What is the other thing?

Osho, even after listening to you with great eagerness for so many days, I find myself exactly where I was! Then what can I hope for?

When you listen to me and it sounds good, feels dear, stirs eagerness—this is not enough. It is necessary, because after it something more can happen; but it is not sufficient. It is only primary. Take the second step. Move from thought to experience. Do not stop at thought. Otherwise you will go on thinking, go on thinking, and be finished. Whoever ends in thinking has not known life. An incomparable treasure was at hand, and he let it slip through his fingers. Even though the method lay with him, he did not use it. One night Mulla Nasruddin came home distraught, sweating, shaken. He hurried in and bolted the door. His wife asked, “Why are you so frightened? What happened? Where are you coming from?” He said, “I was returning from the shop. A thug met me. He snatched my glasses, took the fountain pen from my pocket, took…

You have heard a very beautiful discourse from Osho today; if you wish to ask a question, you may. Yes, yes—go ahead. A friend is asking: It is said that Arvind experienced shunya, the vacuum. Was that the quest for truth?

To ask about Arvind is futile, because whenever we ask in relation to another—“What was that emptiness that happened to him?”—at most we can only fill ourselves with words. Arvind will become just a word, and Arvind’s shunya will become just a word. And whether he attained or did not attain—these too will become words. No, with respect to the other we can never be free of words. In relation to the other, words are unavoidable. Only in relation to oneself can one be free of words. So do not worry about what happened or did not happen to Arvind. Worry about what can happen to you! And if I say that it did happen to Arvind, you will then ask someone else whether what I said about Arvind is right or wrong—you will still ask. Where will that end? This is an infinite regress, this endless questioning we go…

Osho, the moment yesterday you said, “Mahavira gave freedom the ultimate value; no one else gave it that value,” I just kept gazing at you. What have you done to me? Let me keep seeing my unworthiness, my smallness—and keep gazing at you, bowing my head!

And the guru who allows himself to become your crutch is not your friend but your enemy, because he is giving eternity to your lameness. You will remain lame forever. This is what often happens. You go to certain people and say, “In your presence—in your power—something happened.” This is the hallmark to distinguish a true guru from a false one. The false guru will say, “Yes, it happened through my power.” The true guru will say, “No one’s power is the point—you allowed it to happen. And if you allow, it will happen through the cuckoo’s cooing as well; it will happen from the sound of a waterfall; it will happen from the ocean’s thunder. Then it will happen even in the marketplace—amid crowds, clamor, people coming and going, a thousand noises.” Because the real thing is not coming from outside to inside—the real thing is going from inside…

Osho, once while sitting in front of your picture, a whole web of inner conflicts arose in my mind. A feeling came: this won’t end—the head will keep churning—so you please take care of it. Instantly I felt a lightness and I was immersed in ecstasy. And then your picture with the serious expression burst into laughter. I remember it to this day. Osho, my salutations!

“As soon as I said, ‘You take care,’ instantly I felt a lightness and I was immersed in ecstasy.” The very energy that was running in the head became free—it became ecstasy. I neither took care of you nor did I give you ecstasy. Ecstasy formed out of that same energy. The very grapes that were getting lost in thoughts and words were freed from them. In a single instant the wine was ready; you became intoxicated, absorbed. Your ecstasy is within you. Your tavern is within you. The master brings you to your own within. The master is a doorway. He is the door that leads you back inside yourself. If you ask for the truth, I can only give you what you are ready to give yourself. Not more. So someone comes here and is filled with supreme bliss, and another comes and goes back just as he…

Osho, life is suffering, yet man does not wake up. Despite the hell of life, how does man keep on going?

You asked, “Life is suffering...” You have not yet seen this for yourself. You have heard the buddhas say that life is suffering. It is not your own realization, not your own seeing. That won’t do. Borrowed words will prick your chest like thorns; they will not turn into flowers. Borrowed words become thorns—pricking, wounding—but from them the rain of joy does not fall. Have you known that life is suffering? Or have you merely heard the buddhas? Or have you agreed that since the buddhas say so, it must be true? Why would they be wrong? If they knew, they must be right. That is like someone believing that fire burns because others say so. Can you see the difference between others saying “fire burns” and your own knowing that fire burns? One’s own knowing creates a revolution. Then, as they say, once burned by milk, you blow even…