How will one know when awareness arises?

Beloved Osho, I have no idea about what `right awareness' is. How to judge that I am going in the right direction?

There is no right awareness because there is no possibility of wrong awareness. Awareness is right. So first, drop the wrong question. Once you are asking a wrong question to yourself you cannot get the right answer. Don't ask what is right awareness. Simply ask what is awareness. Your question gives the fallacious impression that you know what awareness is, that the only thing that you don't know is, what is right awareness and what is not right awareness. Erase that fallacy completely from your mind. Awareness is simple, very innocent. Everyone has it, so it is not a question of achievement. One wrong question leads to another wrong question: first you ask what right awareness is, then you ask how to achieve it. You already have it. When you see the sunset, are you not aware? When you see a roseflower, are you not aware? You are aware of…

Osho: To think is the nature of the mind. And if you don't think then there is no mind. A state of no-mind comes, then you know. That is nature, this too is nature; that is not against this nature which creates ignorance, creates unknowing, creates conflict. We have not known the total mind, we have known only the mind which thinks. If you transcend it then you know the total mind -- which knows. Thinking is one thing, knowing is quite another. QUESTION: THE NATURE OF THE MIND IS TO THINK, AND THEN IT CEASES TO THINK. WHAT DO YOU DO IN ORDER TO CAUSE IT NOT TO THINK? DOES IT NATURALLY NOT THINK? Osho: If you become aware of your thinking process, then the process by and by is dissolved.

When I become more and more aware, my attention develops and there remains a feeling that I exist, I am present, I am aware. Please explain how this feeling can be dissolved into an egoless state of just awareness.

The light is there, and the darkness is immediately not there. There is not a single moment's gap, because if there is a gap then you can see darkness moving out. And if there is a single moment's gap, then there is no reason why there can't be a gap of one hour. There is no gap. The act is simultaneous. Really, the coming of the light and the going out of the darkness are two aspects of one phenomenon. The same happens with awareness: when you are aware, the ego is not. But the ego can go on playing tricks, and the ego can say, `I am aware.' The ego can say, `I am aware,' and can n you. Then the question will arise. And the ego wants to accumulate everything, even awareness. The ego not only wants wealth, power, and prestige; it wants meditation also, it wants samadhi…

Beloved Osho, what is awareness? Why is it lost, and how can it be regained? Are there any steps for the same?

Awareness is never lost. It simply becomes entangled with the other, with objects. So the first thing to be remembered: it is never lost, it is your nature, but you can focus it on anything you want. When you get tired of focusing it on money, on power, on prestige, and that great moment comes in your life when you want to close your eyes and focus your awareness on its own source, on where it is coming from, on the roots -- in a split second your life is transformed. And don't ask what are the steps; there is only one step. The process is very simple. The step is only one: that is turning in. In Judaism there is a rebellious school of mystery called Hassidism. Its founder, Baal Shem, was a rare being. In the middle of the night he was coming from the river -- that…

"daily in each of your talks, you speak of awareness -- total awareness, uninterrupted awareness, etcetera. You also said that it cannot be achieved by the mind, by repeating a thought -- that it is to be felt. But how can one feel unless one achieves it? What is that feeling which is the precursor of achievement? How to imagine or project that which has not yet happened? Does that too happen by excluding mind? What is the whole process? How can it be made feasible?"

And when I say, "feel it," I know it is difficult. How can you feel awareness without being aware? I am not saying that you can feel Buddha's enlightenment right now, but one has to start somewhere. You may not get the whole ocean, but a drop -- just a drop -- will give you the taste, and the taste is the same. If even for a single moment you become aware, you have tasted buddhahood. It is momentary, a glimpse of it, but now you know more. And this will never happen to you through thinking; it will happen only through feeling. The emphasis is on feeling because the emphasis is on a "lived" experience. Thinking is false, you can go on thinking about love and creating theories. You can even get a doctorate on the thesis of love, on what love is, and without ever being in love.…