and they thought, "It is impossible!" Then one of his wise men, Birbal, drew another line near it, a bigger one, without touching the first line. When the bigger line was drawn the first line became smaller. If you draw a small line then the first line will become bigger. So there are two ways. Either you make your being bigger -- then the world becomes smaller, smaller, smaller smaller... a moment comes when your being becomes the total, the BRAHMA, the world disappears. then there is no more world. Then there is another way, and the other is just a trick. You go on saying the world is illusory, MAYA, it is not there. You go on denying the reality…

Beloved Osho, when I told you I saw you empty, you said, "emptiness in you is a `real' experience." you said that twice. My understanding of the proof of reality is that it -- the observed -- remains with awareness, whereas imagination dissolves. Seeing you empty did not return and as much as I try it will not return. And yet something has remained with me, something will not leave me since seeing you like that. Is that reality, Osho?

It is reality, there is just a little confusion -- which is natural. I have said that with awareness imagination disappears but the reality remains. You saw me absent or empty and I said this is real. Then you tried to see me empty again but you forgot one thing, that while you are trying you cannot be aware. So it is not that my emptiness was your imagination. Just be aware and you will see the emptiness again, but don't try -- because for the first time when it happened you were not trying, you were simply sitting silently here listening, and out of nowhere you felt the emptiness. It will come in the same way, without even knocking on your doors. With effort you cannot bring it. It is not imagination. But the other half you have forgotten. In the silence you were aware without any effort, and…