Pretend to be God’s tool until the pretending melts and you naturally feel life is moving you.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, as we are right now, at best we can only enact the attitude of being a mere instrument. By acting out this instrumentality, will we someday attain the nimitta-bhava that Krishna speaks of?
Begin somewhere—acting will do. But this acting is unique. Imagine the real Rama got lost in the world and forgot that he is Rama. Wandering about for many days, he forgot. Then one day a Ramlila began in town, and someone said to the real Rama, “Why don’t you play the part of Rama in the Ramlila? You look exactly like Rama—your face, features, the way you carry yourself, these long arms, this chest. You should play Rama’s role.” So the Rama who had forgotten that he was Rama agreed to act Rama. But as he kept acting, the layers of unconsciousness began to crack, and a remembrance started surfacing: what I am saying, what I am doing—it feels as if it has been said before, done before; as if I have seen this sometime. It no longer feels like acting; some ancient memory has been revived. Acting and acting,…
Osho, you say, “As He wills, let us become mere instruments; whatever role in life we have been given, let us fulfill it.” But letting what happens happen—i.e., flowing along with the body, mind, and ego—gives rise to suffering. So should we keep applying the principle of instrumentality even in relation to the body, mind, and ego, and go on suffering? How do we solve the riddle between the principle of instrumentality and the continuous reality of suffering?
That supreme bliss is beyond both pleasure and pain. It is neither like night nor like day. It is twilight. The sun has set, night has not yet come; the light remains—very gentle, sweet, non-aggressive—that is twilight. Morning has come, the sun is not yet risen, the night has gone—such is the twilight. One who abides in that twilight—that is what we call prayer. That is why Hindus call their prayer sandhya. Sandhya means one who has stopped in between the dualities, who has found the truce between the two. Between pleasure and pain, love and hate, victory and defeat, night and day, life and death—one who has found the pact and stands in that concord. Seek that interval of conjunction. Krishna says, it is simple to find. If you cease to be the doer, you will find it instantly. It is only through your doer-ship that you keep missing.…
Osho, are being a mere instrument (nimitta) and being spontaneous/free (swachchhand) only differences of expression? Please explain.
But if it doesn’t suit you, that doesn’t mean the Divine is narrow and reachable by only one road. If this doesn’t suit you, then what is its opposite—does that suit you? Does spontaneity suit you? Does rebellion suit you? Does it appeal to declare: Enough—I will live in my own way? Then live so. Shape yourself to your own cadence. Live in complete freedom. Do not become an instrument. Do not surrender. Live spontaneously. What Ashtavakra calls spontaneity, Mahavira calls asharan—without refuge. What Krishna calls becoming a mere instrument, Chaitanya and Mira call surrender. They are the same things. If I distill all this, I would say: one path is feminine, and one path is masculine. The masculine path means: he cannot surrender, cannot become an instrument; he will proclaim himself. The path of spontaneity, of being without refuge, will suit him. Feminine means: she will not proclaim herself—that’s…
If I can truly experience the music of the fluteplayer, can that be on the same level as the experience you wish to occur with you? I am thinking of the sufis: I see, but I do not see. I am behind a glass wall.
The object is irrelevant. Only the subjectivity is relevant. Whether listening to me, or listening to a fluteplayer, or listening to the birds in the morning, or sitting by the side of the waterfall and listening to it, the same experience can happen. It happens not from what you listen to, it happens because you listen. Just listening gives you total silence; in deep listening you disappear. The whole art is how to listen. Once you know how to listen, in deep receptivity, sensitivity, you are not there. The listener is not there, only listening. And when the listener is not there, there is no ego: there is no one who listens, only listening. And then it penetrates to the very core of your being. If you listen to me with mind, you will miss. If you listen to the waterfall without mind, you will get. It is not a…
Questioner: you say that on krishna's path self-remembering is enough; it does not leave room for any other spiritual discipline. But since you also speak about disciplining the seven bodies, can you give us a brief sketch of krishna's discipline in the context of the seven bodies?
There is no place in Krishna's philosophy for any spiritual discipline, so the question of disciplining the seven bodies does not arise. The path of discipline is quite different from that of devotion. While discipline is gradual, consisting of stages, devotion is integral and one -- without any stages. Discipline divides man into different bodies and works in stages; devotion does not do anything like this. For the sake of making the spiritual journey in stages, those who believe in discipline have divided the human body into seven parts. Each part is used as a stepping stone to another. But devotion does not believe in dividing man; it accepts him as one piece -- a whole and indivisible entity. Devotion absorbs the devotee wholly and totally into its bosom. Spiritual discipline has a variety of divisions and subdivisions. One discipline divides man into seven bodies, another divides him into seven…