What is the meaning of the verse by Adi Shankaracharya?

Osho, the other day you quoted the following verse of Adi Shankaracharya. Please elaborate on it— tatvaṁ kim ekaṁ śivam advitīyaṁ, kim uttamaṁ sac-caritaṁ yad asti. tyājyaṁ sukhaṁ kim striyam eva, samyag deyaṁ paramaṁ kim tv abhayam sadaiva. What is the one principle? The nondual Shiva-tattva alone. What is the highest? Virtuous conduct. Which pleasure should be renounced? In every way, the pleasure of woman alone. What is the supreme gift? Fearlessness, always.

The second outcome of declaring “virtue” supreme is for the simple, guileless people: their lives fill with guilt. They still end up doing what nature makes them do. There is not yet the lamp of samadhi to walk by. They are told, Don’t bump into walls; find the door. Exit only by the door—that is virtue. To bump into the wall is vice. But without light, without the flame of awareness, without the awakening of samadhi, without discrimination—how will one not collide? One will. It’s inevitable. The simple person, not being a deceiver, feels guilt: I am a sinner, a great sinner; I can’t even walk straight; I keep falling; I can’t even find the door. What heinous crimes must I have committed in past lives! How will I be redeemed? Once guilt settles in, self-respect is lost—the very foundation of all religion. Without self-trust, the ground slips from under…

Osho, this aphorism from the Mundaka Upanishad sounds strange. It says: “He who knows that Supreme Brahman becomes Brahman. In his lineage no one is born who does not know Brahman. He crosses sorrow, he crosses sin, and, freed from the knots of the heart, becomes immortal.” The verse is as follows: sa yo ha vai tat paramaṁ brahma veda, brahmaiva bhavati. nāsyābrahmavit kule bhavati. tarati śokaṁ, tarati pāpmānam, guhāgranthi-bhyo vimukto ’mṛto bhavati. Please be compassionate and explain the esoteric meaning of this aphorism.

And what is hidden beneath heaven? The fantasy of wish-fulfilling trees. Desires unfulfilled here will be fulfilled there—by merely wishing! People fast and perform austerities on the outside while inside smolders the fire of craving: “A few days of hardship now, and then heaven’s delights forever.” Those who do not perform austerities—see how the ascetics view them: as worms bound for hell. The very inventors of hell were violent, perverse minds—heaven for themselves, hell for the rest. Know this: without self-knowledge no one can be free of sin. One can cover sin for a while, but it returns. What is sin? Actions born of darkness. What is virtue? Actions born of light. That is why I do not tell you, “Avoid sin, do virtue.” I say: break ignorance, awaken knowing; remove sleep, awaken awareness. After awareness, whatever you do is virtue; in unawareness, whatever you do is sin. My definition…

Osho, Adi Shankaracharya has a catechism that goes like this— Kasyāsti nāśe manaso hi mokṣaḥ? Kva sarvathā nāsti bhayaṁ vimuktau? Śalyaṁ paraṁ kim? Nijamūrkhataiva. Ke ke hyupāsyā gurudevavṛddhāḥ. In whose destruction is liberation? In the destruction of the mind alone. Where is there absolutely no fear? In liberation. What is the supreme thorn? One’s own foolishness. Who are worthy of reverence? The Guru, the Devas, and the elders. Osho, what do you say about these questions?

That is why, if you look closely at your sadhus, saints and holy men, you will find no revolution has happened in their lives. Yes, the objects of desire have changed, but desire itself remains as before. No difference, not by a hair. They stand exactly where they stood. They wanted wealth; now they want religion. They wanted position; now they want God. They wanted the world; now they want kaivalya, aloneness. They have shrunk all desires into one desire. Beware: when desires are many, the mind is weaker because it is divided—wealth, power, prestige, this, that—a thousand things, the mind is fragmented, and its strength is dissipated. But one who gathers all desires into a single point—“moksha!”—who harnesses the desire for position, wealth, prestige to that one target, whose every arrow flies in one direction—his mind becomes far stronger. That is my experience: worldly people have weak minds, and…

If you want to fell the tree, cut the root. The root is hidden within, in darkness. So it is in life: anger, greed, lust appear on the surface; you fight with them. They are leaves. Where is the root? Mahavira says: unawareness. The root is stupor, sleep. Cut the root. Fill yourself with wakefulness. Wake up. If awakening comes, anger, illusion, greed, attachment disappear on their own—like leaves when the roots are cut. You will not need to pluck them; they will wither and fall. “As inner purity happens, outer purity follows as a rule. From inner defect the outer defect is done.” As soon as the inner revolution happens, the lamp is lit—you are astonished that the outside is transformed. Everything is the same—and yet not the same. Raqs-e-tarab kidhar gaya—where have the dances of pleasure gone? Naghma-taraz kya hue—what happened to those sweet songs?

Someone asked Saint Augustine: “What should I do so that sin does not happen; what should I do so that virtue happens?” Augustine said, “If I begin to enumerate duties, it will turn into an endless list: do this, don’t do that. Even if I detail each duty, the list will never end. And no matter how long it is, you will still find a way, a loophole, to do what you want.”

As awareness grows, you begin to see in every being the same flame that shines within you. As unconsciousness grows, you cannot even glimpse your own soul, let alone another’s. If I don’t know it within me, how can I know it within another? What I know within, that alone I can recognize without. The first step of knowing happens within; then its rays fall on others. If I don’t even know that there is a soul within me—so unconscious that what is inside is invisible, the eyes fogged, drugged, filled with smoke—how will I see the other? I have heard: it is raining hard. Nasruddin is driving with his wife. The rain is so heavy and he hasn’t turned on the wipers. His wife says, “Turn on the wipers; we can’t see.” Nasruddin says, “No point—I forgot my glasses at home; I can’t see the wipers. Whether they run…