Becoming the true ‘I’ and becoming ‘not-I’ are the same—when all separations and ideas drop, only silent wholeness remains.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Questioner you often say that when "I" becomes whole it turns into "non-I" or "all". But what you said a little while ago contradicts this statement. It seems you are just shifting the emphasis from one word to another. Is there a difference between the whole "I" and the "non-I"?
There is no difference. The whole "I" means this much: that now there is no "thou", all thou's have become assimilated by the "?". And when "thou" and "I" become one there is no sense in calling it "I" or "thou". So whether we say whole "I" or "non-l", they are two ways of saying the same thing. When "I" becomes whole it is empty, it is a zero experience; or when "I" becomes empty it becomes whole. Whatever way you say it makes no difference. The ultimate truth can be said both ways -- positively and negatively; it includes both yes and no, and everything too. It is all right if you say nothing about it; it is also fine if you speak endlessly about it. After all that is said and unsaid, truth remains beyond it; truth is always the beyond. But in silence truth is complete, whole.…Read the full discourse →
Osho, the witness, the seer, consciousness is always separate—virginal and unbound. And the whole play of life is nothing but the movement of the gunas within themselves. In such a situation, if a person’s qualities of sattva, rajas, and tamas are calmed in a scientific or chemical way, or if a person is made sattvic, will he then attain that ever-free witness? If the witness is forever free and present, then by chemically altering the three gunas will it not be revealed? Would the person not then become religious? What is the fundamental difference between solving the problem arising from the
Sadhana means we are dissolving the current itself, not breaking the bulb. There is no point in breaking the bulb. In fact, the bulb is useful; it tells you whether the current is flowing or not, whether there is current or not. Your anger within tells you you are still sunk in ignorance. Lust tells you your life energies have not yet become aware. If we remove these elements, anger will stop manifesting and you will also stop knowing that you are in deep ignorance. It is as if a man is sick and we snatch away the symptoms of his disease so that he doesn’t even come to know he is ill. And keep in mind, anger is an opportunity. Only the unwise say anger is simply bad; I do not say so. Anger is an opportunity; you can use it badly or well. Anger is a chance. In…Read the full discourse →
You also asked that George Gurdjieff used to say the awakened man becomes crystallized. Individuation, the person, is born within him. Jung too speaks of individuation in the same way as Gurdjieff: the more a man awakens, the stronger his person becomes within. From this it is natural to ask: in the awakened one does the person become stronger, or does it end? Does the ego form, or is it dissolved?
Therefore Buddha, and all who want to be exact, will speak in the negative. It is not that Mahavira does not know, nor that Shankara does not know. But people are eager: even if a drop agrees to be lost, it will agree under the lure of becoming the ocean. The drop will consent to be lost only if it sees there is no real loss: “Only the drop is lost; I become the ocean.” But Buddha says: if a drop falls into the ocean with the greed to become the ocean, it will not become the ocean—because that very greed will keep it a drop. That very craving, that very thirst, will bind its personality on all sides. Therefore I have used the word shunya to mean that the Ultimate has no boundary. The person simply disappears. Gurdjieff says crystallization; I would say total decrystallization. I would say complete…Read the full discourse →
Osho, but in that knowing, Maharaj-ji, can there not be sameness—that as another has known, I may know the same? And may that sameness become available to me.
If you look very closely, such sameness is possible only if I am exactly as the other was. Otherwise it can never be. See the full implications: when I am knowing, my whole personality, my total being, is knowing. Only if your whole personality is exactly as mine, could the event of our knowing be one and the same. And no two persons are ever the same. In fact, forget persons—that is a far-off matter. Pick up a stone from a Delhi street; search the whole earth and you will not find another exactly like it. Pluck a flower from a garden; comb all the forests and you will not find another just like it. Here, each and every thing has its own uniqueness. And that very uniqueness is its soul. In my view, this uniqueness is its soul. A machine has no soul, because a machine is not unique.…Read the full discourse →
Osho, in yesterday’s talk you said the reservoir of power is not separate for each person. But in kundalini awakening the power rises from the kund located in the seeker’s body. Then are the kunds separate, or is there only one? Please explain this situation.
It is like this: you draw water from a well. Your house has its own well, my house has its own well, yet the springs within the wells are all connected to the one ocean. If you catch hold of the current in your own well and keep digging along it, on that path you will pass my well and others’ wells too, and one day you will reach the place where there is no well at all—only the ocean. Where the journey begins, there is a person; where it ends, there is no person at all—there is the totality. It starts from the individual and ends in the Absolute. So if you take the journey’s starting point, then you are separate and I am separate. If you take the journey’s peak, then neither you are nor I am. What is, we both are only parts of that. Thus, when…Read the full discourse →