What happens when there is no thinker, only awareness?

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.

Beloved master, a few weeks ago, I was awake, and suddenly there was only talking. There was no talker. For years I had listened to the statement that the observer and the observed were one. I saw there was no room, no necessity for a thinker; only consciousness and the arising of phenomena. Instead of jumping out of bed, I turned around and slept. Insight seems to be like a gentle breeze, a whisper. Will you say something about the non-dramatic quality of real insight?

I used to stay in a very rich man's house. He was so rich that he used to collect all kinds of junk, and in the guest house where I used to stay, he had put everything you can possibly conceive. When he took me for the first time to the guest house he said, "This is going to be your room." I looked inside and I said, "But where is the room?" A big, beautiful piano, radios, very costly furniture, many paintings and even though television had not come to that city at that time, he had a beautiful television set. Some day, television will come. I said, "I can see so many things, they have destroyed the room completely! If you want me to stay in this place, I refuse. You take all this junk so that I can have some room." He could not understand me. He…

Osho, is there any practical process for being in the realm of existence beyond thoughts, in the void?

The way to thin them out is non-cooperation. Right now we are their makers—that is, we are the ones maintaining them. When we sit idle, some thought or other is running, because without our cooperation they cannot run. Withdraw your cooperation from whatever thoughts are running, and do nothing else; regard just this as samayik, as meditation. If all thoughts dissolve, you will feel no ego and no person within. You will know only being—only being will be known, in which the distinction “I am an individual” or “I am the whole” will not be felt. Only pure being will remain—pure existence. In truth, because of the thoughts accumulated upon that pure existence, we appear to be a person. This sense that I am “A,” you are “B,” you are “C”—the A, B, C we have pasted on—is our thought-power. We commonly say, “I will become liberated”—this is not quite…

And someone has asked: Osho, who is it that thinks when one is witnessing?

As it is now, whenever we know, three things are present: the one who knows—the knower; that which is known—the known; and the relationship between the two—knowledge. Knowledge is bound and burdened by the knower and the known. Keval-gyan means the known dissolves—the object disappears. And when the known dissolves, where will the knower be? He was bound to the known. When the known dissolves, the knower dissolves. What remains then? Only knowledge remains. In that moment of pure knowing there is the sense of liberation and of freedom. So keval-gyan means to experience pure knowledge. What I have called samadhi is the experience of pure knowing. These are different names in different traditions: what Patanjali called samadhi, the Jains called keval-gyan, and Buddha called prajna. Keval-gyan does not mean telling what is going on in your head. That is very easy—a simple thing. That is ordinary telepathy, thought-reading; it…

If a thought remains, that isn’t duality, is it?

Yes, in the beginning there will be duality. In the beginning there will be duality. In the end there will not be duality. From the very start, the awareness will be there that “this is not a thought; it is awareness.” Sit within, silently, and you will see the movement of thought. It is awareness itself that knows, “This thought that is moving and I are different.” That is not a thought. Only later, when we discuss it, does it appear as if these are thoughts. (The audio recording of the question is not clear.) No, it’s nothing else—just that thought is moving and we are watching. When this movement of thought stops, and only we keep watching and nothing appears, there are only two possibilities: we are seeing and something is seen, or we are seeing and nothing is seen. For now, whenever we look within, something will appear.…