Doing something absurd shakes you out of your usual upset so a quiet, wordless moment appears where real truth can be felt, not thought.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
By "creating an absurd situation," do you mean that a person must be disturbed in some way? What will be the result?
People are disturbed enough already. But because they are disturbed already, they have identified themselves with their disturbances. They have become at ease with them. The disturbances have become habitual. We are disturbed already! It is impossible to be undisturbed and not know the truth. Disturbance is our normal situation, so when I disturb you, your disturbance is disturbed. Then the disturbance is negated. You become calm for the first time. When I talk about creating an absurd situation, it is not to achieve any result but only as a means to convey a message that is essentially nonconveyable. You ask, "What will be the result?" Something can be said about it provided that what is said is not taken to be the truth. It should be taken only in a symbolic, poetic, mythical sense. To me, every religious scripture is a myth and every assertion that comes from a…
Beloved master, whenever one comes to the absurd, something inside simply explodes and the whole world looks anew. Is it when the absurd becomes overwhelming that one gets an insight into the gestalt of everything?
For a buddha, life is a continuous revelation, unending revelation. There is no beginning to it and no end to it. It is a mystery; unfathomable, immeasurable, unknown and not only unknown but unknowable too. You can only taste it, feel it, see it, touch it, but you cannot KNOW it. You cannot reduce it to a theorem, to a hypothesis; that is not possible. Prabhati, you are right: if you can have a contact with the absurdity of it all, with the irrationality of existence, you are moving into a totally different dimension -- moving from mind to no-mind, moving from mind to meditation. That's what meditation is all about: taking you out of the prison of the mind, the prison of the past. And there is no other prison; that past is the only prison. The man of awareness -- the meditator -- goes on dying every moment…
Mamiya later became a well-known teacher, but while he was studying under a master he was asked to explain the sound of one hand clapping.
ALTHOUGH MAMIYA WORKED HARD AT IT HIS MASTER SAID TO HIM ONE DAY, "YOU ARE NOT WORKING HARD ENOUGH. YOU ARE TOO ATTACHED TO FOOD, WEALTH, THINGS -- AND THAT SOUND. IT WOULD BE BETTER IF YOU DIED." THE NEXT TIME MAMIYA CAME BEFORE THE MASTER, HE WAS AGAIN ASKED WHAT HE HAD TO SHOW REGARDING THE SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING. MAMIYA AT ONCE FELL OVER AS IF HE WAS DEAD. "YOU ARE DEAD ALL RIGHT," SAID THE MASTER, "BUT HOW ABOUT THAT SOUND?" LOOKING UP MAMIYA REPLIED, "OH, I HAVEN'T SOLVED THAT ONE YET." "WHAT?" ROARED THE MASTER, "DEAD MEN DON'T SPEAK. GET OUT!" Once you are awake and out of the vicious circle, God is there, nothing else exists. Then there is no need to believe. Then you know. But before that knowing happens, faith will be needed. And all those philosophers who have been trying for…
You tell us to be herenow, without goals and without purpose, but then you allure us also by talking about ecstasy, enlightenment, freedom, and the possible fulfillment. It looks contradictory. Please explain.
It is not contradictory at all; it is a simple fact. But the mind tends to create problems where they don't exist. Mind is a problem-creating mechanism. When I say that ecstasy is beautiful, when I say that enlightenment is blissful, I'm not talking about the future, I'm not alluring you -- I'm simply stating a fact. When I say be herenow without any purpose and goal, I'm showing you the way how enlightenment can happen right now. Enlightenment is not a distant goal. It is a present possibility. You can miss it. That doesn't mean that it is far away from you; that simply means that you are fast asleep. You can miss it. That doesn't mean that you have to work hard to attain it; it simply means that you are not aware of something which is already surrounding you. I will go on talking about enlightenment, because…
Osho, I have heard that enlightenment, or the natural state of man, is something acausal -- it just happens. And all our endeavours to bring about awareness, to be aware, are actually taking us away from this state since they are all mind games, and these activities for self-awareness are just a "holy business". I cannot imagine what my life would be if I gave up the search since it has permeated my life as long as I can remember. If there is no way to integrate, nothing one can do, why all this activity? Why bother? Yet what else is there to do? Please comment.
It happens only to those who are not holding anything back, when you have put all that you have at stake, when nothing is left behind, when you are utterly empty, you have emptied yourself totally, and it is not happening, then the understanding arises, "My efforts are futile. My efforts are ego efforts -- the ego is futile. My efforts are my own mind games. The mind itself is the barrier." But this has to become your own experience, Samadhi. It is not going to help if you have heard it. You can hear great truths, but unless they arise in your own being they are not true. A heard truth is a lie: only an experienced truth is a truth. And only the experienced truth liberates. How will you experience it? You would like to have it without any efforts. You would like it to happen as it…