There’s no clash—like a finger pointing at the moon, don’t grab the finger; use your quiet inner sense to notice what’s everywhere but not visible to your eyes or ears.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, you said that if one speaks of the body you will say it is mortal; and if one speaks of the soul you will say, you were never born. Then when Buddha says, “It was just a bubble that disappeared; I never was—so where would I go?” then who is the conscious one? And what is the unborn?
That is why I said: speaking of the body, I speak thus. By body I mean what is visible as name-and-form. By soul I mean that which will be even when name-and-form fall, that which was even when name-and-form were not. By soul I mean the ocean; by body I mean the wave. Both must be understood together. If confusion arises between the two, all the difficulties of the world come up. Within us is that which can never die. Hence, deep down we always feel: “I will never die.” We may see millions die, yet the feeling does not arise within that “I will die.” No echo of that truth is born deep inside. People may die before our eyes and yet some vigilant sense within keeps saying, “I cannot die.” Somewhere deep, the statement “I will not die” seems self-evident. Granted, external facts deny it, and events insist,…
Osho, in the Chandogya Upanishad there is a sutra: na pashyato mṛtyuṁ pashyati na rogaṁ noto duḥkhatām, sarvaṁ ha paśyaḥ paśyati sarvam āpnoti sarvaśa iti. That is, the knower does not see death, nor disease, nor sorrow; he sees all as the Self and attains everything. You are a witness—does a buddha truly see even death, disease, and sorrow as the very Self? Kindly give us direction on this sutra.
Buddha uses nirvana in exactly this sense. When the flickering lamp of ego is extinguished, the whole sky is yours. The moons and stars are yours. When you are not, everything is yours. Understand this paradox well—here lies the secret of religion, the distilled essence of the mystics and seers. The sutra of the Chandogya is profound—very profound. Let the ego dissolve; you are no more; then all is yours. When you are not, nothing is “other.” It is the “I” that creates the “you,” the division. When the line of “I” disappears, the courtyard becomes the sky. Demolish the walls you have drawn around your yard—your courtyard is the open heavens. Na pashyato mṛtyum... To the knower death is not seen—he does not know death, he does not die—because whatever could die he let die in advance. Ego could die—and what is unreal alone can die. What is, is…
Osho, on the one hand Doolandas sings of life’s transience, and on the other, after drinking the nectar of love he plunges into carefree ecstasy where time becomes infinite! Please explain this paradox to us.
Narendra! A moment too is a fragment of the eternal—just as the drop belongs to the ocean, the atom to the vast. In a single small leaf the sap of the whole tree is flowing. In a tiny flower the entire existence has poured its beauty, its color, its fragrance—its all. The great poet Tennyson has said: if we could fully understand even a single flower, we would understand the whole of existence. For what appears small from the outside is, by unending pathways, joined to the whole. This flower would have no fragrance if it were not of the earth. It would have no colors if it were not linked with the sun. It would have no life if the breath of air did not move through it. The deeper you inquire, the more you will find the flower has already disappeared; little by little, the whole cosmos has…
Osho, when morning dawns in someone’s life, does evening no longer come?
Therefore the Buddha spoke of two stages of nirvana. One was what happened to him at the age of forty: he attained nirvana, samadhi, full awakening—he knew. Then, for forty years, the journey of the body continued. Here on this very earth the chariot kept rolling; on the rough roads of earth the chariot had to feel the dips and rises. Then came Mahaparinirvana: the body, too, was shed. With the body gone, both morning and evening vanished. Then a certain kind of light manifests—but how to call it “light,” for it has no relation to darkness. Then a certain kind of life manifests—but how to call it “life,” for it has no relation to death. Therefore the Buddha remains utterly silent about it, says nothing at all; whatever he might say would be an error. All our words are bound to their opposites. Say “light,” and darkness is remembered.…
The buddha said: look up to heaven and down on earth and they will remind you of their impermanency. Look about the world and it will remind you of its impermanency. But when you gain spiritual enlightenment you shall then find wisdom. The knowledge thus attained leads you anon to the way. The buddha said: you should think of the four elements of which the body is composed. Each of them has its own name and there is no such thing there known as ego. As there is really no ego, it is like unto a mirage.
The meaning is to be understood, it is very symbolical. It simply says that there is a law of levitation and if Mohammed cannot be pulled by levitation, then who will be pulled? He is the right person, a person who exists not. The ego is under gravitation, the no-ego is not under gravitation -- a weightlessness arises. Nijinsky went mad because he was simply a dancer and he never knew anything about meditation, ecstasy, enlightenment. That became a trouble for him. If you don't understand and if you don't move with awareness and suddenly you stumble upon something which cannot be explained by ordinary laws, you will go mad. Because you will be disturbed by it. It is so weird, it is so eerie. You cannot explain it. You start getting disturbed by it. He himself started getting disturbed by the phenomenon. Finally it was so staggering it disturbed…